Evacuation Order
"Who's a good boy?" Nora cooed as she tossed a tasty treat through the air and watched as Zwei leapt up to catch it. "You are! Oh, you're such a good boy I want you to stay forever!"
Zwei barked happily. He was a corgi with a dark grey back and a white belly and a face where the two met, and he belonged to Yang and Ruby’s father. He had arrived that morning in the mail – yes, really, don’t think about it too hard – as Dad was going on a mission and wouldn’t be around to take care of him. Personally, Yang would have rather that her dad had taken Zwei with him – he was a lot more useful in a fight than his small size and self-servingly cute expression would have you believe – but not every mission was suitable for a dog, she guessed, and she didn’t exactly object to having Zwei around.
He was, after all, a very good boy.
"Don't feed him too much, Nora," Yang said, looking over her shoulder from where she was loading her Ember Celica. "He'll get too fat to hunt."
Zwei barked indignantly.
"Not to mention," Ren pointed out, "that I brought those snacks for our mission."
"Oh, there'll be something to eat once we get to the village," Nora declared dismissively. Her eyes widened. "There will be something to eat once we get to the village, won't there?"
"Something to eat, sure," Yang said, putting on her gauntlets. "Snacks? I wouldn't be so sure. These out of the way villages don't get deliveries from MegaMall."
"Well, why didn't you tell me that before?" Nora demanded of Ren.
"I did," Ren replied calmly. "More than once."
The tannoy blared into the dorm room, and presumably across all the dorm rooms. "Will all team leaders please report to the auditorium immediately?" Professor Port's rich, fruity voice echoed into the room.
Yang shared a look with Nora and Ren. "What do you suppose that's about?"
Nora shrugged. "Maybe the headmaster thought of a better speech to give."
"I don't think that's likely," Ren said quietly.
"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out," Yang said. "Look after Zwei until I get back."
She left Nora giving her family dog a belly-rub as she left the dorm room and joined the flood of other team leaders likewise leaving their dorm rooms and making their way down the corridors and stairs and out into the sunlit grounds, streams of students flowing in from the different dormitories to form an ever-swelling river headed for and into the auditorium.
If Yang had wondered at first why it was only leaders being summoned instead of whole teams, then the crowded state of the room when she got there gave her all the answer that she needed: with Beacon playing host to the Atlas, Shade, and Haven students for the Vytal festival, there was no way that every single student would have been able to get in for whatever it was that they were needed in here for. Even with only team leaders, it was a tight squeeze, and Yang had to try and find a way through the press as she looked for a familiar face.
"Hey, Yang!" Sun called, waving his hand in the air to get her attention.
Yang squeezed through the crowd of her fellow team leaders to reach the casually-dressed leader of Team SSSN. "Hey, Sun. How's it going?"
"Not bad," Sun said. "We start our mission today."
Maybe you do, anyway, Yang thought. “What did you pick?” she asked.
“There’s a merchant overdue back from their last trip; his husband requested a huntsman to go out and look for him,” Sun explained. “I thought we’d tag along.”
"Good luck with that, and good luck to the merchant, too," Yang said; it was never good news when someone was overdue from a trip through the wilds, and she knew from experience that, sometimes, it was the worst news… but it didn’t have to be in every case, and hopefully, it wouldn’t be in this case. "We're heading out to spend a week shadowing the sheriff of a village out towards the mountains. We leave tomorrow. Or at least… we were supposed to."
"Yeah," Sun murmured. "You don't know what's up with this either?"
"Not a clue," Yang said.
“Thank you all for coming,” Professor Ozpin said, as he strode briskly onto the stage. “I apologise for the somewhat cramped conditions. Be assured that I’ll be keeping this brief.” He spoke quickly, his tone having lost a little of its usual languor. Yang couldn’t help but wonder if something was up that had him rattled.
“The Council of Vale has just declared a State of Emergency,” Professor Ozpin said, thus giving Yang the answer that she’d been looking for, even if it wasn’t the answer she wanted. All around her, the team leaders began to mutter to one another, but Professor Ozpin’s voice rose above them all. “And has ordered – quiet, please – an evacuation of all districts around Lost Valley Square in District Eighteen and in a direct line east towards the city limits. They have requested – and I have promised – the full cooperation of Beacon Academy and its students.”
“Does this mean that the grimm are attacking?” Sun whispered.
“Can’t be,” Yang replied out of the corner of her mouth. “District Eighteen is inner city; that’s nowhere near the outskirts.”
“I am afraid that, as of now, all field missions are cancelled until further notice,” Professor Ozpin went on. “Instead, you will all be assisting in the evacuation efforts, ensuring that the streets are clear, that everyone has gotten out of their homes and is making their way safely to designated shelters, that nobody is getting lost or hurt, and that all panic is kept to an absolute minimum. Remember: you are representing not only your academies but also your kingdoms, so put on a friendly face for the people and make sure they feel safe.”
Yang raised her hand above the crowd.
Professor Ozpin looked at her for a moment. “Yes, Miss Xiao Long?”
“Should we bring our weapons, Professor?” Yang asked, partly because it was a question that she felt she needed an answer to and partly because what that answer was would tell her a lot about what the headmaster wasn’t saying.
Professor Ozpin was silent for a moment. “You should ensure that your teams are fully-equipped for the field, yes,” he said, causing another round of murmurs and mutters to run through the leaders gathered in the auditorium, because you didn’t bring weapons for just a community outreach exercise.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it isn’t a gas leak, Yang thought.
Was Ruby involved in this? Was this connected to the mission that Team SAPR had gone on with Team RSPT, the mission that Blake had gone with them on, leaving her own team behind? The mission that was so tough it had required a third team to act as backup just in case? Yang had no proof, but something in her gut, some kind of sisterly feeling, suggested that she might be.
