Chương 92: 92
"All students! Align yourselves by the…" The older Huntsman, scratched his beard, an earpiece in his ear by shaggy graying hair, "the Northern wall…s? We still have Grimm headed that way and that, uh, giant Hard-Light tech doesn't fit the Great Walls perfectly. All you need to do is man the gap! Watch your sides, as some of the Huntsmen on those walls will be replacing your presence here!"
Pyrrha took a deep breath, nodding as she began to walk down the top of the wall towards the glowing half-dome that had suddenly appeared. She'd no idea that Mistral had been sitting on that much Hard Light Dust. Despite the moniker, the substance was technically artificially manufactured, requiring some of Atlas's best technology to manufacture.
It must have been Jaune.
Her hand gripped hard on Milo as she walked, head held high, ignoring the whispers that the Pride of Mistral was here to assist on the frontlines.
What did that matter when she was being relegated to the safest spot anyways? Not as if she wasn't afraid of death or the like, but she'd refused being sent to Vale to safety like the rest of Jaune's friends and family, choosing to fight for her Kingdom instead.
Emerald walked silently in line behind her, a facemask having been pulled from inside the collar of her uniform, slipping up even over her nose, only one of her Garnet Oaths currently been drawn, her other hand holding onto a small metal box of ammunition chambered for her weapon provided by the Capital.
She herself had a pair of similar boxes of ammunition for Milo, though it was being carried by a volunteer that walked alongside them, ready to load ammunition into her empty magazines for her.
Because of training with Jaune, Pyrrha had gotten used to keeping three extra magazines on her person, but suddenly that amount of ammo felt wholly insufficient.
Walk with purpose it had been requested of her.
She inspired hope, though Pyrrha wasn't sure how much of that she even deserved anymore.
"My master is counting on you." Emerald's voice was faint and soft, only audible to her own ears.
As much of a lie that it was, having lost contact with Jaune, unlike Pyrrha herself, Emerald was filled with a conviction that the taller girl couldn't understand.
Faith and hope. Her green haired friend was so seemingly full of such that Pyrrha was jealous, even as her spine straightened instinctively at her friend's words.
"If you must, picture his smile when all of this is over. In truth, I am… jealous of you. You can offer him something I never could. Please, continue to do so."
Pyrrha turned, feeling her eyes moisten.
"...You too. I'm jealous of you too, Emma." Her arms quickly reached out to pull the shorter girl into a hug, pulling her friend into her bosom. She felt a bit bad for the girl whose forehead had to rub into the leather breastplate that reached up to her neckline. Despite the suggestions of the image advisors that suggested she show more skin, she'd never felt too comfortable with the idea. "Please, keep being my friend, as well as Jaune's. For all the days to come."
"...Naturally."
Pyrrha didn't notice the small misanga bracelet that Emerald had tied around her wrist until much later.
Heavy fire erupted from the top of the Great Walls of Mistral, the large turret installations focusing fire on the biggest of the Grimm that could be culled quickly, prioritizing targets in the air.
Unlike the normal coding which would have simply caused them to fire upon any and all targets within the turret's camera's line of sight, not unlike that of Vale's it seemed Jaune had taken the extra time granted by the extravagant spreading of Lien all over the Capital to upgrade the systems.
That suited Taiyang just fine.
He had to help buy time for his wife Raven to recover, currently sitting behind him, Omen still on her hip, as she took deep breaths in an attempt to recover as much stamina and Aura as possible.
Magnhilde let loose a multi-colored heart shaped volley of the whole of its ammunition a second time, having been forced into his hands by Jaune's adopted sister, who'd insisted that even if she wasn't allowed to fight to help her brother, her weapon would assist.
It erupted explosively against a mass of Grimm beginning to crawl up the SouthWest side of the Great Wall, sending Grimm and their constituent fragments flying.
His hands began to blur to reload the weapon, Man-At-Arms taking the helm to control the weapon as if it was his own, smoothly filling up the grenade launcher in under two seconds. The volunteer at his side quickly began to place another set of 40mm Dust Grenades by his side in preparation for the next reload.
Not far to his left, Summer was firing up into the air, S'more tearing through aerial Grimm as well as any turret. The problem would have been refilling her ammunition supplies, as with a volunteer applying a generous coating of cooling Ice Dust from an aerosol spray can, the weapon could fire fast enough to chew through the giant drum mag in mere dozens of seconds.
Though Jaune had supplied a rather large stack of them through his Semblance, delivered by what looked like little mice. Weird kid, but there wasn't any time to poke fun at his potential son-in-law while there were bigger issues at hand.
