Chapter 38: War in the North - The Aftermath
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Atlas' fleet, what portions of it had survived Salem's coming and the battle that followed, had been forced to shelter behind the floating half of their Kingdom, where the Leviathan could not see them. Or, more accurately, where Salem had far more to cut through to gut them. This had the side effect of shielding it from the Slipspace shockwave as well, at least as much as was possible the way they had been forced to.
By sheer mass, rather than power.
In the wake of the blast, the two of them had watched the ships recover and return. Some of them lifted up from the snow miles away from them, but even still, he could see the snow falling off of them in waves. And the smoke, trailing behind them as they forced themselves to move towards the Kingdom. A handful of lucky vessels had been high enough to recover from the shock before they fell to the ground below, and floated high over their brethren protectively.
A few others had been low enough that they failed to recover in time, but high enough for their damage to be catastrophic.
And tragic.
Atlas itself had been broken into a dozen smaller pieces, sections of the city sagging in where subterranean structures had given way. Skyscrapers, their glass blasted away and frames bare and ionised into rainbow hues, lay scattered across roads or standing impossibly in spite of the blast. Some of these stood tall, more or less vertically, but a few rested between sections of the city that had fallen into itself, braced between the large, damaged sections of the once floating city that had fallen.
And, of course, so much of it was on fire…
Because why would it not be?
He paused as the duo made their way through a ruined street that had fallen at a sharp angle and looked up to watch a wing of Bullheads cruise by and angle around a swathe of burning buildings nearby. They formed up into a loose circle formation and dropped dozens of little bombs which exploded in flashes of bright, flowing white foam that fell down onto the fire with drifting wafts of steam.
"Fire-foam bombs." Jorge rumbled from his side as he turned and went on. "Come, we should be getting close to the Academy."
"You're still reading the signal then?"
"I am." He nodded and pointed up at a looming Atlesian ship, hovering low enough over the fallen kingdom that he would have been willing to wager he could leap onto it from some of the higher roofs. "And it seems they're reading it, too."
"Indeed…"
It was haunting as they travelled, crossing the broken and blasted city-scape. And it was familiar, too… All one would need to do is replace the Atlesian ships with the sleek hulls of Covenant craft and the picture would be complete. And it crushed him.
"This happened to Reach." The Spartan rumbled, "Didn't it?"
"More or less." Thel nodded, "Yes."
"Hmph…"
"Reach is being rebuilt - remade, even, Spartan." Thel spoke to his back, "If a world glassed into nothing can recover, so too can Atlas. Take heart."
"I know it is, but…" He sighed wearily and turned, looking down on him with an impassive visor and an equally impassive stance. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to hear this from you right now. I just…"
"Our wounds are only freshly treated." He nodded, "I understand. Forgive me."
"There's nothing to…" Jorge sighed and turned away, moving on without a backward look. The Arbiter understood him nonetheless, though, and followed behind him. After a few moments, he asked, "Is your leg alright?"
"It is." He nodded, "Aura is a wonder."
"Good."
Within the next twenty minutes, they reached a towering mound made up of warped steel supports that had once been under Atlas Academy itself - and now stuck out to one side, firmer steel pushing through rock and concrete as the whole thing came down. It wound up as a mound of twisted steel, mounded dirt, and shattered rock and concrete that spired up like a squat hill of ruin in the heart of the city.
He gazed at it for a long moment and then turned to leave-
Something glinted, though, and he paused and turned back, eyes narrowing as he looked up at… Something curved and shining. On instinct, he made his way up, scrabbling over loose rock and soil and nearly falling thrice before he reached the shining thing just below the top of the mound. But reach it he did, while the Spartan watched from below.
It was warped and twisted, bursting out of a red sort of rectangle.
Finally, he recognized it, "Crescent Rose… Destroyed."
His heart chilled, for a moment…
Before it began to race, thundering in his chest like heavy artillery.
He hurled it away, down the mound, and tore away the rock it had been under. He sent that rolling down too, and ignored the Spartan's startled yell, as he reached for another and threw it away. A third followed before the rock and dirt overhead fell and tried to rebury what he had dug out - he summoned an Aura wall at an angle that sent it spilling down behind him, instead, and shoved it when it tried to stick on top of him.
A splash of orange and green met his eyes and he could not restrain his bellow, "Polendina!"
"What?!" He heard the Spartan below and turned, watching him leap onto the mound to follow in his footsteps.
"She is buried in the rubble!" He called back, leaning over her to lift another large rock away and throwing it aside. Brighter green caught his eyes and they widened, "And she is… Damaged, Spartan!"
