TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 22, 2020 19:23:44 GMT -5
The talking inside was making her heart pound, and making her want to take frequent glances over her shoulder. She could barely hear most of it through the crack in the window that was holding up the barbed wire, but she was also only a few feet away from the window and her hearing was far better than most humans' hearing. The guards weren't reacting at all, and they were talking to each other quite loudly, so she understood that it was just paranoia on her part. However, it was difficult to not be paranoid when lives were at stake.
Once inside, she was almost glad that she was carrying someone because it stopped her from looking too stiff or nervous and stopped her from doing any nervous fidgeting with her hands. It was important that they look competent, confident, and in control so that the people would trust them and not freak out. It looked like Knight was having no trouble with that, but Red looked more like a burglar than a security guard. It was inevitable with large faunus features she wanted to be able to use while working, but still wanted to keep hidden for situations like this. Hopefully, being the one to actually go out into the open to get them out of there would be enough to get them to trust her.
She handed off the prisoner on her back to someone besides the one Knight indicated to avoid and waved when Knight told them to follow her. After glancing out the window one more time, she lead the group into the next room, closing the door once everyone was through, before actually talking to anyone. Even if she could keep her voice low, and even if no one here seemed to have trouble doing the same, she just did not want to be anywhere near that window when she started talking. Despite her anxiety, her voice was perfectly level and calm, to the point of being devoid of any emotion. She kept her sentences short and simple, focusing on directions rather than comfort, so hopefully it wouldn't be too uncanny or uncomfortable. As much as she wanted to try to comfort them, it was difficult to do when she was like this. Empathy and being fully prepared to harm or kill didn't mix well.
"We are going to the castle, and we will make sure all of you get there too. Follow close behind me until I tell you to stop," she put the palm of her hand up to show which gesture she would use, then switched to the next one to indicate when they should follow. "And then continue following me once I let you know it is safe. If I have to go further ahead to make sure our route is clear, I will inform my partner," she gestured to Knight, "and she will let you know when it is safe to go, and you should all follow her until you catch up to me. Are there any questions?"
Red looked between everyone and let them confirm either verbally or with a shake of their head that they understood and were ready to move. Or as ready as they were going to be. While she still thought separating and getting better vantage points would be safer, and probably faster, the people were shaken enough that she figured she shouldn't leave them alone with Knight. Not because she didn't trust Knight with them, but because it was important Knight avoid being under too much pressure so she wasn't distracted if she ever had to use her semblance. If they stayed together as much as possible, then she could at least make sure everyone was being quiet and moving properly.
Her first goal was to get some distance from the group of guards, and even took the group further away from the castle for a bit to ensure that they could do that as quickly as possible. Once she was pretty sure they'd be able to get around easily, she started leading them directly towards the castle again. Or at least as much as she could given they had to follow the paths between buildings. At this point she was relying on her ears more than her eyes. If it was quiet, she'd double check the corners and would tell everyone to go. If she thought she heard something, she'd tell them to stay while she went a bit further ahead, or upwards if necessary, to verify and confirm the best route to go around.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Jul 25, 2020 17:52:50 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]It was all uphill from here so long as nobody panicked and did something stupid. Knight was more than capable of controlling her semblance enough to prevent any significant blowback, so as long as they didn’t find any other groups that were conveniently bunched up extremely close to hostiles, they should be fine. As long as she was able to point in a direction and fire without any friendlies within a couple of meters, they were fine. The actual combat part wasn’t the issue and wasn’t what she was focused on at the moment. [break][break]
What she was focused on was trying to put together who the enemy was, so she could determine next steps beyond just getting to the castle and defending. Their goal was what mattered, and their goal might not have anything to do with the city because this was obviously not a prime location for an invasion. They could maybe stay here and fortify enough to hold for a while but taking Kerch by itself would do very little other than best case scenario becoming a local warlord. The heavy Atlesian accents meant that they weren’t from the major cities in the country, which meant they were likely just a private military company or other defense contracting type. The Atlesian military usually only recruits from the capital and sometimes Mantle as far as she knew, and those types wouldn’t have such thick accents unless they were too uneducated to join. The military seemed to only recruit the upper caste, and they certainly wouldn’t have accents that thick. [break][break]
Killing of faunus but not humans was also something notable, because if they wanted to salt the earth they would have killed both. Anti-faunus sentiment by itself didn’t narrow down the list of possibilities at all, largely because it was so common in Atlas. There were many in that country, and frankly in Mistral that dreamed of nothing more than the ability to freely shoot at nonhumans. What was probably more distinguishing was the fact that these guys hadn’t upgraded their gear since the Faunus War, which meant that they weren’t one of the top tier companies that could afford the bleeding edge in tech. They also didn’t have access to or didn’t have the logistics to transport a large enough number of vehicles and artillery to take a shot at Argus, which further helped that assumption that this was a second-rate force at best. [break][break]
If this was a real heavy hitting force, there wouldn’t be random goons running around doing most of the heavy lifting. The infantry would be merely there to support and corral enemies into the artillery and other heavy weapons while they did all the heavy lifting. The sound of cannons firing would be omnipresent until all resistance was crushed, and then the men on foot would secure the area after resistance had been extremely weakened. She hadn’t heard a heavy weapon fire since she got here, which likely meant they didn’t have enough to just bombard the fort. [break][break]
The faunus was content to just follow along with Red while keeping watch around them, and aside from having to pause and wait semi-frequently for patrols to pass by they were doing fine in terms of making it to the fort itself. The civilians realized that this was a life or death situation and made almost no noise, aside from the piss guy taking the opportunity to relieve himself during a stop. It was about as good as could be expected, and Red was more than competent enough to make sure they weren’t discovered by picking the correct positioning and timing. Things were going so smoothly so far it was honestly kind of disturbing. They were already almost within spitting distance of the fort, with only a few more blocks to traverse before then. Things were going by so well, in fact, that Knight had shifted her hand positioning to be pulling down her bulletproof vest slightly with both hands so air circulated better and she sweat less. [break][break]
They were positioned right under her neck and were easy to free if needed… it just hasn’t been needed. Whether due to luck, incompetence on the part of the enemy, or skill on their part they had encountered next to zero problems so far... so that was good.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]715 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]7891 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 26, 2020 10:15:07 GMT -5
For once, her mind was actually fairly quiet. It wasn't running around in circles trying to piece together what was going on, who these people were, or what they were trying to accomplish. It wasn't making her remember every bad decision she had made in the last decade, nor was it berating her for some of the reckless decisions she'd made since arriving here. She could still feel the pressure of having all these people counting on her, but her thoughts weren't wandering off and thinking about what might happen if she failed. Instead, her mind was filled with what was here now and little else. She could hear all the footsteps and sounds of weapons. She was listening closely for sounds of anyone trapped in buildings or under rubble. She was very aware of where the people following her were, the sounds of their footsteps, and even the sounds of their breathing. Red had an almost single-minded focus on her current task, which was common for her in very stressful situations like this and was pretty much the only time it ever happened. It was nice not to be overwhelmed by her own thoughts, but she wasn't thinking about that either.
In such a state, she could react very quickly to anything directly related to her current task. However, it ended up not being necessary. She was very patient in her approach, not trusting the competency of the civilians following her any more than she absolutely had to. It meant waiting a little longer in certain places, but it kept everyone very safe. Safe enough that they didn't encounter any trouble. As the castle gates started to come into view, it all felt too easy. If she wasn't so focused on the sounds and pathing, she might have been worried, but in her current state she could only feel relieved. The people relying on her were going to be safe. The exact reasons that was the case didn't matter for the moment.
Initially, her path was going to take them as close to the wall as possible with the hope that they could just run through it and get in safely. As she kept moving though, she realized this was absurd. This was supposed to be their stronghold, why would she need to help the people that belonged there break into it? She knew the source of the thought, a worry that the people guarding the gate wouldn't trust her and would thus start attacking. It wasn't a completely unfounded worry, but the consequences for showing up uninvited inside would likely be worse. Once she realized this, she suddenly stopped moving, paused, and motioned for Knight to come closer.
"Do you think-- I think--" she stopped and paused.
