A massacre was underway on the Atlas flagship. A bloodbath, a lynching, a slaughter, a battle, a melee. The cafeteria was drenched in red, pieces of meat littered the floor, and the screams of the dying echoed between the steel walls. Combat robots lay lifelessly here and there, some without legs trying to reach for their weapons, while others twitched convulsively after a heavy blow to the head. It was a bloodshed of unbelievable proportions, comparable only to the Great War and the string of revolutions almost a century ago.
"Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Nora Valkyrie strained her throat, experiencing another fit of maniacal villainous laughter. Sometimes she forgot she was on the side of the good guys, and she got carried away. "Tear their legs off! Devour their flesh! Drink their blood!"
The beaten soldiers in the corner began to twitch, trying to crawl further away and press themselves even harder against the walls of the room. Fear and despair were clearly visible in their eyes. And those unfortunate enough to still be holding weapons got to experience the full wrath of Pirate Queen Nora Valkyrie "The Mad" the First.
Nora raised her hands, holding a large green ball with black stripes in each. One blurred motion, and the watermelons were already on the soldiers' heads, while they fell to the floor, futilely trying to get them off in impotent rage. The red mush on the floor multiplied.
Bones crunched loudly. It was Yort ripping the leg off a roasted chicken, tossing the tasteless, dry breast onto the floor.
"So where are we hauling ass to next? Grubbing is cool and all, but we've been here way too fucking long. The Atlesians are gonna surround us soon and we're toast."
The rest didn't bother with tactical questions and simply continued plundering the kitchen. Someone walked out with strings of sausages, someone pulled out smoothies, there was even a cake. Food meant for regular soldiers clearly wasn't stored here.
Vandals who had covered all the cafeteria surfaces with graffiti, curses, and their own initials also felt quite cozy. And some particularly creative individuals had nailed Atlesian combat robots to the walls in various poses, bending their arms and legs so their bodies resembled letters. The terrifying message read: 'Beacon brings the boom, Atlas meets its doom.'
"Just got hit with some pleasant memories," Nora explained. "Couldn't resist smashing a couple of watermelons against someone's head." Her calm voice suddenly gave way to a demonic laugh again. "Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha, let them know the true depth of despair and fear! For that is what I, the Pirate Queen, desire! HA-HA-HA-HA! This vessel is mine now! My personal flying castle!"
Her own team stood on the sidelines in shock. They were the only ones who hadn't forgotten the main objective of this assault.
"Nora, we need to find Blake as soon as possible," said Pyrrha, whose warrior intuition foreshadowed the imminent end of the boarding action. Atlas forces had surely regrouped by now and were ready to fight back against the disorganized teenagers, who were mostly just having fun.
But Nora was perfectly happy with all this mess and chaos. The energy hovering in the air, the tension... the madness, after all. When everyone does whatever they want, when there's nothing but confusion all around, when laws and rules are broken simply because! That's what the world should look like! Remnant will know the full multifaceted nature of true MADNESS! Tactics are for losers, chaos rules!
She arched her back and spread her arms wide, looking like a genuine lunatic. A wild villainous laugh burst from her mouth once again, only adding to the image of a crazed leader of a robber gang.
Team JNPR was seeing Nora in this state for the first time, and even Ren didn't know what to do. She wasn't exactly a beacon of prudence before, but now she was completely off the chain. And the scariest part—in this fit of madness, she was supported by almost everyone here, which severely complicated any attempts to calm her down.
While Pyrrha tried to talk some sense into her, Ren knelt beside one of the soldiers. He had already lost his Aura and could only lie powerlessly against the wall, tiredly watching the marauding students.
"Sir," Ren addressed him politely, "Please, tell us where Blake Belladonna is located."
The soldier snorted and looked away. But before Ren could say anything else, Nora pushed him aside.
"You don't wanna talk?!" She grabbed the poor guy by the lapels and started shaking him in the air like a rag doll. "You're gonna sing like a bird right now! Bring in the fluggegecheimen!"[1]
"The fuck?" Yort uttered in confusion.
