Chapter 15 – The Horseless Carriage

Soundtrack: Ride The Lightning – Metallica

Weiss mounted Ninja, gripping onto the second set of handlebars beneath Blake's seat, with Jaune in the front of the sidecar and Ruby piling in behind him. Likewise, Yang fired up Bumblebee, with Pyrrha riding pillion and Nora sitting behind Ren inside the sidecar.

"FIRE AT WILL AND EVADE THE CANNON," Weiss yelled above the noise. "MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!"

The two motorbikes bolted out of the garage and cut off a hansom cab as they tore left and roared down Salter Road. Yang steered Bumblebee to the right side of the street, while Blake mirrored her on the left. While the pilots floored it, a pair of miniature Gatling guns emerged at the front of the side cars. With Yang's sidecar on her left and Blake's on her right, Jaune and Ren had the ability to shoot at the tank's occupants with impunity, which they promptly started to do with their ice rounds. Nora and Ruby, meanwhile, sat in the back of their respective sidecars, and readied their weapons. With Magnhild in blaster mode and Crescent Rose in carbine mode, the pair of them started firing at the wheels of the tank as civilians fled the Mayflower Park in panic.

"Cinder!", Emerald yelled out over the roar of the engine, "Weiss Schnee's chasing us with a group of heavies."

Cinder remained calm. "Well then, it seems appropriate to give them the respect they are due. Get the cannon readied."

As it turned out, Cinder's planning wasn't half-baked in any measurable sense. She'd replaced the thin windows of the original car with plexiglass panels she'd pinched on her second robbery, replaced the piddly tires with a piston-based system she'd stripped from an unused train carriage, and had made doubly sure to use all of the half-inch thick steel she could get her hands on to reinforce the cab.

With Emerald feeding the ammunition as needed, Mercury manned the cannon. It used compressed crimson Dust canisters to score craters into the asphalt. Blake and Yang began hastily-conceived evasive manoeuvres as the chase wound its way along the curve of Salter Road, which was a wide turn from east to south.

As soon as the straight was cleared, Jaune switched to the cobalt rounds and began to fire at the base of the makeshift tank while Ren continued to use azure in an attempt to slow the targets down. Nora got lucky when she caused the tank's cannon to jam with one of her grenades, while Ruby managed to crack the back window with one of her standard ice bullets.

"Not looking good," Mercury groused as he desperately tried to unjam the cannon on his end without blowing the tank up.

"Tell me there's a shortcut," Emerald pleaded as the chase whirred past Durand's Wharf.

"The first turn-off to the docks is already near," Cinder reassured. "We're nearly there."

As Cinder finished her speech, the back screen shattered under the barrage of Ruby's ice bullets, and both Jaune and Ren using tangerine Dust rounds. Mercury yelped as he ducked under the seats, then emerged with a holdout pistol of his own and began firing verdant rounds at the bikes.

"HEADS DOWN!" Weiss yelled as the string of electric bullets whizzed past the riders.

"Good work, Mercury," Cinder called out. "Now let us depart London for good."

Cinder swerved hard around the corner to Norway Gate, which was one of many little roads that contributed to the service of the Greenland Docks. Jaune took a chance and switched back to cobalt rounds, firing a few bullets into the side of the tank. Although Cinder made it through, the tank was moving on two wheels and nearly tipped over thanks to Jaune's quick thinking.

Mercury and Emerald both dived to the left of the carriage to restore its balance, and the tank tipped down just enough for Cinder to start moving at a reasonable rate. However, she quickly realised that Jaune had managed to loosen the left treadle for the wheels, and that hampered her speed.

"Emerald, get in the back with Mercury and start shooting at our pursuers when they come around the bend."

"As you wish, Cinder," Emerald replied sadistically before clambering into the back with her pair of handguns.

As soon as that happened, the motorcycles raced around the corner. Mercury and Emerald began to fire, then ducked behind the two-inch steel seats when a hailstorm of cobalt and crimson Dust rounds sailed towards them in kind.

Mercury rose up as the barrage ceased, surmising that the enemies were conserving their bullets, only for a grenade to hit him in the face. He snarled something unprintable as his reflexes kicked in and threw the offending grenade right back at the motorcycles. Ruby, with great presence of mind, shot the grenade straight away.

It wasn't close enough to make the tank catch fire, but Mercury still got bowled over by the impact of the blast. Not only did he land on Emerald, but the swerve Cinder engaged in turning left onto Finland Street was such that Mercury knocked himself out on the back of Cinder's seat.

"Mercury's down!", Emerald called out above the noise.

"That's not the only problem we've got," Cinder noted, seeing none other than General James Ironwood riding his own motorcycle from the other end of Finland Street. "There's backup."

Emerald yelled in exasperation, then began the process of slapping Mercury's face until he came to.

Cinder wouldn't admit it, but her temper was starting to fray. With one of her legbreakers down and the other occupied, she was truly alone in navigating towards the ship that even then listed in the Greenland dock. Then suddenly, Cinder spotted Vernal, Vera and their crew storm the Spring Maiden immediately after it docked five minutes ahead of schedule.

"That's our cue," she yelled as she approached the turn off to South Sea Street. "Get ready to board the vessel."

Emerald nodded, and grabbed her weapons while Mercury finally came to and held the briefcase of blueprints that Cinder had ordered him to guard. Vera had been entrusted with the briefcase throughout the process of completing the tank; given that her crew laboured day and night to build it before being shipped off to Hong Kong, there'd been nothing else for Vera to actually do other than Cinder's express wishes. The crew weren't happy about getting under the hood of yet another Schnee vehicle, given their history in maintaining SDC ships, but the payment Cinder gave them upfront was enough to earn their restraint.