She had been buried curled up, with her back up and her arms and legs spread out to either side, reinforced on the outside with her blades. The blades were all shattered and slid off to the side as his fingers brushed against them. One of her arms had caved in as well, shattered at the bicep, and several chunks of metal had been embedded in her back, leaking her green blood down her sides.
The Spartan reached him, finally, and murmured, "By the Grimm, that's a lot of blood…"
"Of a sort." He sighed and leaned over her, "Help me, Spartan. She needs tending."
"Yeah."
Gently, they reached under the woman and tugged her out, green blood running down their hands as they turned and the Spartan lifted her up and turned to slide down. He turned back while the man did and looked down into the space below the woman. She had blocked the rock and steel, but plenty of dirt had fallen around her, mounding in the bottom. He could see white under it, though, and slid into the hole to dig it out.
He found a woman's back, her jacket burnt in places to show pale skin, and tugged her free gently. She was lighter than Penny had been and came free easily. Beneath her-
"Ruby!" He shouted, setting the strange woman aside gently and stooping to take her hands. She had fallen on her back, arms and legs tucked into her stomach like a ball. As his hands wrapped around her, arms here eyes fluttered open, blinking blearily, and he murmured, "You are alright- Just let me help you out."
"Kay…"
"Arbiter!" He turned and looked up at the kneeling Spartan who pointed at the strange woman and gestured for him to hand her over. Setting Ruby down, he turned and did just that, and then followed with Ruby over his shoulder.
Cradling the two women, they slid down the mound and laid her out beside Penny.
"If those two are here, then her team must be buried as well." Thel rumbled as he turned to the soldier, "We need to find-"
The sound of rock shattering cut him off and the two turned, the Bane hissing to life as the Spartan's sidearm snapped up. A towering white figure staggered through the dust cloud, stumbled over a rock, and fell as it faded away. Weiss came in its wake, clutching her side with one hand and her rapier with another while Yang limped along behind, cradling the bloodied form of her Faunus friend who only saved him from his panic by reaching up to run a hand through the blonde's hair.
So, wounded - but alive.
"Schnee!" He called as he jogged over towards her. She turned to him then looked past him and he saw the relief in her eyes before she sagged into his hands. Lifting her up, he asked, "What happened?"
"We couldn't get into the Vault." She explained quietly as he turned, walking beside the blonde and carrying her gently. "Everything… Fell apart. Literally. M-My Arma G-Gigas had to hold up the rocks and then help Yang dig us out."
"You're exhausted." It wasn't a question but she nodded regardless and he sighed as he approached the other trio laid out in the shallow snow. He knelt to let her down and laid a hand on her chest when she tried to get up. "Rest, Schnee. You have earned it."
Yang for her part slid down to sit, her back leaned against the mound of rock and soil, and cradled Blake close to her. Through grit teeth, she grunted, "Holy hell, everything's fucked."
"Indeed." He rumbled as he rose and looked at the devastation around them. Quietly, he asked, "I thought that with the Leviathan on Atlas, the operation had been put to an end?"
"Roland told us that the General okayed the plan." Weiss grunted, frowned, and added, "Though, uh, we didn't ask before we went for the Relic."
"You didn't?"
"Weiss' sister seemed to be aiming to do the same, before the bitch got to her." Yang growled, "We, uh, took the initiative."
"That is not something you take initiative on." The Spartan growled, "How dare you-"
"Pretty damn easily, actually." The brawler countered hotly, "And after I had a city fall on me, I'm not in the mood to humor some gods damned jackboot."
"Jackboot-"
"It no longer matters." Thel snarled, stepping between the two to end the boiling argument. Trading looks between them he waved a hand at the world around them and went on, "Look around you! Atlas is broken. Burning and shattered. Mantle as well. And we are all of us exhausted and battered for it. So be at peace, or if you wish to go to blows, seek out the Grimm no doubt out on the tundra!"
That put the burgeoning fight down with a certainty, and he sighed as the quiet settled.
"Spartan, can you raise any of the ships overhead?" He asked after a few of those long, quiet moments, "These children need aid. And I would hope to find out about the others."
"Already touched base." The Spartan nodded, "They promised to send transport, but… Well, they're busy with search and rescue at the front line. Or, well, at where the front line used to be, at least."
"Very well." The Arbiter sighed and knelt, unclasping his cloak and laying it over Ruby and Weiss both. Quietly, he urged the Schnee closer to her unconscious leader, "Rest. You will need it. Of that, I am certain."
