Author's Note: An extra long chapter this week, about 10k words of Grayson realizing, not for the first time, that he can't do everything himself.
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its associated characters. The characters in this writing so far are mostly original characters, but I make no claim over the existing characters.
Chapter 21
Limits
Grayson's Perspective
One thing I had started noticing now that LIWI was able to routinely boost my abilities was the smell of combat. Normally you might smell gunpowder, cordite, and blood. Dust propellant replaced most forms of explosives on Remnant, and of course dirt and dust were also common, but the universal constant was that the strongest smells were always either the things that killed you and the blood of those who had already fallen.
With magically enhanced senses though, I could cut through that layer of odor and find something beneath it. As I crouched next to the fifteenth consecutive door in the hallway that my team was clearing I could literally smell the fear and anxiety of the soldiers behind me. So far only two of my ten soldiers had been wounded, and their wounds had been mostly superficial, but the injuries had shown them that they weren't bullet proof, even if they thought I was. The sergeant whose squad I had commandeered crouched on the other side of the door as me, hand loosely gripping a fragmentation grenade.
I held up a hand for silence, and as previously discussed my entire team held their breaths, not even daring to blink. I cracked open the faceplate of my helmet and shut my eyes, willing the sounds on the other side of the door to make themselves clear to me. I heard my own heartbeat, strong but steady, and mentally tuned it out while I sought out the enemy soldiers who had been firing at us from this floor. The sounds of the battle outside the building faded as I focused all my attention, practically visualizing myself on the other side of the door. After several agonizing seconds I finally heard a sound, a slight scuffing of a boot on the ground maybe, and snapped my faceplate shut, giving my sergeant a nod.
I lowered my hand and the team resumed breathing with a collective gasp. As soon as I judged they were ready I squared up on the door, then delivered a power armor and magic enhanced kick that sent it literally flying off the hinges. While the door was still flying I saw my sergeant's grenade fly through the open doorway. LIWI cranked as much magic as he could channel directly into my brain, giving me an intense clarity of thought that when combined with the natural effects of adrenaline could make a single moment feel like an eternity. I brought up my rifle, trusting my hard trained instinctive control over the weapon instead of spending precious milliseconds sighting down the barrel.
My eyes flicked with enhanced speed, noticing six different enemies all with weapons trained on the door. The average reaction speed was around two hundred and fifty to three hundred milliseconds. Adrenaline could noticeably reduce the time it took a person to react, especially if they only had to do something as simple as squeeze a trigger. Unfortunately for the soldier closest to me, I needed less than one hundred milliseconds to go from kicking in the door to squeezing my own trigger. My shot caught him in the right shoulder and he cried out, his grip on his weapon failing.
I pivoted my shoulders and hips to bring my rifle to bear on the next target, my foot still not having reached the ground, and fired again. This time my target's leg sprouted a fountain of blood. They remained stoically silent, likely not even registering the impact yet as my next shot took them in the chest, piercing through the relatively cheap body armor they wore and eviscerating their right lung.
Remnant's weapon technology was fascinating to me. They had the ability to produce incredible weapons and ammunition, but not in the quantities necessary to arm the common soldier with weapons that could properly threaten a huntsman. Instead of a more traditional military design that I could half remember from what Gary had shown me of Earth, Remnant focused on arming a few super soldiers to the teeth. Rather than utilizing the combined arms doctrine that spent their resources on precision bombing and armored advances that militaries on Earth had used up until the late nineties, Atlas simply pointed a huntsman team at the problem and considered it solved. Upon reflection, it was likely due to the Grimm's influence on battle tactics and logistics. An army took a lot of food and ammunition to feed, and consumed both at a high rate even during peacetime. A huntsman could fight a horde of grim with basically nothing more than a high tech melee weapon and a handful of high quality dust laced bullets. So tacticians had developed strategies around that concept, diverting the best of their research budgets and logistical capabilities to keeping their huntsmen well armed and supplied.
The soldier's in this room were paying for that choice now however, even as the remaining four lit me up with rifle fire. LIWI's protective spells defended against much of it, helping more to redirect shots that hit a bad angle on my armor than physically blocking a shot like aura could. The magically reinforced plating of my armor made me nearly bullet proof against weapons of this caliber anyways, so only a little bit of magic was required to defend the weak points that my suit had.
My right foot finally found purchase on the ground, and I could feel the magical adrenaline burst fading rapidly. Before I lost it completely, I followed through the kick to drop into a kneeling position, depressing the trigger as I swung my rifle to tag another two of the soldiers with hits and stitching a line of bullets across their torsos. The burst of energy finally wore off completely and I backpedaled hard, shoving off with my right foot to get out of the room as quickly as I could before the defensive magic failed as well. I accidentally collided with the soldier behind me who had been trying to enter the room, barrelling over him and sending us both out into the hallway in a heap. I shoved him aside, trying to regain my footing, when the grenade went off. The blast sent shrapnel all around the interior, and some minor pieces out through the doorway to embed themselves in the wall above me.
I scrambled to my feet, pushing back through the doorway with my gun raised, but it was unnecessary as the last two enemy soldiers had been killed outright by the blast and shrapnel.
"Clear!" The sergeant behind me shouted, then he turned to reprimand the soldier who I had collided with. "What were you thinking, Jenkins?" He shouted angrily, "The plan was nobody goes in until after the frag goes off!" Jenkins protested weakly from the floor of the hallway.
"But sarge," The hapless private cried. "He went in!" I heard the distinct sound of a palm smacking a combat helmet in a corrective slap.
