Valentines Day was textbook modernizing authoritarianism - a holiday that, bereft of other resources or interesting events in human history, was repurposed hastily by the arcane forces of capitalism to represent love. It was all stupid. It was all bullshit.

It happened to be one of the few things that would ever get Veronique Pressman to make common cause with Viv, though. Against the two-ton idealistic tandem of Iris Fouquet and Evangeline Sparr, their united healthy skepticism would be necessary for survival. Pressman was already counting on herself to do most of the work on the cynicism front today, anyway; Viv would profess her disgust for the concept of putting a saccharine face on your relationship for a day, no doubt, but as soon as Sparr started her Valentines Day crunches, the indomitable Godhead of Mistral would be drooling over Evan like an emperor-sized chocolate bar.

Pressman had no such romantic entanglements.

She had no time for boys who were born without the good grace to seek a girl out and thank her for cruise tickets.

Veronique sat up in bed, pushing her blood red hair out of her eyes and into bushy tufts that hung frazzled around her forehead. The room had gotten hot overnight. The thin pullover hoodie she'd donned for sleepwear was clinging to her skin; she rolled up the sleeves, and they inverted as they climbed up to her elbows. She looked around for any hint of her two degenerate teammates, but thankfully it was Iris - the normal one, or as "normal" as one could get as a seventeen year old, 6'7 mountaineer - that was awake, hoarding a small pile of gifts like a dragon at the bottom of a large whiteboard she'd dragged into the room and scrlbbled on. She could see four block letters spelling out the name of their ragtag unit: VIVE.

But not much else.

"What are you doing," Veronique asked, voice heavy with sleep as she rubbed her eyes, "or what have you already done."

Iris turned and beamed, her wide, sunny smile threatening to blind the simmering Veronique. It was good she had her hands before her face; too much contact with the girl from the moutnains would leave her grinning like an idiot too.

"Ah, good morning, Pressman!" she exclaimed. "And a Happy Valen--"

"No."

"--tines to you too, small fry!" she finished affectionately, undeterred by the grouchiness of her journalist teammate. "I have big plans for you today! But first you need coffee. Viv is on her way with our orders."

"I don't believe in patterns. They get journalists killed."

"I'm sure if someone wanted to kill you, they'd just get you while you were distracted by all the wonders of college broadband, eh, small fry?" Iris needled. "Enough pouting, enough pouting! I'm only messing with you, Pressman! We have big plans today!"

"I heard the first time. Trust me." Iris had a voice to match her stature. Honestly...she was a good friend to have. She had a golden heart, pure and gentle, but that gentility went hand in hand with her being a giant too. She was even cute, with bright blue eyes, spiky blonde hair, and a grin that inspired good cheer if you caught it full on, but it was hard enough to get guys interested in a girl who outstacked them in height by half a foot. Getting them to overlook a foghorn voice with a Mistralian accent made it even more complicated.

They really needed to just grab her a date.

"So, that's Evan in the bathroom..." Veronique mused, looking towards the sounds of the shower running in the adjacent room. A tank top and shorts were haphazardly tossed against the open door, and before Pressman could even pull herself out from the muggy space underneath her covers, Iris had already crossed the room - when you had legs like telephone poles, walking across the dorm was no big deal - and picked up each article of clothing gingerly with two fingers. They landed atop a mountain of similar garments in the red-colored laundry basket by the door, mere footsteps away from where Sparr had tossed them on her way into the restroom. Three other baskets were arranged in a larger square, like some geometry project - green, then blue, then black.

"And where's Scarface?"

"You be nice, she's five days clean," Iris admonished. "Viv was kind enough to go out and grab everyone some drinks to start the day! You just wait, we have big--"

"Big plans," Veronique said in unison with another girl. The other girl finished the sentence, just as snappy as Pressman herself would have been:

"How does someone as damned giant as you still have no room for secrets, Iris?"

Iris laughed that off, waving cheerfully at their returning team leader.

"Viv? Viv, you back yet?"

The sounds of water running from the other room noticeably stopped.

Vivianne Laurent was indeed back, in all her statuesque glory. She was shorter than Iris by a wide margin, as most human beings were, yet the authority still rolled off her in waves. The February breeze outside had made a mess of her coal-black hair, and she had recently cut it short (she was really inching closer to that closet door by the day, Pressman noted with a wry grin), so her short bangs stuck up in spikes like a quiff. Of course, it still looked perfect. Viv hadn't needed braces and a healthy smattering of freckles to look easy on the eyes.

Not that it even mattered. Ever since the disappearance of that idiotic southerner, Viv had withdrawn from the attentions of men, preferring to split her time inside a blanket fort with Evan watching movies, the way they insisted they'd done since they were young children.

It had to be a sin against God to commit who-knew-what kind of lesbian debauchery inside a child's blanket fort at the age of seventeen, but Veronique was far beyond questioning her disgusting teammates, and Iris was way too supportive of them to care.

Viv unfurled her leather jacket and produced a wrapped chocolate croissant. They were Sparr's favorites, and no doubt Evan would have been ecstatic to learn where Vivianne had been keeping it warm for the winter. Christ, Pressman was rapidly considering a murder-suicide by defenestration.

Cuffing Season! Budding Huntress Arrested, Called 'Public Menace' After Attempted Valentines Day Massacre!

"For Evan, we have a venti mocha with whipped cream and a chocolate croissant," Viv called out. "Get them while they're hot!"

Evangeline Sparr acceded to that demand happily, bursting out of the bathroom wrapped up in two towels, one around her body and one disguising her trademark purple hair. One of those towels had to belong to one of her teammates, and it wasn't a reach to guess who. Disgusting. Pressman clicked one of the colors on her Dust-powered fountain pen, wondering whether the sensation she got from ramming it through her own skull would be the same one that Viv experienced.

"Happy Valentines Day, Viv!" Evan said adoringly, towel butting into the side of Viv's head.

"Uh-huh," their team leader replied listlessly. "For Pressman, we have a vanilla bean-whipped cream blend frappuccino with chocolate syrup and a blueberry scone."

"...Merci," she said begrudgingly, reaching out for the foods.

"Extra-large strawberry-banana smoothie, no food, for Iris..."

"It's how I start my day with a smile!" Iris exclaimed, grinning widely. None of them bothered to point out that she hadn't taken a sip yet.

"--and a cafe au lait with a Mistralian yogurt," Viv finished, taking a sip of the only drink she hadn't dispensed to her team. "It's disgusting in the coffee house this morning. Hearts and cupids everywhere. The barista drew my name with a heart over the i. Dullard."

"Wow, yeah, fuck him, huh?" Veronique grumbled sardonically. Hearing hot girls complain about attention was one of the many things that she hated this holiday for. You didn't hear weathermen bitching when they chose not to bring umbrellas to work on rainy days, did you?