Normally, she would provide her opinion and let Knight make the final decision, but she was trying to get better at leading herself and that meant that she had to do more than just provide an opinion. If Knight hadn't largely left her in charge she wouldn't have cared as much, but as long as she had the reigns she figured she should try to sound more decisive. It helped that if her ideas were completely stupid, she trusted Knight to say as much no matter how she phrased it. So she paused and tried to think of a more commanding way to speak. The anxiety in her tone was obvious, but the words sounded better. Maybe.
"Let's go through the front. If you lead us, I think they'll trust us."
She gestured to Knight's uniform, remembering how the prisoners reacted when they first saw it. If the people guarding the gate had the same reaction, then it would be easy to not only get inside, but to get on the townspeoples' side so they could help defend the area. If Knight found the plan agreeable, Red would be just a little bit behind her with the former prisoners right behind her. That way, she'd still be close enough if things went bad and she could pull them out of trouble. Hopefully between the uniforms and the injured citizens they were escorting, it wouldn't be necessary.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Jul 28, 2020 23:05:20 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]As they got closer to the fort, Knight was getting more and more concerned that something was up. The area around the fort was completely clear of hostiles. As in, there was absolutely none of the heavily armed militants literally anywhere in sight of the fort. Something was definitely wrong here, but their initial way into the fort was unimpeded. [break][break]
One thing about Knight that was honestly more detrimental than anything was the fact that she so rarely got scared. Her sense of self-preservation was never nearly as developed as most others, which was probably why she could handle this line of workday in and day out. While she rarely got scared, she did get much more aware when she realized a situation was dangerous. Blood started pumping a bit faster due to increased heartrate, gray eyes dilated just a bit, and her posture became absolutely perfect. In this case, her hands didn’t move from their spot largely because she didn’t know if the enemy was watching and didn’t want to suddenly shift demeanor and potentially make them react when they otherwise wouldn’t. [break][break]
While some stray bullets wouldn’t exactly do much to hurt her, that wasn’t the issue. Most ordinary people didn’t have their auras unlocked because it simply wasn’t worth it in their day to day lives. It was much the same reasoning as why most people didn’t have years and years of formal martial arts training, despite the fact that it could save their life. It was a huge time and lien investment for a skill that decays when you’re not using it and will most likely never be the only option to resolve a situation. It takes years and a tremendous amount of effort to achieve mastery, and continued dedication to maintain that level of skill. [break][break]
Aura was similar. Sure, you could pay someone to unlock it for you but that alone was fucking useless. It was like any skill insofar as you needed to train consistently with it and the ability to use it decayed when you didn’t use it. In the same way that watching a kung fu movie didn’t make you a martial arts expert, paying someone to unlock your aura and fuck off did nothing because the person who had their aura unlocked would lack the focus and training to actually pull it up and control it. The only way to get that proficiency was by limit testing, which just like martial arts required you to get the absolute shit beat out of you over and over and over again. [break][break]
There were outliers, just like there was with anything. Some would never have great control over it due to personality or focus or whatever, and some would be abnormally good at it for similar reasons. Amount of aura was different for each person and seemed essentially random. Knight herself was blessed with an abnormally large amount of aura but found it much harder to control efficiently than others. There were others with a very small amount of aura who used it perfectly that could match or exceed her, but those were extreme outliers and she had never encountered one despite knowing that it was theoretically true. [break][break]
The faunus smiled when her companion suggested she lead the way, and she did so with all the confidence in the world due to the aforementioned fact that even if the remaining townspeople in the fort shot at her it wasn’t like it would do anything. She kept her hands just under her neck, still pulling down on that bulletproof vest as she walked. She sauntered over in full view of the now in view remaining militia, holding their Great War era weaponry and pointing it at them like it could do something. She was often used as the face of the group in tenser situations, because she found it easy to project a nonchalant confidence almost no matter the situation. She was too blunt and dismissive to negotiate during normal situations for the most part, but in times like these those traits helped because it threw the other party off balance and made them unsure on how to react… which got them inside the fort faster. [break][break]
”Got some stragglers here, just announcing presence. We’re with Mistral and our mission is to kill or capture the leader of the invasion force here, and helping you helps us accomplish that goal. Keep the gate closed, we’ll be entering with our hands in the air.” [break][break]
”No, stay where you are.” was the immediate response, from a fresh faced young man almost lunging forward to point his rifle a couple of inches closer to Knight like it mattered. He was on top of the remains of the battlements, so the range was decent. ”Call for backup.” he ordered the other guard, who started to protest but then ran off down what Knight assumed were stairs. Weird that they weren’t using radios… and weirder that they just send away one of two visible guards for the main gate. What the fuck was this? [break][break]
”You do realize they’re going to attack again, right? And that these villagers are going to get caught up in the crossfire… At least let them in.” Knight responded, turning her head to the group of injured escaped prisoners and hoping that would sway the young guy into letting at least some of them in. [break][break]
”No, fuck you. How do we know you’re not a spy from their side, trying to get inside our fort and destroy us from the inside?” Knight rolled her eyes at that, which caused him to lurch forward again like it mattered at all in his ability to hurt her. [break][break]
”Do any of you guys recognize that prick?” she asked, turning her head to the prisoners who were all looking very perplexed and stressed. The look on their faces told the entire story, that they did recognize him and knew that nothing they could say could convince him. A couple of them tried to plead with the guy, but he kept defaulting to the excuse that the enemy might have converted them over to their side and that it wasn’t safe. Knight motioned with her head and shifted her gaze to Red and farther back to convey that she wanted her to move everyone a safe distance back. If this was another day, she might have just killed the guy and moved on… but that might lead to some issues later on in this case and she opted against it. [break][break]
Knight let this go on for about thirty seconds before she provoked him. ”I’m going to start moving forward now to go through the door.” she said in a tone that was purposefully meant to convey boredom and apathy. [break][break]
”Don’t you move, I’ll shoot!” [break][break]
”Oh no, whatever shall I do.” she’d reply in the same bored, apathetic tone as she started to walk forward. The guy threatened to shoot one more time before he finally did, and ten rifle rounds fired one after the other in her direction, some of which actually hit her as she calmly walked to the wall. After the ten shots were fired, there was an audible clicking noise as the idiot kept trying to fire his weapon with no ammunition. [break][break]
”Come on, Red. Let’s get them through the wall before they attack again.” She said, her tone much more urgent. The guy had no idea how to react and was trying to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to be doing at the moment, and if they phased through before he got his wits back they could talk to someone who wasn’t a total fucking idiot. Once the loud idiot got his wits back, he’d be furious at being made a fool of and want revenge. They needed to get to the actual leader or at least someone that could put the idiot in his place before that happened or things could get pretty dangerous for everyone involved. The faunus couldn’t afford to waste focus on trivial shit like this when there was a full fledged attack coming.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1358 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]9249 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 29, 2020 9:52:33 GMT -5
This was why she was worried about making calls herself and leading people. She could handle situations going poorly or not as expected, but it felt so much worse when she thought it was her fault. Even though she was more subdued than she normally would be, it's not like she could kill her emotions completely and focus solely on the objective. If she could, she might not have rescued those people. Watching Knight argue with that idiot made her stiffen and straighten up even more than she already was, and she started tugging at her sleeves. It was a minor enough setback that she didn't dwell on it too much, and it was too soon to say whether or not the call had actually been bad, but it still made her feel a little embarrassed. And she couldn't help but feel a bit of second-hand embarrassment for the paranoid guard as well.
She corralled the civilians back and started to move back herself when Knight asked, not needing to think twice about doing so. The gate guard was behaving irrationally and it was difficult to predict what people like that would do. As long as she couldn't hear signs of enemies nearby, he was the only potential threat to these people. She stayed a bit further ahead, letting the civilians go behind a nearby building, and watched the situation unfold.
Gunshots were always an unpleasant sound, even beyond them being uncomfortably loud for how sensitive her hearing was. Even knowing that bullets wouldn't do anything to Knight didn't stop her from digging her nails into her wrist, or at least as much as she was able to while wearing gloves like this. She let the situation play out so the point could be made, and simply nodded once it was time to move again. That display showed that his offensive power meant nothing to them. Hers was about to show them that their fort meant nothing to them. There was absolutely nothing he could do to stop them from doing what they wanted, and yet they were showing themselves and seeking permission to work with them rather than brute forcing their way through. As much as she would have preferred for negotiations to go smoothly enough they wouldn't have to act like this, she hoped it would mean something. If not to the paranoid guard then to everyone else.