"That's because he's a huntsman." The sergeant explained like he was speaking to a particularly dense five year old, "You're not a huntsman Jenkins, you're just a dumbass." Jenkins muttered a comment under his breath that only I could hear with my still enhanced hearing.
"I could be a huntsman if I wanted to…" He griped.
"What did you say, soldier?" The sergeant snapped. Jenkins swallowed audibly.
"Uh, nothing sarge, nobody goes in but the huntsman, got it sarge."
Only one of the enemy troops was still alive, but it was the one whose leg and lung I had shot. She had been fortunate enough to avoid the blast of the grenade, but she was still rapidly bleeding out.
"Do we have enough to save her?" I asked LIWI quietly, watching as her eyes desperately searched the room for something to stem the bleeding.
Not really, boss.
LIWI spoke quietly.
I'm already below half just from fighting us this far, if I keep spending it then we won't have anything left if we run into Gideon, or worse.
I watched helplessly as the soldier succumbed to her wounds. Within a few seconds the blood had already stopped spurting from the severed artery in her leg, and she ceased breathing altogether. I took a deep breath, forcing the image from my mind and refocusing on the next step in our plan.
I turned on my heel, swapping my half spent magazine for a fresh one. I would have to combine two of my magazines later when I got the chance. My rifle had been designed to allow for use of standard infantry ammunition, but I had just proven that the high powered armor piercing ammunition I had ordered from the Atlesian armory was vastly more effective. The sergeant had finished chewing out Jenkins, so I addressed him in as firm of a tone as I could muster.
"That's the last room" I told him, "Have the snipers get set up."
I turned to survey the soldiers in the hallway. They were less scared now, having finally found the last pocket of enemies that had been hiding in the building we were clearing. I leaned in closer to the sergeant and whispered to him.
"Once you have security set up I'm going to need three volunteers."
He nodded confidently.
"You'll have them." He replied. I shook my head, popping open my faceplate to make eye contact with him.
"I need real volunteers sergeant," I emphasized, "Nobody comes with me that isn't ready for the most dangerous thing they'll do today." He nodded again, this time more somberly.
"Don't worry," he replied quietly, "I'll make sure of it."
-/-
Five minutes later I stood in the stairwell of the building we had cleared with my three volunteers. The snipers upstairs had already started providing covering fire for the advancing heavy infantry, but there was still a significant amount of distance between us and the real fortifications up the street. I brought up my rifle, sighting through the scope and using the rangefinder through a broken window of the lobby to check the distance between us and the next building we needed to assault. Three hundred and twenty seven meters, the display read.
That's not awesome.
LIWI was right, three hundred meters of open ground between us and the next building we wanted to take. We could try taking back alleys and risk winding through an unknown path, but I didn't like the odds of us getting ambushed from behind in tight corridors. The heavy infantry were pushing up the street adjacent to us, so hopefully they could take the brunt of the fire away from my team. Eventually I made up my mind on how we could pull it off.
"Jenkins" I said to the soldier closest to me.
"Yes sir!" he called out excitedly.
"Relax" I told him, waving him back down, "How fast do you think you could do a three hundred meter dash?"
He replied immediately.
"I ran track in highschool sir, I had an eleven point three one hundred meter dash, I could probably do three hundred in about forty seconds I guess." I nodded, turning to the rest of them.
"Do the rest of you think you can match that pace?" The other two affirmed their abilities, so I turned back out to the street.
"Alright then" I told them. "Get ready to do it in about fifteen seconds."
-/-
This is dumb. You guys are absolutely going to get shot.
"Probably," I whispered "But that's why you're here." The four of us were crouched in the lobby right next to the open door of the building. I was holding hands with Jenkins and another soldier, with the last soldier having a tight grip on the back of my armor.
"Ready?" I asked the soldiers.
Ready
LIWI replied, and the soldiers chorused their status as well.
"Go!" I shouted. We took off at a sprint, awkwardly at first, but picking up speed rapidly as LIWI surged magic into all four of us. I could move a lot faster in a straight line on my own, but LIWI was able to sort of spread the magic around the four of us, still allowing my team to move at almost double our normal pace. We rocketed across the open terrain, making it almost half way to our destination before anybody noticed us. I heard a shout of alarm from further down the street, and a moment later bullets pinged off a car we had just passed. We were moving faster than whoever was shooting at us expected, but they wouldn't be likely to miss like that a second time.
Automatic fire sounded from the enemy position as someone on a mounted weapon finally reacted. I pumped my legs as hard as I could, practically dragging the other three along with me as we ran. Right as we were arriving at the building I released my grip on the soldiers and hurtled forwards as all the magic began flowing into me.
I ripped away from the soldier who was gripping my armor, trusting them to make it the last dozen or so feet on their own. Instead, I unslung my weapon, transforming it into its sword form, and leapt into the air to go crashing through the wooden double doors of the building we were attacking. I hit feet first in a drop kick, slamming through the doors and sending splinters flying as the comparatively flimsy lock and doors failed to hold up against over three hundred pounds of powered armor and operator hitting it at high speed.
I sailed through the now open doors, slamming into a hapless WoF trooper who had been preparing to open them to see what all the commotion was about. My kick carried into him, and he went flying back as I crushed his ribcage. I tumbled to the ground, armored plating skidding and sparking on the polished granite flooring of the building I had just entered. I stuck out a hand to regain control, then threw myself back to my feet before my momentum wore off.
A hail of bullets greeted me from my right, and I reflexively slashed outwards, severing the right arm of a trooper that had survived my initial entry. My armor took several hits point blank before he dropped however, and LIWI's defensive barrier verged on collapsing. Before he could recharge it, another shot rang out, this one a high caliber sniper rifle, and my left arm sent pain signals shooting to my brain as the bullet pierced my armor and tore a chunk out of my left bicep.