Vivianne fixed her glare on Pressman and rolled her hazel eyes dismissively.

"I'll take your opinions on my attitude into account when you crawl out of bed, Pressman. I paid for your disgusting fake coffee, too, by the way. If you're going to be a leech you could at least try not lying around like one."

"Hey, I just finished getting her to be nice!" Iris complained. "You be nice too! We all have b--"

"Big plans," the rest of the girls repeated in unison. Only Evan looked remotely enthused - but Iris made up for the general malaise of the team, motioning to her dry-erase board flamboyantly.

"I'm glad you girls brought that up!" she said cheekily, waving one arm at the board and displaying their team acronym to all the girls present. Pressman finally followed Viv's instructions and pulled herself out of bed, resting her bare feet on the floor and enjoying the touch of the cool wood. Evan was staring at the board curiously, as if she was trying to guess what the acronym could possibly spell out.

Like they hadn't already been through this song and dance before. Like they didn't already know what the hell they had signed up for just by virtue of being Iris' friends.

"Ladies, as you know, we're all still single this year--"

"Oh, my fucking God..." Viv groaned under her breath. Evan nodded at Iris sympathetically, but not before giving Viv the side-eye of an entire epoch. For her part, Pressman just hissed through her teeth; it was the closest thing she could do that wasn't a sigh.

She sat right behind him in Dust Apps and he never even turned around. She'd done all but light that damn hair strand on fire.

"--so, in that spirit, it's time to embrace the real meaning of Valentines Day--" (capitalism??? Iris never struck me as a class traitor...) "--and embrace our love for each other, as a team and as sisters! Ladies, welcome to our 5th Annual..."

Iris put her hand on the top of the dry erase board and spun it hard; the board flipped close to two dozen times before finally landing with its other face directed at the team, who could now see that the acronym stood for exactly what they thought.

"...Very Inclusive Valentines Eventapalooza!"

"You know, Iris, every year it's pretty fucking pathetic," Pressman mused aloud, "but I think counting the years makes it even more soul crushing. Is that just me?"

"Nope."

"No."

"No, small fry, but let's put that aside and have some fun today anyway, okay?" Iris trying to pump them all up was par for the course, but this year she seemed to have something else up her sleeve. She was still standing in front of that mound of heart-shaped boxes, trying to hide them from view; maybe it worked on Vivianne and Evangeline, but Veronique was still positioned near the beds, and could see them from behind Iris' legs.

"Now, this year is a special one for the Eventapalooza! As we all know, Veronique's in love this year, isn't that right, Veronique? Congrats!"

Iris directed an innocent look at the other half of their team, who seemed to catch the message.

"Congratulations, Veronique," they droned in unison, though only Evan looked enthused about it. She gave Vera a thumbs up and winked cheerfully at the glowering, freckled redhead.

"It's not so bad, Pressman!" she said encouragingly. It didn't help.

"But more than that, we've all been friends five years. Five years! Isn't that crazy?"

"It's also horseshit," Pressman interjected bitterly. "We've all been friends maybe one year, tops. Viv bullied me all through Sanctum for my braces, and Evan stood there and watched."

"You looked like a Battlebot," Viv said defensively. "It was all in good fun."

"I tried committing suicide."

"Oh, please, don't be dramatic. It was like an eight foot drop. You tumbled off the bleachers sideways."

Iris' stare was hardening as she looked at Viv; the team leader looked at the big girl sullenly and rolled her eyes.

"She fell, anyway! She had those ridiculous Chuck Taylors with the long laces and tried--"

Viv seemed to realize that the eyes of her entire team had now fallen upon her, and that there was no arguing her way out of this one.

"Fine, fuck it," she grumbled. "We've been friends for five years."

"Uh huh," Iris drawled, still looking at Vivianne skeptically. "Anyway, so in commemoration of a half decade as sisters in arms, I decided that a little gift giving was in order. Since no one wanted to bite on my Secret Santa idea at Christmas, I decided to take the liberty of setting up a Clandestine Cupid for Valentines Day. And, just to make sure there was no wriggling out like at Christmas, I contacted all your parents. Since, I'm sure you all know, they were all teammates, they thought it was a great idea to strengthen our team dynamic! That made it easier for me to convince them to transfer money out of your trust funds for use on presents this year."

"Wait, what?" Viv snapped. Evan's eyes just widened.

"Don't worry, Pressman, I paid for yours," Iris added with a sweet grin and a wink.

Pressman was quiet for a second before shrugging. She was the only girl who wasn't making out like a bandit through her parents in some fashion or another, so she wasn't vexed by the idea of someone embezzling funds from the spoiled princesses she shared a team with.

"Works for me," she said simply. "But wait, none of us made wish lists."

"Yup! I saved all of ours from Christmas and bought a bunch of gifts from there at random. Everyone has to go through the pile, pick out a box that has your name in the "from" section, and then gift it to the person you chose. You can pick one gift this morning and one gift tonight, and then everything else is getting donated to the less fortunate! Isn't that great?"

"Works for me," repeated the less fortunate, raising her hand impishly as if to ask an instructor a question. "Does that mean I can get all the ones marked 'to Pressman?'"

"Don't overdo it, small fry, we all know about your cousin the social media magnate."

Veronique's hand dropped slowly as her pout grew more pronounced.

"Okay, we all got it?" Iris asked cheerfully, rubbing her hands together for a couple seconds before clapping loudly enough that she could have caused an avalanche had she been mountaineering. "Aaaaand go pick your presents!"

The two teammates that scrambled for presents were exactly the ones that one would expect; Iris picked hers with abandon, only stopping once to focus on Evan and tell her that she couldn't pick more than one present for Viv. Sparr sulked back to her perch beside Viv, and Pressman heard some faint whispering from Viv that sounded suspiciously like something to do with putting on something besides her towels. From the way that Sparr's lip had almost puffed out to her chin, Veronique was willing to bet she'd heard correctly. Then Veronique herself broke the standstill between herself and Viv, getting down onto her knees to pick out a few presents for each of her teammates. Viv went last, reluctantly, with a baleful glare up at Iris as she lowered herself to the ground.

When all the girls were perched on their beds with gifts, Iris the Ruler-class took command of the gift exchange again.

"Okay, so how this is gonna work is each girl will take a turn picking one of the presents she chose to gift randomly," explained the tall blonde. "One person gets one gift per rotation - so Viv gifts to me, I gift to Evan, Evan gifts to Veronique, Veronique can gift to Viv, for example. And when they open it, we have to tell that person why we want them to be happy in the year ahead! Everybody got that? Good! I'll kick it off. This one goes to...Veronique Pressman!"