First she had to deal with some very uncomfortable looking civilians. The ones that could see the scene had their eyes widen and the rest looked more scared than before. It was to be expected from a confrontation where deadly weapons were fired, and she doubted her own stiffness was helping. That was another reason she liked loose clothing like this. As long as no one was directly touching her, it was far easy to fake being relaxed (as though she was ever relaxed). She turned around and looked between everyone motioning for them to go to to her side so she would be between them and the guard. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference with his vantage point, but if it helped the civilians feel better it was worth trying. From there, she continued in the very matter-of-fact tone she had when explaining things before and tried to stay focused on facts and actions so that her tone wouldn't sound too weird.
"It's okay. He's just scared. We won't let him hurt any of you, and we'll make sure he's okay too. We're going to go through the wall, just like before. Stay on this side of me and move together. Ready?"
She waited for everyone to give an uneasy nod before moving each of them to the wall and then through it. Red kept her eyes on the guard as she moved in case he tried anything, but she wasn't expecting much with as dumbfounded as he looked. Unfortunately, she with as high as she'd need to jump to get through a wall this thick, she couldn't take everyone through at once, which meant leaving people unattended on the other side while she pulled everyone else through. It wouldn't take too long for her to go back and forth, but that meant she couldn't take the time to get a good look on what was on the other side beyond verifying there wasn't anything immediately threatening. On her last trip, she also offered Knight a hand if she wanted to come through as well.
Once everyone was through, if there was nothing that required her immediate attention she'd make sure the civilians were safe and could get somewhere to get their wounds treated, and then would return to where Knight was, regardless of whether her partner was inside or outside of the fort. She could figure out what to do next from there.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Jul 29, 2020 19:53:51 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]The gunshots were extremely loud and should have alerted the invaders of their presence… but they still didn’t come. Why didn’t they come? Gunshots from a rifle like that could be heard a mile out, easy, and nobody came running. There were fire teams of the fuckers running around the city, so they were definitely hearing it… why were they not coming? Why were they not here? [break][break]
She kept her gray gaze focused on the idiot, watching him try to process what had just happened as Red got the civilians inside as the gears were turning in her head. They were pulling back after the failed attempt at taking the fort, and the fort itself was damaged and seemed to be undermanned. Something was definitely coming, but with how volatile the situation was it was hard to find space to think clearly about it. [break][break]
She’d take the transport through the gate that Red offered, and when she was on the other side it was clear that at least the outside portion of the fort was empty as well. ”Where the fuck is everyone?” she yelled in the direction of the guard, for the first time outwardly irritated. ”There’s no way you all got wiped before we got here.” [break][break]
”They’re hiding from the cannons.” was the response, and one that made those gray eyes widen. One of the survivor did mention a ship out at sea with cannons, but they hadn’t heard any artillery blasts coming here… Oh, shit. Now that she wasn’t distracted, she could see the cannonballs strewn around the courtyard from the last barrage as well as the bodies, or… well, the pieces of bodies strewn around that she had just mentally blocked out the first time she looked around. There was also a surprising number of paramilitary corpses on the interior, which meant that the remaining defenders were at least fighting hard. [break][break]
”Civilians inside. Red, check for any stragglers and get them to cover. They won’t attack until the shelling is over. That means you guard guy, get inside or you’ll just die.” Orders started flowing naturally at this point in the tone of someone used to having those orders followed instantly, and her blood was really starting to start pumping. She could hear it rushing in her ears, and she started sprinting up the battered stairs next to the gate, to get on the battlements. She likely didn’t have time to position herself perfectly, but she did need to get into range. [break][break]
Once she got a better vantage point, the situation looked a lot more horrifying. There were more stragglers than she thought, or maybe there just wasn’t enough fortified fort left. The ceiling was blasted to hell, and she could see dozens of people inside that would be directly hit by any shelling. There were a surprising amount that simply didn’t bother to be in the fort at all and were in random ass places outside of it, one of them even dug a fucking hole in the dirt in the courtyard and was cowering inside that hole with nothing over their head at all. [break][break]
They weren’t digging in. They had the land to be able to entrench themselves here but lacked either the time or the expertise to do it in time. Fuck, what a waste. Fifteen feet into the ground and they would have been good to go. The crumbling infrastructure of the fort itself couldn’t take another round of shelling, and from the impacts it looked like whatever they were using was pretty fucking effective. The decision to get Red to evacuate the group they already brought in to as close to safety as possible and get stragglers was determined to be a good one seeing how many were still out of place. Even if she succeeded in hitting the incoming attack with her semblance, bits of superheated slag would remain, and she couldn’t redirect all of it. If it landed on flesh instead of stone… well, it’d go right through them. [break][break]
Just then, she heard the unmistakable sound of a tremendous amount of artillery going off. One after the other, the blasting of cannons filled the air and set a timer with any further interactions with the remaining townspeople. Generally speaking, objects as large as cannonballs had a decent amount of travel time. They had to be fired upwards and encountered a fair bit of air resistance on the way up and took some time to barrel down at tremendous speeds. The fort wasn’t right next to the ocean, so it had a travel time that was going to be a minimum of one minute, but likely closer to two. Knight was still extremely far from the right side of the battlement where she needed to be, so she had to improvise. [break][break]
Speed was never one of her strong suits, but as a manipulator she could burn her aura in exchange for temporary speed. By sacrificing a third of her aura, she went from a normal person sprinting to a freight train going nearly sixty miles an hour by blasting fire from her hands to propel herself forward in a sort of half flight, half running type of motion. The fact that there was nobody on the battlements worked out in her favor, because she could aerially propel herself past any of the broken parts of the structure with no issue. Her flames melted the stone where it touched, but that also didn’t matter because she didn’t need to go down the way she went up. [break][break]
This was stupid, she found herself thinking. Even if she did succeed, even if she did effectively block this attack, they could probably just launch another one. Even if they couldn’t launch another barrage, they could storm the gates with all of their men and equipment, and she would have little to aura left to combat that attack. Not to mention that she’d have nothing left to actually take out the ship itself, either. To have any chance of actually stopping the attack herself, she’d have to sacrifice the fort and everyone inside to the incoming cannon barrage in order to kill those responsible… or she could complete what she started and delay the inevitable. [break][break]
Before long, the cannon barrage was in visual range… but the speed of its approach meant that thinking was out of the question at this point, so Knight just committed to the action she had already started. While it was around that one-and-a-half-minute marker, it certainly felt like a much shorter time. She didn’t know if Red was able to do much, but she’d have to just do her best to redirect and diminish the incoming attack as much as possible. She had originally just planned on incinerating most of the metal, but that wouldn’t work with them coming in such quick succession. It’d just turn the cannon barrage into a superheated metal barrage and have the same, if not worse effect. [break][break]
What she needed to do, instead, was create a series of fire blasts to generate force. She needed to mimic explosions as much as possible to push the artillery to the sides as much as possible, hitting everywhere except the fort itself. The walls could be sacrificed at this point, mostly because they were already fucked to begin with. Because this wasn’t exactly a conventional use of her semblance, it would burn even more of her aura than usual. The continuous blasts of fire would also be much more sustained than she was used to, and the amount of fire required meant that she didn’t have the luxury of holding back at all to keep her aura levels in check. [break][break]
She reached the eastern battlement with seconds to spare before the cannon barrage entered her effective range, and for the first time in a long time was able to just unleash everything. The first snap of her right hand ignited a burst of fire that successfully blasted one cannonball far enough to the side to miss the fort entirely. The first snap of her left hand managed to generate enough downward force to slam the artillery piece down into one of the inner city districts where no doubt the enemy was waiting. The second snap of her right hand only managed a slight redirection, one that sent the cannonball blasting into the far end of the courtyard. The second snap of her left hand was a redirect into a wall surrounding the fort, smashing through a section of it due to it losing structural integrity. The third snap of her right hand was another redirection downward, again onto an inner city area that this time created an explosion and some additional flames. It appears that one hit something important, like a vehicle or fuel. [break][break]