"Ah!" I shouted, then turned to see the shooter. He was at the top of a spiral staircase, grimly chambering a new round like his life depended on it. It did.
I charged, sword coming up to block his line of fire with the flat of the blade. My left arm dangled limply behind me as I ran, with LIWI needing to focus more on preventing damage than on healing it. A few low caliber pistol shots rang out from the ground floor, pinging off the back of my armor, but I ignored them as I charged down the main threat. He slid the bolt home and raised the rifle to his shoulder to fire just as I reached him, I twisted as I approached, angling my blade forty five degrees relative to his line of fire to deflect his bullet. He pulled the trigger and the rifle barked angrily.
The bullet hit my blade just as I intended, but the impact resonated throughout the sword, numbing my right arm as it shook. Instead of trying to angle an attack with my numb arm I instead brought the elbow up and barreled through the sniper. I caught him under the chin and tossed him forwards, carrying through and pinning him against the wall of the stairwell as I crashed forwards. My elbow crushed his throat, and my torso slammed the rest of him up against the wall hard enough to crack the wooden paneling.
With that target dealt with, I turned back to view the lobby. My team had successfully made it into the building, and were exchanging fire with the remaining defenders. With my left arm still out of action I banged my sword against my knee, hitting the hidden switch to transform it back into its rifle form. I ran down the stairs and helped engage the last holdout on the first floor, using my rifle on single fire to help control the recoil. Jenkins and another soldier were pinned down, but their assailants switched to firing at me as I came into view.
I raised the rifle with my arm fully extended, grip relaxed and stance set like I was at a pistol shooting competition. A handful of bullets pinged off the plating on the chest of my armor, deflected by the magic weaved through the thick plating. I fired off six rounds, tagging two soldiers in the chest and sending chips of wood and marble flying as the rest of my shots flew wide. The remaining few troopers ducked into cover, so I advanced on them slowly. Jenkins left cover, running up and falling into step a few feet behind me.
"Get to cover!" I hissed, distracted by his presence.
"I can help!" he replied breathlessly, raising his rifle and firing off a few rounds towards where one of the enemy troopers had peeked out for a second.
"Dammit" I cursed under my breath, then squeezed off another burst of rounds to suppress the enemies. My arm was almost fully healed now, so I switched my rifle into my left hand, transforming it into its sword form as I pulled out my revolver with my right. I charged ahead, rushing around the corner the last few were hiding behind. The one who had popped out a moment ago swore as I came around the corner, and tried to bash me with the stock of his weapon. I sliced straight through it with my sword and embedded the point of the blade into his collar bone. He dropped with a scream, and the last two backpedaled away, firing wildly. Only a few shots even hit my armor as they fired wildly, trying to escape. I raised the revolver with my right hand and fired twice, incapacitating them with buckshot to their legs.
"Stay down!" I ordered them sharply, emphasizing my point by cocking back the hammer of my revolver and pointing it at the head of one of the troops. I sliced through their weapons with my sword where they had dropped them on the floor to ensure they would not attack us from behind.
"Tend to your wounds" I ordered gruffly, gesturing to the medical kit one of them wore on their hip, "Then go sit in the corner."
I heard a gurgle behind me and spun to see Jenkins had followed me behind the corner. He was laying on the ground, holding his throat with both hands as blood poured out from between his fingers.
"Ah shit" I exclaimed, rushing over and ripping a flexible bandage out of my medical kit. "I need you for this LIWI" I said in a rush, pulling Jenkins hands away from the wound and applying the flex bandage. The artery had been severed by the bullet, and dark red blood was pumping freely from his neck.
"LIWI" I hissed, "Where are you on this?"
I'm running really low on magic, Grayson.
His mental voice sounded remorseful, and a distracted portion of my brain noticed that he had referred to me by name, something he rarely did.
If I heal him I might not be able to heal you later, he needs a lot of it just to stay alive, let alone get back in the fight.
"I don't care how much it takes!" I hissed again, "Just DO IT."
The magic flowed outwards from my palm, the wound healed and Jenkin's breathing stabilized slightly. He would still likely face hypothermia and other symptoms of blood loss, but he would live. I sat back on my heels and breathed out.
"Thanks, LIWI." I said quietly. He didn't respond.
"LIWI?" I asked, a panic rising in my chest. He remained silent. "Oh shit" I said softly.
-/-
The two uninjured Atlesian soldiers swept into the room after me, securing the downed WoF troops and taking up positions to provide security for us. I released part of the micromotors that controlled the latches on my armor so that I could reach within the chest piece and withdraw LIWI from where he normally sat securely behind magically enhanced titanium plating. The front panel that concealed his internal rune circuits was warm underneath my glove, which wasn't a good sign.
He still wasn't responding, and I held him tightly in my hand as I tried to control my rising panic by thinking about what had caused him to shut down. LIWI didn't produce the magic he used to help me, instead just channeling it from an effectively unlimited supply that surrounded us. However, ever since he had been damaged he had been unable to properly regulate the flow, leading to him 'running out' of magic after extended use.
The process was accelerated by using offensive magic, something to do with the process of extending the magic beyond LIWI's immediate influence. Maybe him needing to extend his acceleration spell to three other individuals had stressed him more than expected, and I had needed him to run high power magical healing almost constantly during the assault after I had been shot in the arm. He had tried to warn me that he was almost out, but I had forced him to carry on anyway to help Jenkins.