Instead of tossing the gift, Iris leaned over with one tanned arm outstretched and dropped a large, thick, red-and-pink-wrapped rectangular prism onto Pressman's legs. Vera looked up at Iris suspiciously, fully expecting to unwrap this and be met with a dirty bomb on a ten-second timer, and began to slowly open the present. When she did, though, she felt instantly guilty for doubting the generosity of her teammate.

"Iris, I..."

"Blu-rays!" exclaimed their referee. "I was thinking of ways you could impress a Shiroyaman, and I figured that you could brush up on a little anime knowledge! I know that you don't exactly develop crushes easily, so...I really want to do anything I can to make this one work out for you, you know? There should be three or four series in there, I uh, didn't really know what to pick..."

"No, this is..."

Veronique's voice was caught in her throat a little. She felt absurd for being emotional about something like this, especially since she was the one who was reacting first; that said, she was glad that now everyone else wouldn't be tiptoeing around getting her something, or that one of her moments of gratitude would be the grand finale of this first rotation.

"Thank you, my friend," she mumbled gratefully. A bashful smile crept up on her face. "These are great. They'll work great."

Maybe it would be worth giving that dumb boy a shot again. She could dazzle him with her patrician taste...

Unless he was seasonal trash...

"To Iris Fouquet! Iris, you're one of my best friends, and you've always been there whenever I needed to vent a little. I hope you like my Valentine!" Evangeline exclaimed, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Wait, Iris, did you choose your own gifts too? You know what I'm giving you already?"

The big girl giggled innocently, dropping her present onto her lap and tearing into the box with none of the grace that Veronique had. She popped open the box to cries of revulsion from the rest of the team.

"Cheater!"

"Wow, unfair!"

"Disgusting."

Iris giggled louder as she untied the ribbon that connected her two gifts, a large box of gold-label milk chocolates falling to the bed as Iris inspected the climbing axes that had been the larger of the two presents.

"I can't wait to hit a summit somewhere with these...thanks, Evan," she said cheekily. Evan had her arms crossed and was trying to look serious, but there was a giggle that was already winning the fight with Sparr's serious face. "Next up, to Vivianne Laurent! Viv, you're a hard girl to love, but when you get there, it's one of the most rewarding experiences of a lifetime. You're cool, charismatic, fearless, and there's no one else I would trust to lead us in the years ahead. Be my Valentine?"

Iris has all the advantage here, Veronique realized. She's the only one who knows what each and every present is. She's just playing around with us.

Viv's Valentines Day present was large and soft-looking; their team leader's long, elegant fingers were pressing into the gift through the wrapping. She unwrapped it and took a second to stare at the pillow that fell out, unamused, before spinning it to face the rest of the team:

CRACK IS WHACK

"Ha ha," Viv intoned emotionlessly, even as Iris and Sparr burst into giggles and even Pressman cracked a wide grin and a small chuckle. "And last, and less than fucking least...Evangeline Sparr. Here's where I come forth and admit that I cheated, too."

Evan froze in mid-laugh and turned to face Viv. She had developed a thick skin over the years from Viv's insults, and had stopped learning to take any of them personally when it became obvious Viv meant none of them. Still, she was curious to see what Viv had to say. So was the rest of the team, if they were being honest with themselves.

"I slipped a gift in while Iris was in the shower," she explained, a contrite look on her face. "I looked at the board and guessed how this entire tacky affair was going to go down, and I had been meaning to give this to you anyway. If it meant getting through with this sooner, all the better."

Viv produced a book-shaped present from her Valentines stash and tossed it, underhand, onto Evangeline's bed.

"You..."

Their fearless leader broke off, watching Evan's fingers trace the front of the present and slowly start to unwrap it.

"You are my only friend, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it," she said candidly. "You are a drooling, incoherent, emotional mess. You're a danger to society. You still can't really do basic geometry or algebra. You're so rich you've never learned to balance a checkbook. I've had to sit back and be subject to a quarter of a lifetime of you fucking up and dragging me down with you...and I hope for three quarters more. Enjoy your present, my Valentine."

Evan looked at Vivianne for a long moment and then unwrapped the present. It was, indeed, a book. Viv mumbled some quip about Evan not even needing to learn to read, but no one was listening.

Sparr's eyes were growing misty as she flicked through the pages. Each one was plastered with pictures - pictures of two girls, distinctive in their beauty and the unchanging, dual nature of their expressions. One was always smiling; the other was always cold. But the pictures spanned the course of twelve years, and the sheer number of them spanned dozens of pages."

"I had child labour make that scrapbook," Vivianne said hastily, in a voice only slightly louder than her hushed insult. "I didn't put in the effort myself or anyth--"

Evan tried to stifle a sniff, and she did it poorly. In the next second, she had launched herself over the space between her bed and Viv's, hugging her best friend tightly and burying her towel-shrouded head into the collar of Viv's expensive leather jacket. Viv opened her mouth to complain about the possibility of tears getting into the material...and then closed it, smiling up faintly at her subordinate and pushing a loose strand of wet hair back underneath the towel.

It was a sweet moment, and one which had left Iris and Pressman almost entirely forgotten. Neither of them seemed to mind.

Loose strands of hair...

It was turning out to be the least intolerable Valentines Day of Veronique Pressman's teen years, at the very least. She might try and make something of it later on. They could watch Blu-rays together if she didn't binge all of them in one go.

Or, she decided, watching Viv pull Evangeline down into a tight hug, she could do something about Luke Schwarz tomorrow, and just spend today with her friends.

There were a lot of presents left to get to.

Years ago and miles away from the beginnings of a raging game of football with rules made by a colony of exiles in a land made of poison and sunstroke, a bulky young fourteen year-old was working his way through lush rainforest, following the kind of route game took that only the most enthusiastic of woodsmen would have the audacity to call a trail. He was big for his age, but that didn’t help much as he trudged his way through the mud and vines. Uphill. In the rain. It was one of those days.

The sun was beginning to set, and Blaine grew concerned. The mountain was dangerous at night, supposedly Grimm wandered from the ruins on the other side from the village… Or at least that was what the adults had always said. Personally, he had never heard anything at night, but regardless it was going to be trouble if Alistair and he came back after sunset. Moira was always pissed whenever one of the acolytes got into trouble, and Gods Above and Below knew that being on Moira’s bad side was as good as having a target on your back from the Hunters, the Grimm, and everything in between. Girl had a fury like a bear. But like, a large bear, with a bad attitude and some cubs. Maybe the bear was going through a bad divorce, who knew? The point was, Moira was a scary bear.

