74 The Clock Strikes 12...
The battlefield was rife with the stench of fading Grimm entrails and the smell of the Wehrmacht's rifles and machine guns spent cartridges wafted through the snow-ridden landscape.
It was a hard task to succeed in, the walls of Mantle are being touched while squads of tanks and men sally out to remove Megoliaths that acted as the siege engines of the Grimm.
The Reichscopter flew high from the sky, after being recovered by the team and making the Atlesians watch over the Ace-Ops and Ironwood, it flew through the air and assisted.
Team RWBY did not have the ability to influence vehicles that didn't come from Hanns. Neo was the exception since her semblance could work anywhere as long as she is near or occupying whatever she wanted to make an illusion for everyone.
"There's so many of them!" Ruby shouted from the Reichscopter's comm system. She saw the masses of black still approaching and coming from the nearby tundra of Atlas.
Hanns watched the spectacle. It was a miracle they hadn't been overrun - if Hanns had to guess it was at the level of maybe thrice the size of when Beacon fell in the show.
Though, the Atlesians still had their robots and the Wehrmacht's support. Tanks were really making a difference, the crew could ignore damage just from the armor and could punch right through with the Dust Infused shells Hanns had put in.
Some powerful Grimm like the alphas can tear through the sides or put a dent in the 50mm armor in the front. Though, most if not all the Grimm were shot by the effective cannons.
Normal dust ammo sprayed Dust directly into Grimm. Dust-infused bullets on the other hand pierce the surface and then detonate the dust from within. And it allows a strange and unexplained reaction with the gunpowder to create a better propellant.
The problem was logistics.
Thankfully the airfield was kilometers away from the actual battle and could resupply through the Supply Depot Hanns had placed beforehand.
It came with problems, Bullheads were the main transport of munitions to the troops for the Wehrmacht. Meaning a dedicated force of fighters to protect them.
Hanns telepathically communicated to avoid being drowned out by the noise of the rotors. "Get us down, tell Torchwick to do his best in controlling this. I assume you've taught him as much as possible."
"Torchwick! Hanns tells you to handle this. You read the manual right?"
"Don't worry Lunchbox. I'm a criminal mastermind, flying something made by Little Red is a walk in the park. Now get down there before we all get swarmed by these damn birds."
Torchwick held on to the bars as he aims his cane at a Nevermore in the distance. A flare burns out and impacts the Nevermore which was small enough to avoid getting hit by the Atlesian airships.
Then, right below to the right was a part of the wall unmanned by anyone. Dead soldiers kept the snow warm as the Grimm pounded on the defenses and Sabyrs tried scaling the walls.
"Great! Ruby, get me down and I'll give you your tank. We need to patch up that hole over there!"
The thumps of rotors reached the ears of the citizens as they saw Hanns in his Leopard I touch down on the ground below. Ruby maneuvers the Reichscopter in place before letting Torchwick take the stick.
"Wow, It's just like a bullhead but somehow better to handle. Just go do your thing! Lunchbox, talk to me if you need air support I'll handle the skies!"
Team WYBRN lands on the ground after leaping from the Reichscopter. The snow cushions their fall and they immediately get assaulted by Grimm.
"This feels so much better than holding back on people!" Yang shouts as she dented the skull of an Ursa. "They're bigger than in Vale - I guess they're better punching bags!"
Hanns lands as well after Blake unhooks him from the Reichscopter. "Yang, don't be too arrogant. You know how you overestimate stuff, remember you trying to punch me back then?"
Her face looked like she ate a whole lemon. "Of course I do..." she had less enthusiasm when she remembered she only got hit once and almost lost her Aura from it.
"Good, I don't want you to lose an arm after all."
"Wait, why is it so specific?"
"No need to know, Yang. Just don't go biting more than what you can chew."
Hanns' tracks buried deep into the snow. His hard-light generator was emptying. The battle has yet to end because of his system. He had confidence though, they were finally here and Hanns could test his doubled attributes to kill anything.
He eyes the targets in front. 'Megoliath~ where are you?' he was crazy.