I took a deep breath, trying to force myself to focus on what to do now. The heating was only the symptom of a much more prevalent issue. Most of the excess magic wasn't actually converted to heat, so the fact that he was noticeably warm at all meant that his rune circuits were massively overloaded with magical energy. Hopefully with enough time LIWI would be able to purge the overload, but I couldn't count on that anytime soon. In any case I wasn't going to be particularly useful to the advancing force without him, which meant we could expect to take a lot more casualties during the assault. We needed a second huntsman to make this assault plan work, so I decided to get one.
Reaching into my gear bag I withdrew a flare gun, then climbed to the second floor and fired it out of one of the north facing windows. The bright blue flare arced into the sky, hovering for a moment as it burned brightly in the light of the setting sun. A few seconds later a blur of movement and yellow lightning flashed through the room and Harriet Bree stood next to me, an unhappy expression on her face.
"What's the problem, sergeant?" she asked, "Why did you signal me?" I held up LIWI in one hand.
"You read Captain Stone's report on my semblance right?" I asked, referring to the lie that Team SGGE and I had concocted to help explain away LIWI's abilities. She nodded so I continued. "Well I overspent my aura, and now my belt is damaged, I won't be able to access my abilities for at least a few hours, and I might need to make manual repairs first even then." She cocked an eyebrow, clearly unhappy at this turn of events.
"Let's skip to the end sergeant." She said irritatedly, "You want me to take your place during the assault so you don't get hurt just because you don't know how to manage your aura?"
I shook my head.
"No, I'll still be there ma'am, but I can't keep my soldiers safe without my semblance. So I'm hoping you can keep them alive for me."
She pursed her lips as she considered it, then shook her head dismissively.
"If I'm spotted on the frontlines of an operation then there's no way we lure Helios out. I can't help out here, not with the number of witnesses around."
I closed my eyes and swore quietly under my breath, trying to think of a way she could help without exposing her presence.
"Can you at least get the other soldiers in here out of harm's way?" I asked, "They're stuck here without one of us to move them, there's just too much enemy fire and too little cover for them to get anywhere alive. Plus Jenkins got hurt pretty bad, so I couldn't take them with me anyways without abandoning him."
Her expression softened as she considered the idea.
"I can do that I think." She said, "And I can at least get you close to your next objective so you don't have to try and cover that ground yourself without your aura."
Partially satisfied, I pulled out my scroll to bring up a map of the local area. I showed her the building that the rest of the team was currently providing fire support from and she zipped off to move my troops out. A minute later she returned, looking no worse for wear for having traversed a heavily defended area multiple times.
"You ready?" She asked, and I nodded, bracing myself for the acceleration.
I felt a sudden crushing force as I was forcibly accelerated to incredible speeds, my surroundings flashed past me in a blur and my vision narrowed as the blood in my brain pooled in the back portion, forced away from my visual cortex by the insane acceleration her semblance was capable of generating. A moment later the acceleration reversed itself and I nearly developed whiplash from my head snapping forward before my armor's servos caught my head, not allowing it to move faster than was safe. Instead I felt a pain in my right eye as a blood vessel popped from the sudden rush of blood as it all came crashing forwards from the back of my brain.
My head started pounding at the same time as my brain itself was jostled around my skull like a pinball. I felt nauseous, and collapsed into a heap as she dropped me unceremoniously onto the ground at our target destination, then zipped away before she could be spotted by more than a few troops.
-/-
A boot nudged me, and Sergeant Green's familiar voice filled my ears.
"Are you okay dude?" He asked in a concerned voice.
I waved a hand noncommittally, trying to avoid throwing up as my nervous system tried to put itself back together from the sudden shock it had experienced. After a few seconds I was able to sit up to see Green and his squad looking back at me. They were taking shelter in half of a building that hadn't yet fully collapsed on itself. I checked the watch on my left wrist, confirming we had a few minutes before the attack on the final holdout would begin.
The light infantry commander had sent a detachment to find a nearby armored vehicle column and use their more powerful radios so we could contact one of the airships that was on standby outside of the city. With the jamming both sides were blasting over the communication frequencies it was impossible for our scrolls to reach anywhere useful. The enemy here was dug into a series of residential buildings with their own heavy armor and nearly two thousand troops.
I climbed to my feet, waving away Green's helping hand.
"I'm alright" I insisted, ignoring the fact that my vision was still spinning slightly as my inner ear tried to figure out which way was up. "What do we have for opposition?" I asked, trying to refocus on the mission.
"Oh nothing much," he said with a hint of amused sarcasm. "Just a thousand troops, a dozen tanks at least, and enough mortar shells to make a Grimm horde think twice about coming within a mile of them. We've been lucky so far that they seem to be trying to minimize collateral damage. If they really wanted us to back off they could drop enough munitions on us to force us to completely halt our advance for a day at least."
I frowned, trying to puzzle out why they hadn't been using those resources as we had been advancing. It would have been a simple matter to scout our forces as they advanced in relatively straight lines towards this position. The light infantry would be able to break and move to cover, which would negate much of the effectiveness of the mortars, but the heavy automated infantry was slow enough that they would have been effectively wiped out.
"So what's our move?" I asked Green. He turned back to gesture towards his impromptu team. All of them had been pulled from the heavy infantry brigade, and they wore powered armor similar to mine. They also carried heavier weaponry than the standard Atlesian combat rifle my weapon had been based on. Their weapons included automatic shotguns, light machine guns, anti tank rifles, and I spotted more than a few with rocket launchers. Green waved a hand towards them, introducing us.
"These fine ladies and gentlemen in white and blue are the finest heavy infantry squad I have had the pleasure of working with in a long time. So you, me, and they, are going to be the first wave into the breach after the bombardment stops."
