Save What Remains

[CalibansEnthusiast]

His shift was supposed to have started at eight that night. Which had allowed him to catch the end of the day's Vytal Tournament matchups, the top ticket of the day being the fight between Pyrrha Nikos and Penny Polendina. He had tuned in as he tied his tie, ready to head out the door.

Then it happened. One fighter sheared into pieces. Then the alarms. He paused as a silken voiced woman gave a speech, and looked to the closet. His go case was there. He had not been activated, but it felt like he should-

The watch on his wrist began to glow through his white shirt. Hal spent a good minute staring at it, before moving into action. Before the connection crashed, he got a partial map of the city and orders.

Communications were down. The power flickered and died out. Vale was dark.

-----
​

The only objective he had received had been to protect an evacuation site. Located in a city park, human Atlas troops beckoned civilians there, while the ununiformed Pheonix Agents stood watch. The sound of gunfire was thick in the air. Flares hissed along the ground, lighting a path to a darkened transport. Hal took up a post overlooking a side street, where anything could come-

An explosion rocked the park. Followed by screams. As Hal turned around, he saw a nightmare. The transport, full of civilians, had been targeted by parties unknown. A smoking hole dominated one side, but the nightmare had only begun. The flarelit path, full of fleeing and terrified civilians, became caught in a hellish crossfire.

The Pheonix Agent charged from cover and into the fray, seeking cover behind a wrecked truck and identifying the attackers: White clad Atlesian androids, interfaces glowing red. Bullets from his Eclipse Rifle sparked off their armor as he engaged, drawing their attention away from the civilians.

 

[Ramboing]

Jay Ciel
​

The scene that occured at Vale shocked the harden group of soldiers. Never before had they seen such a destructive sight despite their many years in the army. Fires consumed buildings, people screamed in the distance, and Grimm roared fiercely. Luckily, the squad was on the rooftops, originally ordered to watch any suspicious activities. But now, they were cursed to watch the scenes of death and destruction. "Holy shit..." one of the soldiers gasped. "How could this happen?" another questioned. One of the soldiers crawled to a corner and began to breakdown in tears.

Seeing the crying soldier, one of his squad mates walked over to him and comforted him. He removed his helmet and looked directly at the crying person. "Hey man, it's gonna be fine. Right now there are others in you exact same position, except for one thing, you can do something." The comforter was a tall figure, with a dark blue eyes and messed up hair. His eyes showed years of war and sadness, yet there was a glimpse of hope in those eyes. He was about to continue when another soldier called out, "Hey guys, we need to move now. There's an civilian evac point less than a kilometer from here. Looks like they need help. Let's get moving." The rest of the group began to move, seeming to leave the two on the ground behind. "Yo what about him?" the comforter yelled at the running soldiers. "Don't worry about him Jay, we need to get moving."

Jay took another look at the broken person, wanting to help, but he could tell from the person's body language that he was not moving. He began to get up, giving one last look at the person and said, "Good luck then." Collecting his weapon and his med bag, Jay made his way back to the rest of his squad.

An hour later, the squad had arrived at the evac point, escorting the few civilians to airships. Occasionally a Grimm would break through requiring all the soldiers to fire at the beast. After a few airships got through, a orange blip started to pulse on Jay's chest. Oh no.. Why now? He looked around at his squad mates who were working to save others. But they were limited in what they could do, thus now it was time to earn his second paycheck. But how? His personal drop was in Atlas, not Vale. He thought quickly, coming to the conclusion that he had to use what he had. Jay quickly tore off his armor, tossing it away and grabbed a hanging camp blouse. He checked his submachine gun and his medical supplies and turned to one of his squad mates who was looking at him confused. "Sorry man, have to take care of something. Good luck." And with that he ran off, running past all the fleeing civilians, using his beacon to guide him toward the nearest rally point.

 

[Warenai hana]

Koizumi Raicho

Koi had gone to the Vytal Tournament to enjoy herself and support Beacon, of which she was an alumni. As the tournament was reaching its final stages Koi had quickly run off to buy a drink from the concession stands, unfortunately before she had gotten her drink the alarm sounded and the panic doors began to close. She stood where she was in a stupor for a moment. She had paid, the lady behind the counter had just pulled out a cold water from the fridge, but before she could reach out to take the water the a large metal hatch slammed shut... what a shame. Koi, though disappointed, followed the audible and visual instructions and started to evacuate.

If it had been a few years earlier Koi would have been one of the first people out the door, not because she was running away, but because she would have been chasing after her energetic older (by a few seconds) sister whom was looking for a fight. Without her sister Koi was less sure of herself, she was even easily intimidated by the large crowd of people rushing out of the stadium. Somewhere along the lines Koi was swept up with the crowd and was being pushed towards one of the evacuation transport.

As Koi was struggling not to be trampled or squashed between panicked civilians a bright flash blinded her momentarily. By the time she gained her sight back a large portion of the crowd was running back to the stadium. "The transports are being targeted, take refuge in the stadium!" The civilians had lost all control and were now running like a spooked herd of buffalo. Something as simple as a slip would mean death, there was no stopping them now.

The large amount of excitement was enough to put Koi over the edge, she didn't want to be here now. Too many people, too many screams, too much happening. It took all that was in her to keep her from curling up into a ball. Instead she forced herself out of the crowd just in time to see the Androids change their targets. Her eyes widened and everything seemed to slow down. Something was wrong, the bots stopped firing on the grim and turned around... "S-stop!" The words came out but her body was stiff, sweat ran down her forehead, what was happening?!

Koi couldn't do anything, instead her eyes started to close shut and her hands moved in front of her face, she was scared senseless and expected the end to come soon. The sound of gunfire erupted all at once and for a few moments she waited to feel pain sinking into her body, but nothing. Koi hesitantly opened up her eyes to see a man running while firing at the bots. Her eyes widened and her body moved on its own, the crystals floated out of her bag and began to hover over her head, in the next moment a stone wall appeared just in time to wall the bots off and a bolt of electricity left her finger. It shocked four or so bots and they fell to the ground. Unfortunately the remaining bots turn on her.