Nothing was more exciting than testing new skills or equipment. Even though Hanns had played Warthunder, he had other interests before he was taken by the snail. Still, having twice the power of an already amazing shell was going to make him fail NNN.
'Found you!' he grips the snow beneath and trudges through the land to face the Megoliath. His gunsights jittered with excitement as he scopes in.
'Overclock. 2- no, 3 kilometers. I can take the shot.'
He adjusts his sight before letting the shell go forth.
*BOOM!*
His breach impacted the shell and a surge of kinetic energy recoiled his entire tank backward as the shell distorted the air and snow before leaving at quintuple the speed of sound.
It was almost like he was punched in the face from the sheer recoil. A normal gun would break the instant it even let out. Twice the explosive mass and speed made it so everything was making Hanns go backward.
'Huh, I wonder where that shell went.'
The shot misses. The combination of the increased muzzle velocity meant the sights on his tank were now inaccurate and he needed to guess it like before.
If he uses the sights he needed to click a part of himself to adjust the sight to align with the distance but he was lazy and usually eyeballed it without using the rangefinder.
Hanns' eyes were like the sight of the tank. He could either view the ports from his tank but he usually uses the sights. This is why he constantly looks like he was about to shoot someone when he stares at them.
'How the hell did my gun survive that? It should've broken from how damn powerful it was.'
[Overclock adjusts the density of materials. It's why your armor also doubles and your things can survive such an impact. It compensates it through the system.]
'Oh, you're finally answering questions moderator?'
[Haha very funny, friend.]
'Is that being sarcastic?' he waited for seconds and even got to reload before he asked again. 'You there, moderator?'
He was met with even more silence as Hanns aimed for another Megoliath. 'Damn, I guess I was left on read.'
"Hanns! We're ready, Grimm won't be coming for a few seconds. We killed the nearby ones already."
Hanns turned to see a Grimm innard-soaked Ruby as it slowly dissolved into the air. "Right, I'll give you the M48A2 C. The Tiger II would be nice because of the armor but I have something in mind. The Tiger II is too unreliable."
Hanns was thinking of using the new mode that would let him farm even more. Hordes of Grimm were usually handled by him easily but since it was an intense amount of Grimm in a country where he hadn't even hunted made it so there were infinitely more Grimm, especially when Salem had the possibility of being part of it.
Solitas, the continent where Atlas resided, had Grimm that evolved further from the normal weaker species of Grimm in the other continents.
"We're okay with it, let's all get in girls!" Ruby called to her teammates.
Hanns assigned them to a crew and watched closely as they occupied the tank except for Neo who was not able to get a spot since the tank Hanns assigned to them only had 4 crew slots.
"What about Neo?" Ruby asked.
Hanns saved this since Revengance mode was risky. "She'll be with me. You have your semblances to fall back to as you use the tank. Neo's semblance can camouflage me. She doesn't need to make me invisible, just make me similar to the ground since I'm not going to move around a lot."
Neo nodded and climbed into Hanns' commander's hatch as she rests her hands on the handles while being comfortable with her position.
"Let's do this."
[Revengance Mode: Active!]
[Warning: Can only be disabled after 15 minutes.]
Hanns spoke to Torchwick as he prepares himself. '4 minutes left on Overclock. Got to make the most out of it while making Neo hide me if it ends.'
"Torchwick! Do you see the team and us? Use compass numbers to tell me where they are based on our position. Use Neo's scroll and keep it together."
Hanns saw what looked like a struggling group of Atlesians mixed in with robots that were getting pelted by Nevermores and a new type of Grimm Hanns encounters.
'Is that thing shooting fireballs?'
"Lunchbox, there's a Sphinx and a flock of Nevermores in your front but there's more arriving. Tell the brats there's a group of Atlesians fighting over around 298, if it's the sector then tell them D-47. Why do these rich snobs design a coordinate system this primitive? It goes from a 100 from the cells, even I know a better way to designate zones."
Torchwick had finally connected to the scroll and was being put on loudspeaker by Neo. "Heard. Torchwick, help the girls out. I'm still not sure if the Atlesians will be able to transfer more reinforcements over since I made Winter pull out from the city itself."
