Relic of the Future: Chapter 17

"Speaking of," she flipped it open. "Headmaster. Such a pleasure to have you- what? Now?" Cinder shot to her feet, her red dress flapping. "You're certain!?"

Emerald sat up, Mercury doing the same beside her. Cinder's tone left no illusions as to whether this was good or bad news. Ashari frowned, stood and approached the nearest window, drew the curtains back and looked out.

"-how!?" Cinder shouted. "We were – yes. Yes, of course. Thank you for the warning." She slammed her thumb on the button to end the call and shouted, "It's time for us to leave. We've been-"

Ashari threw himself away from the window. "INCOMING!"

/-/

Warchief watched the windows explode outward with fire and gas and wondered not for the first time what the hell he was doing. Atlas soldiers continued to use grenade launchers to fire through the windows, following his orders to the letter. The orders of an idiot who didn't know a damn thing.

This is your fault, Ren. Yours, Russel and Cardin's.

From his position in the back of a lorry, he had access to numerous computers and screens in what was Atlas' version of a mobile command hub. Basically, a lorry with the back hollowed out for machinery and a few aerials on top. It would have only been more ironic if the outside was disguised as an ice-cream truck. Soldiers guarded the outside, ready to kill anyone who came near him like he was something worth protecting.

General Ironwood and Winter hadn't believed him when he said his history was luck. It was getting to the point where he was beginning to wonder if he actually had some memetic Semblance that forced others to perceive him as more than he was.

"Sir, we've filled the apartment with grenades. Orders?"

"Keep firing." Warchief ordered. He didn't know a damn thing about how to organise a breach and clear, especially against trained and dangerous huntsmen, and so the safest thing – for the men under his command and anyone else – was toa void it entirely. "Don't stop even if the building collapses. I want the fire to be on fire. I want the smoke to choke out the smoke."

"Y-Yes sir."

The worst part was that they'd probably look at this and say he was good at his job or ruthless or any one of a bunch of other things that'd somehow look good, as opposed to having no other plan than "keep hitting it and hope it dies". The building trembled on the screen as yet more grenades arched through the windows. Some hit the walls on either side, but most went through. These were some of Atlas' finest. Black smoke was belching out every window and the whole apartment was definitely on fire.

"It's not going to be this easy, is it…?"

Fate was a bitch – and not even just that asshole variant sleeping around back at Beacon. The roof of the building exploded upward as huge, black-feathered wings beat at the sky. It was like the building was an egg cracking open and giving birth, except that the Nevermore was fully grown. Grown to the point of an alpha, of something that had lived for decades or more.

—Arc Royale: Chapter 17