These thoughts keeping him company, Blaine stumbled into a small clearing below the cliff face in the mountainside, providing shelter from the pouring rain. Droplets hammered around him like a thousand tiny drums as he pulled a small scrap of vellum from his pack, glancing between it and the clearing. Near as he could tell, he was close to the summit, which meant that Alistair…

“Boo.”

“MOTHER OF-!” The faunus whipped around suddenly, pancho slapping around him as he brought his walking stick to bear in the face of… nothing. Not a damn thing. His eyes narrowed in a false glare as he bared his teeth, growling as he spoke. “Alistair, so help me you almost had a meal of your own teeth. Come out or I’ll have you eat your coat.” It would’ve been quite menacing if his voice hadn’t cracked like your grandmother’s favorite china against the linoleum.

The soft sound of laughter peeled out from above Blaine as a lithe figure drooped upside-down from the ceiling, warm green eyes accompanied by a familiar smile. His face was slim, much like the rest of him, with pronounced cheekbones and a narrow chin. His hair was wild and so was his grin, but he moved with a grace that Blaine could never match in their sparring. Beneath his scales was a deceptive layer of tight muscle, making him stronger than his hundred and thirty odd pounds seemed. Still, despite appearances, he was older than Blaine, though only by a little less than a year. It didn’t stop him from teasing the younger boy about it. He wore a foreign jacket: blue, slightly threadbare and faded after years of travel, but still thick and warm. It had a zipper, which had fascinated the younger children in the village when they were younger, completely different from their own homespun clothes. Near as they knew it came from Vale, but it was hard to tell for certain. They were so far out from the larger settlements in Vacuo that they hardly knew whether or not Vale still spoke the same language, much less fashion trends for the time. That way lay trouble, anyhow, as Moira reminded them on a daily basis. “Come now, Blaine, you wouldn’t harm an heirloom like this, would you? Think of propriety! The history! How I would have to steal your clothes for my way down this bloody pile of rock!”

At this, the blond faunus’s glare cracked into the slightest flicker of a smile as he stood up straight, his swishing tail slowing to a crawl. He tried his best to ignore the accelerations in his chest that always happened when he was alone with Alistair. It wasn’t that bad, but always seemed like it got worse when the other boy was close to him. Most likely unhealthy. Maybe an allergic reaction. Regardless, Blaine slid into his usual posture, leaning forward on his staff and ever so slightly more forward towards his companion. “...Maybe. Or maybe I’d be less inclined to chase you round with my staff if you told me why we were out here?”

Alistair sighed deeply, hanging from just his arms for a moment before he flipped around and landed on his feet. He leaned back against the taller boy for just a second, his shoulders pressed against Blaine’s chest -ba-thump- pausing for a moment before rapping the back of his hand against the staff Blaine carried before he continued speaking, slowly strolling to the edge of their cover. “Well, I could tell you, or,” He began, wandering back into the rain, “You could follow me, and find out. I guarantee you’ll enjoy the second option more. If you can keep up, that is.” With that, he disappeared into the rain, bolting up the path.

“Alistair, you bastard!” Blaine sprinted after the other faunus, laughing through the pounding rain as he made chase. It was cold and mucky, but soon he caught his quarry. They wandered through the forest for a while, wet and cold but in good company. After some time, all hope of returning to the village by nightfall had passed, and Blaine was beginning to grow nervous. Still, Alistair assured him that shelter was just around the corner, and they would face Moira together when they returned. Eventually they rounded a corner and came to a gap in the mountains, with half of a spire jutting from the ground in the clearing, the other clearly having fallen down the side of the cliff ages ago. The only record of its passage was the lack of trees in its path downward, ending in a crumpled heap of iron.

More importantly for the two boys, there seemed to be the remains of a large complex sitting beside the bottom half of the spire, where Alistair managed to whip together a small fire below the artificial outcropping while Blaine gathered a few edible roots and berries from the surrounding forest. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and after Alistair found a snake they had a right bounty with a little bit of protein. They shed their clothes, drying them by the fire, laughing and cracking jokes across the room as they ate. There was a chill, but not a bad one.

As their clothes steamed off, Blaine tried to convince Alistair to tell him why the hell they were out here, but the smaller faunus just laughed and insisted that he would have to wait until morning, looping the conversation back to gossip about the other acolytes and how Talia definitely had a thing for Morgan. Eventually, things settled into a lull, but Blaine didn't mind. It was a comfortable silence, the kind that fell over things like a blanket, and it kept them company as much as the jokes had. In a way, it said more than they had mentioned all day. There was an agreement in that silence, and neither one of them said anything as Alistair had slowly scooted closer, hand closing over Blaine's as they stared into the flames.

-Ba-thump-

Sirius had never seen a reason ring the greeting-bell outside of Datura's room. The older girl always locked herself in the attached bathroom to do anything requiring privacy, leaving her actual sleeping area as more of a lounge save for the bed. A bed which seemed to hold...two...figures currently. Letting the privacy-curtain separating the room from the hall fall back into place as she stepped forward, Sirius calmly appraised the situation once more to be sure. Her gaze fell first on a lock of dark hair spread onto the left pillow, sliding eventually to a half-covered foot much too far to the right to belong to the same body. There was no doubt about it: either her girl had been pushed from her dwelling to make room for this set of mystery lovers to have a secret affair, or she was part of the couple wrapped from head to toe in lavender silk sheets. Both possibilities were a mixture of amusing and worrying.

Ruling the owner of the dark hair out as possibly being the silver-headed teen, she gently poked the foot instead. Well, as gentle as poking can be. "Datura, I swear this better not be you." The ridiculousness of the words caught up to her as she said them, and what was meant to be reprimanding came out as a clear struggle to hold back giggles. Damn. She really was trying to be more authoritative than usual. Her father was starting to notice that Datura didn't really listen and had a tendency to get away with throwing insults at her right and left. Really, she was just thankful that he hadn't heard the nickname "Missy" yet. One of his other children's mothers had taken to calling her toddler a "daddy's girl" briefly, and Sirius had been present for the now-infamous blowup on the topic of "disrespectful nicknames" that resulted - as well as what a second conduct strike earns you.

Frustration with the situation suddenly mounting upon receiving no response from the poke, the coyote faunus did something uncharacteristically rash: she firmly gripped the sheet in both hands and pulled. Hard.

Before she could catch even a glimpse of the scene underneath, however, there was a telltale woosh from just a few feet in front of her. She ducked. Something smashed like thick glass against the wall behind her. "Jou teef! My aura wasn't even up, Soot! You could've-" She broke off as something clicked into place. No. No way.

