Episode: Atlesian Revolution: Chapter 2: Streets Run Red

Chapter 2 of the story of the Atlesian Revolution.

Downtown Atlas

 

 

            Derrick took a swig of his water bottle as he walked down the streets of Atlas.  He had been invited by General Ironwood to come out and do a week of work helping improve the structural integrity of the Paladin mechs given that Ironwood wanted to mount even better weapons on them, but the Atlesian scientists were struggling with the math.  Derrick checked his Scroll again to try and find the address of Dr. Pietro Polendina, the scientist he would be working with during his week.  But just as maps was loading the directions, his Scroll suddenly turned red and started blaring alarms at full volume.  Derrick then looked around and saw several Atlesian airships begin descending into the town, with soldiers yelling,
            “Citizens.  This is not a drill.  Begin evacuation protocol.  I repeat, begin evacuation protocol immediately.”  As the airships touched down, citizens of Atlas began pouring out of their homes in a panic.  Some of them looked around not sure what was going on, others didn’t question what was happening and jumped straight on to the airships.  Derrick tried to walk up to one of the soldiers to ask what was happening when a large explosion went off behind him coming from the direction of the part of town that faced Schnee manor.  Derrick pulled out his trident and ran towards the explosion.  As he got closer, he saw several Atlesian drones opening fire on civilians and human soldiers as they marched through the streets.  It was something out of a dystopian novel.  Machines just marching forward not caring one iota for what stood in their way.  One of the machines took aim at a child that had tripped onto the sidewalk while running for his life.  The child screamed in terror while the machine remained unflinching.  But before it could pull the trigger, Derrick’s trident stabbed the head of the machine, causing it to malfunction and collapse.  Derrick quickly pulled the trident out of the machine and morphed it to rifle form to start taking several quick close-range shots at the horde of machines right in front of him to give the child time to get up and run towards his parents and board one of the evacuation ships.  The battle raged, civilians trying to escape while Derrick, Atlesian soldiers, and a handful of other Huntsmen and Huntresses in the area fought back against the oncoming horde.

            “Do we have any orders from up top?”  Derrick yelled at one of the soldiers.

            “Just try to do the best we can and get civilians clear.” the soldier yelled back.  ‘Command doesn’t expect us to hold the city so once everybody is clear, we are to retreat.”

            “Doesn’t sound like Ironwood” Derrick said as he ran his trident through another machine.

            “We’re outgunned and we were not prepared for this.  Ironwood isn’t willing to sacrifice so many to try and hold a few buildings.”

            “What about Mantle?  What’s happening down there?”

 

 

 

Midtown Mantle

 

 

 

            Sage was simply looking over the mission boards for the Huntsman Alliance trying to find work when the sirens began blaring.  As he rushed out into the street, he saw machines marching and opening fire on everybody in their path.  One of which was a young girl who was just on her way to school with her packed lunch who had gotten shot in the leg by a stray bullet and was lying there, helpless.  Sage quickly sprang into action and ran towards the girl to try and get her to safety.  As he reached her, the machines were nearly on top of them.  The closest machine fired a bullet at Sage, and his Semblance activated almost instantly.  In his sped-up state, he picked up the girl and immediately ran towards the large crowd of people who were fleeing from the chaos.  Sage went as far as he could so that he still had some Aura left over once he returned to normal speed.  Thankfully, he didn’t have too far to travel as he deactivated his Semblance and handed the girl to a surprised bystander.  Sage turned to face the machines again, drawing his swords despite being nearly out of breath.  The girl he saved saw this and tossed him her small water bottle from her lunch which he gratefully chugged down in an instant.  With that taken care of, the bystander ran off towards the evacuation ships like the others, while Sage faced down the machines as more and more human Atlesian soldiers arrived on the scene to help.  The battle raged on, and while it looked like the humans were making a dent in the machine army, Sage could see whenever they took down a squadron of machines, a platoon more were not far off behind them.  And even more beyond that.  So once Sage saw that several soldiers were waving for people to withdraw, he decided to jump at the opportunity.  He stayed on the ground as long as there were others with him, but once he saw the last soldier board the evac ship, he jumped on as well as they all flew out of the city and towards a large airship blockade that was now hovering around the entire Kingdom.  Any machine that attempted to leave the perimeter of the Kingdom was met with heavy cannon fire from the airships.  Sage took the moment to catch his breath as they landed on the command ship.