She didn’t know how, but… she couldn’t shake it. If it wasn’t connected at all, then it was one hell of a coincidence.
“Please report to Professor Port or Doctor Oobleck,” Professor Ozpin said, gesturing to the two teachers standing beside him at the edge of the stage, “who will give you an area of the city to cover. Please brief your teams – I regret that I am unable to address everyone properly – and…” He paused for a moment, and in that moment, he almost seemed regretful about something. “And good luck out there. I know that you won’t let your schools, your kingdoms, or yourselves down.”
“Nice day to get out of… well, out, isn’t it?” observed Pearl Wheatley as she and Miranda walked out of the coffee shop onto the streets surrounding Lost Valley Square.
Miranda Wells suddenly felt a spike of cold run up and down her spine, but why? She couldn’t comprehend it. It didn’t make sense. So she dismissed it, or else tried to dismiss it.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is,” she answered after a pause.
Pearl rolled her eyes. Standing six foot tall, with her blonde hair shaved on the right and the remainder – dyed an uneven black that left blonde roots and ends streaks still visible – entirely brushed over onto the left, dressed in a black t-shirt, short skirt, and high boots, and with the head of a phoenix tattooed across her back, visible poking above the collar of her shirt as though it were peering out at the world, she looked like she would be more at home in a club than in a literature class. Nevertheless, taking the same literature course was what she had in common with the girl from Alba Longa. That, and the fact that they were both working as waitresses, albeit in different places, to pay off their tuition.
“You didn’t enjoy it?” she asked. “It was your idea in the first place!”
“I know,” Miranda acknowledged. “And I did like it, I liked it a lot. We should do it more often. I just… I don’t know. Forget it, I’m sorry. I just had one of those ‘walking over my grave’ moments, that’s all.”
“Ooh, spooky,” Pearl said, a smile spreading across her face to reach her amber eyes as she wiggled the fingers of one lace-gloved hand. “You’ll be fine, so long as you remember: don’t hide in an old oak chest, don’t follow your sworn enemy into his wine cellar, don’t go and stay in a crumbling old castle, and don’t marry a foreign aristocrat.” Her grin widened. “That last one won’t be a problem for you,” she added, causing Miranda to roll her eyes in turn. “So, where did you get the idea to take me out to work on our papers for Professor Radcliffe?”
“Oh,” Miranda said. “It was something one of Jaune’s teammates did; they seemed to have a good time, so I thought we might give it a try.”
Pearl’s eyes narrowed. “Right. One of Jaune’s teammates.”
“She has a name; I just can’t remember it right now.”
“No, you can just remember the name of the boy who you totally don’t have a crush on.”
“I do not have a crush on Jaune Arc!” Miranda declared.
“That’s what I said,” Pearl agreed innocently.
“But I mean it!” Miranda insisted. “Jaune… Jaune’s a nice guy, and I worry about him up at that school, and I hope that he does well there at the same time because I’m human, and humans are a mass of contradictions, but I do not have a crush on him. I was never what he really wanted, and he’s not what I want either.” A smile played across his face. “You know that Pyrrha Nikos is an actual princess?”
“I know that researching someone else’s girlfriend is totally normal behaviour.”
“She’s a celebrity, Pearl; it’s the first subsection on her CC-cyclopedia page,” Miranda said defensively. “Currently the last living scion of the Nikos family, her mother is the current claimant to the defunct Mistralian throne.”
“I’ve never really liked that genre,” Pearl opined. “I prefer horror literature.”
“My point is,” Miranda said firmly, “that Jaune… he’s found his princess, and I’m happy for him. Besides, like I said, he isn’t my type.”
“And your type is?”
Miranda grinned. “I want the foreign aristocrat with the crumbling castle.”
Pearl let out a snorting giggle. “Secrets or ghosts?”
Miranda considered that. “Both.”
“Ambitious,” Pearl observed. “Just don’t go hiding in any chests on your wedding day.”
“I won’t,” Miranda promised. “Who plays hide and seek on their wedding day, anyway?”
“Well, in some versions of the story, she was playing a prank.”
“What kind of a prank is hiding in a chest on your wedding day?” Miranda rephrased.
“I don’t know,” Pearl replied. “The kind they loved in the olden days, apparently. Someone needs to write a version of that story that explains all of that stuff.”
“Why don’t you write it yourself?” Miranda suggested.
“You know, I just might do that,” Pearl said.
Whatever Miranda might have said in response to that was lost as the alarms began to sound.
“What the hell?” Pearl muttered, reaching for the bag that hung from her shoulder – or more accurately, reaching for the switchblade she kept in the bag.
“Attention citizens,” the automated announcer’s voice rang out, calm and collected. “The Council has ordered an evacuation of this district. Please exit the area and seek shelter immediately.”
The two of them looked at one another.
“Do you know where the nearest shelter is?” Miranda asked.
“I… think it’s this way,” Pearl said, gesturing to the left. “Come on, follow me.”
On Vetera Airbase, the Bullhead engines growled and grumbled to one another like restless creatures as they sat on the grey tarmac square, lined up in long columns from nose to tail, engines pointing downwards, waiting for the command to roar in earnest and drive their airships upwards into the sky.
The airships belonged, one and all, to the Mount Aris Light Dragoons regiment of the Valish Defence Forces. The regiment had, as the name suggested, been a cavalry unit once, before advances in technology had rendered horsed cavalry obsolete, and so, the nose of each bullhead was painted with the regimental symbol: a galloping white horse with a pair of iron wings sprouting out of its back.
In that regard, tradition had made way for modernity and the necessities of warfare in the current year; in other respects, tradition had prevailed, as in the brass helmets with black horsehair crests which the soldiers of the regiment wore and which would have been familiar to their ancestors of eighty or a hundred years earlier, even as said ancestors would probably have found the modern green uniforms a little lacking in character and decoration.
