Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Nine
The Relic of Choice was hidden in a place no one would have thought about looking for it. It wasn't hidden under the statue at Beacon, nor was it hidden within the depths of the academy.
"There is but one moment in time in which the Relic of Choice can be taken," Ozpin remarked, glancing at the ticking mechanisms of the clock that stood upon Beacon's tallest tower. "It is not a Relic I wished to be taken lightly, and thus cannot be taken whenever one wishes, nor is the place where it stands hidden something available to all."
I glanced at the clock too from where I stood, and then at the tombstones that stretched all around us. This was the tomb of the King of Vale, within the royal cemetery. "It is always bizarre to come visit one's own tomb," Ozpin mused dryly, glancing up at a statue that held no particular resemblance to him. We stepped through into a large, mostly empty hall.
Pyrrha was by our side, quiet and yet tense. She was nervous, because Vacuo's CCTS had fallen, and thus communications had gone down. People had been told it was a peculiarly violent sandstorm to keep them from panicking, but the truth was quite different.
If her team lived, or didn't, only time would tell.
The wooden coffin rested with a motif of laurels and axes across its frame, and I knew where it came from. From the first inhabitants, who made palisades out of the wood of the forests of Vale, and held laurels over their heads like in the ancient Rome.
I remembered the first time the Kringles invaded the city; and the burning as well as them being repelled. I remembered it all clearly, even as we came to a halt in front of the mural that portrayed the defeat of the kings of Atlas and Mistral. "Harsher than having to use the Relic on my enemies," Ozpin muttered, "It was to use it on my ally. Yet, there could be no compromise."
The midnight bell rang.
With a push of Ozpin's cane, the crown atop the King of Vale's head on the mural moved within, and the whirring of mechanisms came to life. The floor below us spiraled outwards, and we began our descent into the depths below the earth.
"This relic," Pyrrha whispered, "have you ever used it before?"
"With due cause, and care," Ozpin answered. "And over the passing of time, I found myself realizing that the human spirit is unyielding when it sets its heart. Moving a single person may work for the immediate future, but inevitably, progress will happen. Better to guide it, than to attempt to foolishly halt it."
"There's a story there," I muttered.
"Once, I campaigned against the invention of firearms in the cold of Mantle, back when the capital was still on the ground, and not floating up in the air," Ozpin remarked. "Such weapons of destruction, I saw the harm they would cause to mankind, and yet now here we are...Mechashift technology available to all huntsmen and huntresses-guns, rifles...and Androids. Airships, even." He chuckled bitterly. "Had it been for me, swords and bows would have sufficed. Mankind didn't need to be taught how to kill one another better."
The spiraling stairway came to a halt in front of a dark, golden door which stood encased in blooming flowers of white. He turned to look at Pyrrha, "This is your time now."
"This is the reason I had to come to Vale, to open this," Pyrrha muttered bitterly. "I could have been with my team otherwise-"
"You chose this," I said with a grimace. "I warned you, Achilles."
Pyrrha's chuckle was tinged with a sorrow that only I could place, and merely because I was attuned to it. "I do feel like the first of the dead," she said sadly, her hand touching the door which pulsed under her touch. "But...I can still make a difference."
The door hissed and opened. Just as Vacuo's had been a jungle, and Mistral had been sand, so too we stepped within a realm of ice and frost. I reckoned that Atlas' own would be a mild, pleasant spring. The crown stood floating in ice, encased within it. It glimmered and called out.
"There is one last thing," Ozpin said as we neared the crown frozen in ice. "Understand that the Crown was used eighty years ago. It holds no power of its own. It will merely make you a target."
My hand reached for the ice, and my fingers crushed it as I grabbed hold of it.
"I know," I whispered, "That's why I trust myself with it."
I gingerly put it over my head, and chuckled. I felt the magic thrum within it. The will of the God of Creation made manifest, and with all of the cruelty of taking choice away from others. I quietly took a small breath, "We need the relics to distract Salem's senses. She may know a Relic is nearby, but she won't know which one. With this, the puzzle is complete."
The ice around us began to melt as we walked out. Our climb upwards was silent. Yet once we were out of the cemetery, the familiar rumbling of a motorbike caught my ears.
"Hey sexy man," Zhelty said from the bike, "You going somewhere?"
"Did you put a tracker in my Scroll?" I asked.
"No, I put half a dozen of them in your weapons," Zhelty answered, rolling her eyes. She then looked up. "The crown makes you look stupid."
I sighed at that, "Where's the rest of the team?"
With a snap of Zhelty's finger, the rest of team Sizzling Sunrise assembled. My own motorbike following dutifully even without anyone on it. I glanced at Pyrrha and at Ozpin. "I'll be dealing with Salem's agents in Vale. If you want to come along..."