A thick beam of light sickly yellow-black erupted overhead, striking into a large flying Grimm, tearing a line through three or so aerial monsters before striking into the largest Grimm that seemed to be acting as anchor for the whole of this invading force.
Raven and Summer had both called it Shinryu, as if astonished (and a bit horrified) by its appearance. Frankly plenty of Mistralians had been shaken by it upon its approach, as the ancient Elder Grimm appeared to share strong resemblances to one of Mistral's central Pantheon of worshiped gods.
A demoralizing presence created by the Queen.
The flying dragon, long and coiling, roared from its wingless heights, somehow floating in the air against all logic. A follow up shot fired almost instantly after, this one being a dark orange, bordering on red.
Victory Wing's Headhunter, Annette Lyons was taking a point from the edge of Haven Academy above, acting as an insanely high power long range sniper artillery. This was the first time anyone had seen the maximum firepower of her weapon, another one of Jaune's creations, not unlike S'more, but despite the insane range, it didn't seem as if the damage falloff was very much, as it kept the Elder Grimm back everytime it appeared to consider moving in to muscle it's way into Haven.
It wouldn't keep it from doing so forever, the body seeming to absorb the dregs of Grimm that died around it, as if growing in power from the death of every Grimm. Frankly that was the biggest danger to them all.
Even so, her Semblance Vent took all the residual heat from firing her frankly anti-ship level weapon, and let her fire it from her fingers like a second shot, though considerably less powerful than her initial snipe.
And despite the Shinryu growing more powerful with every Grimm slain, the black particles of dark matter floating up towards the Elder Grimm in the light of the dying and setting sun, like polluted air, the powerful blasts rocked against the flying dragon every ten or so seconds.
A golden beam erupted from the walls further to his left, further South, as he could see the form of the resurrected Specialist Elm of Victory Wing as she let loose a mighty stream of continual bright golden light, like a magical blade of legend, erupting into the air.
Unlike her teammate, this thicker beam of continuous light could only be maintained for a seeming dozen seconds, fired every fourty or so seconds as she lacked the same sort of venting ability as her teammate.
This, on the other hand, the Elder Grimm acted much more proactively against, as if determining it to be a threat it could work to counteract.
Though it would be more tactically useful, normally, to fire it at the hoards below, with the Shinryu gaining obvious strength from the sacrifice of its smaller fellows, it was necessary to limit the growth of the already massive flying Grimm as much as possible.
And yet, a blackish eruption of dark red power erupted from a long central horn on the top of its head, meeting the golden blade of light head on, clashing violently in the middle.
As another set of grenade fire erupted from his borrowed weapon, matching the beam of black-yellow fire of the energy sniper from the Headhunter, smashing into the horn, but unable to break it, though it cracked momentarily, causing the beam from Specialist Elm to rise up further, though still unable to find purchase.
That had only been five seconds!
A dark orange light struck the side of the Shinryu, shattering black scales.
Still all the damage healed quickly as black pollutant fragments rose into the air, being pulled into the Elder Grimm's body.
His hands blurred to reload his weapon, the grenades loading back in a tenth of a second faster than the previous reload. He was impressed at the volunteer's quick hands, placing the ammunition quickly within easy reach, all without causing them to roll about, despite the chaos of the battlefield.
There was a large thud, his wife Summer detaching her empty drum mag to the side, the barrels of her double barrel LMG being cooled with a heavy application of Ice Dust spray.
How long could they keep this up?
Twin Heat Chete in his hands glowed with more power than they'd ever had before.
Though Jaune fucking Arc hadn't updated any other of their gear, his batteries somehow felt as if they provided more power to their gear and armor. It didn't make any sense, but Yuma wasn't really going to question it.
All he knew was that without worrying about his power supply, he could FLY.
The thrusters could work off of both power and Dust, though the former was normally so cost ineffective it was useless, although now it was offset by the power source supplied by the North Star of Menagerie.
As his Blue Leos leapt from the walls with thick metal cords tied to their back harness like some sort of overkill bungee cords, their weapons sinking into Grimm as they crashed down like little black meteors, he was flying in his Leo, striking into aerial Grimm. He only returned back down to the wall every half minute to be sprayed down with icy cold Ice Dust to allow him to fly once more.
There was a concern about the strength of the armor after all this rapid heating and cooling, but that was a bridge to cross later. Right now he and the rest of the Knights had to be focused on fighting for their lives.
His heart raced, his senses strained, his bones ached, his joints rumbled from every impact, but Yuma roared past the pain and stress, his weapons flashing with crimson light.
Some flying Grimm, some kind of lion with wings and an uglier white mask, slammed into his side, the teeth crushing into his armored ribs, the groaning of reinforced steel alloy barely holding.