Somehow, she stood back up. She summoned the courage to open her eyes after what felt like seconds and an eternity all at once, and there they were: the man who was basically her older brother, if brothers typically raised their siblings through infancy, and the abducted Beacon student who would probably take her life if given the chance. Presently, Datura was "hiding" behind Soot, only a messy heap of silver waves and violet eyes which seemed to crackle with angry embarrassment peeking over his shoulder. Having no such human coverage himself, Soot had hastily wreathed himself from hip to thigh in sparkling black spikes of crystal, effectively pinning himself in a crossed-leg seating position on the bed. Both were trapped - and a vivid crimson in the face.

As both seemed completely lost for words, Sirius frantically looked for anything in the room that might lead to diffusing the situation through distraction. Almost as though guided by the sick hand of fate itself, her attention was caught by a calendar. On the wall, the digital frame proudly displayed its typical messages in atypical pinks and reds.

"Oh-" she smiled weakly, "happy Valentine's Day, you two."

For musical accompaniment, and also the song Amy sings to herself
youtube.com/watch?v=ViAr5NRHrRE
The orphanage had never really had any money for holiday celebrations. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, of course--What had been was Taylor Maclaurin’s insistence on there always being something done for the holidays. Ms. Maclaurin herself was an older woman with no children or family of her own, and oftentimes she paid for whatever they were did herself.

But she wasn’t wealthy, either. For Christmas they always had a tree, but Ms. Maclaurin would have finagled one from the city somehow. For Easter, she always made Easter eggs with those that stores were about to throw out--not bad, yet, but not safe to sell.
For Valentine’s, she would get just enough candy for all of the children to give to each other, but not much more. To that end, Amy was very familiar with the candy hearts with stuff written on them--

But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how Lauren had found some with “Wallahi, bruh” inscribed in their sugary surface.
Nevertheless, that’s what those in the Bastille dorm were greeted with when they came back after class, a small baggie of them on each of their pillows. Amy was back first--which was roughly normal, she tended to move quickly and didn’t have much to add or discuss at the end of Dust Apps--plus, she wanted to get out of her uniform before socializing, rather than after.

And on today of all days, she needed to be well rested for the night, rather than burning herself out on a lot of extra stuff after class. She undressed, carefully stepping into the shower, letting the warm water run over her body. Her feathers always reacted strangely to water, though after years of practice she could get them to stay down, the water rolling over them in small rivulets rather than just… Soaking them to the point of damage.

She washed up, then paused, her Semblance enhancing slowly, time gradually crawling to a near stop, every little drop of water on her lit up in glorious detail--then she dialed it back down again, returning to normal time and sensation, closing her eyes and feeling the water as the sum of its parts once more.

This would be the first Valentine’s she was spending for herself.

Amy let out a slow, steady breath, fogging the glass more than it already was. She inhaled again, dialing her semblance up--then released, synchronizing her breath. It was an exercise she’d done for years since she’d received the Gift, the cycle of increasing and decreasing sensation hypnotically calming. She started to sing, softly, her voice’s volume adjusting in time with the cycle--careful to not get too loud, loud enough for anyone else to hear over the water.

“What are you afraid of…”

The cycle went up, then down.

“To laugh and to cry later,”

Again.

“To break the ice… that keeps you quiet.”

Another deep breath, and she was done. She stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel and letting her feathers spring back into their normal array.

The plan was for them to go out that night. Amy’s hand found the hairdryer, using it to blow the water out of her hair.
Combs didn’t work too well on feathers, she’d found.

All of them. To a karaoke bar or something. Amy didn’t sing, as a rule. Not to others. Not something she advertised. Still, she was sure Lauren would--and maybe the lot of them could persuade Ben to, if they were lucky.

Her hair dealt with, she dried the rest of herself off with the towel, then discarded it. She put her underwear on--normal panties and a strapless bra--went to open the door, then paused, looking at the fogged mirror. One pale hand reached out, hesitantly, drawing a quick heart once it contacted the cool surface, putting the initials AD in the right lobe, then a plus sign--before pausing and retreating.
Maybe. But… But not certainly. She sighed, opening the door, the cool breeze flowing in.

***

The karaoke bar was about as expected. Most people drunkenly hammering their way through Journey covers. None of them had gone up yet--Ben wasn’t wanting to, Sangue was…. Sangue, and Lauren was refusing to unless one of the others “helped a sister out” and sang a duet with her.

“Come oooooooon, Am,” Lauren cajoled, her emerald green eyes eager and more than a little buzzed. “I need someone to sing the parts of Low I don’t like!”

“Lorena, you know I don’t--”

“You don’t have to actually sing, that nigga Flo Rida ain’t nothing to follow, just hum and you’re already a helluva lot better--”

“Amy, she’s not going to stop until you do something,” Ben chimed in, watching Lauren tug on the Faunus’ hand dramatically.

“Ben, last I checked you weren’t doing anything yourself.”

Ben held up his arm, a cast on it that looked like it had seen the days of many excuses past. “Can’t, I’m one of the walking wounded.”

“Your… throat isn’t broken,” Sangue finally said.

“Oh, but the pain is unbearable. Truly, I am incapable of holding a note, for I fear it will turn into a scream.”

As Ben and Lauren transferred into an argument, her grasp going slack on Amy’s hand for a moment, Amy slowed time once more, watching her teammate’s faces--Sangue’s slight goodnatured bewilderment, Lauren’s malicious joy, Ben’s teasing kindness.

Relax with me and tell me,
Because we’re here for you,
For the good and for the bad,
To cry and to laugh later.

“I’ll do it.”

Time accelerated, Lauren looking toward her in shock that was quickly covered with a grin, pulling the former stripper to her feet. Ben watched with amusement.

“But I pick the song.”

As they walked to the stage and the first chords of their chosen song started, Amy smiled slightly. It wasn't meant for a duet, but hey... It worked.

"You're a song, written by the hands of God," Amy started, nervously, her voice gaining confidence toward the end.
"Now don't get me wrong, 'cause this might sound to you a bit odd..."
"But you own the place, where all my thoughts go hiding," Lauren's voice met hers, and they continued on.

***

Later that night, when she returned to the dorm and went to wash the makeup off her face--the mirror fogged again, revealing another set of initials written next to hers.

And she smiled.

You decide to give chocolate to someone. Woo. (Only limited to the first year students atm)

Several Years Ago

Robert was hungry. No, he was starving. It had been almost a week now since he had lost his family and began living on the streets of Vale and he had barely eaten since. He had been lucky enough for it to rain the past couple days, so using a handleless pot that he'd found in the trash he was able to create a makeshift rain catcher. Food was another story though. Other than some thrown out leftovers, the young boy hadn't had much.

Next to the boy, a rat approached and let out a high pitched squeak.

"Sorry, boy. I don't even have anything for myself today," he told it.

The rat squeaked again before scurrying off to try somewhere else.

"Well there goes my only company," Robert said with a sigh, just before the sky cracked with thunder. "Though at least I'll have something to drink."