I looked around the small shelter we were in, seeing a dozen emotionless faceplates staring back at me as they each sat or stood in various positions, minimizing movement to reduce the draw on their armors' power supplies.
"Good to meet you, I'm Sergeant Grayson." I said, extending a fist out towards the nearest trooper. They stood and returned the fist bump.
"You're wearing the Model Three?" He asked, examining my armor. "I envy you, my squad is still stuck using retrofitted Model Twos." I took a closer look, noting the rank and name painted on their armor. Master Sergeant File.
The Model Two Atlesian Exoskeletal Ground Infantry System, or AEGIS 2, was a less advanced version of the armor I had been issued by the Atlesian Huntsman Armory. Compared to my AEGIS, 3 their armor was heavier and less nimble, but I had heard that some soldiers still preferred it due to the simpler servo motors in the joints which allowed for more direct power application in exchange for less range of motion. The AEGIS 2 also was more difficult to don and remove without help, relying on a series of manual latches instead of the automated micromotors that helped to control the releases on my suit.
"Well," I explained, "I looked at the AEGIS 2 initially, but when fighting huntsmen I found that mobility is life. No suit of armor is going to make you tough enough to trade hits with the stronger ones. Plus the Model Three is a bit easier to operate with independently."
Master Sergeant File nodded sagely, his face still hidden behind his expressionless faceplate the same as mine was. I noted that his team displayed excellent discipline, with no movement that was not entirely necessary so as to conserve the energy in their less efficient power packs. Typically soldiers were nervous before a battle, and you could count on seeing them fidgeting in some way. Wringing hands or bouncing knees were some of the most common ticks I had seen. From File's squad I saw none of that. In fact beyond turning to face me as Green had introduced me I had seen almost no movement whatsoever.
Finally, one soldier in the back spoke, though it was hard to identify them as they still didn't move.
"That's not a standard Model Three, what modifications did you make?" One of the smaller troops asked. She was still at least pushing six feet tall by my reckoning, as all of the heavy troopers were larger than the average soldier, especially in their armor.
I gestured to the armor paneling I had replaced, as well as the wingsuit attachment points that I had fitted on this morning.
"Well a lot of it is still heavily classified technology" I lied, concealing the magical nature of the armor. "But mostly I just replaced a lot of the paneling with lighter pieces to allow for greater mobility. I don't typically need the same bullet resistance from my armor that your standard heavy trooper needs to have, but I do a lot of running and dodging. Then I attached a modified wingsuit harness, using a larger size to provide additional lift to counteract the armor's weight. I wouldn't advise trying to skydive in a Model Two though, you'd come to get to know the ground a lot better than you might like."
Green cleared his throat from behind me, and the group of silent figures swiveled their heads to point at him instead.
"If you all are done nerding out" he said wryly, "We have an operation to conduct here."
He strode to the center of our shelter and crouched down, laying out rocks and other pieces of rubble to form a crude map of the area. Thirteen silent helmets, my own included, followed his movements. I found that the armored squad's professionalism was infectious. Green finished laying out the map, then pointed at the piece of trash that represented our building, drawing a line in the dust to where a large number of rocks made up the housing district that the WoF had taken over.
"We need to cross this section of terrain without being shot," he said, pointing to the line in the dust. "Our best option to do that is to start moving while the barrage is still ongoing." He looked to the Master Sergeant and asked "Do your troops have their infrared beacons?."
"Yes" File responded flatly.
Green nodded, clearly at least a little out of his element with troops that didn't seem to be warming up to him.
"Uh, great. Then we cross when there's about thirty seconds left in the bombardment, beacons on to avoid getting hit by our own air support." I held up a hand to interrupt.
"Last I heard we weren't bombarding anything in the city, what happened?" Green shrugged.
"New orders from General Ironwood apparently, he doesn't like the casualty estimates for our troops on this attack or something."
One of the troopers' external speaker clicked twice. I recognized the sound as a common occurrence from when I accidentally activated the speakers while breathing out.
"Speak." Master Sergeant File said in the same expressionless tone.
"Sergeant Green," the trooper asked professionally, "What spread would you prefer for the traversal." Green thought for a short moment, then replied.
"Tight spread, focused on me. Make sure that you can maintain a direct line of sight on me at all times." The microphone clicked twice again and Green nodded for them to ask their next question.
"A tight spread leaves us vulnerable to explosive munitions, sergeant." The trooper spoke in a clear tone, not questioning his orders, but instead seeming to want to provide information he felt the huntsman was lacking.
"I'm aware" Green replied, "But a tight spread is necessary to allow me to use my semblance to protect you. If you are unable to maintain eye contact with me while you run then I won't be able to help you." The formation remained silent, so Green continued explaining his tactics.
"We will enter through the north east barricade. The battleship is supposed to focus on knocking out defensive structures, so it shouldn't be slowing us down as we advance. Once we're through the barricade it's going to be a mad dash to get to whatever cover we can find. Master Sergeant File has recommended teams of three, so that's what we'll do. I will be attaching myself to the master sergeant's team. Sergeant Phoenix will be attached to the medical team."
The three medics stood to one side, clearly marked by the blue crosses emblazoned on their chest pieces and shoulders. As a unit they swiveled their heads to look at me, then turned back to look at Green's diagram.
"This building here" Green pointed to the central building, "Is the most heavily defended, I do not want to assault it before the main force arrives. Instead we will be splitting into two teams of three and assaulting the two adjacent buildings. Speed and violence of action are the only protection we will have for this, so be aggressive and don't get pinned down. Understand?" A chorus of soft microphone clicks answered him, a single click from each soldier, and Green stood up, dusting his hands off.