Even the marauders paused for a second and exchanged meaningful glances. However, the hesitation didn't last long; a couple of moments later they went back to emptying the officer staff's food supplies.
"Yo-ho-ho, folks, look what I found!" A tall fourth-year with piercings all over his face pulled a crate of alcohol out of the kitchen. "There was top-tier rum stashed in the hold of this schooner! Enough for everyone!"
The marauders roared in delight and eagerly began to grab the bottles, practically fighting over them. A happy cackle filled the cafeteria. The only ones who abstained were those who hadn't forgotten the main goal of this assault, but you could count them on the fingers of a careless carpenter's hand - three. Out of this whole horde of madmen, there were only three adequate and completely sane people.
Ren turned to the soldier again.
"Sir, you have seen what sober Beacon students are capable of, now imagine the level of destruction when they get drunk."
The man gulped and decided to tell them where the hostage was being held after all. Having learned what was needed, Nora immediately ordered them to move out, however, she permitted them to take the rum and drink it on the way. As time passed, the noisy crowd of marauding students moved away, and when only the defeated Atlesians were left in the kitchen, the soldier smirked. He had done his duty, luring the enemy right into a trap.
The unsuspecting students fought their way to the upper decks. They cackled at the helpless meatheads and robots, walking on, leaving nothing but ruins behind their backs. Wherever they passed, steel melted, the air burned, and the enemies howled in terror.
The crowd of reckless teenagers, many of whom had already had a drink, felt their impunity and didn't worry at all about what they were doing.
"Don't you guys think this has gone a little too far?" Jaune whispered to Ren and Pyrrha.
They were running at the very back of the disorganized pirate crowd, not particularly eager to mock the Atlesians they met or to appropriate everything that wasn't nailed down.
"It doesn't seem like it," Ren replied. "It is what it is."
Just then, Nora chose to demonically laugh again and yell something bloodthirsty. The marauders picked up her battle cry and ran even more actively than before.
"Blood for the Blood Goddess! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
"We need to do something before everything gets completely out of hand," Jaune said, terrified.
"To lose control of something, that something must first be under control," Ren shared his wisdom.
"Well, I mean completely, completely out of hand."
Ren shrugged. From the very beginning, he perfectly understood that they were merely passive spectators of the unfolding chaos, and therefore didn't even try to somehow stop Nora. It was devoid of any meaning or common sense. Only a fool would push a mountain and believe that sooner or later he'd move it.
Who better to know this than him? He had known Nora for many years, so he understood perfectly well when any effort was completely useless, and when there was at least a minimal chance of curbing her next bout of madness. After all, many years ago, he was the one who made a promise to himself and the world that no one would get hurt because of her antics.
But his comrades were full of naive optimism and hope that it wasn't too late to do something. Obviously, they didn't understand Nora nearly as well.
"Pyrrha, you can handle her, right?" Jaune asked.
"Yes," she nodded without a doubt and yet without any overconfidence. "But Nora's antics are approved by the rest. They're unlikely to stand aside if I just attack her. As long as she provides them with entertainment, they'll fight on her side."
"Yeah, and you can't handle a crowd like that even yourself, let alone the upperclassmen."
"I'm sorry..."
Pyrrha truly looked remorseful that she wasn't omnipotent and couldn't single-handedly take on three dozen Beacon students.
"You don't need to apologize for that, Pyrrha, you aren't guilty of anything. We just need to be smarter. Ren, any ideas?"
"None."
"Like, absolutely none at all?"
"None," he repeated. "I can only share one piece of wisdom: even the largest school of fish cannot change the course of a river."
"Do all Mistralians love recalling various sayings so much?" a disappointed Jaune mumbled. "What are we supposed to do with Nora then? This is the first time she's gone completely off the rails."
"First time?" Pyrrha asked, slightly raising an eyebrow.