In the unit’s choice of weapons, tradition and modernity blended together in what Colonel Sky Beak Aris – upon marriage, he had taken the name of his wife’s prestigious family, in what was either a gesture of respect or an act of brown-nosing, depending on who you asked – considered to be a perfect match; each trooper carried not only a square, blocky Valish assault rifle, but also wore a sword at their hip. It was a loadout not dissimilar to that which the men of this regiment had carried in the cavalry days, but against an enemy that didn’t exactly seek to exchange fire with the enemy, it wasn’t a bad thing to have something handy for close quarters.
The Bullhead engines growled impatiently, and aboard the bullheads, eight hundred men and women in green jackets and antique brass helmets with their rifles and their swords and their array of specialist support weapons waited.
The orders had come down from General Seaspray: the whole regiment to stand up at combat readiness and await further orders. Those further orders, bizarrely, would come not from Seaspray but from the Atlesian General Ironwood.
That had been about a half an hour ago, and there had been no further orders since, either from General Seaspray or from General Ironwood. The men, crammed into their Bullheads with the engines running, were starting to grow restless.
Some of them, including his own Regimental Sergeant Major, were starting to brew up on the tarmac next to their airships, and at this point, he could hardly blame them.
Sky Beak himself sat on the edge of his own command Bullhead, his legs resting lightly on the ground, his wings tucked in behind him as he looked down at the scroll in his hands.
“So you’re at the palace?” he asked. “And your mother and brother are with you?”
“That’s right, Dad, and Skystar too,” Silverstream replied, her voice emerging from out of the scroll. “She was the one who told us all to come here. Apparently, Aunt Novo asked her to do it. Dad, what’s going on?”
I wish I knew, Sky Beak thought. Novo knew – or at least, he hoped she did – but was doubtless too busy to tell her niece or her sister. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I’m just glad you’re in a secure location. Have you seen your aunt?”
“No, she’s in the Council Chamber,” Silverstream said.
“I see,” Sky Beak said. “Stay where you are until she says otherwise. I have to go now, but give my love to your mother and brother.”
“I will, Dad,” Silverstream said. She smiled. “I love you.”
Sky Beak returned her smile in kind. “I love you too,” he said, and then hung up.
The large shadow of Regimental Sergeant Major Cobalt Cloudhunter fell across him. Sky Beak looked up to see his burly senior RSM looming over him with the seven barrelled rotary cannon that he carried in place of a rifle slung across his back and a steaming plastic cup of tea in his hand. “Tea, sir?”
Sky Beak ran one hand through his mane of silver-white hair. “Sergeant Major, we’ve been sat here for an hour waiting for orders for reasons we don’t understand, placed under Atlesian command for reasons we don’t understand, my wife and children are sheltering in the Palace for reasons that they and I don’t understand, and the one person who hopefully does understand what the hell is going on is too busy to say anything about it. Do you think that any of that can be solved by a cup of tea?”
Cloudhunter shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt, sir.”
Sky Beak stared up at him for a moment. “No, I suppose it couldn’t,” he admitted, taking the cup from out of the RSM’s hand. “Thank you, Sergeant Major.”
“No trouble at all, sir,” Cloudhunter said genially, sitting down next to the colonel. He pointed up into the sky, where the Atlesian cruisers were moving in a stately fashion over the Valish skyline. “Now will you look at them, sir.”
“An impressive sight,” Sky Beak murmured.
“That they are, sir, but I’m more interested in where they’re going,” Cloudhunter said. “All facing towards something, they are. They weren’t doing that before.”
“By God, you’re right, Sergeant Major,” Sky Beak acknowledged. “And facing towards something in the city too, not beyond it.” He frowned. “Do you think it could be White Fang?”
“Why would you need all those big ships to deal with the White Fang, sir?” Cloudhunter asked.
“Why did they bring them in the first place?” Sky Beak asked.
“Well, that’s a question I couldn’t answer, sir, but here’s one for you: why would we be stood up like this to deal with the White Fang?”
“I can’t answer that any more than you can answer mine, Sergeant Major,” Sky Beak replied. “But one thing’s for sure-”
“This definitely isn’t a drill,” Cloudhunter said gloomily.
Sky Beak sipped some of his tea. “Good tea this, Sergeant Major.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sky Beak took another drink. “Where do you think that is?” he asked. “Where those cruisers are gathering?”
Cloudhunter was quiet for a minute. “Hammersmith?” he guessed.
“I’d say it’s closer to the Jewellery Quarter,” Sky Beak replied.
“Well, you’d know more about that than me, sir, being an officer and all,” Cloudhunter said. “The Jewellery Quarter is a little too pricey for me.”
“Hmm,” Sky Beak murmured. “Your wife doesn’t live anywhere near there, then?”
“No, sir, thank goodness,” Cloudhunter said. “Salina’s down in Elephant and Castle with little Sea Poppy, a long way from… whatever’s going on over there.” He sighed. “Not everyone can say the same.”
“No,” Sky Beak agreed. “But we are family men, Sergeant Major, we have the right, I think, to care about the wellbeing of our families.”
Cloudhunter opened his mouth, but his words were snatched away by an almighty explosion which split the sky, even as a great column of fire erupted briefly into the air in the midst of the gathering Atlesian warships, replaced after a moment by a pillar of smoke, rising up from the surface like a tree, a black and twisted tree around which the cruisers gathered.
Cloudhunter got to his feet. “Was that a bomb, sir?”
Sky Beak frowned. “You don’t need five airships to deal with a bomb,” he muttered.