 

 

 

2 Days Later

 

 

 

            Natalie looked out the window at the sprawling landscape of the tundra that surrounded Atlas.  She had never really visited this region of Remnant during her years of roaming the world with Ruby and Weiss, and never had the desire to change that fact given its eternal state of freezing.  However, once she and her friends had gotten the message about what had transpired, they didn’t hesitate in flying out to help.  She stood on the airship with Ruby and Weiss they had been using to travel around the world when they got the news about the attack.  They also managed to pick up Jacob, Ty, and Brooklyn from Mistral on their way north.  As they grew closer to the city, they saw everything they had been told was true.  Machines lining the streets, buildings on fire, and Atlas Academy under siege from countless rounds of gunfire.  While the civilians managed to escape unscathed, the students and teachers at Atlas Academy were targeted heavily by Whitley’s forces, and as a result, they were forced to isolate themselves within the academy itself.  And most of the students were not prepared for the invasion, so a majority of them were trapped in there with injuries and without access to weapons and ammunition beyond what they already had on campus.  The airship then finished its pass and flew up towards the command ship that circled Atlas along with the rest of the non-autonomous fleet that circled the city.

            “Wasn’t Ironwood beginning to experiment with robot pilots and AI weapons management?” Ruby wondered aloud.

            “He was,” Weiss chimed in, “but Ozpin and surprisingly my father spoke out against that idea citing how bad it would have been if the Order managed to get control of the airships as well when they attacked five years ago.”

            “Kind of makes you wonder why he refuses to get rid of robot soldiers altogether” Natalie said with a sigh.

            “Public opinion is far more inclined towards robots taking the bullets for humanity instead of, well, humanity” Jacob said as he joined the three of them at the window.  “As much as this tragedy is horrible, I guarantee that in a few years, just like what happened after the Order, while there will be a push for human soldiers to circumvent the whole “evil robots attacking us” fears, a human or three will be killed in the line of duty, people will demand that the robots handle the most dangerous tasks out there, rinse and repeat.”

            “I think the simple answer is that people are idiots” Ty said cracking his neck.  “And we’re probably going to be bailing people out of said idiocy until we hand it off to the next generation.”

            “I certainly hope not” Natalie said with a sigh.  The group said nothing else from this point on as the airship made its final landing on the deck of the command ship.  As soon as they finished touching down, they all disembarked to see Pyrrha and Jaune standing there waiting to greet them.  They all exchanged quick hugs and then made their way to the command bridge.

            “Are we waiting on anybody else?” Brooklyn asked as they made their way through the halls of the ship.

            “You were the last ones to arrive” Jaune said as they entered the bridge.  And looking around, everyone saw that Jaune was right.  Miles and Blake were standing next to a holographic table talking with Beanie and Christy, Evan and Nathan were talking with General Ironwood while Yang was talking with two people that Natalie didn’t recognize right away.  But then one of them looked towards the group and started grinning ear to ear.

            “Jacob my man!” Sage said as he walked towards Jacob.

            “Sage!” Jacob exclaimed as the two of them shook hands and shared a quick hug.  “Holy moley, what are you doing here?”

            “I was doing a job in Mantle when Armageddon broke loose and I had to fight to keep everyone alive!  After we finished evac, Ironwood recognized me from the Battle of Vytal and asked me to help out with this project!”

            “And who’s the other guy?” Natalie pondered pointing at the other stranger.

            “Hello, I’m Derrick” he said extending his hand in introduction.  “Weapons manufacturer, and my story is similar to Sage’s here, but I was in Atlas.”

            “Wait,” Ty said walking towards Derrick, “You seem familiar….”

            “He’s the guy we played cards with back in Mistral years ago Ty” Miles said not moving from the holographic table.  “And he was one of the guys you fought in the Vytal Festival our sophomore year during the 4v4 rounds.”

            “How the flip do you remember all that?” Ty said scratching his head.

            “He didn’t” Evan said with a smile.  “I remembered the Vytal Festival part, and then Miles recognized him from that.”

            “I’ve actually also recently met your other friend there” Derrick said pointing at Brooklyn.  “She helped with cleanup after my former boss tried to make me keep making weapons for the black market without my knowledge while claiming he was helping improve my chances of attaining work in Atlas.”

            “Well there you go” Jacob said with a chuckle.  “So where do we stand as of right now?”

