บท 88: 88
"Careful. We need them to be at half output and away from our armors." Trifa warned quietly as her White Leo Brigade finished setting up their part of the perimeter underground. "And stop sweating, you'll be fine as long as you don't sneeze or something. You've got steady hands from all that sketching you do, right?"
"Yes, Black-Knight-2." Her underling nodded as he finished tying the two half-active Lightning Dust Crystals around an open top glass tube filled with bright green refined Wind Dust powder that was beginning to vibrate faintly. "Wait, you know that I sketch?"
"I've seen you carry that notebook of yours around and your fingers are always smudged with graphite. What else could you be doing? 'Less you're narcin' but you lack the guts."
"I'm surprised you remember that when you still don't even know my name, captain."
"Fuck off with your name. I'm bad with names, so leave it." She spat angrily, "I know I've heard it at some point. Trinny?"
"Tracey."
"Yeah, whatever, same shit." She shrugged as she turned to check her Tallgeese Blanc was still working in proximity to the improvised jammer.
It was something apparently the other miners in Adam's mine back in the Eden Crag had figured out and had been planning on using to make a breakout, but never had the opportunity to show off. However that meant that nobody really knew to expect it, and it could be used to easily jam and cut off communications.
Nobody really knew why it worked that way, only that it worked. And while it might look odd, their enemies wouldn't recognize its purpose at first glance, which was all they could ask for with what little they had.
And the best part was that set up this way they'd have a method of isolating all messages to and from the garbage private bank that was the Imperial Vault.
But shortwave messages within the bounds of the jamming ring should work just fine, which meant that all of the Black Knights should be able to communicate from inside their helmets.
It was true that the jammers could interfere with electronics though, so it was better to keep their Mobile Armors at a distance just to be safe. They could always break them on the way out once it wasn't necessary anyways.
"Well, that was the last one, captain. What's next?"
"Fuck, pay more attention in briefings, asshole." Trifa spat, stepping into her Mobile Armor. "It's the White Leo Brigade's turn to hold the perimeter, so don't let any dumbfucks in or out. I'm rejoining the main force for the assault, but I'll double back if anybody needs me. Just make sure you don't damage your backpack if you gotta fight. You're carrying spare battery packs for the members escaping this way."
"Oh, right. G-got it! Uh, was I supposed to bring my Leo inside the peri-"
"By the fucking gods, yes. Strap in and walk it over, keep as much of a distance to the jammer as possible. I don't think it'll actually hamper us, but why fucking risk it."
"Ew. Trash Rarity. That's bad luck." Jaune muttered, snapping his fingers as a Shadow brought him a random Dust Crystal from his stash back at his little hideout in Domremy. "Thanks, buddy."
The black shadowy mouse saluted as he tossed the small chunk of Dust into his Inventory, seeing it disappear and the Gacha to light up again instead.
Tsk. Only one pull.
The process repeated twice more before he got something decent to wash away the bad luck.
SR Rarity Consumable: Banked Crit (x16 +1!)
Origin: Commonwealth Wasteland of Apocalyptic Earth Scenario #BSW007
Description: Taking the form of a single golden coin marked on both sides with the Head icon, once a day a consumption of this item can guarantee a mighty critical blow. It is said that those lucky enough could even bank up to four such moments of powerful luck to level against their foes.
In the end, it tended to be a lot less impressive than it advertised. Luck was fickle and unreliable. Two critical strikes on the same object could yield wildly different amounts of damage. The whole concept of a critical blow was confusing anyways. Really, the real benefit of this item was the fact that if you invoked a crit, you didn't miss. And it always landed somewhere vaguely important.
Yeah, an absolute perfect moment of accuracy was the real shit.
At least it seemed good against Grimm where you couldn't tell their heads were, like The Burrower all those years back. It was essentially a massive earthworm, where only a vague gods knows what acted as some sort of central core or brain or heart or whatever.
Grimm were weird.
There was a reason most Huntsmen used melee weapons. Sure despite not seeming to have actual brains, cutting off the head seemed to do the trick. It was the most reliable thing one could do most times. And even if they didn't have hearts, usually there was some sort of strange psychosomatic effect where piercing the 'heart' of a Grimm could cause it to die.
Maybe core might be more accurate, though there was never a visible structure inside a Grimm but bright red or inky black.