Like all of her fire, the light from Knight’s semblance use was exceptionally bright. Rather than the normal red flames that humans and dust created, her semblance was and always has been specifically white flames. She continued spamming her semblance over and over until she had spent a little more than half of her total aura and lowered her remaining percentage to a mere fifteen percent by the end of the barrage. Her range and the fact that she wasn’t holding back in the slightest meant that chunks of the Old Town interior were on fire due to the slag and the residual flames, but that was fine. By the end of it, the fort itself hadn’t been hit by even one of the dozens of cannonballs barreling towards it just a minute ago. [break][break]
One unfortunate side effect with generating that much power, however, was it forced her to abandon things that her aura was doing that weren’t altogether necessary for her survival. One of those things was temperature control, and by the end of the encounter Knight was drenched heat to toe in sweat as well as her gear feeling like she just spent the last hour in direct sunlight in a particularly hot summer day. She also felt fucking exhausted so much so that her strategy for getting down from the heavily damaged battlement was simply to take a few steps backwards and fall down on her back, letting her abnormally strong aura take the hit with no issue. [break][break]
If they were lucky, the several cannonballs redirected into likely enemy encampments would allow Knight to at least catch her breath. She didn’t make any immediate movements after hitting the ground, opting to just suck in as much air as possible as a tremendous amount of visible steam wafted up from where she was lying down. It was only after she fell that she realized her earpiece was gone, whether from the fall or from the semblance spam or from something else was something that would just have to remain a mystery for now. The only movement she made was to lift the goggles up away from her eyes with her right hand due to the excessive amount of fogging that it had due to the huge spike in heat and sweat. It would clear up soon enough, but she couldn’t afford to let it wait in case the attack was immediately after the cannon barrage. [break][break]
She’d have to check her aura percentage on her scroll when she got up, because while she normally kept a pretty good mental estimation of where she was… she lacked a lot of practice accounting for tremendous drops in a short amount of time like what had just happened. She knew she was low, but she didn’t quite know how low and the exact number made a lot of difference. It was her wiggle room and ability to do things, and ultimately her ability to influence the things that happened in and around the fort. While she could be a solid single combatant even without her aura, her chances at influencing the battlefield rather than a single fight were slim to none without the advantage of being able to call fire at will. [break][break]
Ha, they were probably fucked from this point onwards… but there wasn’t anything she could actually do about it at this point. Red in the face from heat and exertion and covered in this disgusting mixture of dirt and sweat, she felt oddly calm about the entire situation. She had made a decision to help, despite the fact that it was a bad long-term decision. She was fine with accepting the consequences for that decision, up to and including her death due to not saving her aura for the part to come. Given the fact that the attack didn’t seem imminent due to the distinct lack of gunfire and artillery noises, it seemed like at the very least she had bought everyone a bit of time to regroup and figure out what the fuck they were going to do from this point onward. Hopefully the plan didn't suck.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]2155 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]11404 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 30, 2020 11:25:09 GMT -5
Red didn't take a good look around when she brought the first group of civilians into the fort, all she verified was that there was nothing immediately pressing. No people pointing weapons at them, no fires or anything obviously lethal, and no Grimm. She wasn't inside the fort long enough to do more than that because she wanted to get the people inside as quickly as possible. It wasn't until the final group was inside that she actually looked at the supposedly safe place she was bringing them to.
It was the kind of scene she had prepared herself for before agreeing to come on this mission. She never responded well to death. Having Knight kill three people right in front of her at the start limited her ability to think, because she had to make sure she didn't dwell on it. However, those deaths were clean and didn't leave anything behind for her to see, and that was not the case here. There weren't just corpses, there were bodies that had been blown to pieces and those were the ones she had the most trouble with. Enough that she couldn't look at them and had to physically turn away, as difficult as that was with as many as there were. The rest of the devastation was tame in comparison, and got no more reaction than taking mental notes about what was around and what they could use.
She hadn't planned on being in the fort long. Her abilities in direct combat were already limited compared to what Knight could do, so it made more sense for her to go out and either look for more survivors or sabotage enemy supplies. Once the artillery was fired, it became clear that counting on being able to leave so easily was a mistake. With her ability to think things through suppressed, she didn't even think about what ships having cannons might mean. She was picturing weapons similar to the ones on the gunship that they saw going down the river when they first arrived: smaller and more meant for nearby combat or ship-to-ship combat, left it at that, and didn't think about it further. The sound blindsided her, her eyes went wide, and she inhaled sharply.
The first thought that entered her head was that she doomed those civilians, rather than rescue them, by bringing them to a place like this. Her mind was already focused on trying to save as many civilians as possible, so when Knight gave the order to do so her body reacted before her mind had fully caught up. With much of the fortifications crumbling, there wasn't a lot she could do for them. The safest place was some place besides the remains of the castle, on the side the artillery was unlikely to hit, and also at an angle that if the fort was hit that it wouldn't fall on them. Anything else risked the fort collapsing on them. Some of the civilians moved without much prompting because of Knight's order. She spent the two minutes she had directing everyone else to that spot, physically dragging anyone that refused if she was able. There wasn't time to convince them with the shells already in the air.
Gunshots were loud, but artillery shells were far louder, even without the forces they put out. The walls protected them from the worst of it thanks to Knight's redirection, but the sheer volume of the impacts, the explosions Knight was making, and the screaming of the people around her overwhelmed her very quickly. There were more stress responses than just fight or flight, and unfortunately, Red's was one of the least helpful in these situations: to freeze. She curled herself up into a corner, covered her human-like ears, and stayed there completely motionless until she was able to regain some sense of herself. She didn't know how long it took, but there were still a lot of people cowering in the area, so she could only hope no one noticed given her face was completely covered.
This was why she knew she wouldn't be useful if she stayed her. A large-scale firefight was likely to have similar effects, and was why she didn't come on missions where such a fight was the only thing that could happen. She'd be nothing more than a liability. There was enough useful tasks for her to do here that she figured she'd be fine if she separated from Knight once she got into position that she felt comfortable with trying to help. Yes, she wasn't a helpless pre-teen in over her head anymore. Even if she wasn't the one woman army Knight, and a lot of other people with aura, were she still had her own uses. And right now she had to try to save these people.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot they could do. They were two people up against an army and they had a large area they needed cover. Large enough that it wasn't physically possible for two people to do. If they stayed here and tried to defend the place, it'd get whittled down by the artillery. If they tried to go after the artillery, they'd be slow enough that a couple more barrages would likely go off before they could even get there because the ocean was on the other side of the town. She might be able to get there a little faster if she went alone, but she'd still have to clear the entire town without getting caught, and once there she had no idea how she was supposed to take down something like that.
Maybe she could have made a small force to take with her, but the thought never occurred to her. Her upbringing taught her that she couldn't rely on anyone and that no one would ever help her, Knight being the only exception. She learned that if she wanted something done, she was going to have to do it herself. She learned that relying on other people drastically increased the probability of failure, so she tended to make plans assuming that anyone else would do absolutely nothing at best. With those restrictions, there was only one course of action that made sense.
"We have to evacuate," she projected while standing, her voice sounding almost bored. She started looking along the length of wall leading outside the town, trying to find the most suitable spot to go through while the words settled into the minds of the people around her. She just shook her head at any objections. "How do you plan to deal with the artillery? We can't hold this spot. You don't have to abandon your home. Just get out and live so you can fight later."