Getting up from his seat in the alley, the boy pulled his hood over his head to try and keep his small body as dry as possible before walking out onto the sidewalk. He'd had enough of just sitting and listening to his empty stomach growl. If food wouldn't come to him, his only option was to go out and find it.

Hours would pass. The pouring rain would intensify and leave nothing dry. Robert would try to stay positive though, thinking about how he would at least have plenty of water to drink when he got back.

Just then, the neon lights of a nearby convenience store would suddenly turn on, beckoning to those walking through the slick streets to find shelter inside among its halls of snacks and sweets. Like a moth to a flame, the redhead walked inside, despite his lack of finances to purchase anything.

Ring.

As the bell above the door rang to announce his entrance, the man at the counter politely greeted him with a friendly, "Hello." The boy said nothing back though, lowering his head and avoiding eye contact so all the man could see was the top of his hood. If he put a face to the clerk running the store, it would make what he was planning to do so much harder.

Heading to the far corner of the convenience store, Robert began to eye the various food on display, none of which was meant to be eaten as a night's meal as he intended to do, but he was desperate. Looking over his shoulder to make sure he couldn't be seen, the bespectacled redhead grabbed a single small bag of chips.

Ring

Suddenly, the bell rang again as someone else entered the store. Robert expected hear the same "Hello" as before, but instead he heard the customer speak first. "Don't fuck with me! Open the register and give me everything in there!" the new voice shouted, causing our protagonist to freeze. The shelves and his short height had allowed him to remain unseen, but the knowledge that he was now present during a robbery had caused his blood to run cold.

Peeking out from behind his cover, the small child's eyes widened as he looked at the gun in the robber's hand. His whole being quivered with fright. He didn't want to be here. He just wanted to eat. For a split second though, the thought of trying to save the clerk crossed his mind. The robber didn't know Robert was here and he still had his father's weapons that were recovered from the fire. He could save the day and prevent anyone from getting hurt. Robert could be a hero.

"Come on! Hurry up!" the gunman shouted again, moving his finger over the trigger. This immediately brought the young child's thoughts of daring crashing to the ground. He was but an eight year old kid and this was a fully grown and armed man. There was nothing that could be done, except escape. Turning to the door, the future hunter would head back out the front door and return to his alley.

Ring.

Bang!

Surprised by the sounds of the bell ringing behind him, the robber panicked and fired the pistol he had aimed at the clerk. The bullet ripped through flesh and bone before embedding itself into the opposite wall, ending the innocent man's life. As the gunshot rang through the small building and echoed out in the city streets, Robert would begin sprinting away as fast as his legs could carry him. His brain seemed to shut itself off completely as his body was flooded with adrenaline. The only thing he could of was that he needed to get away.

Upon returning to his hidden alley, the redhead checked his rain collector first, only to find the rat from earlier had returned with friends to turn the pot into their personal watering hole. He sighed at his misfortune and sat back down, only to hear the crunch of the chips he had hidden in his back pocket. He pulled them out and stared at the packaging, remembering the blood which was still flowing onto the tile floor of the convenience store. The guilt of the man's death weighed on his mind, causing Robert to discard hus ill-gotten gains.

It wasn't worth it.

Glass shattered as a dark-haired girl flew straight out of it, cradling a moderately-sized figure as she kept her head low.

As her sneakers crashed and skidded against the ground, she swerved her way briefly from the asphalt road she landed at towards the sidewalk, barely dodging a taxi that came to an abrupt halt.

“Don’t let her get away!” A burly voice roared as five suited men ran out of the flower shop. They all wore hats that shielded most of their faces.

Vale wasn’t really a maze, but in busy hours, it had the tendency of confusing people when traffic was off the charts. Very rarely did the traffic not get any lighter. That said, Vale had relatively nice cities that had less of a tense air than, say, Atlas, but it was also not as free-aired like Vacuo. A lot of people would tell her that Vale just sort of sat at the middle.

As someone who lived most of her life at Mistral, Vale was more than interesting to Su-Yeon Kang. It was very interesting! It was pretty much what Yun expected of "city life," but Su-Yeon, or “Yun” as everyone called her, wasn’t here to relax. She had to escort someone safely.

“Stop right there!” One of the men shouted.

Looking over her shoulder, Yun made sure the boy in her arms wouldn’t fall off as she stuck her tongue out at the man.

“Bleh!”

“You little-“

Like hell she’d stop. Faunus mistreating other Faunus wasn’t a common occurrence, but with news of certain groups of Faunus getting more and more hostile, she wasn’t going to take her chances by going easy on them. She understood fighting for equality, but what did these guys want from kidnapping a boy? They didn’t look like White Fang, but at the same time they did wear masks to conceal their identities.

Also, if she were them, she'd worry about the cops after the ruckus being caused!

Grinning, Yun spun around once as she hopped in the air, dodging a hook one of the Faunus launched towards her. It ended up wrapping a man carrying groceries bag by his waist, who nervously looked up and asked the Faunus, “T-This is rather sudden. Is something bothering you-?”

Growling, the Faunus knocked the man to the side as he and the other four continued chasing after Yun.

As her eyes darted around the street, her eyes fell on the red lights hovering above the traffic. “Hang on!” Yun shouted, causing the boy in her arms to curl against her. Leaping straight to the road, Yun landed at a tight gap between two cars before jumping again. A few hops winded her up at the other side of the road.

She snickered as she ran forward, looking behind her. Her grin faded as she blinked in surprise, watching the five men rudely run on top of the cars. Paying attention to her front again, she continued to run.

The boy had been snatched away from a group of retired officers at Menagerie. There were talks of a group of Faunus trying to snatch both adults and teenagers off the streets, and today seemed to confirm that there were indeed some hints towards those talks being true. She’d have to report that to her family so that they could inform Menagerie about that. There weren’t many humans trusted by the Faunus, so she had to make sure her family’s name wouldn’t be damaged.

It did strike her as a curious thing, though. These guys didn't seem like White Fang, but at the same time they seemed pretty concise with their strict behavior. It clearly wasn't concise enough to be competent against her, though.

She heard her Scroll ring as she ran down the streets. Pressing on her watch, she turned on the Scroll. “Eyo!” She chirped.

”Yun, make sure you pass the train station nearby Element Hospital. I got a ride ready for us.”

“On my way! What does it look like?”

”You’ll… know when you get here. You should be able to see me.”

Blinking, Yun kept a thoughtful look for a brief moment before shrugging. “Gotcha,” she said as she turned off the call.

As she continued to run, a shiver suddenly went down her spine. Her eyes widened as she ducked, rolling under an extending spear that came out from one of the corners. She flipped over a man who swung a scimitar at her legs, kicking him in the back before landing. As soon as she landed, however, a the supposed leader of the running group ran towards her with a sword in hand.

