Chapter 2

Four days later…

Near the outskirts of Vale, we sat and watched the Vytal tournament for entertainment while flying to our destination. And then of course during the semi-finals one of the hunters ripped apart a girl who was actually an android from Atlas.

…Well, that happened.

Then the channel got hacked and a black queen chess piece started talking about feminism then that hunters were evil. It was kind of strange all things told. I don’t think she was accustomed to debates or public speeches. Sounded very impromptu. The message didn’t exactly invoke anything within the Special Forces as whatever message she was trying to get across was lost on them.

What wasn’t was when they saw the Atlesian Dreadnought shoot down the others. They immediately sprung into action approaching Vale slowly and out of sight. The Schnee Private Forces Commander then turned to me. His eyes practically outlined the seriousness of the situation. It was a complete 180 from the rather laid-back person he usually was.

“Your orders?”

Oh. Oh no. I knew next to nothing about leading soldiers into battle. Did I look like I went to Atlas Academy? If he had been a few volumes quieter I could’ve at least answered with that but now everyone’s looking at me. I’m not exactly in a position to say ‘haha fuck if I know. Do soldier shit guys.’ Even if that is exactly what I’m feeling.

Calm down. Think logically. What are my objectives? One, make sure Weiss and Winter can escape if need be. They can obviously take care of themselves a lot better than me, but if the city is getting attacked by White Fang their numbers can whittle them down. A good direct objective, but I can’t quite get in touch with them in this chaos. Stop. Don’t focus on the sounds of the city. Focus on objectives.

I’m incompetent when it comes to leading an armed force. Thus, I should delegate power over as quickly as possible to someone much more competent. The best possible candidate would be General Ironwood himself. So, my second objective should be to get in touch with him, but the same problem applies to the first objective.

Or does it? General Ironwood has an emergency contact within his Dreadnought. I knew this fact simply because we were making the same one back at the Schnee estate with Ironwoods approval. Who knew that Ironwoods aggravating predisposition to explaining every latest Atlas innovation would be helpful? If we’re able to retake it from what’s probably White Fang soldiers, we can get in contact with the General, give him command of the Dreadnought and soldiers, sit back and reap the rewards of success of my soldiers.

Did he need the soldiers or man power? Gods no. He had practically an army of Atlesian knights and paladins. Of course, more manpower isn’t exactly something that’s scoffed at when lives are on the line. My plan was apparent before me. I was quick with my deductions, only having a few seconds passing while thinking. I turned to face the commander and tried to copy his dour appearance.

“The Dreadnought is the number one priority currently. It’s probably being held by White Fang members who made easy pickings of the pilots. Once we retake control, we can get a personal line to General Ironwood for further orders. …Well? HOP TO IT.”

The effect was immediate with most of what I believe were the commanding staff started to issue orders to their soldiers and the pilots. Although I thought it was a bit redundant to order them to continue to approach the Dreadnought undetected. That’s when I decided to do what I did best. Sit back and watch as it unfolds.

It wasn’t long until we were directly behind the Dreadnought, barely missing a strange missile that latched onto it. Subtlety was quickly thrown out the window as the commanding staff started screaming gogogo at the top of their lungs, rappelling down the ropes from the ships. They quickly but cautiously approached the bridge only to find no one was there, but the dreadnought was on its last legs.

The commander of the Schnee Private Forces immediately had backup pilots and engineers down them to fix the direst problems with soldier reinforcements. The exact moment they entered the aircraft the Griffons showed up. Externally I was practically a statue, but internally I was panicking. Grimm were a lot more of a real threat up close and personal than in books or videos.

“Hah! It’s just a few griffons you pansy fucks! Show them what Atlas boys are made of!” The commander simply scoffed at more green soldiers that were starting to shiver. However, it seemed like the majority of the force were practically laughing at the enemy. From that I was able to discern that they weren’t exactly that large of a threat.

Thankfully he didn’t relegate the battle to me, instead taking the reins himself. He had the soldiers wait to shoot until they were a suitable distance to where the gunfire would hit them. It was simply another reason I shouldn’t be the one handing out orders. A notification ringing on my scroll alerted me that the backup pilots had full control of the Dreadnought and the engineers were working overtime putting out various fires and sealing sparking electrical wires. Thankfully they believe they were able to get in contact with the General. All they needed was me.

Of course, I was completely out of my element to rappel down from the safety of our ship for the first time in the middle of a fire fight with grimm. The quickest way to the command deck of the ship required me to go from the stern of the ship where we poured out towards the bow. Of course, I would always have the most veteran officers around me including the Commander.

Rappelling in the air onto another ship was a rather thrilling experience, not that I would care to do it again. Fortunately, I only fell off the moment I hit the end. I took note that none of the staff said anything about it as a I dusted myself off and headed towards the front of the ship with gunfire surrounding me on all sides focusing on the Griffons. As we neared the entrance an officer pointed out the current fighting two figures near tip of the Dreadnought.

Well I call it fighting, but it was really some guy dressed like a pimp beating a girl with a cane. All of us simply raised an eyebrow at the spectacle. Then their eyebrows turned towards me.

“I don’t know, shoot him or something. He’s probably with the White Fang.”

