Chapter 78: Council Strikes Back
"Tanks back off! Geist spotted!"
Blake whirled her Gambol Shroud, reaching over in an arc it swept through the air and swung for the ghost-like Grimm traveling toward the group, searching for its latest possession.
Unlike any other normal Grimm, the Geist was one, if not the worst enemy they could encounter. Not because of its raw strength but because it was the most troublesome of all.
Anything as long as it is inorganic can be possessed by it. Limited to what knowledge it can do to use such equipment, it forces everyone to destroy the small mask attached to whatever it possessed or destroy the thing it's possessing altogether.
They already had incidents where they had to shoot the tracks off of a fellow Leopard I because a Geist took control of it and tried ramming over soldiers. Thankfully, it didn't know how to shoot but you can imagine the possibilities if it learned to.
"Ruby!" Blake misses her Gambol Shroud being lodged to the ground as the Geist swiftly moves with its nearly ethereal body.
Ruby answers the call not a moment later, her speed distorts the air as rose petal flutter in her wake. She moves back her scythe and as she approaches the lingering Geist, she swung.
"Got it!" The mask dissipates as Ruby's Crescent Rose bisects it in half, leaving nothing but mist in the wind.
Blake looks over the general battle, tanks moved back to position as men fired over and over again - some laying fire with their machineguns or acting as support for the forward tanks.
They reach the end of what looks like an aperture deepening into the underground. A crack in the earth and a depth that no one dared to venture, with her Faunus vision she couldn't even see what was below.
"Uberkommandant!" A man dashes and salutes, other than the similar color palette of his fellow soldiers, this one was distinctive from the lack of a helmet and the presence of an aura.
"Savin, do you have something from the other sectors?"
"Yes, no casualties taken and the area is clear. They're performing clean-up just in case they missed any. Though, this place would be ideal for spotting Grimm."
The white snow did great to highlight the black masses of the Grimm's body. Unlike any other terrain, it was hard to get ambushed. Only the cover of the night was it dangerous to do battle with Grimm.
"Don't get too lax, vigilance is always needed. Just because you think you've won doesn't mean it's over."
The man nods before saluting and returning to his squad.
Hanns emerges from another part of the rocky and uneven edges, he arrived overlooking them all after he shot down Manticores with his special ammunition and doubled power.
"Never thought that I'd be the one acting as anti-air." Hanns mentions.
"Sorry, the Reichscopters had to stay grounded from here since the winds are picking up and the snow is getting too thick for allied planes to target them."
"I know, it just reminded me of something." Warthunder was a good place to learn that tanks were the least useful in combating aerial units. Though, Hanns was special in this case.
A weakness of the Reichscopter and any VTOL for that matter was the wind speeds, it especially was harsher in the frozen north which hindered progress but they could always power through the storm and wait until it dies down.
Without any decent anti-air, the troops relied on infantry but it always resulted in tanks being disabled or destroyed because of aerial attacks. Fireballs and ramming attacks on the top of the Leopard could surprisingly do a lot when the Grimm learned to target the top.
Hanns in this case used his Overclock to freely manipulate his tracks to make him shoot at a steeper angle. He broke them apart and used them as stands to move his vertical degree of attack so that his gun could kill any airborne targets.
'That earned me quite a bit even though I didn't use Revengance this time.'
8 days had passed since the initial hour of Hanns choosing Option 3. Just as explained by the text, Hanns was definitely seen as a threat by now.
Nations were wary and Salem had put the first step to going against Hanns, though he didn't know who was supposed to fight him.
The world had shifted from this action, not to mention the status of the country being revealed to be run by no one more than barely adult teens who were still supposed to be in school.
Yet, within the hearts of many throughout the continent - results are what mattered. Through such a short time of only a week's worth thanks to the Warthunder system guiding Hanns and the military being 100% loyal, they had done what should've taken months or years.
With the military being his the moment he started option 3, only a few promises, and using the political climate - he started the change. Though, it would take months to settle the population down.
A rapid rise to power could only be so unrestricted, deep within the recesses of society lay the still doubtful and suspicious individuals.
Just like the Whites and the Reds during the Russian Civil War - the only thing that could unite the majority of the opposition was the rejection of central authority made by Hanns.
Opposing values that were only kept together with a common enemy. That was the shaky status of Hanns' enemies.