Where the heck did they come form, and how did they even catch up? Well, that wasn’t the problem here- the problem was that they brought out their arms in the public.

It only made sense for her to respond pretty evenly.

“Duck, kid!” Yun yelled as she put the boy down. Twirling her pistol out, she smacked the blade the group’s leader swung at her. As she ricocheted her momentum from the strike, she kept her body low as she momentarily picked the young fox-eared Faunus. Her leg abruptly swept two of the men off their feet and, as she put the boy down yet again, she leapt towards the group’s leader.

Slamming her feet against his face, she kicked off him, knocking away his hat and sending him tumbling as she closed her eyes. If her intuition was correct, men did not enjoy being struck in a particular gap between limbs. As happy and cocky she could be at times, she knew to respect people when they were about to face, or have faced, extreme pain.

With that said, she let out a quick “Sorry!” as the two Faunus she landed on- feet-first- almost screamed incoherently. As their screams ended up being silent gasps of pain, she hopped off of them and started running again, picking her young escort again.

Not a single shot fired from her. That was a good thing for her, considering the guys just pulled their weapons out in daytime of all times. It meant that she was improving steadily.

“Stop, damn it!”

She laughed, one arm pressing the boy against her chest and the other used to wave off the goons. “See you never!”

---

Yawning, Yun let herself sprawl over the living room.

All things considered, the task given to her went rather well. Though she still didn’t understand why there were Faunus trying to abduct other Faunus, that wasn’t up to her to look into. She did her job, so that was that, right?

Ughhh…

Then again, it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to forget about what had happened. The issue was probably gonna stick in her mind if she didn't find something that'd help her ease up about it. After all, the kid was scared out of his life. She didn't want to imagine what would happen if she failed or something.

There was no doubt she would see more of that stuff as her training continued.

If that was the case, then she'd have to prepare for harsher circumstances. She didn't like the sound of it, but it was to be expected as a Huntress-in-training. After all, it wasn't just bad people she'd face- the Grimm was one of the primary reasons why Huntsmen and Huntresses were trained so extensively.

She still had a long way to go.

Yun puffed her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

Also, it didn’t help that the ride her partner prepared for her was a fake ice cream truck. Of all things, an ice cream truck! She liked ice cream and all, but couldn’t he have picked something cooler?

She rolled over and got up, promptly plopping herself on top of a couch.

Now that she thought about it…

I’m technically on break! She realized, her eyes widening. And they widened even further when she remembered, And the concert’s tomorrow, isn’t it?!

She sat up as her eyes glittered. A pop concert at Atlas… At first, Yun got nervous at the prospect of going to Atlas, but this was her first ever trip to a pop concert. She remembered many boys talking about how Atlas had some of the best idols ever. Whenever she asked them why they were the best idols ever, the boys would get flustered before eventually telling her they liked their singing.

A sly grin replaced her once giddy expression. Like heck they were just looking at their singing, she thought. Hehehe.

Yun stretched her arms as she relaxed on her couch.

For a moment, her thoughts trailed over to a memory she had of her past. She’d been a young girl and got a crush on a cute boy her age. They had similar hobbies and enjoyed playing basketball together. In fact, that went on for a few years. But at their first year at middle school, she decided to confess to him about her crush.

But it turned out… he wasn’t… interested in that side of the green grass…

…

…

“NGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! WHY’D I EVEN REMEMBER THAT!?”

“Yun, you’re too loud!”

“…Sorry, mom.”

Sighing, Yun ruffled her hair.

Now that she thought about it, a lot of her rough-and-tumble attitude might have stemmed from how sad she got that time. It was… It was a childish reason, but so what?! As a kid, that had to be one of the most shocking revelations she came across.

The ruffling worsened as she let out a quiet whimper. M-Maybe if she pushed him a little further that time… No, but he clearly wasn’t interested in her that way…

…Muu.

Straightening herself yet again, her once tired expression regained energy.

Ack, that’s all stuff in the past! She thought to herself, attempting to wake herself up. Maybe I'll get to know what's the hype with this concert stuff.

Clapping her head with her hands, she lifted her face with a determined expression. The concert wasn’t just about getting hyped over young celebrities! She was gonna study what people liked about confident girls- and how she, a confident girl herself, can maybe be taken a little more seriously. Just because she was a Huntress-in-training didn't mean she'd have to hole herself up slaving away with practicing!

“Alright,” she muttered. “Maybe this concert can make me a changed woman!”

Getting up, she rushed over to her parents’ bedroom. The door was open, and she found her mother folding the dried and cleaned bedsheets from the laundry.

“Mom, I’m going to the concert tomorrow! Can I have some allowance?”

Blinking, her mother put up a thoughtful look before turning back to Yun. “Hm? Oh, but Yun, I think you’ve mixed up the dates.”

“Hm?”

Though her mother seemed intent with telling her at first, she froze for a split moment before a rather guilty smile came over instead. “A-Ah ha ha. Well, you see…”

“Hmm?” Yun stared intently at her suspicious mother.

Knowing that lying was the worst thing she could do to her daughter, Yun’s mother ended up pointing out, “You were out for two days up to yesterday, right?”

“…Mmm.”

“And I believe you got the concert ticket about five days ago…”

“Mmm-“

Yun paled immediately.

N-No. No! No, no, no, no! She’d been waiting for the concert for so long! There was no way…

She then remembered that the concert was starting today…

…and she instinctively headed over to home at Mistral rather than Atlas.

There was no way she was going to get to Atlas in a single day.

Falling on her knees, Yun leaned against the bedroom’s coffee table. Remaining still, Yun mumbled weakly, “Mom…”

“Y-Yes, hun?”

“I think I’m just gonna say I hate concerts from now on…”

Her concerned mother ended up treating Yun to a steak dinner instead.

A group of nine people slowly marched through the forest, the pair in front often pushing aside branches and other foliage for the rest of the group to pass by unmolested. Travelling in silence, each member of the group, save for the one in the middle, calmly but intently surveyed their surroundings. The last thing they wanted was for the Grimm to show up. Early, that is.

Oswald was one of the people in the middle of the group, and by far the youngest one there. In other circumstances, he would have been excited, ecstatic even, to be out with the more experienced Guardians, but today….today was different. Today they were here for a very unorthodox mission, one related to the final member of their group, handcuffed and carefully kept within the center of the others.

It wouldn’t do to have the “Great Betrayer” get away from them, now would it? Gods, Oswald hated that name. But it was the one they had to officially use, as his name had been stricken from the histories of Brookeborough. A way to avoid making a martyr of monsters like him, he’d been told. He didn’t think much about it. Didn’t really care much about it, either.