As if they just arbitrarily decided that was a method they could die, despite clearly not having a heart or a cardiovascular system in general.
He reached out to the now stack of seventeen gold coins of Banked Crit, letting the glimmering coin roll over his fingers, flipping it to his left hand and letting it roll the coin back and forth.
While he'd mastered his weird magical exercises that gave him proper ambidextrousity, it still didn't hurt to mess around and keep himself sharp.
It distracted him from the clownsuit he was wearing.
He was just waiting for Weiss to be out of her dressing room, feeling stupid with a gold dress shirt that glimmered like it was made from sparkling powder. Seriously, he felt if he rubbed it against a wall it would come off like paint. The slacks and blazer fit really well though, giving him full mobility as it had been hand tailored.
He also definitely wasn't a big fan of ties, even if he was wearing a simple skinny black one right now.
He had clothing from the Gacha that he could have used for the save effect, but noooo the Festival was offering to handle his costume, which was to say, they had to mandate and approve it, so he was sort of stuck with it.
He had even needed to be called out of class for a fitting before Winter Break.
Either way, they allowed his own footwear, so he got to slip on a set of comfortable hightops instead of dress shoes. It was a bit of green canvas against black soles and toe caps. Simple stuff.
He was also asked to wear gloves, but he just lazily slipped into his favorite bodysuit with his Inventory, covering his hands in dragon scales. That was still super cool. Like, come on.
Dragon Scales.
His toes nudged against a gold explorer type electric guitar propped up next to him. Gaudy thing, but the shape was kinda cool. The whole asymmetry aspect of it was decently neat.
"Weiss, how much longer do I need to wait out here?"
The halls by their dressing rooms were oddly quiet. It just kind of gave him a bad feeling.
"Just finishing, Jaune. You can't rush perfection."
Now that was a Robin line if he'd ever heard one. On that note, he hadn't actually heard from Cinder yet about meeting Robin. Hmm. He should look into that. At least there didn't seem like anything was wrong, but it didn't hurt to check in.
Was that nosy?
"Ok, now I'm done. This would have gone a lot faster if the esthetician didn't leave with a sudden family emergency. Good thing we got here early."
That was good, they still needed to make sure they picked up Ren from his-
The door opened and Jaune's brain went through a forced reboot.
"Ugh. I can't believe the second son of the Goten clan's been reduced to this."
Rin Capricorn grumbled as she dragged the muttering and somewhat emaciated man along. When she'd become an attendant for the Clan after graduating finishing school, she'd expected to have to do some minor escorting and attending work (and that really was the majority of her work, with a bit of light housekeeping).
Not dragging along former Huntsmen or Huntsmen in training or whatever Iwou Goten had been.
She was just a civilian! She kept in shape, sure as her contract demanded a level of fitness and health for aesthetic purposes, but even withered down (and why did he look like that) he was heavy and too delirious to pull around easily.
On that note, why was he here up in Amity Colosseum holding onto a creepy as hell walking stick? Nobles might be the ones putting food on her plate, but man they were all weird as hell.
Sure she was paid to not ask questions (and paid well for an orphan girl that had come from nothing) but this was scary. Scary enough that when someone claiming to be a member of the Black Knights came along and offered her protection in case for information on her work today she'd agreed just for peace of mind.
That way in case somebody tried to have her silenced after today or something crazy, somebody would know something had gone wrong.
It was a breach of contract, sure, but she needed the peace of mind it gave.
"Ok. Don't worry Rin. Just take him up to the upper rafters. They'll sneak a balloon up there to carry him back off to the Goten Clan Compound, you get the rest of your money, and go back to normal jobs." She muttered to herself, tugging at the now creepily giggling man. "Ugh. Just keep him out of sight. They cleared the path up. Everything's fine."
Things had been a bit dicey when they'd passed by the room where Jaune Arc (he was cute for a Faunus boy) was off flirting with Weiss Schnee (lucky rich bitch, imagine being born into that kind of money), but since Iwou was fully cloaked in a rough disguise, they'd passed without much attention.
Thank goodness she'd found a spare costume to drape over him. He looked like a giant paper origami star from some dumb fairy tale. Rin knew vaguely about it, but she'd never had the time to indulge in such things when she was busy pulling herself up by the bootstraps.
What good was childhood when it didn't feed her? A girl had to live.
She continued to pull and drag the softly giggling and cackling man behind her.