From those who believe that democracy is still a right, the people loyal to the personalities in the Council, maybe those who just simply doubt the running of the state left to a younger generation and many more splintered groups - there were many unwilling to work together.
Thanks to Hanns' management and the total loyalty of the military, none could actually take action.
Scared of the possibility of retaliation - those against Hanns' government could not find a suitable way to deal with the crushing influence of the Wehrmacht and Gestapo.
This was made easier, especially when Hanns doesn't have to worry about the people under him not being motivated. Everyone screaming for the Kaiser was already a telltale sign. Someday he'd be both Kaiser and Fuhrer but that had to wait.
Eventually, the Council could muster some kind of resistance. It all started with a single fuse that lit up the stage for the possibility of imminent civil war. An assassination attempt.
Hanns was working almost 24/7; from grinding Grimm with the army all over Solitas, managing the new state with Weiss, and constantly getting sleepless nights to just do whatever it took for him to finish his tasks.
The lack of need for rest was not going to stop him. Reequipping the Wehrmacht and using his built-up fortunes to use the base building tech he had made wonders in rearming.
It began with supply depots to repair and refill ammunition, then it was going with full-blown factories. Though he still needed about 500k RP to even unlock factories to avoid paying the initial SL costs for his vehicles.
Still, the added technology from the 1.1 update was still a good addition. Especially when an army was definitely not a one-man job to create.
With all of that said, Hanns was still a long way from being confident enough to relax. 2 weeks away was going to be the start of the Solitas Rex awakening.
Hanns didn't know what it was based on the name but he could guess somewhat. If he was to be sure that he would defeat anything the Moderator would throw at him he started to think about drastic decisions.
"Hanns? Is something wrong again?" Blake had concern sewn in with her words. It was happening repeatedly and Hanns would just stare at nothing.
No one normally could tell since Hanns was a tank but Blake had been around Hanns the longest. Most of the time it was a gut feeling.
Hanns shook off the dark feelings he had, he was a gamer but not an idiot. At least he thinks so.
Hanns wanted a guarantee that nothing bad would go wrong, caution was still in mind. Just because he had an army and was a tank doesn't mean he could handle everything.
"I need more power, Blake. Grinding- I mean gaining more strength is going to take too long at this pace."
She felt her eyebrow raise because Hanns stopped short of saying another word. "Power? You kill Grimm to… evolve, yes? What else do you do?"
'Well, I can't just say some sadistic moderator is giving me quests that directly correlate to how a nation in my tech tree would act given their time period.'
"You wouldn't get it." He utters.
"You've said that before-"
Before Blake could reply, Ruby dashes over - petals drifted in the cool wind entering the large crevice they were clearing out.
"Hanns!" Ruby called out, she panted from the run before slamming her hands on Hanns' armor plate. "So I was kind of talking about this with Yang but… are you immortal?"
'…Am I?' Hanns had a question he didn't need to think about before now. "I think? I can repair and regenerate myself and I'm a tank… Maybe? Why do you randomly ask, Ruby?"
"You know how I got that glowy magic thing back when you umm… killed Cinder?" She started remembering the grotesque result of a freshly incinerated body.
"She killed herself but ok, yeah." Hanns technically only saw Cinder burn herself. "What of it?" He followed up.
"I sorta feel hungry."
'Well, you always are.' Hanns quipped in his mind.
"It's acting up then huh? You're seeking your other half, the same type of thing Cinder felt when she had incomplete power."
"That's why it reminded me of something, this magic… is Salem really capable of what I can do when I get my other half? It's just funny to think you could be the same magic-wielding immortal."
'If you put it that way, I could be considered the same… Unlike Salem who could only shoot out elements. I can conjure anything into reality and keep stuff in a separate space and time. That kind of thing is way more powerful than what magic is in Remnant.'
He compared every other kind of isekai protagonist to Salem. 'Anyone with a decent cheat skill could probably kill Salem even with her immortality. It's just a matter of knowing for sure, I can't let it make me overconfident.'
"I guess there's only one way to know, Ruby."
'Hey, Moderator. Do you mind?' He knew the Moderator was always looking at him, so he guessed the Moderator would know.
[You are, you don't age - thus you are immortal unless you die.]
Hanns repeated those words over and over in his mind. The explanation was a bit crude - saying someone is immortal unless they die, it was the same thing as saying every 60 seconds a minute passes.