Red didn't wait for any responses before moving towards the wall to get a glimpse of what was on the other side so they could try to find some amount of safety. She wasn't thinking about what they were supposed to do after given the closest city was far away and the outside still had armed soldiers patrolling it, but she wasn't thinking that far ahead. This place wasn't safe, so they couldn't stay here. That was the only thing running through her head. She didn't go look for Knight because she figured Knight could take care of herself. The civilians took priority right now.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Jul 30, 2020 14:48:27 GMT -5
[nospaces]
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]Fire didn’t really have any force generating ability on its own. It had no solid form, and didn’t push things around very easily. The only way to make a solid object move with any reliability was to melt a part of it to make the rest of the object move, which is what she did with the cannonballs to mixed success. If she melted much of the top, the weight would shift downwards and it would change its trajectory to start downwards. The sides would shift it to that side and also downwards. It was next to impossible to tell where exactly they would land, but fucking up the trajectory of shots that were aimed more or less perfectly was always going to provide at least a better outcome than letting them fly normally. [break][break]
With that completed… the only question was what to do next. Steam was still coming off of her, but her aura was starting to stabilize her body temperature, so her gear wasn’t searing into her skin anymore. Shifting her head slightly to get her hair out of her eyes, she pulled out her scroll with her left hand to check her aura – only fifteen percent. Fuck. That wasn’t going to be enough, not on its own. She was tired, but still able to move around – maybe even at full speed and agility once adrenaline kicked in again. [break][break]
But she was going to count to five before getting up. Any rush she might have felt from the artillery barrage was gone now, and her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Getting up was going to be the hardest part, and she was going to delay it a little bit to work up the mental strength to push through that before the enemy militants started pouring in. They would have to at this point, right? With the artillery failing, they’d have no other choice. There was smoke rising up over the eastern wall now, which meant some of the city outside of that wall was on fire now. That might delay things, but it wouldn’t stall them forever. [break][break]
One, two… Three… Four…. …. …. Five, fuck it. With a groan, she forced herself up to her feet, lurching her torso upwards and using her hands to assist in the movement. Getting her hair out of her eyes, she was honestly kind of surprised to see so many people staring at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Well, there went her ability to ever use her semblance again without being instantly recognized… fuck. [break][break]
”Get everyone you can, and your leader. We don’t have a lot of time and need to work out next steps.” she ordered, almost yelling due to the ringing in her ears that she only just now noticed never really subsiding. This snapped them back to reality and gave them a task to do and gave Knight a little bit longer to figure out exactly what the fuck they were going to do. She didn’t see any good armor or weapons on the townspeople, only Faunus War era weapons at best and really about half Great War era crap. [break][break]
They couldn’t hold the fort, that was out of the question. Even if they had the numbers, they didn’t have the training or the equipment. Moving overland out of the fort on foot, or even with rudimentary vehicles was also a no go – they’d be sitting ducks and there’d be nothing left to stall the enemy. Wiping her face with the back of her right hand, the rough fabric scratching her face, she tried to think. After seeing her semblance in action, they’d be absolute fucking morons to send large amounts of troops in one location. They’d know exactly what would happen if they tried, so a shock and awe strategy to stall them would be ineffective – she lacked the aura to do more than one more good area of effect attack. If they staggered their attack at all, she wouldn’t be able to effectively defend even a section of the wall. [break][break]
No. Stop thinking defense. The only options were to attack before they were ready, flee, or some combination of the two. Attacking on its own was pointless, because it would only be needed to buy time for an escape. They couldn’t hope to actually win a sustained attack, only do a lightning strike that would delay the real advance. Or to scorch the section of the town they’d want to advance in and force them to douse the flames before coming in to finish the job. [break][break]
That was it. That was the play. By the time they brought an old guy she assumed to be their leader, she had the plan already formulated in her head. [break][break]
”Do you have combined sewers or storm drains?” was the first question, which caught the man off guard. [break][break]
”Storm drains, why?” [break][break]
”Do they exit in the river or the ocean?” [break][break]
”The ocean?” [break][break]
”Large enough to fit people?” [break][break]
Storm drains were designed to redirect water from heavy rainfall, which Mistral experienced pretty frequently. They prevented flooding, and typically ran to a nearby river or ocean… which this town was conveniently placed next to. For areas that received a lot of rain, those drains needed to be pretty damned big – usually big enough to fit people in for repairs. It was the old infiltration method of choice back in the Faunus War to evacuate people or otherwise enter or exit an occupied city. They were dirty as fuck and sometimes filled with mosquitoes but were better than dying by a mile. [break][break]
The elder got it, then. ”Yes, but only if you stoop and it goes through Old Town where most of the invaders seem to be.” [break][break]
”Then make sure your people are quiet. Spread the word, I’m going to buy us some time and bring up the rear.” With that, Knight started to walk off back towards the battlements. [break][break]
”Wait, who are you?” the elder asked, not wanting to ask the implications of that question. She obviously wasn’t a standard huntress with the bail enforcement shit on, but had a semblance and used it apparently clear enough that most people had seen it that was probably the best they had ever seen in their lives up to that point. [break][break]
”Irrelevant. I don’t want anything from any of you. Start moving or you’ll die.” The tone was dismissive, and the faunus didn’t break her stride to answer over her shoulder. The going would be a lot slower this go around because she didn’t have her semblance available to speed her up, but it was still fine. All she needed to do was send out enough fire to start spreading around and delay the attack. Unlike last time, though, bullets started being fired the instant she was up on the battlements. [break][break]
Nothing bad enough to hurt her aura, yet, but they’d realize that pretty quickly and swap to whatever heavier munitions they had. The sounds were coming from pretty far away, too, so it looked like she still had some time to run and jump through the now even more fucking destroyed wall to try and snipe some shots at anything that looked flammable outside before she was forced to go back down and make a break for wherever the storm drain was. She could at least see in the distance what the rumbling was earlier – looked like some light tanks or other armored vehicles they were currently getting out of some of the fires. They’d find a safe path in a couple of minutes, surely, but that again bought some time. She'd be cutting it close, but she trusted herself to find a way out when the time came to do so. She always managed it somehow so far, so this time shouldn't be any different.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1305 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]12705 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Jul 30, 2020 16:51:43 GMT -5
Her ears were ringing and she felt a little dizzy, but given the area was hit with several artillery shells, that was about the best she could hope for. With most of the force blocked by walls or the fort itself, she didn't have any internal damage and the damage to her hearing was solely due to the volume and how sensitive her ears were. She could still hear, just not nearly as well and it'd be a short while before it went back to normal. A short enough time that it'd likely be back while they were trying to flee the area, but long enough that she wouldn't be able to rely on her hearing to find people.
Fortunately, it was good enough for her to hear someone approaching and shouting at the group of civilians she was with, even after walking away a short distance to try to formulate her own plan of escape. Storm drains. That was better than whatever the hell she was thinking if they had them, and if someone was telling them to use the drains to escape they probably did. Her knowledge of city planning was limited enough that she probably wouldn't have thought of something like that herself, so she was glad someone else did. Even if she wasn't thinking too hard about the dangers outside they'd be much more difficult to notice underground, it would protect them somewhat (maybe) from the artillery, and given the enemy had control over the streets already they probably wouldn't be underground. There were risks to using them, but there's be risks to any plan at this point and it was a lot better than staying here. Plus, that water had to go somewhere, so it seemed likely that it would take them right to the ocean, where maybe she and Knight could do something about the artillery.
Her current goal shifted. Rather than looking for a good point of escape, she was trying to help anyone injured or shocked from the attack get to wherever the storm drains were. Getting the current group to the nearest drain wasn't too difficult. There were enough uninjured people to help the injured, and they were all in one place so they could all move together. It left her time to go look for any other stragglers. She had done a very quick sweep before, but she only had a couple of minutes to look around before the artillery hit so she was only looking for very obvious targets. Now, while she couldn't exactly take her time, she could spend more time to do a more thorough sweep. She cursed not being able to hear well. She really didn't want to leave anyone behind.
"Knight, they want to move through the storm drains. Is there anyone near you that needs help getting there?"
Starting with contacting Knight seemed like the obvious choice. Given the amount of fire that came from the battlements it was pretty obvious where her partner was, and those areas were probably the ones hit hardest by the artillery. When no response came her blood ran cold. Even if Knight couldn't check she would normally say that much.
"Knight, are you there?"
A pointless question even after waiting for a bit because if Knight was there she would have said something. Normally, she avoided asking pointless questions like this, but with the stress of the situation she didn't have the presence of mind to think that through. There were lots of explanations for why Knight was not responding, but Red's mind almost always turned to the worst case she could think of. Given Knight just redirected an artillery barrage by herself, the worst was almost hard for her to picture given how invincible Knight always seemed to her, but it certainly wasn't impossible. That made her first choice of destination easy, and it was easy to justify given anyone caught in that area was more likely to be injured.
It was hard to search with her mind focused on something else, but she managed to do so well enough to find an arm sticking out of some rubble. The woman's legs were crushed, but she was alive and Red could carry her on her back for a little while. There wasn't anyone else though, as everyone else was either sensible enough to have gotten out of there or dead as far as she was able to tell. Once she got closer to the battlements, she could clearly see someone up on them doing something, and the occasional blink of white as her aura absorbed any bullets shot her way made it pretty clear who it was. Red relaxed slightly and did a sweep of the remaining area before delivering the woman she was carrying to the rest of the group.
This left her less time than she would have liked to search the rest of the area, and the fort itself for people and made her feel a little guilty for prioritizing her friend (who was probably fine because how could she not be?) over all the civilians here. She'd direct anyone she found that could walk to the drain, and would try to carry anyone that couldn't. Once it became clear that she really needed to get out of there, she ended her search and went into the storm drain herself. She went far enough that, if an enemy soldier decided to look down he wouldn't be able to see her without searching a fair distance, but stayed close enough that she could hear anyone enter. She didn't intend on going too far until she confirmed Knight made it down too. If she needed to pull her partner out of an occupied fort, she wanted to be there to do it.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Jul 31, 2020 23:30:28 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]This was almost too easy. It was abundantly clear they hadn’t expected someone with a powerful semblance on the other side, and the enemy set up shop assuming nobody would have any real offensive capabilities on the other side. They were so sloppy they didn’t even appear to be carrying water dust with them, even in positions that were obviously fortified with sandbags and entrenchments. It was so lazy it was almost insulting, and so were the attacks being used against her. Small arms fire, mostly, along with the occasional shoulder mounted missile launcher. [break][break]
It was insulting, because they could literally see her throwing fire right into their positions. It took her blowing up the missile right as it was fired three times for them to get the message. It was so lazy to not have training against semblances as common as fire. Elemental manipulators weren’t uncommon in the slightest, and it wasn’t even some sort of obscure one that nobody had ever heard of. If she was a salt manipulator or something, sure, that’d be weird to fight against. But fire? Everyone had seen a fire semblance at some point during their lives. Everyone knew what fire did. [break][break]
Maybe it was because they thought she’d run out of aura already, which was also insulting. It took them too long to get their tanks online and firing in her direction, because she had already lit most of the surrounding area ablaze by the time the shots she couldn’t as easily disrupt started being shot her way. If she was smart, she would have cut her losses and jumped down as soon as they knew the tanks were in range and firing in her direction. She had burned through five more percent of her aura by that point spamming lower power shots into the buildings below, keeping the strength of the fire weak enough to create fire rather than reduce the stone and wood into ash in an instant. She also destroyed the aforementioned missiles with a flame that was a bit stronger to get that instant explosion, but the tank shells were fired from a space too far back for her to do much about. [break][break]
Their effective range was larger than hers and attempting to intercept a projectile that fast was risky as hell… so she didn’t. She just ignored the one tank firing at her, even as it turned to two and three. The faunus needed to complete the circuit, to stall the advance, and let human cowardice take over when faced with a wall of flames. They’d have to go back, redirect some water or water dust, and come back to actually clear the damn fire before they could just push through. The wall was still mostly standing so it wasn’t like they could just burst in, either. [break][break]
Ignoring the tank shells was a really stupid move, but it just so happened that their accuracy wasn’t great and the shots either flew above or below her for the most part with not even an indirect hit. It did a good job at solving the whole ‘wall still there’ problem by deteriorating it bit by bit by smashing some of the already shaky support… but she was still able to complete her circuit. The entire perimeter was now on fire and would be on fire until put out or enough time passed for each flame to put itself out. By the time she jumped down, her aura was at about eight percent and she was hit by nothing except small arms fire too weak to do anything to her aura. [break][break]
If these guys ended up living through this, she was going to receive a visit sooner or later since so many of them saw her semblance. Nobody would allow themselves to me made out to look this incompetent without retribution, but that was a problem for another day. After jumping down, Knight took a second to move her hands to check different parts of her body to assess damage before her adrenaline wore off again. She definitely had some burns on her torso from when her vest got superheated, and she had sweat and dirt all over her. It was likely she was also dehydrated at this point from all the sweat, but this was workable. This was fine. [break][break]
As she did the self-check, her gray eyes were darting around to see if anyone had breached the fort walls yet. She had stayed up there a good while, given her abysmal speed, so it was possible the first fires were put out already. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t see anyone, and it really seemed like she was going to get away with that stupid stunt she just pulled. Pulling out her scroll, she saw her aura level was down to ever so slightly over four percent and stuffed it back into her pocket as she started making her way in a direction she vaguely remembered seeing some movement towards out of the corner of her eye during the torching. [break][break]
Truth be told, she had no idea where the hell she was going. What was worse than that, frankly, was the to the bone exhaustion that was starting to overcome her body. She had kept up her training with her semblance and with physical activity, but not together. She hadn’t moved around while using her semblance that much in a long time, and her body just wasn’t ready for it. The searing pain from the burns inflicted earlier were starting to hurt a lot at this point, making it harder to move and think. The edges of her vision were even starting to go black, which was another thing that hadn’t happened in a while. [break][break]
The movement was less a run and more of a brisk walk that broke down very quickly into a regular walk pace with more erratic movements. Just moving one foot in front of the other was a struggle, and the normally great posture had degraded to a noticeable slouch. There was bright red skin visible on both edges of her neck, which had chafed enough when she focused all of her aura outward that there was also a small amount of dried blood that was visible from the same area. [break][break]
Just one foot in front of the other. She just needed to make it to the storm drain and they were fine. She could rest after that. They just needed to keep quiet. Nobody ever looked below their feet, and if this was like most drains it wasn’t like there was much to look at anyway. They would be completely fine as long as they were just quiet, and she made it in time. The drain would exit at the ocean by curving downward and everyone could just slide down with no issue. It would just be a short swim from there to shore, a decent distance outside of the city. They’d be fine after that. [break][break]
She just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1173 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]13878 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Aug 1, 2020 12:28:08 GMT -5
Red had no idea how long she should wait for Knight to show up. Unfortunately, it was entirely in character for her to get cocky and wait until the last minute, trying to do as much as possible before escaping. Equally as unfortunate was that often still worked out for her and didn't mean she could assume Knight needed help. In some instances, she might have jumped in sooner to help anyway just to be safe, but here that risked giving away the civilians' escape route, and the noise levels would be very difficult for her to deal with, even with sound protection. Underground, the sounds were muffled enough that she could deal with it, though it was still unpleasant, but that also meant that she couldn't hear the sounds very clearly. It was easy to make out gunfire, and what sounded like some kind of large arms and vehicles, but anything more than that was hard. She could hear footsteps to a degree, but it was harder than usual to pinpoint their location, and while she could hear voices sometimes, she couldn't make out what they were saying. Without their communications, she was completely blind.
So, she waited until she heard something like several loud thumps, which she could only assume was the wall collapsing. She didn't know the extent of the damage outside the walls, or how much fire there was, so she figured it'd only be a matter of the time before the enemy stormed the fort. At that point, Knight couldn't use the same drain entrance she and the civilians did without risking exposing that they were all escaping through the storm drains, so there was a reasonable chance Knight might need help getting out. At the very least, Red's skills would make it considerably more simple and would reduce the odds that they'd have to do too much fighting.
Before leaving, she told the civilians to keep moving towards the ocean as quietly as they could. They had plenty of time as long as they stayed unnoticed, so not being heard was far more important than being fast and she tried to impress that on them as best they could. Given the number of injured, and how nervous many of them looked, they seemed glad to know that they didn't have to rush, so with any luck, they'd take that message to heart. She provided a few suggestions on how to move as quietly as possible, and then told them that she was going to go catch up with her fire-wielding partner, as though she and Knight planned this and Knight hadn't been caught out or too slow to escape with them. There was no need to make them think that everything wasn't going completely as planned.
With one last nod, she headed south, intentionally going in the opposite direction the civilians were going in. She didn't think she could risk using the drain in the fortress itself, so she quietly jogged a few blocks south until she couldn't hear any footsteps anymore. From there, she took a deep breath, put in all the hearing protection she was carrying in her pockets, and slowly went back up to street level. Not being able to hear effectively would make finding Knight harder, but it's not like she'd be able to hear anything in that mess anyway. Hopefully, between the hearing protection and there not being a whole lot to shoot at in the fort, she wouldn't be completely overwhelmed. Her senses were still feeling more sensitive and easy to agitate from the artillery barrage, so she was still going to have to be careful.
For the first time, she was able to see what Knight was actually doing on the battlements. That was far more fire than she was expecting, and she was briefly irritated that Knight made things more complicated to be that thorough. It was a feeling she could shake off easily because it came more from stress than genuine annoyance. If she was in that position and she thought she could buy injured civilians a few more minutes by being taking more time to be thorough, she would have made the same choice after all.
All that fire meant that the enemy soldiers hadn't actually started making their way into the fort. Which meant she really could have used the drain in the fort to leave. Fuck. Now she was far enough away that at least some of the fires would be put out by the time she could get there, at least if she wanted to try to get there unseen. Unlike Knight, guns would shred through her aura pretty quickly so she couldn't exactly attract the attention of a small army and expect to shrug it off. Silently cursing, she started running back towards the fort as fast as she could manage while keeping her footsteps silent.
How the hell was she supposed to find Knight like this anyway? Their communications were offline, so it's not like she could ask. This situation was dangerous enough that she could believe that she could believe was either tired, injured, or completely fine and just took too long to get out, so that didn't help much. About all she had to go on was that the fires that were put out already were probably the ones set first, and the biggest ones were probably the ones set last. It wasn't perfect, some might have just had water closer to them for example, but it was about all she had to go on.
Getting in unseen was easy enough given she could just head through a more in-tact portion of the wall, but figuring out what to do from there was hard. Did she try to call out to Knight and risk being heard? Did she just wander around until she saw something, given it was unlikely she'd be able to hear any movement from Knight at all with her ears blocked like this? With the crumbling walls and fort, getting a decent vantage point would be nearly impossible without being seen, so she settled for moving between mediocre ones to try to see something.
It didn't help much. The enemy soldiers were starting to make their way through the holes in the wall. Her only saving grace was that they were pausing to look around, and looked very confused that there was nothing here. Red inhaled sharply as she tried to think of where else to look, and ended up trying to make large circles around the storm drain, figuring that Knight would try to make her way there. She still didn't see anything, but now she could hear what she assumed was a tank rolling in and breaking parts of the wall as it forced its way through. The foot soldiers were starting to spread out around the inner perimeter of the wall and around the fort. If she took too much longer, they'd be surrounded before she could find Knight.
Fortunately, she spotted an exhausted Knight soon after that and wasted no time in making her way towards her, making sure to come from the front where Knight would be able to clearly see her coming. Unless Knight physically pushed herself away, Red would try to carry her on her back, not bothering to take the time to ask. Knight was clearly tired. There was absolutely no reason to let her walk on her own right now. From there, Red started looking for a good way to escape the area. A lot of the obvious routes were blocked now, but it wouldn't be too hard to leave the city entirely through the wall. Bringing people through walls was starting to get taxing on her aura, but she still had enough left to try something if Knight had a good idea.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Aug 11, 2020 17:47:25 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]Mental toughness was a bit of a weird concept. [break][break]
In order to have it tested, one needed to actually face adversity… and Knight hadn’t faced a lot of it this year. She was never one of those psychopaths who actually liked things to be hard, and frankly she liked her job to be very easy. Difficulty meant her life was in danger, and that wasn’t a fun experience. She was perfectly content with coasting, and the only reason why she would actively move against that like she did here was because she had a moral objection to standing by. [break][break]
Hypocritical to think that way, especially because her view of how society should be in terms of individuals putting their own well being secondary to society was the opposite of how she acted in Menagerie. It wasn’t like self-reflection was ever her strong suit, either, because she so often just bulldozed through her problems until they stopped being problems one way or another. Sometimes that was because the problem went away, or sometimes it was because she was expelled from the problem due to her refusal to change. [break][break]
She was lagging behind both in speed and perception of the world around her, and she forced herself to stop and look around with wild gray eyes to find the smoke from some of the flames was already starting to go out. They’d be coming in soon… and she didn’t have enough aura to fight. She flipped her goggles back down over her eyes to have that extra bit of protection now that they were all cleared up, and her shotgun was bouncing around freely on that one-point sling next to her stomach. She had brought it as a backup because she was paranoid, confident that she wouldn’t need it but at this point… it definitely might be needed. The rough material of the fingerless gloves partially burned and melted at this point felt like shit against her skin when she rubbed the back of it against her face to unsuccessfully try and clear her vision. [break][break]
For the first time, a bit of fear was starting to creep into her psyche. She was exhausted, alone, and too injured to see straight let alone fight. She had burns across at least parts of her body and her vision wasn’t at a hundred percent. She didn’t have the option to run, and she didn’t have the option to just stay and fight until they ran out of people. She had to find the way there or die, frankly, and that was a real risk. She had no communications left so she couldn’t rely on Red to just phase in and save her at this point. The fact of the matter was that this may have been the fuck up to finally end it. [break][break]
Nah, she could still maybe get through this. If she kept her fire contained as small as possible and used a lesser level of it, she could potentially continue using it for longer. The normal soldiers didn’t have any auras, so they wouldn’t even need to be killed necessarily just immolated enough to not be able to shoot correctly. Her aura could hold against their regular bullets from their rifles and sidearms pretty long even at near zero, but one blast from anything larger and she was done. Getting out by herself was out of the question but getting to a remote corner of the fort and playing dead until her aura recharged was a possibility. It was a nonzero chance at survival, at least, and pulling some rubble over her would make her body harder to spot. If she could get a full recharge, she could blast her way out with a solid chance of success. [break][break]
As she was running through her strategy in her head, she was physically picked up at around the same time there was a rough crashing noise. Red had managed to find her, and her odds of survival just went up exponentially. Her partner asked her where they were going, and for a split second Knight panicked before forcing it down into a façade of calm. Panicking would get both of them killed instead of her, so she’d need to think quickly and make the right judgment call. The storm drain was a no go with soldiers that close, the villagers had too many wounded. Punching through was too risky, they couldn’t afford to be in an extended fight. [break][break]
”Out the back. Hide in the corn fields. I’ll make a distraction as you go.” [break][break]
There were a lot of flammable materials in the ruins around them, because a town needed a bunch of flammable things to actually keep running. Hay for animals, cloth to wear and put in the buildings, and wood to build things. There was a tremendous amount of wood splinters around, and bright lights attracted attention just fine. She created a flash of light with low heat at the very edge of her range to draw attention opposite the direction they were heading in hopes that it would throw them off their tail for a second. It was also away from the storm drain, so it would buy the villagers a bit more time. If it didn’t work it was whatever, because a bad outcome was still a bad outcome regardless. This was just an attempt to improve the odds just that little bit.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]902 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]14780 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Aug 11, 2020 19:58:04 GMT -5
As many questions as she had about what Knight was doing, why she wasn't responding to her past communications, and what happened while they were in the fort, none of them were coming to mind right now. It took her enough time to find Knight that getting out wasn't going to be completely free, even on the far end where it'd be easier to get through the wall and out because no one was over there yet. Once they got through the area directly around the fort she'd have an easier time, but until then she was going to have to be careful, especially with her hearing blocked like this.
She nodded at Knight's order and started moving through the rubble, staying out of sight for the time being. When she heard 'distraction' her first thought was that they were supposed to be a distraction for the civilians in the storm drain, and thus would have to be seen. She just didn't want to be seen right away because she didn't want to have to be outrunning bullets or their tanks the entire time. It took her a moment to remember that Knight exhausted at best, she didn't get a good look at her, and at minimum, needed some time to rest. She probably shouldn't be trying to get people after them right now. If she was misunderstanding, she was sure Knight would point it out, and if they really did need a distraction, then Red could come back herself after. She had largely stayed out of trouble and was still in decent enough shape.
So, she took their escape slowly and carefully. It would mean that they'd be wasting some time here when they could be trying to get something done somewhere, but considering Knight didn't look like she was in any condition to try anything for at least a little while, that seemed like a fair trade, especially since the civilians holed up in here were safe for the time being. Probably. Red did try to make good use of the openings Knight created as best as she could manage though. The soldiers weren't exactly thrilled to have the fire starter trying to slow them down still, so it attracted some attention. Enough that it made crossing gaps smoother, but not so much that she felt like she felt like she could speed up too much. Eventually, she made her way to the outer wall, and then took both of them through it.
Having to look around with her eyes rather than listen for danger was always uncomfortable and felt strange. She had no way of knowing what was on the other side, and couldn't easily take a peek, so she just stayed low and hoped for the best. Fortunately, there was nothing in their immediate vicinity -- nothing she could see at least. With the amount of corn around, there could still be people hidden out of sight.