"I mean, gone off off the rails. Like, completely and irrevocably, sowing chaos and destruction everywhere."
"The food fight?" Ren asked in the exact same tone as Pyrrha.
"You know what I mean! And you also know that we finally need to do something! Why am I the only one who cares?"
Pyrrha awkwardly lowered her gaze.
"I'm not particularly good when it comes to anything besides fighting. That's exactly why you are the leader of our team, Jaune. And I am your sword, spear, rifle, and shield."
Jaune was amazed at how easily she had shifted all the responsibility for developing a plan onto him, albeit unintentionally. It was simply that Pyrrha preferred the spot behind his back, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
But it wasn't just her modesty; it was also that she didn't want her friends to be just "Friends of the Pyrrha Nikos". Too many of her acquaintances had been eclipsed by the glory of the invincible champion, which is why they ultimately just distanced themselves from her. And even during a chance meeting, they tried not to pay attention to her.
So the others on her team had to have their own names, loud and strong, earned through blood and sweat. Then they would be able to shine on par with her. And she would help them with that.
"We have to do something," Jaune lamented.
"All we can do," Ren replied with a doomed sigh, "is help Nora find Blake as soon as possible. But even so, she'll likely continue plundering until Atlas regroups and crushes us."
"You think they have a chance to stop this avalanche?"
"Charge!" Nora's voice suddenly rang out. The coordinated shots of standard Atlas soldier weaponry and the roar of the individual guns of Beacon students were heard. "Waste 'em! Yo-ho-ho!"
Since Team JNPR was lagging behind (except for Nora, of course, who was leading her pirates forward), they didn't even notice the fight itself. Just a wave of students ahead surged onto a somewhat fortified intersection, beat up its defenders, and moved on.
"No, did you see that? They can't even do anything, it's just beating up kids. Nora's gonna trash this ship until it crashes to the ground."
"Jaune," Pyrrha said gently, "that's all because of the element of surprise. Atlas has surely recovered a long time ago and is pulling its forces to one spot for a general battle, and these barricades are just meant to slow us down."
"You're saying they have some kind of plan?"
"They simply can't not have one."
The crowd of cackling pirates ran into a spacious hall. In the middle stood a holographic table, which was immediately smashed by strikes from maces, clubs, axes, and other heavy melee weapons. Atlas flags and crests hung from the high ceiling, and they were immediately torn down or set on fire. Every button in the room was pressed (especially the red ones), every lever was pulled down and pushed up several times, and any valuables were swept into the bottomless pockets of the pirates.
Suddenly, the sound of a single shot from something high-caliber stopped the pillaging. A large hole decorated the floor right in front of Nora.
"Not one step further," General James Ironwood said sternly, holding a massive revolver in his hand. His face looked as if it were carved from stone; right now he was dead serious. The picture was marred only by a small shiner on his eye.
Soon soldiers began pouring out of every crack, wearing much more advanced and heavy armor than the previous ones. They stood in a semicircle in front of the students in two rows: the first row was on one knee holding tall steel shields with the Atlas crest, while the row behind them was armed with something larger and more lethal. It immediately became clear that all the Atlesians they had met prior were just cannon fodder, and the real warriors were right here.
Naturally, this didn't stop the marauders. But when they were about to charge into the enemy ranks, they were all stopped by Nora's commanding gesture. Some were surprised that the Pirate Queen Nora Valkyrie "The Mad" the First herself got cold feet, but everyone quickly realized that a meeting between the leaders of two opposing sides couldn't do without an epic verbal showdown. And only after that would the battle begin to determine the victor and rightful owner of the Atlas flagship.
"The final battle," Nora whispered in anticipation. "The last war, after which there will be no more wars. Ragnarok is near... This flying castle will be mine, whatever the cost..."
"Not one step further," James Ironwood repeated. "Drop your weapons immediately and put your hands behind your heads. You will be sent back to Beacon, where you will be assigned detentions."