His weapon dug into the faceplate of the Grimm again and again, forcing it to let go as he adjusted his wings, his thrusters firing at full, both Heat Chete held in front, shearing through a wing and sending the monster falling below.
Below he could see the metal cords reeling back up, pulling his Brigade back up from the mass of Grimm that they'd crashed and torn into.
One of the wires came up empty.
Yuma bit his lip deep enough to draw blood, relying fully on his Aura for enhanced senses, rather than defense, relying fully on the integrity of his armor for protection, as he tore through another Grimm.
He dove down, searching for his missing subordinate, seeing a mass of Grimm coalescing around a flailing red axe.
"I'm coming!"
"AHHHHHH! CAPTAIN DON'T! I CAN'T-GGruuughgh-"
A wet gurgle was cut off as the axe shuddered and fell limp from the grip of his subordinate.
Yuma howled as he descended like a dark angel, his twin blades screeching with heat.
"S~alu~tations!" Penny greeted from her Main Body™, currently wearing a black thin armor that her Father Jaune had sent via one of his little adorable Semblance mice. A helmet akin to her fellow compatriots was worn over her head, purely for assisting the preservation of her identity. "I have come to offer my assistance, as discussed by the General! I am Combat Ready™!"
Unlike her fellows, her suit had exposed soles to allow her thrusters to function, as she could not fly.
And though she had no Maiden Powers™, with the compilation of technology by her Fathers and her trusty partner, Floating Array at her back, she would be able to keep up and assist as a guard for the two more powerful Huntresses in training.
"Green." The taller Maiden noted in her red and black suit. She did not fly as fast as the short pink Maiden. "Thank you for coming to help."
The Pink Maiden turned to snap, a rupture of lightning descending from the darkening skies to blast into the Elder Grimm™ Codename Shinryu, before turning back to Penny.
"It's nice to meet you, P-Green. Jaune's told us what he's allowed to spill about you. If you would like, you could consider me an Aunt or Mother."
"What the fuck, Half-Pint?"
Penny felt her internal Intelligence Processing Array™ overclock briefly for three cycles as she flew forwards to catch the Pink Maiden in a hug, squeezing hard, not noticing the sudden slaps at her back from the hardening of her suit's recoil gel.
"AirAirAirAirAirAirAirAirAirAir"
"Oh, my apologies!" Penny flew back, her feet adjusting the angle to counteract her momentum to bring herself to a stop. "My apologies, potential M-Aunt! Fa-I mean, Uncle Jaune always mentions I require to watch my strength!"
She performed an Apology Prayer Hands™ as she explained.
"I am not usually in my higher performance state, I'm sorry I am not used to this difference in my baseline." Penny bowed at a ninety degree angle (When in Mistral, do as the Mistralians do!) her hands on her knees, Floating Array stored in its backpack state on her upper back.
"Ah, it is fine, do not worry. It's not a big deal, don't sweat it."
Her new prospective Mother's curious dual cadence aside, even the joy of the Pink Maiden's offer to act as Penny's mother couldn't pull her attention away from their current Mission Objective™.
Floating Array opened up and unfolded from her back, held aloft by thin wires as the miniaturized fusion power reactor where her heart and lungs should be continued to fill her with energy.
Each blade tip retracted to reveal an empty barrel, firing green lasers from within, striking down a small flock of undeveloped Nevermore that had made it past the first line of defense.
Though the Huntsmen and volunteers on the Great Wall™ were doing a valiant job, handfuls of aerial Grimm were already making their way past the undefended half the airspace.
"I shall ensure both of your safety! I am Bodyguard Ready™!" Penny declared, her weapon array returning back to a resting state behind her.
"Then we'll be relying on you." Red Maiden spoke, nodding as flame began to manifest at her fingertips. "I'm especially… new… to this all."
"I shall not fail you, Red Maiden™!"
The three of them began to fly for the frontlines, Prospective Mother™ Pink Maiden™ leading the way with windstorm and lightning.
All seven of his Multi-Fabricators were placed down, churning out ammunition to be delivered to all non-Huntsman volunteers as well as to the turrets all over Mistral.
Unlike Dust ammunition, these were Earth styled, gunpowder and all, which meant there was more concern over carbon buildup, but that couldn't be helped. They'd have to make due with more concerns of overheating than with normal Impact Dust ammunition.
The rich second and third sons had been skimming off the top for a long while, embezzling the funds that were supposed to go to the defense of the Capital and really only had enough to run the turrets for small bursts of displays and scaring off smaller Grimm. In their complacency, they never prepared for a real assault by the forces of darkness.