“Due to the current state of emergency, all citizens are required to evacuate this district. Please make your way to the nearest shelter outside the quarantine zone in a calm and orderly fashion. If the nearest shelter is at full occupancy, please find the next shelter with spare capacity. There is no need to panic. Your safety is in good hands.”
The announcement floated out across the street over the public address system. The voice was somewhat female with a hint of the robotic about it, with a stilted and stuttering delivery that came from having each word individually recorded before a computer somewhere stitched them together to form the desired sentence. One could hear the automation in every awkward pause or inappropriate tone or cadence.
At this particular moment, as she listened to the address for what must have been the sixth or seventh time as it repeated at intervals, Weiss wished that everyone could just believe that their safety was in good hands.
Specifically, she wished the crotchety old woman stubbornly ensconced in her enormous armchair in the living room of her house would believe it.
“Ma’am,” she said, through ever-so slightly gritted teeth, “you’re the last person on this street to evacuate-”
“I told you, I ain’t leaving,” the old woman squawked in an accent reminiscent of Lieutenant Martinez, only much more grating. This woman’s voice was thick enough to saw through wood and about as pleasant to listen to. “I’ve lived in this house for nearly fifty years, and ain’t nobody gonna turn me out of it.”
“Ugh,” Weiss sighed. “Nobody is trying to take your house away… ma’am.” She took a deep breath and tried to remember what Professor Ozpin had said about being nice to the populace. Calm. Controlled. Dignified, as a Schnee should be. That was harder when she could sense the mixture of awkwardness and amusement coming from her team-mates. I swear, if Russell starts laughing, I’m going to learn to summon just so I can sic a beowolf on him. “But the Council has ordered a mandatory evacuation-”
“I don’t need no government telling me what to do. When I was a girl, people used to pull their weight instead of relying on handouts from the Council. Well, you can tell everybody that I ain’t moving, no matter what they say. The moment I get out of here, the neighbours are going to come in and steal all my stuff.”
Weiss couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to steal the chintzy, tacky baubles that this woman was displaying in her home. “Ma’am, your neighbours have all evacuated already-”
“That’s what they want you to think. They’re watching me. They’re always watching me, and the moment I’m gone, they’ll be right back here. They’re faunus, you know what I’m saying?”
“We understand what you’re saying; we just don’t care,” Cardin declared as he stepped forward and scooped the old woman up in his arms, flinging her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “Come on, grandma. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Hey!” the woman squawked. “Hey, you can’t do this! Put me down you, big palooka!” She beat at his back with her fists, but between his armour and his aura, Cardin didn’t seem to feel it at all.
“Cardin,” Weiss said.
Cardin looked at her, his face inquisitive.
Weiss sighed. “Thank you.”
The four of them emerged into the street, where a steady flow of people were moving on foot down the centre of the road, being waved through the gap in a roadblock being erected by a group of Atlesian soldiers. Valish police were working both sides of the in-progress barricade, directing people moving towards it to keep moving and helping them get to a shelter once they were on the other side of the block.
One of those working on the ‘wrong’ side of the roadblock, in the area that had been ordered evacuated by the Council, was Lieutenant Martinez, who looked as though she had just finished checking the house next door to that from which Weiss and the rest of WWSR had emerged. She looked at Cardin, with the shrieking old woman on his shoulder, with a degree of bemusement on her face.
“Is she not able to walk?” she asked, although the way that laughter seemed to be edging into her voice suggested that she knew, or was beginning to guess, the answer.
“Are you a cop?” the old woman demanded. “I want this schlemiel arrested! I want him shot! I want him to put me down right now and let me back into my house! I’m gonna sue! I’m gonna sue your whole department! I want my lawyer!”
“You’ll need one when I arrest you for public nuisance if you don’t shut up,” Martinez said. “I take it she’s been like this since you went in the house?”
“Very much so,” Weiss sighed.
“I see,” Martinez said. “Cardin, put her down.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Martinez smiled thinly. “Trust me.”
Cardin’s eyebrows rose apprehensively. “Alright,” he muttered and set the old woman down upon the ground.
“Thank you,” she squawked. “Now if you will excuse me, it’s about time for my afternoon soaps.” She started back towards her front door, only to be restrained by the firm hand of Lieutenant Martinez on her shoulder.
“Now, ma’am,” Lieutenant Martinez said. “The Council-”
“The Council can kiss my patootie!”
“The Council has ordered an evacuation, which means you have two choices,” Lieutenant Martinez said. “You can walk calmly out of the quarantine zone like everybody else and head to the nearest shelter until all of this is over, or I can put the cuffs on you and perp walk you to the nearest station house in front of all your neighbours, just like one of those scumbags you see on TV. So what’s it gonna be?”
The old woman recoiled. “I have rights,” she began.
“Right now, what you have is my patience,” Martinez corrected her. “And it’s running out.” She started to reach for her cuffs.
“Okay, okay,” the woman said. “I’ll go to your stupid shelter. Oy! So much fuss about nothin’. Feh!” she started to totter away, and they soon lost sight of her in the crowd of people heading in the same direction.
“Thanks, El-Tee,” Cardin said.
Lieutenant Martinez smirked. “Perks of having an actual badge,” she said.
“Was it necessary?” Flash asked. “I mean, wasn’t there some way that we could have-?”
“Talked her into playing nice?” Lieutenant Martinez guessed. “I just did.”
“Due to the current state of emergency…”
“Is anyone else getting sick of hearing that?” asked Weiss.
“Yep,” Cardin agreed.
“Same here,” Flash murmured.
“Me too, but if they didn’t keep repeating it, people would forget,” Martinez said. “Or else they’d pretend to forget because, really, they just want to come back home.”
“Even though it’s dangerous?” Flash said.
“Some people are stupid, Flash; that’s why they need cops,” Lieutenant Martinez said. “To take care of them and protect other people from the consequences of the stupid people being dumbasses.” She looked up and down the road. “Speaking of which, I think we’re done here, but we should make one last sweep of the street in case anyone slipped back inside when we weren’t looking.”