'Thank you moderator very cool.'
[I heard that sarcasm.]
"I guess I'm not immortal yet, Ruby."
Hanns moved out with the rest of the battalion, they all waited for the wind to slow down for a while but when it did, Hanns formed into his VAF-121 to carry them away.
It wasn't that much of an interesting ride, other than marking new locations on a map, the geography of Solitas was getting more and more known as time went on.
Back during the Atlesian military still existed, they couldn't venture off further than what they could see from the surface. They lacked a sufficiently capable land vehicle that could be the tank so to speak.
This role was supposed to be spider droids but experiments yielded less than stellar field performances. It was only relegated to smaller tasks until they could develop another vehicle to fit the role.
This came as the Paladin, a mech that had rockets, guns, armor, and a healthy amount of other features. Ironwood commissioned one to make a real version but was obsessed with making it heavily armored to resist Hanns' guns.
Development was delayed and eventually, Hanns took over the Atlas and scrapped the idea in favor of tanks and excellent air support which were the hallmark of the concept of shock and awe.
Blake felt her scroll vibrate as a message came through. She was sitting inside the helicopter Hanns was in before she saw the message and abruptly said out loud. "Hanns!"
Alerted, the rest of the team stare at the panicked Blake stood shaky from the ride in the VAF-121.
"What is it, Blake?" Ruby asked worryingly.
"One of our bases! It's been attacked in Atlas!"
~
Torchwick tapped his cane on the ground after leaving the VAF-121 he was on. He tipped his bowler hat, only for it to not budge - forgetting his mask prevented it from tipping forward.
He sighs and takes out a cigar to smoke off the stress-
'I hate this so much.'
-only to forget that his mask also prevented it.
'Damn it, why do I have to keep my identity shut? Lunchbox told me I could let it go after 2 weeks but I don't see how that correlates.'
He had a good reason to be stressed, running a dictatorship was harder than it looked - needing to replace decades of built-up bureaucracy, changing local leaders and trying to do checks on them, overall just constantly looking over paperwork.
Torchwick wanted to give up and just replace them all with talented and very loyal military personnel. He appreciated that loyalty, though it was odd for Torchwick that the previous military staff just accepted Hanns and became fanatics for him in a single minute.
He chalked it up to the all-mighty machine. Hanns was full of surprises but Torchwick welcomed it.
Torchwick didn't know this could get any harder than it should, now it was even more problematic. One of their bases in Atlas, a military installation had been bombed.
'Who the hell can put up with all of this? I hate staring at numbers and letters from how much she'd been giving me. I don't care anymore if Ice Queen is going to push more onto me, I'm going to say no. Who can deal with this much paperwork being pushed on them?!'
Somewhere out in Vale, a blonde combat instructor sneezed.
"This is a problem alright," he uttered.
"Sir, here is the report you asked for." A man behind him announced his presence and held out something to Torchwick.
Torchwick took one look at the folder before clicking his tongue. "Just tell me what happened." His PTSD for paper reactivate as soon as he saw it.
"Seven people dead and mostly engineers. A car bomb, we looked over the source and based on the shrapnel-"
"Yeah, yeah." Torchwick waved off the soldier. "Anything on how it got past the checkpoints?"
"It's in the report-"
"Just say it."
"They had the right documents for a visit. It passed through multiple checks and we let them in."
"Is that so? I've yet to come across a visitor going for a meet-up with the men. It's normal for them to be allowed but if the background checks aren't even enough, then we might have a problem."
He hears the sound of another Valkyrie arriving, he turns to the source as his lips pursed from the thought. "We have a rat or multiple I should say."
Weiss was the first to step out but her demeanor had changed, for better or worse, no one will know for now. "Joseph G! What happened."
He wanted to groan at the name they were all told to use to address him, lest they get unwanted attention for employing a criminal.
"Ice Queen, you don't need to call me that-"
"Shut your mouth. I asked a question and I expected an answer. I don't need any more of your nonsense."
He froze from the sudden change, it was a 180. He knew Weiss could be bratty but this wasn't the case. Her tone demanded respect and a strict response, a far cry from her demeanor when with her friends before being part of the Wehrmacht.
"Car bomb, the report is with him." He points to the soldier. "I have a guess that we have people within our administration that need checking."