            “First things first,” Ironwood said motioning for everybody to join him at the main hologram table, “we need to focus on getting the students out of Atlas Academy.  We’ve been quiet these past few days because not only did we need to amass the forces necessary to stand against what is waiting for us in Mantle and Atlas, but we believe we can lull Whitley into a false sense of security by holding fast.  Make him think we’re content with this stand-off and that our only target it him and the manor.  If we can come up with a plan to retake the Academy and some of the surrounding area, that would put us within striking distance of Schnee manor and likely deplete his forces in the process.”

            “Depletion of resources isn’t the most logical tactic in this scenario general” Weiss said stepping forward.  “My father decided that he wanted to connect the manor to the production factory in Mantle.  And if Whitley has control of Mantle as well as Atlas, he has a near endless supply of materials available to him that he can make and send directly to himself.  Be it more drones or more weapons.”

            “So we need to take down two pieces at once” Jacob said looking over the map.  “If we retake Atlas Academy, the service tubes in that facility could take us right down to the factory in Mantle and into enemy territory.  From there, we could send a bomb through the tubes and destroy the factory.  Effectively cutting Whitley off from not just building more troops, but also from the troops he already has stationed in Mantle.”

            “We would probably need to send an actual team down to Mantle in order to do that though” Derrick said looking over some of the plans for the service tube system.  “Just sending down a bomb could probably be dealt with before we got the opportunity to detonate.  Even if we try to provide the override codes to send the package anyways, Whitley could just simply take manual control of the Mantle facility and this would be nothing more than a slight annoyance.  Plenty of explosives removal droids likely already at that facility.  We would need to send a small team through the tubes, and then sever the connection between Mantle and Atlas manually.”

            “So how would we get back up to Atlas after doing that?” Beanie pondered.  “Not all of us can fly.”

            “Well, I have gotten better at using my Semblance” Miles said stepping forward.  “If we are able to cause enough damage and create a slab of some kind large enough that I could focus my Semblance into it that could carry all of us, in theory, we could launch ourselves out of Mantle and into the Tundra where a team could pick us up and give us a lift back to the command ship so that we can prepare our next move.”

            “Not a bad idea” Natalie smiled punching Miles in the arm jokingly, “for you of all people.”

            “I have my moments.” Miles said with a smirk back at her.

            “You’re sure this won’t cause your insides to explode into a million pieces like what happened with Amity Arena?” Christy asked with a tinge of concern.

            “I’ve gotten better with that aspect of it” Miles said with a smile.  “Not sure if it’s because I’m older and I’m more used to using my Semblance, but I would like to think that it’s because I’ve improved as a person and I feel less like I’m controlling others, but rather helping them with my abilities.”

            “All right” Nathan said rolling his eyes, “save the sappy stuff for after we win.  Seems to be the designated time for that kind of talk.”  Everybody chuckled a bit, helping alleviate some of the tension in the room.

            “All right,” Ironwood said.  “We have a plan in place.”

            “Wait,” Jacob said looking over the hologram of the transport tubes.  “It would be a waste to gain such a tactical advantage and then not use it.”

            “What did you have in mind?” Evan asked looking over the specs.

            “I have an idea to not just destroy these service tubes, but to also use them ourselves to surround the enemy.  Give me a few minutes, I might have something here.” Everyone nodded their heads in understanding and stepped towards the windows of the command deck and looked over the smoke rising from Mantle and Atlas.

            “Any word from Ozpin?” Ruby asked looking over at Ironwood.

            “He is choosing to remain vigilant and guard Vale while we deal with this crisis.  If we learned anything from the invasion of the Order, we cannot be careless and leave ourselves defenseless in one area while we focus on another.”

            “And you’re okay with that?”
            “I actually agree with him.  Better to make sure we have eyes and ears at the ready in case another group tries to make a move.”

 

 

 

Haven Academy

The Office of Former Headmaster Lionheart

 

 

 

            The office sat empty, quiet.  No one had occupied it for months following the arrest of the disgraced Professor Lionheart.  The only thing moving in there were the few specks of dust that found an air current from a crack in the window or from the air unit vents.  But then, the door opened.  And as light poured into the room, Anima Imperia, Vinculum Memoriare, and Genimu Sangui stepped in, and began rummaging through the information.  Anima was looking over a pile of folders, and found one that simply read “Relics” and smiled.  Meanwhile, Memoriare looked over another stack of folders, and grimaced,

            “Anything of interest Lord Memoriare?” Sangui asked as he shuffled through other papers.

            “Just some useless student records” Memoriare said as he quickly hid the folder in his jacket and began exploring other parts of the office.  After a few more moments of searching, Imperia held up a piece of paper, her smile growing even larger than before.

Author's Note

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