Weiss looked down the street that Team WWSR had been assigned to take care of during the evacuation. It was empty, everyone else having already cleared out and headed for the shelters some time ago, with only that one particularly recalcitrant woman having remained.
The street was empty, and yet, it still bore so many signs of life. The evacuation order had come so swiftly and so suddenly that the street still bore evidence of what people had been doing when the order came: a couple of toy trucks, the ones that small children could ride on top of, abandoned in the middle of the road; a summer barbecue on a front lawn, smoking as the unattended hot dogs smouldered atop the grill; a clown car parked outside of someone else’s house and a birthday banner strung over the front door.
Flash saw the way Weiss’ gaze was pointed. “I don’t think I ever had a clown for my birthday party.”
“I did, when I was four,” Cardin said. “I hated him.”
“Nobody likes clowns,” Lieutenant Martinez said. “Kids, in particular, hate clowns, and the only reason anyone hires a clown is that they never had a clown at their own birthday party and therefore never learned how much kids hate clowns.” She paused. “My husband never had a clown at any of his parties.”
“And he hired one for your kids, didn’t he?” Russel asked.
“Closest we have ever come to divorce,” Lieutenant Martinez muttered. “I spend too much time chasing guys who hide their faces to be comfortable having one in my house. Anyway: Weiss, Flash, you take the left; Cardin, Russel, you take the right. Knock on the doors, make sure there’s nobody still inside.”
They split up by pairs, each making their way to the designated side of the street, while Lieutenant Martinez stayed in the middle of the road, keeping an equal distance between the two pairs. The flow of people past the roadblock had ebbed by now, although doubtless it would pick up again as people came down from areas deeper within the quarantine zone. But for now, they had a measure of peace and privacy.
Above their heads, the Atlesian cruisers moved with an almost palpable sense of purpose, converging like wolves upon a location which, if it was the epicentre of the area they had been ordered to evacuate, was certainly not far from it.
Flash said. “So, what do you think is going on here? The evacuation, and the military, and… what does it mean?”
“I wish I knew,” Weiss said, and she meant that most sincerely. She might try and wrangle the truth out of Winter later. “And if I find out, I’ll let you know.”
Flash smiled. “Does your sister make a habit of spilling military secrets to you?”
Weiss sniffed. “Please. Winter is a thoroughgoing professional.”
“Which means it only happens sometimes.”
Weiss’ lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. “It has been known to happen, once or twice.” Hopefully, she’ll indulge my curiosity this time.
Flash nodded. “I just hope…”
“What?”
“I hope it’s nothing too serious,” Flash said. “I’d like it to be nothing, but… considering what we’ve already been through…”
“You think it might be another bomb?” Weiss asked.
“I don’t know; it feels too big,” Flash said. “Have you ever heard of such a large evacuation because of a bomb threat? And troops setting up a perimeter? Why not just send in disposal? But on the other hand… what else could it be?”
Weiss hardly wanted to consider some of the more dangerous possibilities. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, “but we’ve done our job and ensured that this whole area has been evacuated to safety, which means that we should probably-”
She was interrupted by the shaking of the earth and by a thundering sound so loud and so immense that she thought it must have been a bomb after all, because what else could have made such a sound?
A pillar of smoke began to rise from the centre of the evacuation area, and the warning klaxons began to sound.
Flash stared, wide-eyed, at the pillar of smoke. "No," he muttered. "No, not again!"
He started to run towards the explosion.
"Wait, Flash!" Weiss yelled. "What are you doing?"
"People might… I can't just do nothing!" Flash replied, half-turning back to look at her for a moment before he started to run again.
Weiss looked at him, torn between exasperation and admiration. Yes, he was being rash, but he was also acting to try and preserve life, and wasn’t that what a huntsman was supposed to do in the end?
She glanced at Lieutenant Martinez. The lieutenant nodded silently, an approving smile upon her face.
“Cardin, Russel!” Weiss barked. “Come on!”
She didn’t check that they were following; rather, she trusted that they would, which wasn’t something she had expected she would find herself thinking at the start of this semester. As for herself, Weiss conjured up a line of speed glyphs down the road and glided swiftly and effortlessly over them until she'd caught up with him, at which point, she was able with just a little effort to match his pace.
He looked down at her. "You don't have to come with me."
"Yes, I do," Weiss informed him. "We all do, because we’re your team."
Sun's tail snaked out to snag the blue stuffed rabbit that had been dropped on the kerb. "Hey, kid," he called, attracting the attention of the little girl with a bow in her hair from whose backpack he had seen the toy fall. He smiled and waved the rabbit back and forth with his tail. "Does this little guy belong to you?"
Her eyes lit up. "Thanks, Mister!" she cried as she took the stuffed animal back with both hands.
Her mother thanked him too, before she took her daughter – whom she chided for dropping the toy in the first place – by the hand and continued to lead her away.
Sun's gaze travelled naturally upwards from the mother and daughter evacuating with the rest of the crowd streaming down the street towards the Atlesian forces setting up at the end of said street, where the block finished and the east-west road intersected with another travelling north-south. The barricades were a little taller than a man, and though he – and most huntsmen he knew – could have leapt them without much effort, they’d give you a lot of cover from someone trying to shoot you from the other side.
But that was ridiculous. Who was going to be shooting at Atlesian troops in the middle of Vale? Even the White Fang didn’t start gunfights in the street.
So what were the barricades for?
What was any of this for?
It was starting to make Sun's tail itch.
He turned away and sauntered over to where Neptune had just finished helping an old man up off the ground.
"Are you going to be okay? You sure? You take care now," Neptune said as the old fellow resumed walking. He glanced at Sun. "So, how's it going?"