Fucking morons. Jaune fumed silently in the dark room, his fingers adjusting the algorithms for the turret system to account for gunpowder rounds the best he could.
Various screens displaying the conditions of the battlefield were shown to him.
Specialist Annette, her body smoking with white steam that erupted from her form as a result of overworking her Semblance Vent. Specialist Elm fired lobs of explosive plasma into the hoards of Grimm below, turning Laplace into a hammer to swing with plasma boosted swings whenever a Grimm crawled too far up the walls. Specialist Soline and Mercedes were running about in the streets of Mistral's lower levels, clearing up any Grimm that got past the initial defenses.
Pyrrha and Emerald firing and clearing out Grimm by the more heavily defended North side of Mistral's Capital. He'd sent his dependent friend additional armor in the form of a thin Impact Suit like he'd supplied the Maidens and Penny, though hers was lighter so it wouldn't interfere with her outfit.
She'd been given a pair of SSR Rarity Equipment: Sacrificial Misanga to help keep them alive, though even to this day Jaune only had a mere five to his name, now one, as he'd additionally forced a pair onto Cinder and Trivia without much explanation, only that it was necessary.
Saving a Maiden from a mortal blow was necessary, especially since magic could still be used when Aura was depleted fully.
The open Inventory by his side burned in his vision, filled with golden items that he'd just pulled from the Gacha, as if the strange otherworldly device was taunting him.
"...fuck it."
His hand reached over, entering the window in the corner of his vision, pulling out a length crimson cloth, glimmering with golden dust. It was bundled, wrapped in strange chains with the appearance and texture of tree bark, small green-gold leaves growing from the links. Additionally they were adorned with tiny red flower buds.
SSR Rarity Consumable: Summon Ritual Package - Archer
Origin: Remnant
Description: She who Ascended outside the flow of time. The young leader of four sisters in arms, seeking to return to bring peace to the world.
It had appeared in a strange Event Pull (an occurrence that had never happened in all his years with the Gacha), guaranteeing a single SSR Rarity reward every ten pull for five sets of ten after everyone had left.
Considering that with a bit of luck every one of those items could change the tide, Jaune couldn't stop himself from dumping a slew of Dust into it, even though one of his Multi-Fabricators were also depending on his enormous stores of stolen Dust to help create ammunition for the Huntsmen defenders.
He had… so many questions.
Especially when he'd seen the Summon Ritual Package Saber. Especially when all five of the new SSR Rarity items were all Summon Ritual Packages. As if it was preordained.
In addition, never had the Gacha given him the ability to summon a permanent Servant, only allowed to manifest powerful warriors for short spans of time with Cards, having even over a dozen Caster Cards and a set of three Lancers.
And on top of that… well.
They were curious.
Something terrifyingly familiar, somehow. As if threatening everything he knew to be true, whispering insidiously inside his soul that there would be no going back, should he use it. Enough that he'd almost pulled out a Disassembler out of a sense of strange existential dread on pure instinct.
Naturally, he'd forced down that idea as soon as it came up. Servants were powerful and he couldn't let a strange, irrational fear dictate his actions.
He took a deep breath, scrolling to the top of his Inventory, staring at the two objects listed at the top, reaching for… no. He couldn't be trusted to control that alone, not without someone to keep him in check. It was a role that he'd found himself subconsciously assigning Emerald, somehow.
The crimson spool of thin rope of the second item was meant for his green haired confidant.
Because the primary item it was to counteract was yet still too frightening to Jaune.
He was ashamed that he didn't have the courage to take that step. Not now. One day. One day it'd be necessary, he could feel it. One day he'd hit that wall and be forced to plow through it, regardless of the consequences. He dreaded it.
He scrolled down a tad, past his weaponry but stopped before the endless wall of foodstuff, a section dedicated to various emergencies. He still had something that would do enough.
Despite what everyone believed, Jaune himself had no mana to manipulate, always cheating with the Gacha. He wasn't magic at all. Not by himself.
But the Gacha could let him cheat yet further. A lesser version would still do.
The High-Grade Artificial Magical Crest burned into his chest, crawling up the sides of his neck like dark green circuitry, covering his torso as it seared into his flesh.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Juniper leapt from the walls, Crocea Mors flashing as he roared, both Pyrrha's Eternal Arms Mastery and Charisma skills roared through his system as it also brought courage and power to the Huntsmen and Huntresses on the Great Wall behind him.
Though he had no true training in handling magic, this was now his second time acting as a Servant.
And even after overclocking his Gracia Salutaris to its limits and making it transcend it's normal output by forcing years of accumulated mana into it, he still had been stockpiling with Jaune for eight years, though about a third of it had bled off from his incomplete state as a mere spirit.