"Very well," he said firmly, having recovered his confidence now that he understood the team's dynamic. "Double check your gear, we attack in less than five minutes."
-/-
I didn't expect the bombardment to be as loud as it was for some reason. When the first shot was fired it felt like the sky itself had been torn open to destroy the enemy position. The ground shook beneath our feet as we hastily lined up to rush out of our covered position. The next few shots of the barrage became a blur as my mind tried to process the chaos in an orderly fashion. Suddenly the person in front of me was moving and I jumped to follow, sprinting out the door and falling into my position in the wedge formation Sergeant Green had designed.
My noise canceling ear protection was working overtime to stop me from going deaf inside my helmet, and I became hyper aware of myself and my armor as I sprinted across the broken terrain right towards where the bombardment was still slamming into the enemy fortifications. I could feel every strained breath radiate around my helmet before being sucked away and replaced with cool fresh air from my armor's circulation system. The dust and debris launched into the air by the bombardment choked out our lines of sight, preventing us from seeing more than a few dozen feet ahead of us. Sergeant Green ran out in front, sprinting backwards as fast as the rest of us could run forwards. His eyes were wild and unblinking as his hands moved in a blur. Nobody could hear him over the chaos, so he gave orders through hand signals, pointing to individual soldiers then indicating a direction.
He pointed at me, then pointed straight down. I dropped to my belly as a chunk of some kind of sign emerged from the cloud of dust kicked up by the bombardment and flew straight through the air where my head had been a split second ago. I scrambled back to my feet, rushing to try to catch up as he immediately gave signaled orders to three other troops. The soldiers moved professionally, only breaking their persistent gait long enough to dodge to the side as the turret of a tank landed where they had been about to run.
As I rushed to return to my position in the formation the logical portion of my brain was impressed by how unphased the armored troops seemed to be by the chaos they were a part of. Each of them ran with near perfect form, minimizing excess movements and maximizing speed. Master Sergeant File planted his foot, pushing off the ground and leaping sideways as a power line came whipping out of the sky to slash across the ground, the end trailing bright flashing sparks. Before he had even landed from his leap he was transitioning back into his running gait to hit the ground in the optimal stance to correct his momentum.
The Model Three armor I wore showed its merit as I regained my position in the formation right as the bombardment stopped. We continued forwards at full speed, straight into a wall of dust that showed where there was previously an established perimeter wall to keep us out. We entered the dust, and my visibility dropped to nearly zero. I could only see the medics next to me as we ran for our target building. We finally reached it, to find that almost none of it had survived. No portion of the previously three story high wall was still above eight feet high, and there were dozens of bodies strewn amongst the rubble. That was wrong, the bombardment we had been expecting had been designed to destroy defensive emplacements, but not to topple buildings. Someone somewhere had screwed up and dropped far more ordinance on the target than was necessary.
We pressed forwards regardless, each of the four of us placing a hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front of us to ensure we didn't lose track of each other in the hot swirling dust cloud. I worried that the filters on the back of my helmet would clog up from the thick concrete powder and ash that swirled around us, but for the time being it was an acceptable risk. Our advance slowed to a tactical speed, weapons up and heads on a swivel as we constantly scanned for movement. The medic behind me was the first to spot something, taking his hand off my shoulder and opening fire with his automatic shotgun at something behind us and to my right. I spun to face his target, dropping to a knee and releasing a burst of automatic fire from my rifle as I spotted someone climbing up out of a manhole cover.
The enemy dropped, slumping over halfway out of the hole he had been climbing over.
"Advance!" The lead medic called out over his helmet speakers, his voice booming to allow us to hear him over the ringing in our ears from the bombardment. I sucked in air as my heartrate spiked again, still not having recovered from the dead sprint. We turned our small formation towards the manhole and surrounded it, weapons pointed towards it as the dust swirled around us. Just as we arrived the man who had been climbing out was suddenly pulled back down into the hole, and a rifle poked up to spray a burst of rounds towards me. I scrambled backwards as a few of the relatively low caliber rounds deflected off my leg armor. The medic who had initially spotted the hole shoved his shotgun down the opening and pulled the trigger. He moved the barrel in a circular pattern as he dumped a dozen rounds of buckshot into the tunnel below, then pulled back to replace his magazine. The leader made a hand gesture, miming an explosion, and another soldier pulled a fragmentation grenade from his belt, dropping it into the hole.
We pulled back, sheltering from the explosion as the grenade went off. A burst of hot air spouted from the hole, joined by a small amount of shrapnel, then the team lead pointed towards me, and pointed down the hole. Of course, they were expecting the huntsman to lead the way, the aura that I didn't have was supposed to protect me as I drew fire for them.
I switched on the flashlight on the side of my helmet by way of acknowledgment and leapt into the tunnel feet first. I fell for only a moment before my feet hit the ground at the bottom. I was surrounded by wounded enemies, each injured in some way or another by the burst of buckshot and follow up grenade. A few that were further away from me still clutched weapons, only disoriented by the blast, and I fired into them, not being able to risk trying to capture them without LIWI able to protect me.
I stepped forwards as I fired, and a second later one of the heavy troopers landed right behind me, weapon up and engaging the same targets I was. We moved forwards, the occasional poorly aimed shot deflecting off our armor as we dispatched the unprepared defenders in the tunnel. My rifle clicked empty, and I snapped it into its sword form, rushing a WoF trooper who had managed to pick up a shotgun that another had dropped. I slashed across his chest as he tried to bring the weapon to bear, then snatched it from his grip with my free left hand.