So it came as no surprise to Cinder that the pirates were going balls-out on the crew of the Spring Maiden. Vera had insisted on non-fatal beatings and/or getting thrown into the water. Cinder and Vernal had agreed to do it, with the caveat that they use masks to avoid detection by the law. But inevitably, the crew had brought Dust weapons in case there was trouble.

Unfortunately for them, there was trouble on the way. Not least because Qrow Branwen exited his hiding spot at that moment, and ordered his best pair of legbreakers to join him while the rest of the Met cordoned off the area from concerned citizens.

Cinder's tank slowed down on South Sea Street, then turned left onto the first of two long moors that serviced the Greenland Docks, between which the Spring Maiden barely fit. The wooden pier shuddered as the somewhat damaged tank drove over it and made its way up the ramp to the ship, coming to a stop onboard the top deck.

Cinder exhaled in relief as she and her cohorts exited the tank.

"Okay, folks," Vernal bugled towards her crew men. "We're leaving now. Throw every SDC crewman into the water, release the anchors, and draw up the ramp."

Roy and Brawnz, the two strongest men, lifted up the anchor with a winch, while the others set to removing the SDC employees from their vessel. Cinder, meanwhile, took the briefcase to the bridge of the ship, placing it aboard the center console as she accessed the Analytical Engine that interfaced with the auto-navigation system her family had designed.

Emerald and Mercury, meanwhile, walked towards the ramp with the intent of removing it. However, their arrival at the winch that controlled the aforesaid ramp was interrupted quite rudely by a pair of motorcycles nearly knocking their heads off as they and their sidecars made it aboard. Promptly, Weiss and her cohorts got out of the vehicles as Emerald and Mercury recovered from their surprise and began to draw the winch. Frustratingly, it wouldn't budge an inch.

"Oh come on," Mercury groaned. "What t' bloody hell's keeping the ramp from movi-"

Mercury was sent flying by a well-timed punch by General James Ironwood. Flanking him was Qrow Branwen. The pair of them each brought a duo of their men to the fight, and escape suddenly looked less likely than ever before. Vera saw this, recognising the danger before her, and burst into the bridge while Emerald managed to set off the ramp winch and Mercury drew his weapons.

"Cinder, we've got company."

Cinder looked up from her work.

"How many?"

"A dozen, Weiss Schnee included."

"God damnit," Cinder hissed. "Get the crewmen onto them and get Vernal and yourself outside the bridge."

Vera turned to leave, but couldn't due to the pirate crew blocking off her access by running to engage the lawmen. Vernal was at their back, however, and Vera pulled her aside.

"We're to guard the bridge while Cinder gets us out of here."

Vernal reluctantly nodded, saying nothing while taking her post outside the door with Vera. With the bridge secured and the pirates occupied, Cinder went over her plan one last time. When I arrive in Hong Kong, she mused, I'll have the government capture Vernal and her crew to regain some face, repair the tank, and show the Chinese government that I'm not like my forebears and am responsible enough to claim my birthright.

Meanwhile, the situation on the bridge was chaotic, especially since Cinder began to steer the ship out of the docks. Weiss drew her sword, which now harboured an automatic Dust selector, and addressed the criminals.

"If you surrender peacefully, we'll be lenient with your sentences. Rest assured none of you will suffer the death penalty for any crime you've committed."

"Even the Grimm crimes?!", Ren roared in anger.

"They won't be killed if I can help it," Weiss responded crisply. "Doesn't mean they'll get a minimum-security prison or a single-digit sentence, but I refuse to kill people solely because I have the power to do so."

"Tell that to them," Jaune groused.

Right on cue, the pirates drew their weapons. Many of them had a pistol with Dust rounds – likely crimson, if Weiss was any judge – but Emerald and Mercury were different. Emerald had a pair of sickles that had an integrated ivory Dust gun within it, while Mercury wore steel-capped boots that were lined with golden Dust and had a pair of cudgels.

The rest of Weiss's coalition drew their weapons, while Qrow readied his derringers and Ironwood unveiled his Dust pistol. The size of it was enough to give the pirates cause for concern, but Emerald and Mercury had a plan.

"We'll take the rozzers," the latter said to the pirates. "Capture the Eiskönigin and do what you want with -"

The boat lurched to port suddenly, as Ironwood's men pinned the starboard side of the ship. A blaring siren from the north caused Qrow to smirk; Blackford had commandeered a ship to patrol the northern side of the Thames on his orders. Ironwood nodded begrudgingly.

"Good thinking, Branwen," he said curtly. "Now lets bring these idiots into custody."

Cinder, thinking quickly, steered the ship and floored it into the Millwall Outer Dock, trying to cut through Canary Wharf out of the naval pincer movement. The belligerents struggled to stand up as the ship surged forward and came to a stop. From the bridge, a yell could be heard.

"KILL THEM ALL!"

Vera continued to stand guard, while Vernal strode forth with her pistols. "You heard Cinder. Kill them!"

"Not today, you bloody backstabbing frog," Ruby replied smugly, in an attempt to make Vernal lose control.

Which she promptly did, charging forward and screaming like a banshee as the battle commenced in earnest.

A/N: Yep, Ruby said a Sniper kill line from TF2. I couldn't resist it.

As I've said before, I'll be on holiday in Melbourne for a little while, so I'll be on break for the next week or two before finishing off Amaryllis and Aconite. Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will be released on a coming Friday.