Many gulped, as the cursed word "detentions" was associated in everyone's minds with psychological abuse, thankless manual labor, total exhaustion, and Fill Chuckler, who ensured the first three points in full.
The faltering pirates were heartened by a gesture from their leader. Nora brazenly took a long, slow step forward, as if testing the General's nerves.
"I'm not scared in the slightest." Now she radiated not only uncontrollable madness, but also a fair amount of overconfidence. The students grinned with satisfaction and readied their weapons.
None of them had any intention of complying with Ironwood's demands.
"We surrender."
The marauders turned toward the sound of clattering steel and saw Jaune, Ren, and Pyrrha. They took a step away from their dropped weapons and put their hands behind their heads. They were guided by banal logic, which dictated that saving the situation was unlikely, but saving themselves from detentions, or at least reducing the punishment, was very possible.
"Hey!" Nora protested. "What the Grimm are you doing?! Ren, what the hell?! You're Pirate King Ren of the Lie dynasty 'The Pancake-bearer' the First!"
"You must be mistaken," Ren said in an even tone. "I'm seeing you for the first time."
Something broke—it was Nora's heart. She looked at Jaune in disbelief and quietly uttered:
"Non-commissioned officer Jaune Arc 'The Non-Clumsy'?"
"That's not me!" He smiled nervously, awkwardly looking away. "My name is... Juan Arno... sounds cute, flows well, easy to pronounce. Girls like it."
"First lieutenant Pyrrha Nikos 'Bloodbath', 'Skullcrusher', 'Invincible'?"
The answer was a single word.
"I'm sorry."
"Why don't you recognize me?!"
The General didn't interfere; the quarrel in the enemy camp played right into his hands. Besides, before using his ultimate weapon, Glynda had asked to give some a chance to repent.
"I get it!" Nora yelled suddenly. "This is all Atlas's doing! They fired mind-control rays like in that movie about the mad scientist! Ooh, I'll show you~"
"Final warning," the General said, cocking the hammer of his revolver. "Either you surrender voluntarily right now, or we will force you."
"Ho?" Nora uttered. "And how are you going to do that? With those little guns of yours?"
Instead of answering, the General raised his other hand holding a Scroll. The sharpest eyes could see Miss Goodwitch's angry facial expression even from that distance, but absolutely everyone heard her amplified voice.
"Stop this circus immediately, you idiots! Valkyrie! For vandalism, theft, assaults, mockery, property damage, disrespect for elders, and spearheading all of the above, I assign you detentions FOR ALL FOUR YEARS OF STUDY!"
Nora clutched her already broken heart with both hands. Her hammer clattered out of her hands onto the floor. The final battle, Ragnarok, ended before it even began. The forces of terrifying, all-destructive Darkness fell, and the forces of Light were victorious. Remnant will live on for some time yet...
...until the next Ragnarok...
"And detentions until the end of this year for the rest of you!" Miss Goodwitch continued her tearing down. "Be thankful you weren't expelled!"
Now everyone clutched their hearts. Everyone at Beacon knew that an enraged Iron Lady was scarier than any Grimm and more destructive than any natural disaster. But no one had ever seen her this angry.
"For those who surrendered—leniency, detentions for one month," she added in a calm voice. Everyone instantly dropped their weapons. "Too late, ladies and gentlemen, your train has already left the station. And now get your asses down to the ground, you failures, so you're here in five minutes! Jump if you have to!"
Suddenly, an explosion echoed somewhere in the lower part of the flagship, and the vessel noticeably shook. The Beacon students yelled in unison:
"THAT WASN'T US!"
***
A long-haired blond in a shirt brushed off his hands. Clean work. He was pleased with himself.
At that exact moment, the red metal door leading to the flagship's main engine was nearly blown out by an explosion. It buckled significantly outward, the walls around it were scorched black, and acrid black smoke began to seep through the cracks on the sides. The shaking was so intense that even the unconscious mechanics nearby could have come to their senses.