Sun shrugged. "You tell me, man; I mean, what are we even doing out here?"
"We're making sure that everyone evacuates and nobody gets hurt," Neptune said. "Or panics, I guess."
Sun looked out over the crowd. Nobody was panicking panicking like 'aaah, we're all gonna die!' but everyone looked worried about all this, even the kids.
Sun Wukong was a big believer in the ability of a smile and a positive attitude to get you where you wanted to go, but even he had his limits.
“We’re doing an okay job,” Neptune said, as if he could read his partner’s thoughts. Maybe he could; he was really cagey about what his semblance was. Sage said it was Neptune’s ability to charm women with such ease, but Sun was almost sure that that wasn’t it.
Although he would have been a little jealous if it turned out to be true. There were times he wished that he had a semblance like that. Maybe Blake would pay him a little more attention if he did.
“I hope she’s okay,” he murmured.
“What?” Neptune said. “Who?”
“Blake,” Sun said, as though that were obvious. “I hope she gets back and can explain why… all this. It’ll totally turn out to be a big misunderstanding, you’ll see.”
Neptune frowned. “You think Blake has something to do with this?”
“Duh!” Sun said. “Blake was doing something secret, and now secret stuff is going on! It makes perfect sense!”
Neptune stared at him for like a minute or something. “I don’t think that’s how correlation works, and anyway-”
Neptune was shaken on his feet by a tremor that ripped through the earth with a rumble like a famished stomach, shaking people left and right as they cried out in alarm.
“Look!” someone shouted, pointing to the centre of the quarantine zone. A column of black smoke was rising into the sky, and the alarms were starting to blare out in warning.
“What’s going on?”
“Are we under attack?”
“What should we do?”
“Hey, everybody, calm down!” Sun yelled. He leapt nimbly onto the top of a lamppost, stuck his fingers in his mouth, and gave a shrill whistle to attract attention. “There is no need to panic. Now, keep moving straight to the shelters like they told you to, and my partner and I are gonna go check that out and make sure that everything is safe, okay? Okay.” Sun leapt off the streetlight and landed on his feet beside Neptune. “Come on, dude.”
“So… we’re heading towards the danger?”
“Of course we are,” Sun said. “Blake’s over there.”
The thief ran, and Arslan pursued him.
“Hoi!” Arslan yelled as she chased him through a back alley. She had left her team behind, but that hardly mattered. Or at least, she had left Bolin and Nadir behind. Reese was still around, she thought, even though Arslan couldn’t see her right now. If any of them could catch up, it would be Reese on her hoverboard.
But right now, the only thing that mattered was the thief in front of her.
She had caught him in the act of looting the houses that had been abandoned by the evacuation. Someone had left their door open, and Arslan had gone in to check if they were still there. She’d thought that she might find the owner still in the place or having come back for something they’d forgotten; instead, she’d found this little rat legging it out the backdoor, with jewellery and lien cards spilling out of his oversized hoodie.
So she’d chased him, with only a yell to let her teammates know what she was up to. It wasn’t as though she needed their help with this – or with much else, if she was being honest – she was the Golden Lion of Mistral, and she could catch one despicable little scumbag all by herself.
Mind you, he was pretty fast; he might even have his aura unlocked. He was certainly giving Arslan more of a chase than she had been expecting. She was gaining on him, but slowly, more slowly than she’d thought she would.
If he didn’t have his aura unlocked now, then Arslan would hate to see him when he did.
Of course, there’s always a way of finding out if he has his aura unlocked.
Nemean Claw appeared in Arslan’s hand with a flourish, like the dove appearing from nowhere in a magician’s act. As she ran, Arslan weighed the pros and cons of throwing it at him. On the downside, it might or might not be legal here in Vale, but on the plus side, he absolutely deserved it, and it would get him to stop running, probably.
The pros won out; in Arslan’s opinion, someone like this deserved a lot worse than she was about to do to him, and if it turned out that she’d broken the law, well… what was the point of making money if you couldn’t hire a good lawyer with it?
She threw Nemean Claw, the knife flying straight and true and just where Arslan wanted it: to scratch the thief’s leg enough to draw a smidgeon of blood.
It wasn’t a deep cut – it was barely a scratch – but as Arslan had hoped – clearly his aura wasn’t activated – it was enough to make the thief yelp with pain and stagger a little, his momentum lost.
And that was all the opening that Arslan needed. She pounced upon him, wrapping her arms around him as she bore him to the ground beneath her. He landed heavily, with a thump and another yelp of pain.
“You stabbed me!” he cried. “You bloody stabbed me!”
“Don’t be such a big baby; I barely scratched you,” Arslan said. “Frankly, you deserve a lot worse.”
“This is police brutality, this is!”
“It might be,” Arslan allowed. “Except I’m not a cop. And, again, you deserve a lot worse. Looting people’s houses because they’ve been told to evacuate! Scum like you are the reason people can’t leave their doors unlocked anymore. I ought to kick your head in.” Arslan paused. “I think I might do that anyway.”
“Probably best not to,” Reese said, her hoverboard whining as she flew around Arslan to come to a stop in front of her. “You might get in trouble.”
Arslan grunted as she got up and pulled the thief up onto his feet as well. “You know, my grandma told me once that back in the good old days, on the new year, families use to leave their doors open and line the way up with candles-”
“Why didn’t they use fire dust?” Reese asked.
“Because they couldn’t afford it, obviously,” Arslan said quickly. “Anyway, they used to open their doors and light the way, so that benevolent spirits would find their way into the house and bless the family for the coming year. Nobody would do that now, thanks to jackasses like this.”
Reese shrugged. “What good old days were they?” she asked, a mischievous tone creeping into her voice. “The days when you would have had to bow and scrape to Pyrrha and call her ‘your highness’? Are those the good old days you’re pining for?”