"I should have never taken this request. I knew they were offering way too much Lien for something so simple."
This was so creepy!
Thank the gods he wasn't forcing himself on her as she pulled him away to their destination. If she was found out refusing a Goten clan member for any reason, that came with penalties.
"Is there something wrong, Governor Geumnamu?" The General smiled casually, though his eyes were measuring the demeanor of the current leader of the five Great Houses. "You appear stressed."
"Ah, it's nothing." The bald, grossly overweight, and richly dressed man assured, wiping a bit of perspiration from his forehead with a silk handkerchief. "Just having a bit of trouble contacting a bookmaker. Nothing to be worried about."
Mercedes kept her polite smile on her face, saying nothing about the blatant lie.
Well most people wouldn't be able to judge the spiking heart rate and elevated levels of cortisol caught in her Nikke body's chem sniffers as the man sweat out stress.
It wasn't her business unless the General decided that it was as such. Her cousin Annette just smirked in her enhanced peripheral vision, getting Mercedes to reach out to give her the barest of pinches.
Elm, being Victory Wing's second in command when Soline was busy guarding Penny's main body, just gave the two a look with her gold-amber eyes, reminding them to behave.
"Are you sure? I would be happy to discreetly lend a hand." The General pressed lightly, a friendly smile still on his face, "Any member of Victory Wing would be capable of handling whatever small issue it is. I'm sure their reputations don't need repeating even in Mistral."
"W-well, when you put it that way…" The sweaty man's eyes danced over the forms of all the Nikke in the room, clearly his mind elsewhere before snapping back, "I do suppose it wouldn't hurt to get a little bit of professional help. As the mighty General of Atlas, you likely know of Mistral's Imperial Vault?"
The General's vitals implied that the final word, vault had more meaning to him. Hmm. She hadn't meant to catch that. Either way, it wasn't important for Mercedes to know, so she'd put it to the side.
It wasn't necessary to pry into any of the General's secrets, after all.
"Of course. It's been an important establishment to Mistral before even the Great War began." General Ironwood nodded, "Every General has been aware of the establishment."
"Aha ha, yes, as former allies, that would certainly be the case." Governor Geumnamu agreed in a flattering tone, as if Mistral hadn't betrayed Atlas back when it had been Mantle, "Certainly, certainly. Well oddly I've received notification that communications to it seems to have been hampered somehow. I'm sure it's nothing, our preparations and defenses due to the nature of the Vytal Festival are pristine, but it's just a minor concern, truly."
"Specialist Mercedes?"
"Yes, General." She stepped up with a pleasant smile, ignoring the Mistralian Governor's gaze rising to her bosom. "How may I assist?"
"Please help the good Governer reestablish communications to the Imperial Vault. Please offer a thorough sweep of the area in case of any ne'er do wells."
She gave a calm salute.
"Understood, General."
A small burst of text appeared in her vision from the General.
Assist in full capacity, record everything for data purposes. Keep things within diplomatic bounds per protocol Blue Falcon.
While they weren't enemies by any means, there was no reason to not get some modern data on the Imperial Vault. It was a waste of an opportunity not to, after all.
"Ah, thank you, thank you. You're too kind, General."
Mercedes turned leave, the Fusion Powered Laser-Partisan-Sword Guilty on her hip humming to life (at a pitch inaudible to human ears, though some Faunus could pick it up) from a mental command as the micro-fusion cell began to activate and fill the weapon with power.
There was no need to activate it at the moment in full, or even draw the sword and extend it into the partisan. The white body of the high-tech sword was warm on her hip as she passed by Jaune and Weiss on their way to perform now that the next few matches were wrapping up soon, and it would be their half-time performance alongside some trapeze troupe from southern Animus.
She gave Jaune a teasing comment about how cute the two of them looked together and a friendly, light hug as she continued on towards a docking zone.
While the General had come only with his personal entourage a la Victory Wing, that didn't mean there weren't auxiliary officers that came to support. There were two armored Bullheads that had come in accompaniment, one currently with Captain Soline and Penny's main body, but the other was a spare in case of emergency or just for general use.
Which meant it was fine to just take it down into Mistral.
Although Atlas too had clandestine locations designated as public fronts, knowing that a luxurious brothel led into one of the hidden passageways of the Singing Mountain was a bit distasteful to Mercedes's own sensibilities.