"Alright…"
"Spartan." He rumbled as stood and paced around to kneel beside Penny and shelter her with one of his shields, "Will you seek shelter for us? We may need it, for a time, while they rest and your comrades do their work."
It would also be a convenient way to let the Spartan get some space from him - and troubled memories as well. Whether for that or for his given reasoning, the Spartan nodded and turned, stalking off with heavy steps. In his wake he left only a long, oppressive silence, beyond the howl of the wind.
Until Weiss broke it to ask, "D-Did my Father's ships help? Did they get everyone away in time?"
"I could not see from where we were." He answered earnestly, "Though, I see no bodies strewn about. Those people must have gone somewhere."
"I see…"
"Believe me, Schnee." He rumbled, "When such destruction comes upon a place, one cannot escape the blood and bodies. Not if the people do not escape. That all we see is snow, stone and steel is proof that whatever plan you had was executed."
Suddenly, a bright light shone down upon them and the Arbiter shot to his feet, Bane crackling to life in shocked instinct. A moment passed and the light turned away as the bulbous silver shuttle turned and came down amongst the rubble. Its doors slid open and the Arbiter let his blade dip and die as the boy dropped off its edge and came towards them, shouldering a pack and jogging as quickly as he dared.
"Get a status on all of them before we move them." He ordered the armored men just behind him as the shuttle finally settled. "Set the breaks, check for injuries that make moving them hazardous, and get them loaded up. We can't stay down here."
"Oscar!"
"Arbiter." He took the hand Thel offered as he reached them and then flicked a look up and down him. "You're alright?"
"I am." His leg was a bit stiff yet, but that would fade, he was certain.
"Glad to hear it, we can talk later." He grunted as he slipped by and knelt by Penny. Gently, he lifted her up to inspect the damage to her back and then called over his shoulder, "Coolant leak, level five - get a stretcher out here and get her on the shuttle. Remove the shrapnel and cauterize the synth-skin."
"You speak like a doctor…"
"Yeah." He nodded and turned, smiling sadly up at him for a moment before turning back to his task, "I… Think Ozpin is giving me his knowledge."
"I see…" That was as useful as it was troubling, given the boy's… Circumstances.
Whatever the case, he made space for a pair of soldiers to come over and gently lift up the wounded android. They laid her out on a hefty looking stretcher and then backed away as a pair of droids came to lift it up and carry her away. As they left, the Spartan returned, looking at the working medics for a moment before turning to Oscar.
"Please," he started, "do you know the General's status?"
"Yes," Weiss grunted as a medic helped her onto her feet and let her lean on him, "tell me. My father's ships…"
"They evacuated almost everyone from Atlas, at least. Or, uh, the civilians I mean." Oscar answered quickly, "I dunno about Mantle, but… I didn't hear about anyone getting left behind? I'm sorry I can't help more."
"And the General?" The Spartan pressed, "What about him, and the rest of the military?"
"Atlas Academy was put into heavy lockdown before the, uh, explosion." Oscar explained, "Nora and her team broke us out, and we've been running rescue on the soldiers that were caught in the explosion. That's why we landed here, actually, we spotted you. Ironwood's in his office."
"You're sure?"
"We got him on Atlas Academy's short-band emergency broadcast systems." Oscar nodded, "Help us load everyone up and we can go. Nora should have gotten through Atlas' defence systems by then."
"How?"
"Well…" He grimaced, shrugged, and explained simply, "It's Nora. You can probably guess."
"Ah." The Arbiter sighed, "Explosives and brute force, then."
"Yep." Weiss grunted as the soldier helped her towards the Bullhead, "That sounds about right."
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They all spent the first hour of rescue efforts trying, desperately, to actually navigate Atlas in its fallen state. Atlas and Atlas Academy both had been built with designated 'crash shelters' in the bases of buildings, under the walls, and in some of the wealthier manors owned by the more paranoid sections of society - or the families old enough to have been present when Atlas was raised, and everyone was so concerned with the risk that its engines would simply… Give out, and they would all fall to their collective, fiery deaths in the tundra below.
The first one they'd found had lost power and been buried, which posed a problem for Atlas' rescue efforts. Moving the rubble was one thing, but even the oldest of the crash houses had been built by Atlas' finest engineers. The same engineers that would later design the very warships that flew overhead.
The superstructure, that was, not the ships themselves - those were obviously more modern - but designing a floating ship so that it could survive a hard landing on the ground from high in the air was a necessity. But now, without power and with only a quarter of the military left, cracking open those vaults seemed almost impossible with what little they had to hand.
Until Nora spotted a live power unit laying on the ground…
And Atlas' engineers had to slap together something… New.