"I am too old to fight battles past midnight," Ozpin remarked, "And tomorrow may just as well be my last day as Ozpin. I might as well enjoy it finishing the chocolate in the cafeteria."
I didn't know whether he was serious or not, but he did walk away without a care in the world. Perhaps he simply trusted us to finish the job. Perhaps he trusted me. Perhaps he didn't care.
Perhaps, if we didn't manage those enemies, how could we manage Salem to begin with?
I looked at Pyrrha, but she just gave me a slow, serious nod.
Thus, as I climbed on my own motorbike, Pyrrha sat behind me.
A white Nevermore left my side from one of my Glyphs, and as it sailed through the air, and up in the skies of Vale, I took a deep breath.
"Team Sizzling Sunrise, tonight, or tomorrow, we might end up dead," I said, "But...do you want to live forever?"
"Huntsmen work doesn't give you the right to a pension," Gorm remarked. "Better to die young then."
"Maintenance costs just keep increasing the longer you have to live with a prosthetic," Zhelty mused.
"As long as I get my kittens, I don't care when I go to meet the reaper! I've got nine lives anyway!" Chez said with a giggle.
"Aren't cat lives supposed to be seven?" Gorm mused.
"Depends on where you live," Zhelty said, "And knowing her, she just added two extra to be on the safe side."
Pyrrha tightened the grip on my sides, "I chose to become a huntress to help people. If there's even the slightest possibility of victory, even with death on the line...then I will take it."
I gave a slow nod, and then gave gas to the motorbike. "Follow me, then," I said. "For tonight we dine in hell...and tomorrow, we dine in hell again, just because we enjoyed it so much the first time, we want an encore!"
As we went, I realized there were three targets in Vale; Doctor Watts, Hazel Rainart, and Cinder herself. None could be treated lightly or underestimated. Yet they didn't sleep in the same room, and some of them weren't sleeping at all to begin with. One in particular was trying to remain calm for the upcoming carnage.
Cinder had received her orders, and she had relayed them. She was worried. She was angry. She wished to prove herself useful and escape the tyranny of Watts' experiments on her in order to make her body stronger. Watts was maniacally thinking about how little anesthetic he could use to burn off some of Cinder's pain receptors, and just how long she'd be capable of living without feeling pain before dying.
Hazel, for his part, was thinking about his sister and all the things he wished he could have told her, and never managed to, and all the curses he laid at Ozpin's feet, he laid at himself too, even harsher still.
But they had a warehouse, one in which they had settled and from which they moved carefully around Vale to seek potential weaknesses they could exploit.
If Cinder had failed alone, then now she would have no reason to.
And thus, there they were.
Our motorbikes weren't the most quiet of them all. Then again, it wasn't like they wouldn't hear us come in, or attempt to fight back and make their escape. Or perhaps they wouldn't, perhaps they'd fight until their last breath.
Yet, whatever the reason, there we stood in front of the doors. I could feel Hazel's thoughts about the engine noise having halted nearby. He was puzzled, but not yet doubtful. Nearby dock workers were more likely, in his mind, than us being just outside the door.
"Pyrrha, Chez, you're on Cinder. Zhelty, Gorm, you take Doctor Watts," I muttered. "Hazel's mine."
"No rest for the wicked, but no rest for the heroes either, uh," Gorm mused. He cracked his neck, "Want me to knock?"
"Please, Gorm, you know you're our official door knocker," I answered with a chuckle.
Gorm's Archimedes spun. It spun, and Hazel heard the whistling winds from within. His first thought went to a hurricane. Then, he realized something was wrong. By then, the door shattered explosively and everyone within the warehouse woke up. We rushed inside, my own body shimmering through the Schnee Glyphs as I landed my right fist straight against Hazel's guard, his whole body twisting to dull the impact and hold his ground.
"We need to have words, you and I," I said flatly.
"You shouldn't have come here," Hazel answered back, his body moving as he hastily brought his free hand into one of his pockets, pulling out a large Earth Dust crystal to stab his body with.
"I could say the same," I replied as I heard the tell-tale sounds of explosions and flames, mixed with the noise of metal hitting metal. My other hand slammed into Hazel's chest, or at least attempted to. His open palm halted it, but my hidden blade pushed through and forced him to recoil.
Our fists met once more, "You're just a pawn to Ozpin's game," Hazel snarled.
"And you're just a fool, an imbecile and a moron," I growled right back as I watched lightning and fire dust Crystals embed themselves into Hazel's arms, the man taking every chance he had to empower his blows.
My arms shimmered and shifted, white armored plates and Grimm bones interlocking with one another as my next blow was met with the resounding explosion of Hazel's own knuckles, bathed in flames and lightning.
My right fist slammed home against Hazel's face, the man's Aura shimmering from the strength of the blow, the ground quaking beneath us and cracking apart, the ripples of the impact making the huntsman's face snap to the side. He spat out a tooth, and then roared and slammed his own fist back against me.