The Commander merely shrugged as he took out a heavy looking pistol and simply shot the guy in the head without even aiming. Huh. Maybe I should get shooting lessons. I took note of this before we all started to head into the command center. Wasting no time, I simply pressed the shiny red emergency call button. It only rang once until someone picked up.

“Kind of in the middle of something Ozpin!” By the way he was breathing he had probably been running around trying to maintain some semblance of order.

“Uh, it’s nice to meet you again sir.”

A pause.

“Schnee? …Why have you commandeered one of my vessels? Well, vessel as in singular. Because the rest were shot down. By the vessel you’re currently contacting me from. Please answer very carefully.”

Ah. Suspicion. Fair enough.

“I’ve retaken it from what I believe were White Fang members that slipped out once they took care of the rest of the crew. They turned it onto a collision course towards Vale and most bailed. Since you’re the most experienced personnel here I’ll turn all control over the dreadnought and my forces over to you.”

A sigh of relief came from the other side.

“Finally, something’s going right today. …Did you say forces? How many soldiers and ships do you have currently?”

Ah. There was that calculative tone. Finally, I could rest easy.

“About twelve hundred soldiers, including about twenty standard Atlesian ships, two hundred Paladins, and a couple hundred Knights.”

“Wait, have the Knights and Paladins not turned on you? …No, it wouldn’t would it. Jacques is on a separate private server so as to keep them secret. Good, this is good. I’m on my way to the ship, please just…keep it in the air. Also deploy all forces to Beacon immediately. Evacuations have already started.”

Damn, has it seriously gotten that bad!? They had tons of Paladins, Knights, and soldiers. How did it spiral out of control so badly? I knew better than to ask such non-important questions currently. Thankfully Ironwood had already laid out a game plan of where to deploy each force. It was…scary just how quickly he crunched the numbers and started to divert troops to where they’d be most effective.

Unfortunately, this also meant that the ships now devoid of soldiers and weapons were now being used by civilians to be escorted back to main Vale. It was rather unfortunate as I would much rather be back on my main airship rather then on this flaming hunk of junk. One of the panels was literally on fire but deemed ‘not a pressing issue’ by the engineers. I don’t know whether to give them a raise or to cut their pay. It was definitely one of those. Just then in the middle of a conversation between Ironwood and my Commander, a red blur shot out from the door. They immediately had every gun that wasn’t shooting down the griffins out of the sky or off the hull trained on her.

“Please, you need to start shooting the grimm!”

…No, we were just planning on throwing in the towel and blowing up the ship. What the fuck did she think we were doing? Giving the Griffons love taps? Thankfully my Commander quickly took over the situation with a wave of his hand and the guns were now focused back at the Griffons. He then proceeded to ignore her.

Great. Now she was looking for someone to meet her eyes to engag-dammit. I quelled the hiss in my throat as she turned towards me with near tears in her eyes.

“Uh, listen kid. You know those sounds of thunder are gunshots yes? We are fighting the grimm.”

“No! Not them, the ones on the ground!”

What the fuck!? All I can see is the flying grimm all around us and the big Dragon grimm thing that we’re steering clear of. What happened to Ironwoods forces? Did they blink out of existence?

Before I could answer her, a loud roar shook the ship. The cause was rather hard not to notice as a giant blacker than night monster with wings decided to perch near Beacon proper. With a large fuck off beam of light being fired from it’s mouth to somewhere in the sky. That somewhere being in the general direction of a ship in the sky. The one we were on, specifically. Or rather, unfortunately.

“Fuck me.” The Commander muttered under his breath.

“Uh oh.” Said the red comet nearby.

“Oh my.” I commented with my eyebrows raised.

Well. I could definitely see where his forces went.

I was the only one to not simply stop and stare to drink in the situation they were in. Probably because I didn’t exactly fear all that much for my life. Weiss and Winter on the other hand, were much more worrisome, in my opinion. That wasn’t to say this situation was by all means fine and dandy.

For one, if that grimm landed a solid blow against the ship that’d be it. I and the rest of the ship wouldn’t survive. Forcing my hand was forced to prevent that. Which was annoying.

I let out a sigh as I started to walk towards the door out of the control room. Most of the crew that heard my footsteps seemed to snap out of it and hurriedly go back to what they were doing instead of breaking down. Well, most of them at any rate. The commander still had a bit of a shellshocked face set while he seemed to be still processing the situation.

“I’m going to be taking some fresh air outside. Don’t worry about the grimm and just keep doing whatever it is that Ironwood told you to do.”

He barely seemed to register what I said with a small nod, not even deigning to look in my direction. The red comet on the other hand seemed to snap out of it with a worried look shot in my direction. Before she could say anything though, I had already left. Thankfully the first shot by it had seemed to drive most of the grimm that were in the air to evacuate ASAP. I wasn’t hurried on my way to the side of the ship that was most likely to be hit.

An almost grazing shot past by told me I was correct in where it would aim. I simply had to wait. This part was easy. The harder part would be in what to do with the crew. Thus, that is where I should start planning.

“What are you doing!?”

I see the red comet had decided to follow me out. It was touching to see how-the sudden brightness of my area alerted me to the massive beam of light that was hurtling towards me. As I was caught by surprise, I only had one thing to say before the dragon grimm’s beam hit me.

“Oh.”