"So I'm a babysitter now? Fine, just don't get yourself killed when you need my help."
The sounds of rotors went further away as Hanns saw the sight of balls of fire impacting the ground near the group of soldiers. "Neo, the sights on the gun are wrong but you can try using it either way."
Hanns' enhanced speed made him accelerate twice as fast, his engines were going overdrive and driving the tank forward even faster. The physics as to why this wasn't breaking was complicated but Hanns chalked it up to his Aura healing minor damages from overloading the pistons.
His tank was subject to real malfunctions, he didn't even know if he could use his semblance without imploding from the stress of doubled engine power and weight. Still, he was surprised he was still working.
Then...
'Shit, I'm starting to sink in the snow aren't I?'
Hanns didn't see it but he could feel the cold seeping into his tracks and even his transmission. He stood still for way too long and the snow was being compacted by the increased weight he suddenly had.
'I'll disable Overclock if I have a harder time traversing this place.'
Such deep snow was a common problem but the tank he had was doubled in weight making it harder for him to cross the frozen hellscape.
He didn't know at the time but many of the tanks that were going to be disabled in this battle were actually from mechanical failure and rarely were being destroyed by Grimm.
Hanns had fallen into the classic blunder of the snow being deeper than he knew it. Though he still was moving, the ground was still present but his tracks were almost entirely covered in snow. It was still in the middle of the daytime so he had time.
After a while of moving, he came to a stop and saw the Sphinx. Its feline-looking features combined with feathers all over his body made him recognize the new Grimm.
"Neo, take the shot."
Neo was inside the gunner position, the heat from the generators inside Hanns was soothing - thankfully, it was out of the way for her. Combining her small size and the careful positioning of the hard-light generator meant she could properly fire.
*BOOM!*
It ripped straight into the Sphinx's head, cremating it instantly as the twice as much TNT inside the shell evaporated its body once the shell hit its mark.
"You still haven't lost your aim, I'm surprised you could do that even after sorting through files in Ironwood's computer."
Presenting such evidence as messages and encrypted files made sure Ironwood will go to jail or maybe worse. Hanns had to negotiate even further after learning Neo had to kidnap someone in the school who knows tech and held them at sword-point.
Hanns had to raise the payment to 50 buckets of ice cream because of that.
"Let's move to the next one. Torchwick, any trouble so far?"
The scroll was beeping out the sounds of rotors before Torchwick replied. "Lunchbox, I've got to hand this to Red, she makes good stuff. Even that nutcase scientist did a good job. I don't even have to compensate for the air moving around. It adjusts it so easily."
"Sounds good."
Hanns spots the Nevermores Torchwick mentioned, a flock of them already whizzing by armed bullheads while another group was further away.
'Never tried being anti-air as a tank since I was still a few hours in Warthunder. Guess, I'll try now...' he urges himself to move before noticing something amiss. "...Damn. Time's up."
Hanns tried to move but couldn't. The time limit had ended from him just moving into position and firing on a Sphinx.
'...This feels like waiting for repairs.'
Neo took the moment to cover them in a shroud of an illusion. Hanns waited patiently as the 5 minutes went by excruciatingly slowly.
"Neo, can you still fire the gun?"
*BOOM!
"...Cool, so I can't move but others can still mess my insides around. Neo, it's all you."
She smirked, moving up from her seat and reaching for the shell in the ammo rack. She couldn't carry it adequately but she managed. It was going to be a long fight.
~
The day was at a close, the dawn was setting, giving way for the blanket of darkness to surround Atlas. It was a short day considering they were in the northern pole. Hanns watched as captains from the Wehrmacht stood from side to side while Blake was the one addressing them.
"So... how many?" She asked.
The Wehrmacht captain saluted before lifting out a piece of paper from his uniform's pocket in the coat. "Of our equipment; 5 Bullheads gone, 12 fighters were shot down and lost, 3 CAS are destroyed, 6 tanks were wrecked with 25 disabled but eventually repaired in Mantle."