Red quickly made her way to the nearest patch of corn to try to get some cover. She took out one of the earplugs in her less sensitive human-like ears to try to get a feel for the situation to see if she could handle taking more out. There was less shooting from inside the fort than she expected given Knight's distractions, but she still opted not to push her luck and kept the rest in. This would be enough to let them talk and would let her notice something as obvious as nearby corn moving. She held Knight for a little longer, just to make sure they weren't immediately going to have to bolt again, but once it didn't seem like anyone was coming she set her friend down.
It was the first time she got a good look at Knight since they split up in the fort. She blinked, clearly surprised at her friend's condition and had to intentionally still herself so she didn't jostle the corn too much.
"What happened? Are you okay?"
She paused. Normally she had the presence of mind to not ask stupid questions like that, but her mind hadn't fully caught up with her yet. She felt like she was lagging several steps behind everything that was going on, but that was fairly normal for her. It was why it took her longer than most people to think. Sheepishly, she reached into one of her pockets and pulled out some bandages and a canteen. She only kept the bare minimum of first aid items on her, in order to avoid weighing her down too much. This was the best she had on her, as she avoided carrying liquids and gels beyond water since they tended to be heavy and would slosh while she moved, and possibly spill if they broke.
"You don't have to answer that," she paused again. "I helped any of the civilians I could find into the storm drains and told them to head towards the ocean as quietly as they could, even if it meant it took a long time. They're being lead by the mayor or whoever their leader was. I think they should be safe."
Red paused again. As much as she hated leaning on Knight too much this was not the best time to worry about that. She still had a splitting headache from the artillery barrage and was having difficulty keeping up with everything that was going on. Even though her aura was in better shape and she clearly wasn't nearly as exhausted as Knight was, she could probably use a rest too. She was having too much trouble thinking straight.
Post by Alina Rybalka on Aug 13, 2020 20:23:58 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]This was pretty bad. [break][break]
The edges of her vision kept getting smaller, with the black at the edges expanding slowly but steadily. The searing pain at the bottom of her neck and shoulders in particular where most of the weight from the vest rested was intense, and unfortunately constant. Even with the low grade flame she was using and the inability to check her aura, she knew damn well she barely had anything left in the tank. Deep within hostile territory with little to no offensive capabilities wasn’t a situation she had been in for a good long while. [break][break]
All she could do at that point was just wait, be silent, and trust that Red would get them out of there. It was always frustrating for someone like Knight to be relegated to the bench, but her ego took backseat to survival at times like this. There were still some stray bullets flying around, but her partner was good enough to avoid being directly hit even once and only took one or two glancing blows from some shrapnel on the way out. The soldiers coming in were scared shitless that the fire starter was still around and were using grenades to help clear an already empty area. Fun. [break][break]
She breathed an audible sigh of relief once they phased out of the fort, and once they were far enough in the corn field Knight moved off of Red in order to have space to undo and throw off the bulletproof vest. Her skin was red, painful, and blistered. There was a decent amount of blood when she flipped up her shirt a bit to check her shoulders, and some of the skin came right off and stuck to said shirt when she did so. The pain was excruciating, and Knight made an uncommon wince when she looked at the condition of her skin. When Red asked if she was fine, the response was automatic. ”Yeah, I’m fine. What happened to the villagers?” [break][break]
When Red answered, Knight just nodded. They did their part at that point, and didn’t have the resources to carry the villagers the rest of the way unfortunately. It was up to them from that point forward, and as long as they made it to the ocean they were home free. When asked what to do now, the faunus was silent for several seconds. ”Let’s just stay here for now, catch our breath.” she finally said, uncharacteristically cautious. Her plans almost uniformly trended aggressive, so to choose the most passive option was another indicator that Knight considered her condition to be pretty bad at the moment. [break][break]
”Only second degree burns. It’ll heal fine, my aura’s less than five. Not as bad as I thought.” She’d mention distantly before pulling off the sling and dropping the shotgun in the dirt and then putting both palms of both hands on the top of her head to better suck in air. [break][break]
”Slow and careful on the way out. Leave the vest here, it’ll just slow us down.” she whispered, grimacing as she pulled off her partially melted fingerless gloves and tossing them down beside the vest. Both had decent amounts of blood of them, and would provide a nice little detour for anyone who found them as long as they didn’t find them immediately. Taking a deep breath, she kneeled down to pick up her lever action shotgun again with her left hand, almost gingerly. Gray eyes closed as another deep, audible breath was taken. [break][break]
”Alright, ready when you are.”
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[attr="class","nikki103"]593 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]15373 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on Aug 13, 2020 22:49:47 GMT -5
Red nodded at the suggestion to rest, though she couldn't help but be concerned about it. It said almost as much about Knight's condition as the blood and skin coming off with her clothes did. She pulled her canteen back when Knight didn't take it, but left the bandages between them in case she wanted something to help with the bleeding or if there were any open blisters on the burns. She was more than willing to help if Knight needed it, but didn't want to press if Knight wasn't going to take them. While she picked up Knight without asking just moments prior, that wasn't how she acted when she wasn't under pressure and was actually thinking.
The break let her mind catch up a little, which was both helpful and harmful for largely the same reason: it let her reflect on everything that happened so far. On what was actually happening now that she saw it and didn't have to speculate. On what was inside that fort and what must be everywhere else if they had armored vehicles and artillery. On the death they caused and the deaths they likely prevented. On every stupid thing she did and everything she didn't think of so far. On what little information they collected so far. It was overwhelming to have it all hit her at once like this, and she had to carefully sort through it all one at a time to prevent that from happening. She started with the information because she wanted to avoid the emotions and reflections of mistakes at all costs. At least for now.
They really didn't know much at all. She was willing to take the comments about them being Atlesian at face value because she wouldn't be able to tell. Unfortunately, she had no idea what that meant either. Her knowledge of the kingdoms were sparse, and about the only thing that she knew about Atlas was that they tended to be ahead of the curve when it came to technology and she should be looking over there to see all the cool stuff. Nothing that applied here because these people weren't using any of that. Killing the faunus meant little, as much as she hated to put it like that. That they were willing to take prisoners, but not faunus ones meant something, but it could be as simple as an arbitrary hatred of faunus like much of the world had. She had no way of knowing if it was more complicated than that.
Their equipment was heavy enough that they were clearly prepared. Regardless of how effective they were, they still had artillery and tanks and that wasn't something some random person could acquire on a whim. Because some amount of thought went into this there must have been a reason they picked Kerch, but she sure as hell couldn't figure out why. Did most people know about random towns like this, or was it only because she knew next to nothing about geography that she had never heard of Kerch before? She didn't even know where to begin piecing this together.
Knight talking knocked her out of her thoughts. She wasn't sure how long they had been resting, but she was pretty sure she felt worse than before. Or at the very least, her headache did.
"Ready for what?" She blinked and shook her head, the meaning of the words taking a moment to register. Even once they did she still didn't move. "Sorry, I'm not sure what to do right now."
She paused for a moment, trying to think about why they were even here. Strictly speaking, she wanted to help the people here. She had done that to some extent. Some people would be alive when it was probable that they wouldn't be if the two of them hadn't shown up, but there might have been a lot more people either captured or hiding throughout the city. But their lives were just the first half of it. She didn't want these people to have to abandon their home, even if it was half destroyed and kind of in cinders right now. For that, they'd have to figure out why this was happening and probably needed to find their leader.
"I guess we should try to find their leader? But I don't remember hearing anything about him and I don't even know where to begin looking. I'd like to take another look through town to see if I can find more civilians--"
After looking back at Knight, she stopped and paused again. Her thoughts were still catching up to her, and she was still thinking fairly slowly because she was fixated on a couple of ideas. She had almost forgotten that Knight was in pretty bad shape and that it might be a bad idea to try to fight more right now. It was strange to think about, even if this wasn't the first time Knight had been injured in front of her.
"Maybe we should get somewhere safe, regroup, and try to figure out what to do from there?"
That was about the nicest way she could think of to say 'retreat for now' at least. Though if they were going to do that, she'd prefer to go back into the storm drain and help the rest of the civilians get out too, and maybe see if the mayor knew anything more.