It was basically a hunting shotgun with some military style rails, so I used my grip on the center of the shotgun to rip it away from him, then bashed him in the face with the stock. I turned to see the area behind where we had dropped in and found a dozen or more troopers that I had initially written off climbing to their feet. They were each bleeding or broken in some way, but they knew that the only chance they had to survive was to kill us here and now, so they clutched weapons with determined expressions.
I realized that many of them had only held their fire thus far because of our proximity to the other WoF troops, but the soldier who had joined me was about to kill the last of them, leaving the others free to fire without concern.
I pulled my right arm back and hurled my sword towards one of the less injured enemies. The flashing blade caught him above the elbow, slicing straight through and smacking hilt first into the soldier behind no other good options, I brought up the shotgun I had taken to follow up on my attack. A dozen rifles opened up on me before I could get a shot off. I tucked my arms in close to my torso, using the reinforced forearm plates to try and deflect shots away from the weak points like a boxer bringing his guard up to defend from an opponent.
Bullets of all types and calibers slammed into me, knocking me backwards and scoring dents and furrows into my armor. For a brief moment none of them found anything other than my armor panels, but soon enough a rifle bullet found its way between my shoulder pauldron and chest piece, piercing through the armored undersuit and digging its way into my right shoulder. The shotgun in my hands was obliterated as a dozen or more shots hit it, and I fell backwards under the repeated impacts to my armor. I sought cover as I fell, trying to wriggle frantically behind anything that could shelter me from the storm of bullets that sought me out. My left leg was peppered, and enough shots hit the same area to crumple one of the thigh plates, with another shot piercing through and lodging itself firmly into my leg.
I cried out with pain, scrambling to get behind a box I could see just ahead of me, when suddenly a blast went off in the tunnel. Pain shot through my ears as the blast reverberated around the enclosed space, and I couldn't hear anything other than ringing, but the constant fire stopped. Disoriented, but still relatively aware of my situation, I ripped my revolver from my holster and propped myself up on my left elbow to fire into the crowd of troopers before they could resume firing. I fired blindly on the first shot, more feeling the recoil than hearing the gunshot, but as my head came up above the box I had been trying to shelter behind I saw what had happened to the remaining troops.
They had been torn apart by the second explosion, many of them weren't even recognizable bodies at this point, literally splattered into pieces by an explosion that was clearly much stronger than the fragmentation grenade we had dropped into the hole. I sat up, looking back to check the status of the other soldier who had dropped into the hole with me. He was lying on his back, unmoving, and his weapon had slipped from his grasp to lie on the floor. I holstered my revolver and crawled over to check on him, not able to stand at the moment with my wounded left leg.
My shoulder cried out in pain every time I used it to drag myself towards the soldier, but I gritted my teeth and did my best to ignore it. I pulled myself up and over him, looking down on his unmoving form. His armor had at least two dozen holes in the less armored portions around the joints and flexible portions. I reached up and dug around under the chin of his helmet to find the latch, popping the seal and removing the soldier's helmet. He was still alive, just barely, but judging by the amount of blood leaking from the various holes in his armor he wouldn't be for long.
"LIWI" I called out in a scratchy voice, trying not to cough, "I need you." I placed my hands on the soldier's chest, trying to force the healing magic into him through sheer willpower. Nothing happened. I pounded on the soldier's armored chest with a fist, angrily shouting.
"LIWI!" I screamed, "You have to help me! I can't help him without you!" The soldier's breathing caught, then failed as the blood loss became too severe, and he died.
-/-
I sat back, trying to separate myself from his lifeless body. For a long moment I just sat and stared, not able to force myself to come to grips with the reality presented before me. Eventually I noticed that I was also bleeding from the shoulder and leg, and emotionlessly withdrew an expanding foam spray from the deceased medic's kit. Training dictated that I keep my own kit intact for later use, so I used his spray, placing the small straw at the entrance wounds I had and depressing the trigger on the small canister. Cool foam expanded outwards into my wounds, filling in the missing flesh and halting the blood loss as it rapidly dried into a sticky and antibacterial adhesive.
I stood up, testing my leg and finding that while walking was painful I could manage with the armor supporting me. Fortunately the microservos of the Model Three were much smaller, and hadn't been directly damaged by the tide of bullets that had beset me. I summoned my weapon back to my hand, and it slapped into my palm with a fateful *Thump.*
I stumbled towards the ladder that led out of the tunnel, climbing out and hauling myself back onto the surface. As I emerged, one of the medics grabbed the rescue handle on the back of my armor and hauled me up, his own armor servos giving him the strength to lift me with one hand. He set me down, visually inspecting my wounds. After a moment he appeared to be speaking to me, but I pointed to my ear and gave a thumbs down, indicating that I could not hear him over the ringing in my ears. Seemingly unbothered he withdrew an armored scroll from a metal plated pouch on his belt. He spoke into it, and the words he said appeared on the screen.
"Where is Corporal Van?" I shook my head and pointed down the hole.
"Dead!" I shouted, unable to hear myself properly despite my volume. The screen displayed more text.
"Understood, we must regroup." Without delaying he stood and returned the scroll to his belt, raising his rifle and moving towards his next objective. The other medic dropped the still smoking disposable rocket launcher he had fired into the hole and reached out a hand to help me back up to my feet.
-/-
I limped behind them as we moved, noting several corpses surrounding the manhole that had not been there when I descended. Upon a second look I noticed that the lead medic was also limping slightly as his knee servo gave off the occasional spark, and his thick armor plating was pitted with scars from low caliber bullets that it had protected him from. The dust was beginning to settle, and we could see further than a few feet as we moved towards where the main building had been before the bombardment had begun. We reached it, finding several other soldiers from the squad in a defensive position. The medics fell into gaps in the formation, a conversation presumably taking place that I could neither hear nor observe with the emotionless helmets we all wore.