Weiss swipes the folder from the man and narrows her eyes on the details of the report hastily made, she finds the reports on the soldiers and her scowl deepens.
"Find them. No traitor will get away from harming MY soldiers."
"You heard the Fuhrer, arrest anyone-"
"Arrest? Torchwick?" Her hand grips the paper tighter. "Kill their families if you have to, I don't need another risk to this state! I want to see them burnt in a furnace by this evening!"
"Weiss?"
"What?!" She turns aggressively, her scowl softening as she saw Ruby awkwardly holding onto her arm like a scared puppy. "…Ruby?"
"Uhh… you kind of went mask off there Weiss." Hanns approached her with worry. 'Shit, is this what the warning at the start meant? Is this the change that the crew will go through?'
As the talk commenced in the background Hanns' attention was pulled by the bar on his Quests shifting slightly.
[Support 38% -> 36%]
[Opposition 29% -> 32%]
'Damn, just as I dropped that below 30% yesterday. The talk of the attack must have already spread. Those abstaining or leaning neutral would be more in support of their preferences once it showed we are vulnerable. I need to turn this around.'
Hanns navigated to his Quests and rechecked everything. Arrests were already at max and was actually already over the 10,000 requirement. No matter how many he arrested, he needed to remove the source of the problem to end the threat of civil war before it grew.
[Arrest Foreign Spies 0/1]
'Who's the spy I wonder…'
[Council Under Heel]
[Remove From Power 0/1]
"Hold on." Torchwick halted the conversation. He opens his scroll and places it to his ear. "Yes?… Yes… You did?… No, we don't need him anymore. *BANG!*" the call ends after that.
"Ice Queen, boy do I have some good news for you."
"What is it?"
"Remember that person who tried assassinating you?"
Even an assassination attempt wasn't memorable enough for her. "Who?"
"Right… well I just received excellent news. We finally have a description of where they could possibly be. But the spot is in the middle of a village far up north, it's unmarked on the map since the population is so low but they're preparing something, nothing specific though."
'Well, that's coincidental.' Hanns thought. 'No way did we just receive news of where they are exactly when the situation calls for it.'
Not even looking for her team's opinions, Weiss immediately commanded, "Call back operations in clearing the continent. We need all hands on deck in ensuring no one goes out of line. Every street will be watched and the public will know that traitors are at work."
She approaches Hanns with a fire of anger building up in her heart. "Hanns, I need your cooperation. We need bombers."
"Weiss? You're going to involve previous citizens." Hanns told her.
"They're enemies of the state for sheltering traitors. I can tolerate those who keep their thoughts to themselves but when you harm someone following my command, then their lives are forfeit."
Yang gently lets a palm land on Weiss' shoulder. "Weiss, I think that's classified as a war crime. We can't indiscriminately bomb anyone, it'll look bad in the press and our relations with the other nations."
"It's not a war crime if no one is there to witness it, Yang."
"Weiss! That's too far!" Ruby shouts.
"Ruby, I can't just let-"
"No! I am still your team leader even if we don't attend classes. We're supposed to be fighting the Grimm, not the citizens! They could be misguided! Look at the White Fang! You're doing the same thing again by not having an open mind."
"I don't agree Ruby! We need to apprehend the Council before it gets any worse! Even if a few die, they're all backstabbers anyways!"
"We will! But I won't let you if you're going to deal unnecessary suffering to those people who may just have their opinions on the wrong thing."
"…No."
Ruby kept her hand firmly gripping Weiss' own. She started pleading, hoping Weiss wouldn't turn to the dark side.
"Please, don't let it be like this again. We're friends. I thought we were supposed to be together after all we've gone through."
"…"
Weiss recalled everything, their moments together and the genuine change she had felt over the weeks being together with Ruby and all her other friends. She was acting less like a friend and more like something else, she had started to think how radical she had become.
"If that's what you're after, then fine. But if you argue that the leaders should live then I will not take it anymore. Even if I have to go against your wishes, I will have them shot at least."
The team went silent after the argument, Weiss joined up with looking through the damage as Ruby was left uncertain of the new attitude Weiss was having.
She didn't even listen for an answer, Weiss had determined that only death was the acceptable course for the demise of her men at the hands of an attacker.
'I guess I better start commissioning those execution platforms.' Hanns assumed.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone