Post by Argent Steele on Jul 17, 2020 17:16:30 GMT -5
I know you got hate in you. Most do.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.
But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.
And I see a hero in you.
Trick is to use it, 'stead of it usin' you.
But you know this. Vengeance is a motivator, not the motive.
Don't hunt 'em 'cause you been wronged.
Hunt 'em 'cause what they did was wrong.
There's a world of difference there, kid.
One makes you selfish. The other makes you a hero.
And I see a hero in you.
❝
Argent hadn't ridden a bike for close to a few years now. He'd known how to, of course - for a time, home had been a distance away from the rest of Pine Crest, and they couldn't afford anything resembling a horse or donkey. The most they had was a single, severely outdated Dust powered motor from before the Great War that helped push the wagon to market when the harvest was good. Certainly not the cars and other forms of Dust powered transportation that had become steadily more present in his life when he'd gone from lonely but content farmer to the unwilling adopted son of an up and coming corporation head. But he still remembered, somehow - a little more wobbly than he had been last, perhaps, but it was far easier to get used again to the act of keeping balanced than learning it from scratch, and he'd done so in the cargo car of the Argus Limited on the way over with a fair amount of success.Once they'd gotten on the road proper, it was easy enough. It had been a short enough distance to Kersch that a little pedaling was enough to get them covering the distance without too much difficulty, even while taking into account the fact that they needed to circle around to the far side of where reinforcements would normally come from. The roads leading to the rail station were well maintained and easy to travel along, which meant that if speed was the goal rather than stealth, then those would be the roads to take for an assault into Kersch.
Thinking about it from a logical standpoint, Argent was perfectly aware that the odds of the mission succeeding on the grounds of conventional assault wasn't anywhere near optimal, to put it lightly. While any Huntsman or Huntress might be worth a few dozen regular men, the fact still remained that they were students, not fully trained and probably nowhere near ready for this. Sending a group of less than twenty to retake a city from a force of hundreds was bold, verging on the line of foolhardiness - especially so given that a majority of them hadn't even seen their first mission. Which in turn meant that extreme force multipliers were needed - either the Haven students smashed through the enemy so fast that they evened the odds before they could be bogged down by conventional forces, or they kept out of sight and engaged in guerrilla warfare wherever they could. This was a city, after all, full of nooks and crannies an enterprising smaller force could strike from and fade away into, especially if it was against an invading enemy that didn't know the terrain either.
There were only a few problems with that. Firstly, the enemy had time to fortify their position, which meant that charging straight down the fastest possible path was also the most likely way to get yourself into a killzone and get blasted into a wet smear on those well maintained roads. Secondly, the warship was still within range of the city and could easily bombard an area if Haven activity was reported in there, which meant that announcing your presence in any form or fashion meant the possibility of an artillery barrage right on top of your position. And third - they had no intelligence on the enemy beyond the most basic. Uniforms and weapons were all they had to go on - who was to say there wasn't a mercenary Huntsman or Huntress in the wings waiting to ruin their day? Someone who lost their way, who sold out to the highest bidder instead of serving the people they pledged themselves to - and as likely as not in possession of a powerful Semblance and Aura to match it, which would remove the same advantages of their very own.
It was a bad situation to walk into. But the alternative was worse - leaving the city in the hands of whoever had taken it, and in turn the men and women still trapped within at the whim of their invaders. He could infer that much, at least - if there wasn't any resistance, there would be no activity from the warship beyond the initial assault rather than the constant bombardment it had subjected Kersch to over the past few days. So that was their mission - against overwhelming odds, reclaim the city and drive out the enemy. Relieve local forces and join up with them where possible, and if need be, evacuate whatever survivors they could.
This thing had the stench of another Rochdale waiting to happen. He could only do his best to ensure it did not.
They hid the bikes in the cornfields outside town and made their way along on foot, hidden as best as they could. The gateway was unguarded, and slipping within wasn't an issue - but movement up ahead caused him to pause, and hold a clenched fist up for the rest of the group to stop. There, up ahead, the sound of raised voices in roughhousing merriment and the flickering of firelight. Crouching down, he motioned the rest forward slowly and moved along until he could see it in earnest. Six men, cheering as two animals in a makeshift arena tore into each other and laughing or jeering as the blood flew. The snake Faunus' lips pressed into a thin line as he glanced about, taking in as much information as he could before retreating to the safety of the shadowed walls that kept them from sight.
"I count six," he reported in a low tone, turning back to the others that had followed him.
"No uniforms. No armor, either. Looks like escaped prisoners from the local jail, so probably no Aura if so. Three have guns - old Hellebore make, it looks like, from the shotgun line. Civilian use. Definitely not civilians using them now."
He let the words hang in the air, eyes hard. It wasn't hard to guess where exactly these men had gotten their arms from.
"We'll need to go through them if we want to get into the city proper. I can take two, maybe three together - the furthest back shouldn't be an issue. Have a look, see which ones you want to handle, and we'll coordinate on your mark. Alice, Raul, since you two are going in first, that means you decide when. Bianca, you have the benefit of range, so it's up to you whether you go in with them or hang back a bit more with me. My maximum range is thirty meters, give or take - I'll adjust accordingly."
WHISPER OF THE WYRM (SEMBLANCE): [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]
OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: SPEED OF THE SCYLLA (SPEED) [RANK E]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: DANCE OF THE DRAGON (AGILITY) [RANK C]
SERPENT'S BENEDICTION: GLARE OF THE GORGON (MARKSMANSHIP) [RANK E]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: WINGS OF THE WYVERN (ACROBATICS) [RANK F]
SERPENT’S BENEDICTION: TALONS OF THE TARASQUE (MARTIAL ARTS)[RANK F]
OUROBOROS (WEAPON): [RANK E]
@ ● 1100 words ● 1100 total words
MADE BY MIZO