Arslan let out a decidedly fake laugh. “Listen, just because your history makes The Tribute Games look like a toddler’s sandpit doesn’t mean that you can spit on mine. Mistral has its faults, and it had its faults, but it’s still my home, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
She began to drag the thief away. Reese kept pace upon her hoverboard. Arslan continued. “And, I don’t know, I don’t want the slavery back or anything, but… having an emperor might not be so bad. Someone… someone who didn’t have to be shamed into doing the right thing, someone who didn’t have their eye on the main chance and how they could make lien out of office, someone who cared, you know? Someone who cared about the people.”
“A storybook monarch, you mean?” Reese said.
“You’re a real smartarse, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” Reese said, a smile crossing her face.
Arslan huffed theatrically. “You know, they offered me a part in The Tribute Games.”
“Really?” the thief asked.
Arslan slapped him across the back of the head. “Shut up, you. Have I told you this before?”
“No,” Reese said. “I don’t think you have. You would have only been… how old would have been then?”
“Thirteen,” Arslan said. “They wanted me to play the sweet kid who gets killed.”
“Oh, that scene had me in tears,” Reese said. “Why didn’t you do it?”
“Because she died!” Arslan said, as though it should have been obvious. “I don’t die, and I don’t lose fights.”
“Some might say that’s compensating for something.”
“Remind me why you’re my favourite?” Arslan demanded.
Reese didn’t get the chance to answer before an explosion split the air, a column of fire and smoke erupting behind them, throwing up rock and debris into the air to fall heavily down to earth once more.
Reese’s eyebrows climbed into the recesses of her bangs. “What in the gods’ name was that?”
Arslan stared at the rising smoke still emerging from the sight of the blast, whatever it was.
Whatever it was. Whatever it was… someone was probably having a really bad day over there.
I’m going to defend humanity. I’m going to defend the world from the darkness that surrounds it.
Pyrrha’s words echoed through Arslan’s mind. Fancy words, she had called them at the time, justifications. Only…
Arslan looked at the thief in her grasp. People like him… it had felt good, bringing him down, doing some good.
Only he wasn’t the worst thing in the city right now, was he?
Pyrrha, Arslan was sure, would have rushed towards the site of the explosion.
But Pyrrha wasn’t here right now, was she?
Which means that second place is going to have to do, I guess.
I hope you appreciate this, P-money.
“Reese,” she said. “Can you take this bum and turn him over to the cops?”
“Sure,” Reese said. “What are you going to do?”
The thing that Pyrrha would do if she were here. “Something,” Arslan said, “probably very stupid.”
“Um, Bon Bon?” Lyra said tremulously. “Why are we going in the wrong direction?”
Bon Bon turned around to look at her. “What do you mean? We’re not going in the wrong direction.”
“Actually, we… kind of are,” Sky pointed out. “The cop sergeant said that once we had made sure the street was clear, we should head outside of the evacuation area, not into the middle of it.”
“We’re not heading right into the middle of the zone,” Bon Bon lied. “I just want to see if we can be of any use to anybody before we rush out, that’s all.”
Sky’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why we haven’t knocked on a single door or spoken to a single other huntsmen while you’ve been leading us in the same direction as those ships are going.” He gestured above them, to the Atlesian cruisers forming up above… above whatever it was that Cinder was planning.
“Now, Sweetie, something big is about to happen at Lost Valley Square, and I want you and your team to be there when it does.”
“'Lost Valley Square'? Why?”
“Because I’m telling you to go there,” Cinder snapped. She took a deep breath. “Because if you are there, and if you are able to make some sort of contribution to what is about to happen there, then it won’t matter that you were mean to poor Blake or that Sunset and Rainbow Dash don’t like you. Everything will be forgiven by what is about to happen in that square. So make sure you get there, one way or the other.”
Bon Bon had chosen the way that went there with her team. Reading between the lines, Cinder had set up a situation where any huntsman who found themselves at or near Lost Valley Square would be able to… to win glory? To save lives? To distinguish themselves? It had to be something like that, in order to achieve the effect that Cinder said her presence would have on people who had a low opinion of Bon Bon right now. That being the case, she felt as though her team deserved to share in the opportunity as well. Gods knew that Team BLBL hadn’t exactly distinguished itself in its first year at Beacon, but it sounded like that could start to change.
And if it did, that would be a good thing, no matter how it had come about.
“I just think,” she said, “that we should be looking to see if there is anything else that we can do to help, before we scuttle back into safety.”
“I agree,” Dove said. “There might still be something we can do here.”
“See?” Bon Bon asked. “Dove agrees with me; thank you, Dove.”
“Of course Dove agrees with you,” Sky replied. “Dove’s intense. No offence, Dove.”
“I… I don’t really know if I should be offended by that or not,” Dove murmured.
“I’m sorry,” Sky said. “You’re a good guy, and if I was in trouble, I’d be glad to know that you were looking out for me, but the whole 'knight in shining armour' thing, without a hint of self-awareness… it’s a little much, you know?”
Dove folded his arms. “If you were in trouble, you’d be glad to have me?” he asked.
Sky nodded. “That’s what I said, sure.”
“What about the people who might be in trouble now?” Dove asked. “Who do they have?”
Sky’s mouth hung open silently for a moment. “Well… okay, that sure is a point, but neither of you know that there is anyone in trouble.”
The world exploded not far away, a column of fire and smoke erupting into the sky high enough to block one of the Atlesian warships from view.
“You know, Sky,” Lyra murmured, “I think someone might be in trouble.”