"Okily dokily~!" The woman cried excitedly as she stood over the massive, flat-bottomed cylinder that he'd been told was Ironwood's office. She paused like that, turned, and grinned, "Light me up, baby!"
With a roll of his eyes, Ren hit the big red button.
Nora had been fitted with a heavy duty harness, the exact same kind Atlesian engineers would wear while dangling on the side of a battleship a few hundred feet up to perform maintenance on the outer hull. Its back had been opened up, and a thick cable jury-rigged into a socket. The cable ran twenty feet away to a boxy emergency generator. Which had a console next to it.
And a red button.
The lights along the cable flashed bright red as power poured through it, and Nora's back arched as the electricity broke emptied straight into her back. It crawled along her arms and legs and arced across the ground while they all watched. When Nora finally moaned, long and loud and almost sultry, and started to sag to one side, Ren hit the button again to kill the electrical feed.
And Nora roared, bringing her hammer down on the flat bottom of the super-reinforced structure with all of her enhanced strength. The metal bowed ever so slightly and she brought the hammer up and down again. And then again, and again, and again - a dozen times until the wall finally sagged in enough for her to get her hands under it. Rolling her neck until it popped, she braced her feet on the top edge of the frame and leaned out over the open air under the lip, pulling up with all the power in her muscled, thoroughly charged arms.
It took a moment, and a second, short burst of electricity from the generator, but finally the metal gave. Just enough for her to peel back the metal enough to make a hole about three feet wide.
Exhausted and done, Nora lost her grip and fell onto the inflated mat the engineers had laid out beneath the reinforced cylinder. For the General to drop onto, not Nora, but no one said anything about that as the medics tugged her to the side to check on her. They gave Jaune a raised thumb to tell him that she was okay, and then Jaune's attention was drawn up.
To the man dragging himself through the entrance Nora had made.
Ironwood was dirty, and had lost his jacket or left it behind, but he stood tall on top of the reinforcements that had been built into his walls. Quietly, he surveyed the blasted expanse around him. Then he sighed, and turned to them all.
"Arc." He called out over the silence that had fallen, "Did it succeed?"
"The Whale's gone…"
"And Salem?"
"No sign of her, Sir." Jaune answered with a shrug, "And there haven't been too many Grimm, either. There's no one to bring them in, but if Salem were still here-"
"It wouldn't matter." He sighed, nodded, and asked, "Next question, then. Where are the Spartans?"
It was a simple question but something about the edge to his voice, and the way his hand came to rest on the grip of his gun, made Jaune swallow anxiously. He traded a look with Ren, then brushed some ash off of his breastplate and answered, "Uh, Menagerie, I think? With all the people?"
Ironwood nodded, turned, and called out, "I want a status report on the refugees inside the hour. And a casualty count. But first and foremost, I want a readiness report. How many of my people, my ships, are left?"
Another soldier stepped forward to answer while Jaune stood and watched.
Something felt… Off.
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"Plasma bombardment, trailing forty meters from designated point southward." John spoke quietly, kneeling at the top of the hill and peering down through the trees at the herd of Grimm meandering towards Menagerie's low wall of protective mountains.
"Understood, Master Chief." Roland reported as the Black Sun emerged from the clouds behind him, over Menagerie. "Wait five seconds - before western prevailing winds."
"Affirmative." He responded, "Kelly, Linda, prepare for survivors."
Her squad-light blinked green twice in confirmation and he fell silent, waiting through the short minutes before bright blue plasma lanced down from above and behind him. It ripped into the arid ground of Menagerie's dry shrublands beyond the mountains and scoured across it. Dozens of Grimm died in the fire and heat, and before the bombardment had even passed, he heard the stacatton crack and roaring punch of Kelly's BR-75 and Kelly's custom SR. Whatever few Grimm had escaped the bombardment died to their precise fire, or the plasma inferno that swallowed them.
As inky darkness swirled into the sky, he grunted, "Fred."
"Hold one." The other Spartan grunted before, distantly, John heard the resonating whump of missile detonations. "Support mission terminating - Menagerie's militia have eliminated the southern threat."
"And central?"
"Just finishing up." The Chieftain, Ghira, rumbled in his ear. "What on Remnant did you use out there? Saw that flash from miles away."
"Plasma bombardment." He answered, adding, "Roland, calculate burn pattern and fire again. Choke the fires out before they can spread."
"Understood, Spartan."
"If it gets out of hand, don't worry." Ghira said, "The mountains are wet enough it won't burn up. And while the ground doesn't hold the water, we get showers often enough. It's worth it to kill the Grimm regardless."