As it was to cater to the privacy of Great Houses of Mistral, as well as smaller but rich and influential families, the Imperial Vault lacked much in the way of surveillance. Good for guaranteeing anonymity and privacy, but bad for actual protection.
But it didn't take long for her to detect an electromagnetic anomaly in the area.
A small side path had been dug out and covered in a thick, textured cloth, rock and dirt of similar shade glued over the cover.
And a bit before it, as if mimicking the occasional sconce filled with Burn Dust, was a peculiar fixture with a green filled glass tube with buzzing Lightning Dust surrounding it. Her body was fine, but it was clear to her enhanced eyes that this was the source of the electromagnetic anomaly, possibly something that helped jam communications.
It was surprising how effective it seemed despite how rudimentary. Mercedes mentally took an additional photograph (beyond the current recordings) for later analysis.
It appeared unguarded, but it was guarded as a potential ambush, hmm?
"It appears the worries aren't unfounded. To the stranger hiding in the walls, please step out unless you wish for me to use my Semblance to crush you in place."
Her Aura coursed through the artificial Aura channels developed by Professor Polendina. The sensation of smooth, worked stone, the scent of wet mortar and violets, filled her Nikke body.
She drew Guilty from her waist, the shortsword shaped body emitting a plasma edge in a bluish green, powered by fusion energy.
She pointed it at the disguised bit of wall, ready to let the weapon release the plasma like a shotgun's scattershot.
"I am the Iron Wall, Mercedes of Victory Wing, defenders of Mantle. Please come in quietly."
They must have understood the implication of her name and position (unfortunately they chose aggression), as a black armored form edged in gray flung itself through the curtain, an old Atlasean rifle firing upon her as she collapsed the small passageway behind them.
The plasma edge of Guilty caused the Dust Rounds to fizzle out and pop as she deflected the shots, releasing a blast of scattering plasma from the tip as it scorched the front of the armor, causing black paint to burn and fizzle into twisting black smoke.
Her weapon thrust, meeting the shoulder, the plasma edge beginning to heat and cut through the armor as the sword straightened into a partisan spear, a wall of earth rising from behind to pin her opponent against, her partisan's blade protrusions extending to anchor around the armored shoulder.
Muffled by the helmet, but still audible to Mercedes senses, she heard the woman inside the armor begin to call for reinforcements to a Black Knight Two.
Oh my. This just got both interesting and complicated, didn't it?
Another wall erupted in front of the armor, letting Mercedes pull her weapon away and allow the earth and stone structure to sandwich the metal form. An arm tugged loose, requiring an additional layer of walls from both ends to add more pressure.
Rather tenacious.
The base of her partisan pointed up to the Dust jammer set into the wall, firing a blast of plasma and detonating it.
Mmm. The interference was still lingering a bit longer. Surprisingly it was rather surprising how well it operated for how rudimentary it was.
It would still make things a bit complicated, however. To wait and send back word, or to press on? It would depend a bit on how many of the insurgent group were present.
"Excuse me." Mercedes leaned next to the bound 'knight' to better catch their biometrics through their armor, "I'll need you to answer some questions for me either way. It's fine if you give me a lie, as long as you give me an answer at all. I find torture rather distasteful."
Lie detectors weren't a perfect thing, but measuring biometrics could still help gain some insight, assuming her opponent wasn't trained to resist such things. Even better if they didn't even know they were being observed in such a manner in the first place.
"Hiii~ We're going to have to make this super quick. I have somewhere to be."
Where was she?
This ceiling was unfamiliar.
Her body was numb, her tongue refused to move.
"Sorry about that. There's still some strong aerosol dispensed paralytics in your system at the moment. Oh, but don't worry about the caravan you were traveling with. At least I can promise that there's no need to worry about them. As you might currently notice, it's quite painless. Heck, you've been out for days, apparently."
That didn't sound like a lie, oddly enough. Amber only prayed it was the truth.
That was all that she could hope for, given the circumstances.
"Just think of it as a bit of bad luck you-"
Amber closed her eyes to focus on her magic.
She'd been drugged before, bandits posing as traders, but her Maiden powers had seen her through regardless, even if her Aura had been muddled and only half-responsive.
"-ldn't do that if I were you. Getting an ancient magic restraining collar was hard, but not impossible. You didn't think that we'd capture you without doing our research, right? The ruins of ancient civilizations didn't just disappear, even if the majority of their lands crumbled to dust. Oh and you've got Aura Cuffs too. You probably can't feel it from the drugs though. I wasn't here for it, but I know you got injected with some follow up stuff."