His knuckles impacted, and detonated, against the side of my face. Armored bones of white mixed with the gleaming crystal-like color of my Glyphs held the impact at bay. My eyes narrowed into the man's own.
"Your grief clouded your judgment," I snarled. "Your misery and sorrow-you turned them against others, against Ozpin, because you sought someone responsible for your sister's death, when all along, deep within, you know that the real culprit isn't Ozpin!" my left fist tightened, and slammed into the man's guts.
The man's aura shimmered again, his eyes wide from the blow that would have vaporized a normal human's guts and spine, and yet merely made Hazel recoil, his aura returning together with the hatred he felt. The anger, the spite, the self-loathing he actually felt, they twirled within his soul.
"He allowed children to fight!" Hazel growled, both of his hands coming with wide-open palms. My own hands grabbed hold of his wrists, his attempt to crush my head met with my own attempt to pry his arms apart. "He's to blame!"
"Your sister chose to live her life!" I roared back, taking one step forward just as he took one back. "She chose to become a huntress! She chose to fight! She chose to protect the people of Remnant! And with each step you took by Salem's side, with each huntsman you killed, you spat on her memory! You spat on her sacrifice!"
"She wouldn't have needed to be sacrificed!" Hazel screamed back, eyes bloodshot in fury. "She-"
My right leg moved, and slammed into Hazel's thigh, shattering the Aura and breaking the bone. He screamed as he collapsed, the Semblance gone together with his aura.
My hands tightened the hold on his now Aura-unprotected wrists, shattering them with the ease one would break a china glass.
"Find peace in death, Hazel," I whispered, my left hand slamming forward, the hidden blade striking his throat and pushing through it. "Lay your soul to rest. It's over."
Gurgling, choking on his own blood, Hazel slumped backwards. "Gr...Gretchen-" I just wanted to be a good brother.
And then he collapsed, blood pooling on the ground as I moved past him, to witness how things were going with the rest of the trio of doom.
Doctor Watts was less of a fighter and more of a tinkerer, though some parts of his body had been enhanced with prosthetic equipment, he wasn't the real threat. The real threat was Cinder, who was furiously fighting without regards for her life in an attempt to take Pyrrha down first.
Chez was nowhere to be seen, but every now and then her chainsaw would appear to help Pyrrha out, or to attempt her own swings which Cinder all too easily avoided.
Flames were spreading out from Cinder's body, just as Pyrrha's frame instead pulsed with cold air, dowsing the fires off.
"If you value your life, don't move," Gorm growled in the end, his chains wrapped around the defeated Doctor Watts, who all too easily chose the valiant path of surrender, his body battered and bruised.
Pyrrha's spear sliced through the air, parrying an incoming swing of a blade made of pure, molten fire.
I calmly walked towards Watts' frame, and as the man looked at me, I knelt in front of him.
Zhelty was standing nearby, ready to lend a hand against Cinder.
"Tell me," I said. "What's the command code to turn Cinder's prosthetic off?"
Arthur's eyes widened. His emotions bubbled. I neared my right hand to his jacket's inner-pocket, and pulled out his Scroll. "Thank you, Arthur. For being such a paranoid inventor, and putting a kill-switch upon your ally."
"How did you know?" Watts dryly mouthed.
I stood back up, easily opened his Scroll though it had a password on it.
With the push of a button, Cinder's prosthetics stopped working. One instant, she had been fighting nimbly, but the next her arms and legs fell down like useless weight and Pyrrha's spear lodged itself deeply into the woman's heart, even as Chez' chainsaw roared and crunched against her back.
Cinder's Aura faltered under the combined assault, and then snapped, blood spewing out from the grievous wounds as her wide eyes stared in disbelief at the warehouse's ceiling.
I just wanted power-Just wanted...good things to happen to me.
There was a sudden pressure in the air, a snap like that of a thunderclap, and Pyrrha's body shook as the girl gasped for air, the cold air around her body growing in intensity before being abruptly shut down by the huntress herself.
The power that had been split was now reunited once more.
"What do we do with him?" Zhelty asked, glancing at Watts.
"He's an Atlas scientist, and we do have Ironwood in Beacon," I mused back. "We'll...we'll leave him to the General to handle."
I took a deep breath.
My stomach grumbled.
"I really need to eat something," I muttered.
Before Chez could say something, Zhelty raised a fist. Chez' ears flopped down, and she pitifully whined even as we made our way out of there, Doctor Watts in toe.
As we walked, an itch in my throat made me cough.
I briefly glanced at the palm of my hand, and wryly patted it against the wall nearby as we kept walking.
Left behind upon the wall were but specks of blood...
...for there is no power in the world that comes without a price attached to it.