'Grimm he'd attracted by delivering the Sun's refugees ahead of the rest of the fleet arriving later, he left unsaid.
Kelly heard it regardless, and chided him, "We did the right thing, Chief. And have the air-power to make sure it doesn't bite us."
"Mhm." John rumbled as he rose and surveyed the burning field. "We'll see."
"Refugee fleet just made contact." Roland cut in, "Chieftain, I could use your help coordinating. And, uh, avoiding any, you know… Problems."
"This is Atlas, after all…"
"On my way." Ghira grunted, "Spartans, could you-"
"Roland." Chief cut in, "Put a series of spy-drones along the mountains. Watch for Grimm. Bombardment is tolerable to all extents but the MAC."
"Copy."
Silent, John turned and looked up at Kelly and Linda further up. At his nod they stood and split off to either side. They'd circle out for a few miles and then head up, watching for wayward incoming Grimm while Roland set up his net. It was a little thing, and hardly necessary, he knew. But…
He had a duty to do, and people to defend.
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Salem had suffocated before. Had drowned, burned, been smothered, too. She'd died a thousand and one times in a thousand and one ways just in the last millenium. But this… This was new.
And new was… Rare.
She hadn't just been eviscerated by the explosion - she'd been ripped asunder in a base way that she was unable to even comprehend. It had taken her hours to reform. And when she had, she had regained consciousness in the black void. Pain had wracked her body and the last thing she'd seen was her entrails coming out through her teeth and her skin detonating away from her muscles. And then her muscles away from her bones.
When she'd recovered, she'd understood the first part of her death - air.
She needed air.
Long ago, she'd learned of chemistry. Humanity was fascinating, the way it's science advanced at such dizzying speeds. She'd kept abreast of it where she could, and hired servants where she could not. Oxygen was a composition, a simple enough one, and one she'd memorised several decades past. Before she died her second death, she managed to conjure up enough magic to call forth its base blocks.
Before her forth, she'd managed to fully combine them.
Her fifth death had been one she could scream through - the agony of coming apart in the dark void was truly exquisite - and it took time for her to understand it. At first she tried a basic shield, something to contain herself - but even her fonts of power drained in the face of whatever ailed her here, and she came apart. So, through a doze more torturous deaths, she thought.
And stared at the inky black sea of twinkling stars around her, captured like photos in the moments she had before her next death.
An inky black sea…
Divers wore suits under water to maintain pressure, she knew. Not prevent it. Inside, the suits maintained a constant pressure as one would experience on the surface, more or less. Perhaps it was tied to that?
Over the next dozen deaths, she formed steel around herself and sealed it. She suffocated inside it, then filled it with air when she revived - and chided herself for the mistake. The suit she'd forged was lackluster and simple, based on the diving suits of decades past from which she'd drawn their principle, but it protected her. And finally let her twist and turn, looking at the blackness around her.
And she found it… Less than empty.
A dozen planets filled the sea around her, and one, far enough away she needed magic to see it, caught her eye. It was blue entirely, with five moons dotted around it. Blue meant water, she knew, and hopefully that meant it was similar enough to Remnant.
With an explosion behind her, she propelled herself towards it.
When she reached it, she made another discovery - stars were not all that burned as they descended from the heavens.
When she returned to life once more, it was on a small island, no bigger than her own throne room. It was made of dark red rock, and covered in lichen, but little else. She took a seat on its shore, dipped her legs into the water, and marvelled on a world seemingly untouched. She was alone…
What could she do now? No, that was not the question - she could do almost anything, with her magic, as long as Ozma wasn't there to stop her.
So more accurately, what should she do now?
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Atlas' Fan (Guest) :
Roland did what needed to be done. At least in his own view.
Smokey Panda :
Nope! Or, well, kinda? It's complicated!
KPMH 2001 :
See, the obvious thing is to have a problem with the remote detonation. So I didn't do that! Lol.
Joe Cola :
I hope I explained it more in this chapter, but essentially, most thought the plan scrubbed when the Leviathan landed on Atlas. Thus Arby's confusion.
Define 'okay' because the gals aren't dead, but they aren't great either.
PoofyOhio :
I CAN HAVE A LITTLE NUTS AND DOLTS AS A TREAT! XD
Also, I can see a lot of affection, yeah, but I interpret the head-touch and cheek cupping as inherently intimate. So even setting aside how I feel about Nuts n Dolts, that's the kind of breath I'd give a side-romance. I don't tend to give them much space or words when they are purely side-events which only exist so that the other characters can be understood to be existing.
Tis but a difference in interpretation.
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