"Take this!"
It was akin to a rough partial release of his Noble Phantasm: Crocea Mors, releasing a mere burst of mana to enhance his strikes tenfold, clearing a small mountain of Grimm that had begun to pile up against the wall, forming a ramp for their fellows to climb.
It certainly didn't whip the whole pile out of existence, but even dispersing Grimm added to morale. Nobody liked seeing a pile of howling Grimm forming a living ramp up over a dozen meters of wall.
And unfortunately it appeared that killing too many smaller Grimm without care would only strengthen the Elder Grimm flying above, roughly the size of a trail of Leviathans holding each other by the ankles, twisting and curving in the air as black ash rose to meet it.
It wasn't the ginormous Grimm whale that Salem had rode in on, but it was still massive in scales beyond what even he could handle alone.
Another swing of Crocea Mors sent back a pack of Grimm, slaying about a third from the rough impact of mana. He wasn't sure how much of this newfound technique came from his now long familiarity with the feel of mana or Pyrrha's Eternal Arms Mastery at work, but aside from how wasteful it was mana-wise, it sure was handy.
Still, now that he was on the ground, all he could see were Grimm extending far beyond the farmlands outside of the Capital, trampling over the food supplies of Mistral, extending far beyond into even the woods of Animus, nothing but black bodied Grimm as far as the eye could see.
He only hoped the poor farmers had managed to get safely into the city.
"How fast can I run?" He muttered to himself, dashing forwards, his feet erupting with mana as it flung him forwards like a bullet, his blade swinging through another ramp of Grimm bodies, sending them flying back.
Ok, really fast, certainly not enough to make the full round around the Capital in the blink of an eye, but he might make a full circle before the rest of the hour ran out.
It wouldn't solve any real problem, but he could prevent land-bound Grimm from entering the Capital easily by running straight over the walls, as that was a genuine concern, it seeming as if in some of the slightly weaker defensive points some Grimm were already beginning to push on top of the walls.
He'd fire everything that remained within him with a Command Seal boosted Crocea Mors at that giant flying dragon (of course Salem had a SECOND flying damned dragon, although this one didn't seem to spawn Grimm like the one at Vale) which was being held back well by-
There was a ripple of mana in the air as dozens of spears of light tore through the air above, scattering against the body of the long wingless dragon, causing the Elder Grimm to let out a screech of pain.
The Mystic Eye of Transience.
Pyrrha let out a triumphant sensation within, excited to see the scattering shots push the Elder Grimm back.
But there was a flaw with the technique, as all the shots stopped in space more or less where they'd originally made contact with the Grimm, and with its long flowing body and the way it traveled and twisted in the air, some shots that would have landed missed purely as they could not extend far enough.
Still through his enhanced Servant senses, he'd counted about four or five solid contacts from that volley of a few dozen flashes of light, not even counting the small bits of scattering grazes.
Still it was regenerating well enough, as there were simply too many smaller Grimm to feed off of.
They couldn't focus all their fire on the Elder Grimm or be overwhelmed, they couldn't focus on the hoard without letting the Elder Grimm overwhelm them.
Even if Juniper himself could fly, it would be difficult to take out an Elder Grimm of this kind, as it was infinitely more agile than the Leviathan that he'd killed back on Menagerie aboard the Defiant Blue.
With its regenerative absorption ability on top of that, he wasn't sure what could be done.
Still, he had to eliminate as many Grimm ramps as possible to buy more time for reinforcements to arrive before his own personal clock gave out.
A new pulse of mana entered his system.
Pyrrha shuddered in surprise, her presence becoming stronger, almost as if he could hear her breathing in his ear.
"...what? Jaune! What did you do?!"
His presence was stabilizing significantly, somehow giving him a bit more operational time as a Servant, but Jaune wasn't responding to their Master-Servant bond. He could sense Jaune was fine, but-
"Shit!" Juniper was rammed into the Great Wall of Mistral in his distracted state, the white wall of a mask from a giant Goliath pressing him into thick cuts of stone. "Get off of me!"
His blade thrust, piercing into the thick skull mask, getting a roar of pain from the large Grimm, burying to the hilt as Juniper braced his foot, jumping upwards, his blade cleaving through the 'brain' of the Grimm, causing it to begin to dissolve.
There was a whispering in his ear, soft and gentle, drawing his thoughts away. Reminding him they were fighting on borrowed time.
"...you're right. We can scold Jaune later. Let's just focus on what we ourselves can do right now. Thanks, Pyrrha."
Y..r.. W..c..m..
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