You said it, Lyra. Cinder, what have you done? “Precisely!” Bon Bon declared. “Now the question is, are we going to be there for those people in trouble? Are we going to help folks in need? Are we going to be huntsmen? Or are we going to be the same old Team Bluebell that everyone at Beacon has come to expect: disloyal and unworthy?”
“We’re not-” Sky began.
“Yes,” Bon Bon said. “We are. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Blake isn’t exactly unpopular with the other students, and as far as they’re concerned, we’re the team that wouldn’t stand by Blake even when everyone else would.”
“We’re also the team whose leader is a massive racist, let’s not forget,” Sky muttered.
“I have played my part in this sorry state of affairs, I admit,” Bon Bon acknowledged. “But we have a chance to turn that around. Right now! The occasion is right before us; all we need to do is rise to it! So let me ask you this: are you huntsmen?”
“We are,” Dove declared. “You know we are, as I know we are.”
“But the world does not,” Bon Bon said.
“Then we’ll show them how wrong they are!” Lyra cried. “Won’t we, Sky?”
Sky glanced at them. “Is this… is this really what you want?”
“More than anything,” Lyra whispered.
“It’s not a question of what we want,” said Dove. “It’s a question of what is right.”
Sky snorted. “Then I’m with you,” he said. “All the way to the end.”
Team YR_N – or perhaps the addition of Zwei made them Team YRZN for now – had been assigned to oversee and assist in the evacuation of Lost Valley Square, in the very centre of the zone that the council had decided to evacuate. Yang had wondered why they needed to specially evacuate a shopping plaza, until she actually got there and found a few mom and pop stores whose owners lived overhead. But there still weren’t many actual residents, and the shoppers were very easy to convince to cut their trips short and return to their homes outside the… Yang didn’t want to call it a danger zone, but at the same time, she didn’t really know what else to call it. You didn’t order an evacuation if there wasn’t danger, right?
But whatever they wanted to call it, most people left pretty willingly once the loudspeakers started to broadcast, which meant that Yang and her team were actually wrapped up pretty early.
They could – and maybe, probably, should – have gone back to the perimeter to see if there was anything else that they could do, but something made Yang stay. Some kind of instinct, the same gut feeling that told her Ruby was involved in all of this somehow told her that, by accident or by design of Professor Ozpin, she was exactly where she needed to be.
The fact that she couldn’t immediately see how she was where she needed to be was frustrating, however, especially since it meant that she was hanging around this empty plaza with nothing to do and no way to explain her inaction to her teammates.
“Yang?”
Yang was roused by the sound of Nora’s voice. She hadn’t heard her teammate coming, which said something about how deep in thought she’d been because, well, it was Nora. At the moment, however, Nora Valkyrie didn’t seem quite her usual ebullient self. She seemed, and this was rare, a little worried.
“Are you okay?” Yang asked.
“I’m fine,” Nora said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Yang said, a little too firmly and a little too loudly. “What makes you think-?” She stopped abruptly as Nora took one of her hands and squeezed it.
“It’s okay, Yang,” Nora said. “If I had a sister, I’d be worried too.”
“Although Team Sapphire has always performed exceptionally in the field,” Ren said, as he approached her from the other side, “that doesn’t make your concern unnatural or misguided.”
Zwei barked supportively.
Yang took a deep breath. “Guys… thanks.”
“We’re here for you,” Nora said. “If you need it. What else are teammates for, right?”
Yang nodded. “I just… I’ve got a feeling, like Ruby’s involved in this, you know?”
Neither of them said anything. But neither of them looked at her like she was crazy either.
“I thought it would be good for her to end up on a different team and break out of her shell,” Yang said, “but all it’s done is give me a heart condition.”
“That might be all it’s done for you,” Nora said, “but I think… she has come out of her shell, at least a little.”
Yang exhaled out through her nostrils. “More than a little. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make times like this any less worrying.”
“You can’t protect the people you love forever,” Ren said. “Sometimes, even with the best intentions… things happen that you never expected. And all you can do is… hope that they’re ready. And that you are.”
That… that was the most words Yang had ever heard out of Ren’s mouth at once, but, as much as she might not have wanted to hear it right now, he was talking a lot of sense. Ruby wasn’t some helpless child asleep in the back of a wagon any more. Yang and Dad and Uncle Qrow had all helped her to prepare for this, so that she could stare danger in the face and kick its ass. Sure, it would have been nice if she’d bothered to learn how to throw a punch, but she wasn’t unarmed – in any sense – and she wasn’t alone.
Ruby wasn’t helpless. Ruby was good, damn good, better than Yang herself in some ways. And she wasn’t alone.
Yang would probably always worry about her; that was part of what being a big sister was all about.
But worrying didn’t have to be the same as being afraid. And she didn’t have to be afraid for Ruby.
The yellowish-white stones of the plaza square exploded outwards in a geyser-like explosion of stone and concrete fragments and earth beneath, forcing Yang to grab Zwei as she and her teammates took what little cover they could behind a bench as stones and earth rained down around them.
A hole had been torn in the earth; in the centre of the square, a great gaping maw descended into the darkness of the earth beneath, a pit dropping down to… where?
Warning sirens began to blare in loud alarm.
Yang cocked her gauntlets as she cautiously approached the hole. Behind her, she could hear Nora’s hammer switching into grenade launcher mode, and she knew that Ren would have his pistols drawn.
Though the warning sirens were loud, she could still hear her own footsteps on the stones.
The hole was dark, but even as it descended into darkness, Yang could still make out that it did not drop vertically so much as formed an incline, a steep incline but still, a slope that somebody – or something – could run up if they chose.
“Do you think we should go down there?” Nora asked.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Ren replied.
“Hold on, guys,” Yang said. “I think I can hear something.”
She had to strain her ears to hear it over the sound of sirens blaring much closer by, but if she strained, then she could hear it nonetheless.
Gunfire, and the howling of the grimm.