Of course, the ship wouldn't crash to the ground from this, but it would have to make an emergency landing. And considering that over a hundred failed pirates on the ground were waiting for exactly that, the carnage might continue down there. The blond anticipated an imminent meat grinder.
But doubly so, he anticipated the beginning of major problems for the people whose appearances they were currently using.
"Man, the short stack's illusions are truly something else." With these words, the blond brazenly waved his hand at a security camera. "Way cooler than yours, Em."
"Pfft, they fall apart from a single push," replied a red-haired girl in green leather armor. "And they don't forge voices or smells."
"But they can fool a whole crowd at once, not just one dummy. And your fake look is way hotter than your real one... Though, that's not exactly hard to beat."
The girl was already winding up for her habitual slap to the back of the head, but stopped at the last moment. She exhaled a couple of profanities through her teeth and reminded herself that the illusion shouldn't be broken; this idiot was still needed in his current form. But when their mission is over... She would get payback for everything.
"Should I write something edgy?" the blond asked himself, since he usually wiped his ass with his partner's opinion.
However, she reciprocated in kind, and on an even grander scale. If it weren't for their shared boss, they would have killed each other a long time ago, or finally slept together.
"Got an idea," nodding importantly, he took some chalk from a mechanic and started writing letters on the buckled door. The inscription read: FREEDOM TO BELADONA. "Basic, but it'll do."
"Belladonna is spelled with two 'L's and two 'N's, you dummy."
"Oh, really?" He scratched the back of his head, then added the missing letters slightly higher up. "I think it looks even better this way. Perfectly showcases the mental capacity of Beacon students."
"More like yours, Merc."
Their bickering was interrupted by a short dark-skinned girl. She tapped her finger on her wrist and ran her thumb across her throat.
"Right, short stack," the blond nodded. "Shooting up is bad, ruins your health. So don't mess with drugs, be a good girl."
The good girl buried a sharp elbow into his gut. She knew the nuances of her Semblance better than anyone, and the limit after which the illusions shattered, so she shamelessly took advantage of it. The blond was in pain, but stubbornly pretended everything was fine with him.
"She says we're out of time, dumbass," the redhead translated, dragging him by the scruff of the neck away from the crime scene. "Time to go."
"You think if we shank one of these guys and leave him next to the writing, it'll boost the effect?" the blond asked bloodthirstily, glancing back at the unconscious Atlesians. "We gotta make everyone fight each other, right? A Beacon student shivving a meathead. That's sick."
"Cinder said no unnecessary kills. So don't kill. There wasn't even supposed to be any writing in the plan!"
"Ugh, Em, you've got zero initiative. And creativity. And brains. Oh, and I almost forgot~"
"Shut it," the redhead growled. "Do what you're told and everything will be fine. Haven't you realized yet that Cinder's plans don't fail? So don't ruin everything with your bright ideas; you can't improve perfection. Today, she'll take what is rightfully hers."
The blond waved her off listlessly; the praises sung in honor of their boss had already thoroughly tired him out. Especially if you consider the tiny fact that, in essence, there was no plan.
He would never say this out loud, but it was purely by luck that they still hadn't been caught. Take the most recent events, for example - nobody knew that the Beacon students would be psycho enough to storm the Atlas flagship, that one of them would have a suitable defensive Semblance, and that this superman would happen to be on their Bullhead out of twenty possible ones. Only thanks to a combination of these lucky twists of fate were they able to blow up the main engine of the Atlas flagship. Had even one of these things not happened, they would have faced failure.
Cinder presented this obviously improvised "Plan" to them as if she had counted on this exact development of events half a year ago, when the Dust thefts had just begun.
Sure. Mercury Black might not be the smartest person on Remnant, but even he understood that there was no planning here whatsoever. Cinder just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity that presented itself to force an already frankly suicidal plan.
She can repeat three times a day that she's thought everything ten steps ahead and that no one compares to her intellect, but it's not true. Even he sees so many holes and vulnerabilities in almost every new "Plan" of hers that all he can do is roll his eyes. But he doesn't get paid to fix other people's screw-ups. He doesn't get paid at all, actually. And you get what you pay for.
