Silver Rose

Chapter XX - Looming on the Horizon

"Sector clear!" Athena said into her headset. "We're moving to the main gate to push the Grimm back out of the city!"

"Roger that!" Lilly responded. "My team's guarding the railway. They keep pushing hard in this area."

"Remember to use the security forces, Lilly. Don't overexert yourselves."

"I know. Pace myself."

"Good girl. We'll see you at the rendezvous point!"

"Kick some butt, Athena!"

Athena smiled as she turned to her team. They all nodded to one another before moving as a single, cohesive unit into the fray. The security forces were having trouble with the horde of Grimm assaulting Mountain Glen's main gates, but that's what Team APEX was here for. Only they and Team LILY were given clearance among the first-year students to operate at this level. Qrow and Penny were the professional Huntsmen assigned to oversee their work out here.

Team APEX demonstrated just how it was they managed to earn this privilege. Their coordination was so tight as to be nearly programmed. Athena's primary role was speedy frontal assault while Perseus provided her a strong defense with his much larger and sturdier shield. Xanthus was the team's tactician and technical fighter, keeping track of their flanks and rear. Echo's function was two-fold, ranged assault and danger detection. Her Semblance alone saved her team from certain death more times than they could even tally.

"Rotate!" Xanthus said, relieving Athena from the front line and switching places with her, standing alongside Perseus.

This was another strength of Team APEX. Although every member was heavily specialized, each one was more than capable of supplementing the others. Despite having a dedicated ranged assault team member, they were all capable of fighting at a distance. Athena was a crack shot with Pallas, her spear, which she regularly transformed into a rifle. Aegis, her shield, also doubled as somewhat of a disk-shaped boomerang, bouncing off of enemy after enemy before she used her ferromagnetism Semblance to recall it to her.

Perseus's sword, Andromeda, was capable of transforming into a Dust shotgun, which he reloaded using modules fitted directly into his shield. Although it was much too large for him to throw around the way Athena did, its heft lent itself to be used as a battering ram most of the time. And while Echo's primary role was as the team's archer, her bow, Sentinel, could transform into a staff weapon should the need arise. Most of the time, though, she utilized specialized Dust-tipped arrows, the fletches colored to designate the type.

After months of planning, working, reworking, and altering her plans, Echo settled on a far more simplified version of what she used to work with. She had started with a single quiver filled with different colored arrows to designate what kind of Dust they were loaded with. With newfound field experience in combat, which was far different from hunting for food back home, she came up with a new system: three quivers, one on her back, one on the left of her hip, and one on the right. The quiver on her back was loaded solely with Fire Dust arrows while the one to the left was loaded with Lightning Dust arrows. The quiver on her right hip held her armor-piercing Earth Dust arrows.

She had one final, smaller, well-reinforced container attached to her belt on the back. This one held about a dozen Explosive-Dust-tipped arrows, which were in a configuration much more powerful than the ones she used to use, courtesy of Jupiter Enterprises Dust Subsidiary. For safety reasons, each arrow had to be armed before use and needed to be in a specialized container when not in use in order to prevent unwanted detonations, but the payoff was well worth it. Echo had never imagined that a single arrow could pack the punch of a surface-to-air missile.