'Fewer planes have been destroyed than I expected but that's a lot of disabled tanks...' Hanns thought to himself.
"...Casualties?" Blake was always worried about the deaths.
She had been the one managing the Wehrmacht when Hanns was in Atlas the first time and she had been the one technically leading them. It always ached her heart but she knew all of these deaths were from fighting until the end against Grimm.
"24 dead... 102 wounded with 17 of those being in critical condition. They are all rushed to the medical center in Mantle in the heat of battle."
Blake sighed, she'd been expecting high numbers. 24 dead in a single battle was rare. Usually, their advanced bullets would be enough. The siege took a lot of effort, even with actual vehicles. Solitas was a nightmare for them since alphas were more numerous because the harsh weather allowed them to adapt and survive longer than in the more climate kingdoms.
"I'll go visit the severely injured and prepare messages for the families of the dead." her ears droop from the thought before heading away.
'Shit... I know they died for a good cause but... I can't help but think I'm responsible. Their loyalty is high, does that mean I caused some of them?'
Hanns moved on, the same way he had done whenever he heard reports of the dead in their daily operations in Vale. Though now that it was finally finished, the siege of Atlas had ended and the people could sigh in relief. The increasing amounts of reports of lessening numbers made it so negativity gradually decreased.
The report of Ironwood's arrest also made the news. One Weiss Schnee was seen by the students in his Academy, making her the center of attention.
*Ding*
[Mission Accomplished]
[By Blood and Iron: 1/1]
[Rewarded 3,000,000 SL 200,000 RP]
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[Dust is King: Obtain a Permanent Supply of Dust (1/1)]
[Rewarded 1,500,000 SL 150,000 RP]
The battle had ended but Hanns wasn't finished. Hanns had everything done, or was it?
Hanns had a problem, some may agree that winning is defined as the best outcome - but what happens when you win too much? Hanns had every ability to try and become based by taking over Atlas.
But was that truly a good choice?
Hanns didn't know, there are different choices he could do. It would take weeks for him to rearrange the SDC with Weiss to make up the loss of income from making the Faunus have rights in their mines - so he had time to think.
But for all those thoughts, one thing was certain in Hanns' mind. Why was this the case?
'Moderator... why do you do this to me?'
[Event Active!]
[Choose wisely, friend.]
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[Night of The Long Knives]
[Description: The world will soon bear witness to the result of the siege. You have the choice of what happens next. The consequences will be dire but each has its own outcomes and benefits.]
[Warning: The crew around you will change depending on the actions you take during the duration of using the German tech tree. Values and possible effects shown may not reflect the true nature of the choice and can change.]
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[Option 1: Populist Uprising]
[Description: Enable elections and let the people create a better system without your interference. Ironwood will be imprisoned for treason. The population will react positively. The Atlesian Military will support you through Winter Schnee as the new General, although not under direct control.]
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[Option 2: A Mirror in History]
[Description: Enable elections, eventually lead the nation through Winter Schnee's candidacy by campaigning normally and exploiting the disgruntled feelings and societal problems in Atlas. Ironwood will be imprisoned. The population's feelings will depend on elections and how effective the campaign is. Ability to integrate economy and military in the far future. May take years or many months.]
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[Option 3: Declaration of a New Order]
[Description: Democracy is no more, true power lies in the Fuhrer through one of your closest aides, Weiss Schnee. Atlesian Military will be absorbed by the Wehrmacht upon choosing this option immediately with 100% Loyalty. Reorganize the entire state and proclaim a greater empire that will unite the world to eliminate the true enemy, the Grimm. The people supporting this will be in the minority but can be raised to half at most through certain actions. Details will only be shown after choosing this option. Not everyone will accept tyranny.]
[Warning: You will stand alone against the world and Grimm. The Calamities will waken and Salem will officially be at war with you. Every nation will view you as a threat. Will lead to civil war if not handled correctly! We're in the endgame now.]
(A/N: You'll be voting for this since I'm going to take a break in writing for a week or more - can't believe I've been writing this for almost 3 months. The 3 options are summarised like this, the faster the progression of Hanns, the harsher the challenges.)