But the simple fact remained that Cinder's plans always work. Thought-out, un-thought-out - they are successful simply because she participates in them.
Maybe Cinder really is a genius who just plays dumb, and he's just looking for an excuse to be contrary. Mercury tried not to think about the fact that his entire life had depended on pure chance ever since he met this power-obsessed, lucky psychopath.
But his colleague, who was still singing praises to their boss, was obviously stupid.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's an angel in the flesh, she'll outplay and destroy the Twin Brothers themselves, and then bend the whole world over, I'm firmly convinced of that too!" the blond said hotly, not missing a chance to hit his partner where it hurts. "But the execution is a bit lacking sometimes, ain't it, Em? You said yourself that the raspy guy most likely saw through your illusion."
"Shut it," the redhead growled, recalling her recent failure. "I probably just got the code phrase wrong. Or that cute couple has some secret signs of their own."
"But what about the voice, the smell, and all the rest?" the blond asked with feigned concern. "Gonna try to fool the monkey again?"
Suddenly, the silent girl walking at the very front stopped.
"The fuck you~"
The blond was interrupted by a sharply raised hand, clenched in a fist in a "Danger" signal. The fact that this fist accidentally hit him right in the nose didn't particularly bother the good girl.
Soon hurried footsteps were heard, and a pair of armed soldiers ran out at them from around the corner. They didn't know they were already expected, so they didn't even have time to squeak when the blond and the redhead grabbed them and began choking them. The short girl immediately yanked the assault rifles from their hands so the Atlesians couldn't make noise by firing.
A minute later, the redhead dropped her soldier to the floor and brushed off her hands. The blond, however, was in no hurry to do the same, even though the Atlesian in his hands had stopped moving.
"Merc, you're gonna kill him. Let go."
"Tsk." He reluctantly loosened his grip. "Man, it's just not the same without kills. The time in Beacon is the most boring time of my life. We're just sneaking around and doing some shady stuff on the down-low. Zero action. Even with the White Fang goons it was way more fun, at least in the beginning they'd go pick fights with 'Dumb humans' themselves. Why're you so quiet, short stack?"
The short dark-skinned girl rolled her eyes.
"What, got nothing to say? Huh? Huh? Like, she's mute, get it?" No one laughed or even giggled. The blond clicked his tongue. "I'm surrounded by buzzkills."
"You do realize that when we get back to our room, we're gonna kick your ass so hard you'll need a cast on a certain spot?"
"I live for today!" he answered proudly. "As long as I got immunity to all damage, I gotta use it to the max."
The redhead sharply yanked him by the scruff of his neck, practically hurling him toward the open emergency door leading outside. But the Blond managed to grab onto the handrail beside the passage just in time. The strong wind scattered his long golden hair, and it passed right through the redhead standing behind him, giving away its illusory nature.
The flagship was flying pretty high, so the fall was going to hurt. But a parachute would draw way too much interest from those currently on the ground. And according to their plan, they had to immediately return to their room, as if they had always been there.
"The fuck?" the Blond uttered in surprise when he saw dozens of Beacon students jumping down from above. However, he quickly recovered and rolled his eyes. "Well, would you look at that—miracles do happen! Our luck again! It's just mind-boggling, how does this even happen? Folks, get this, we're not the only ones jumping! We'll blend in with the crowd and just slip away in the chaos."
It was suspiciously quiet behind him. He turned around and smiled slightly nervously.
"Ladies first?"
"Exactly," replied the redhead, as she and her sister in misfortune pushed her headache outside. Equally satisfied smiles spread across their faces. "You know, short stack, you're not so~"
A sharp shove in the back interrupted her. As she fell down, she indignantly crossed her arms over her chest.
"What a bitch. And we were getting along so well."
[1] If you don't get it, it's a reference to the BDSM club scene in the movie EuroTrip (2004).