…well. This was all a bit earlier than she'd hoped for.
She'd made peace with the eventuality, but Amber had always assumed she'd die doing what she loved, saving the innocent. Fighting for the people, especially those who couldn't bear the depressing grind of the Capitols. Those who loved freedom as she did in the Valean way.
"If it's worth anything, I am sorry about this. I don't really like all this sneaking around business. Feel free to blame Ozpin, though. In case you didn't know, it was one of his previous lives that had been the source of the Four Maidens in the first place."
That wasn't news to Amber. She'd gotten the truth from the man eventually. It was one of the reasons that despite working with him, she refused to stay around him, even for her own safety. She never could stomach the man after learning that.
"The funny thing was, it wasn't even altruistic like he portrays. That was a story he left behind afterwards, when he needed to cover for himself. It's a 'fairy tale' but one that's only existed officially for what, sixty or so years now? Aside from the Relics he'd hidden in what way he could before his great Vaults, he was the only other source of Mana remaining. Grimm could hunt him wherever he went. He was a Beacon. He was just so desperate to throw off the scent that he took drastic measures."
Amber's captor laughed, shaking their head.
That couldn't be true. It had to be a lie. Ozpin was many things, but… but…
"So he split his Magic Organ into four, keeping only a small hideable share of magic in his soul for emergencies, and forced them onto the first four people he met to use them as scapegoats. It's why the whole system is so arbitrary. The fragments of his magic organ just keep looking for hosts similar in personality to the ones he'd forced it on in the first place. Some orphaned girls he met in a slum somewhere as he passed through a settlement. That's why it looks for people that are decently young too. Honestly, what kind of person makes a rule like 'they have to be about thirty or younger' without having a huge fetish for such things specifically?"
No. No it… he wouldn't. The Ozpin she knew was tired, battered, always putting up a front but… Amber only knew the current Ozpin.
"Kinda messed up, right? He didn't even account for them when he made his Vaults. The plan was to seal the Relics forever. Denial. Just used fragments of his remaining power in accordance to the concepts of the four Cardinal Humors, Mind, Hunger, Emotion, and Form, that made up his Origin using his remaining pool of mana as a key. Because he thought that now without more of magic attuned to Ozma there were no keys. The Vaults were little different from graves. His final act of defiance."
The worst part was that the idea of denial was something Ozpin had admitted to. That the Vaults' purpose was to deny Salem access to them. That it was their goal from the beginning. It shouldn't make sense. It shouldn't, but it did.
"He thought that without him, the broken pieces of his Magic Organ would die with their original hosts. You might have noticed though that they didn't. They had the same kind of shitty immortality that he did. The Maidens inheriting the shards, pieces of an immortal soul-parasite and becoming keys was an accident. There weren't supposed to be any keys in the first place. For example, the inside of the Atlas Vault is apparently a pretty little prairie with flowers and everything, but it's opened by the Winter Maiden. There was never any rhyme or reason, it's purely one big spiritual oopsie. You're like the living embodiment of a game of magical chairs where winning makes you some sort of illegitimate daughter and he's not exactly paying child support."
Amber weakly looked up, looking for any trace of a lie. Her tongue still felt like a lump of lead in her mouth.
No. No. No no no.
"So be a dear, and just go quietly, ok? You don't need to pass it onto anyone else to curse them with your fate. You can free her. Whoever your intended successor is. You can break the cycle. Just let it end. This was never a noble cause. It was only ever a beacon of lies."
Cinder.
"I see a spark in your eye. Do you want to protect her? Keep bad people away from her? Then stop thinking about her. Don't do it. You know it's in her best interest."
I'm sorry. I wish I had been a bit more like you. Willing to confront my failings and shame. That I fought to overcome my weaknesses and be more than the circumstances of my past. I ran away, claiming that I wanted freedom. But you were a girl who could see the darkness in her soul and still choose to accept yourself. To be better. Maybe not in another life, not without a helping hand, but in this, seeing the back of a girl fighting her demons to the end-
A cold muzzle of a gun pressed against her forehead.
"Eyes on me now. Good girl. Don't force us to go kill her too. Because we will."
I'm proud of you. I wish I could have-
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