I pointed to my ear again, and a soldier indicated a position in the formation for me to assume. I nodded and sat down where I could poke my upper torso out from around a block of concrete that had probably been part of a structural support before the building had been forcibly removed. I took the weight off my leg as much as I could, trying not to dig the bullet in further by moving it.
We sat, presumably in silence, as my hearing gradually returned. Occasionally soldiers wearing red and black would come stumbling in through the dust cloud, searching to regroup in the center of their position. As they arrived the squad gunned them down, killing them as efficiently as possible. After several minutes Sergeant Green staggered into view a few dozen feet out, supporting Master Sergeant File under his arm. Both men were injured fairly heavily, with Sergeant Green nursing a bleeding arm and the master sergeant's helmet cracked open enough to expose part of his face.
The heavy trooper's armor was also coated in soot and looked like he had probably taken some sort of explosion directly on the armor. The two medics rushed out to relieve Sergeant Green of his burden, and he made his way over to me, dropping down and holding out his forearm for me to heal. I examined the injury, seeing that it was only a light cut, and pulled out a bandage to wrap his arm in. He said something, but I could barely hear it even with my headset set to boost sounds. I made a hand sign for 'deaf' and he repeated himself in sign language.
"Can't you have LIWI do a little 'semblance' healing?" He asked. I shook my head and signed back.
"He's tapped out, I pushed him too hard. I don't know when he will be back online."
Green frowned, but nodded.
"I'm out of aura as well" he signed. "Getting you all across that field took a lot out of me, I had to start burning aura instead of oxygen." He shuddered at the memory, and I frowned inside my helmet. Realizing he couldn't see my expression I tapped his shoulder to get his attention and signed to him again.
"Are you alright?" I asked. He waved a hand, indicating it wasn't something to worry about.
"I'll be fine, this happens sometimes when we get too deep into the shit." He took a deep breath and explained while we waited for either our reinforcements or the next group of WoF troops to find us.
"When I use my semblance, I see the future as it would play out without my intervention. The tiniest little change I make shows me a whole new future. That means I usually see three or four of the almost the same outcome a lot of the time. But when we ran across that field I had to protect everyone from an insane amount of debris. I saw each and every member of thesquad die at least a dozen times right there. Honestly I wasn't even sure if you were alive until just now. I saw your head get crushed, then when I tried to move you sideways I saw your armor crushed so badly you looked like a soda can at the bottom of the ocean. I had to run through five different ideas before I just told you to dive. I couldn't even be sure that one worked because I had another two people dying out of the corner of my eye over and over again while I tried to work on you."
The torrent of hand signs ended, and he took a deep shuddering breath, evidently glad to have gotten that out into the world instead of bottling it up inside. I poked him again to get him to look at me, as he had taken to staring at the ground as he remembered it.
"You did good" I signed, "Everyone made it through that charge." He sighed, letting his head drop backwards to bang against the chipped concrete block we were sheltering behind.
"Not everyone made it through the fight though, I couldn't save two of them from a rocket, I just wasn't fast enough to get them out of the way." I nodded sympathetically.
"I couldn't save one of mine" I signed, "I was just out of healing, and I had to watch him bleed out. You can only do so much."
A breeze was picking up, and the dust cloud began rapidly thinning. As it blew away, the mechanized infantry came into view a few hundred yards down the road. They were steadily making their way towards us, robotic heads scanning for any signs of life. We waited in place as they marched into the now nearly flattened area where the residential buildings had previously stood. The androids spread out in a geometric pattern, securing the area and getting into a series of brief but one sided firefights as they found more pockets of resistance that had not been bold enough to emerge before they arrived. We got a headcount of the squad, only the one medic from my team was uninjured, and we had four dead.
Green and I began making arrangements with Master Sergeant File about retrieving the bodies, and I was about to call over a junior NCO from the mechanized brigade when File held up a hand, squinting through his broken visor at a skyscraper off in the distance. He held up a hand to shade his eyes, then thought better of it and retrieved a pair of binoculars from an armored pocket. He held them up, viewing the building as Green and I turned to see what he was looking at.
"Hey," Green said, and I could sort of hear him now that my hearing had settled to only a persistent dull ring. "Isn't that the Dust Works building that we fought Hyperion on?"
File only grunted, examining the building. Suddenly he dropped the binoculars and shoved Green and I, trying to knock us down. I tripped and fell, not prepared to maintain my balance on my injured leg. Green maintained his footing, but cried out as a bullet ripped through his side, followed almost immediately after by the report of a high caliber sniper rifle. I scrabbled on the ground, trying to get my arms and legs under me so I could help Green as File dove on top of him, sheltering the operative with his heavily armored body.
"Sniper!" he called out in a shockingly calm voice, his voice echoing oddly through both the crack and the speakers in his helmet. "Steelworks building, seventeenth floor, right side!" He elaborated, and his squad turned, firing weapons towards his indicated target. Automatic fire filled the air, and I brought up my own rifle, sighting in with the scope to try and make out the target. I saw a flash of black and red power armor for a split second as the sniper pulled back, then a rocket fired from one of the team members took out the wall in that section of the building.
File called for a ceasefire, then we waited a moment for the breeze to clear the dust away so we could see inside the building. I adjusted my scope, zooming in on the section that had been blasted away. The smoke and dust cleared, and standing in a doorway, the ground in front of him collapsed inwards, stood Helios, giving me a double middle finger.