They walked for a while, taking a short break to relieve themselves and relax after what felt like hours of walking. Realistically, it had been maybe ninety minutes. Somewhat far, sure, but hardly a marathon.

Oswald scanned the group distractedly, making a point to ignore their prisoner intently. He was surprised he’d been able to reign in his temper for this long, but he’d been so exhausted lately that he simply might not have had the energy to be angry enough to show it. In the end, it hardly mattered. One teenager’s anger typically wasn’t enough to encourage more than an errant Beowulf to come looking, especially not when it was being intentionally controlled.

He wanted to say something, but no words came to mind. In some way, at least, he felt that breaking the silence would be sacrilegious in a way. They were here for a very good reason, not for idle chit-chat.

After a short while longer, they continued, silence dominating the scene as the small group continued through the forest. For another thirty minutes or so they walked, the dark cloud of what they were here to do looming over their heads. It wasn’t exactly every day you took a stroll out to execute somebody, after all. Upon reaching their destination, however, the silence finally broke.

“Alright…here’s good enough. Get him over by that big rock and undo his cuffs for me, would ya?” Talking at one of the two women in the group, Conner, who was their de facto leader for this excursion, stopped and turned. “Yep, yep, right there. Alrighty then.” Stepping towards their prisoner, Conner sighed and shook his head. “I had this whole little speech prepared, but fuck it.”

Suddenly stepping forward, the muscular man delivered a heavy punch into the prisoner’s nose, cracking bone and forcing him to stumble backwards, falling onto the boulder behind him. The man simply looked up at Conner, wiping some of the blood off his nose. “Not even a grunt, huh? Well, I’m sure that won’t last.” Kicking the older man off the boulder harshly, Conner gestured towards one of the other members of the group. “You gonna join in, or do I gotta break his shit myself?”

From there, everybody but Oswald had gotten involved, punching or kicking or hitting the older man with their weapons. The teenager simply watched, the hatred in his eyes growing by the minute as the beating continued. “Hey, Conner, wanna let the kid have a go?” One of the other men in the group asked. Oswald stiffened slightly in reaction. He hated this guy, sure, and he’d come along, but actually beating a defenseless old man? He wasn’t sure he could do it. The memory of finding Blaine covered in Yahto’s blood changed his mind, though.

Stalking over, rifle still in his hands, Oswald shoved past whoever it was that was still holding on to the guy and slammed the barrel of his rifle into the man’s face. It looked like a modern art masterpiece, one eye bloated, and the other one practically a bloody hole. His nose had to be broken in five different places, and he could have sworn jaws weren’t supposed to hang like that. The prisoner let out a soft grunt at the sudden impact, before Oswald grabbed the rifle with both hands again and bashed the butt into his gut, forcing the air from his lungs.

Using the rifle as leverage to swing the man’s face into his knee, Oswald let out a deep breath of relief when his victim fell to his knees, breathing deeply.

Oswald shot the back of his hand.

Conner’s eyes widened.

The man let out a small scream.

Oswald chuckled. “That was for Yahto.” A punch to the back of the head. “Finley.” A kick to the ribcage. “Ash!” Another kick. “HUNTER!” Oswald fell onto the man, smashing the butt of his rifle into his sternum. “Crystal!!!!” Standing, Oswald aimed the rifle down at the prisoner’s gut. After a moment, he shot. His ears were ringing. “Blaine.” His voice was quiet. Almost silent. The other man was groaning in pain.

“This is for Cerise.” Grabbing a hold of the man’s leg and lifting it, Oswald gestured for one of the others to take it. One of the men in their group, whose name Oswald couldn’t remember, did. He gave Oswald a confused look. “Hold it straight up. Make sure it’s tight.” Oswald held his rifle like a club, aiming a swing at the man’s knee. The others looked on with uncertainty. He heard Conner say his name.

He swung. The scream was magnificent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t much longer before the Grimm arrived. That was their cue to hide. While it wouldn’t do much, they’d hardly be a good target way up in the trees while there was a writhing, groaning man was just lying there like a free meal, would they?

Those screams…not so pleasant. They’d play as the background music for many nightmares.

Sometimes you did things you regretted. Sometimes you did things you couldn’t really regret, even if they weren’t the best choice. Sometimes you do things you don’t want to for reasons you can’t really deny.

Sometimes…sometimes you’re just really fuckin’ angry one day.

Blaire stalked the market, her faunus features hidden underneath a hood. Recently this remote realm strode further towards discrimination of faunus, while the established kingdoms tried to fix their past mistakes, so it was not the best to be seen as a faunus on these streets.
It was best not to arouse suspicion.

While her sister, Skyra, wanted nothing more to be a huntress, to get away from the deeds of the Anti-Faunus groups and the White Fang on the other side, Blaire was stuck. Well, her sister leaving her got Blaire stuck. Not that she was mad at her sister for that, though. Admittedly, she was a bit more cooky than Blaire could bear, but that was not a big deal in the big picture.

"A mango, please.", she asked a merchant, who looked at her with wide eyes and a smile, happy to finally have customers again. This kingdom was on the brink of collapse, economically devastated and not many could afford to buy a lot from the markets. Blaire estimated that, without any foreign influence, the realm wouldn't last two more years, although it appeared as if the ruling class had not noticed that. They had shifted the blame on the many faunus who used to live here. Many discriminatory and segregating laws later, only a handful of faunus still bothered to live here, most, though left or were chased out.

Blaire dropped a couple of coins on the counter and snatched the mango that the merchant had brought. It was not the most glorious fruit but it would do for her daily dose of sugar. She sank her fangs into it forgetting for a second that she'd be visible to the merchant. "Shit..."

The eyes of the merchant changed expression multiple times, from relieved and happy to scared to mad. "Faunus!"
He pulled something akin to a sword from underneath his counter. It barely counted as a blade, to be fair, as rusted and in disrepair as it was.
"Yes?", Blaire replied calmly.
"You creatures don't belong here! This is a human only zone! Your filthy thieving kind are not allowed here. Leave before I have to make you leave!", the merchant uttered, his voice dripping with hatred.
It appeared that he had either been brainwashed or experienced something very unpleasant in the past. Whatever it was, she wasn't welcome anymore. Sighing, Blaire removed her hood, her purple tipped cat ears popping out, then she, calm and collected, simply turned around stepping away from the shop, taking another bite of her mango, now not even bothering to hide her fangs anymore.
Who needs stealth anyway.

She could feel the glares and stares on her back, well, more on her head and her ears. It seemed as if it had been a while since they had seen a faunus in this area. That meant, she had to look somewhere else.
It was her task to look for the last faunus community in this city and escort them out and away to Menagerie.
"Get out of here, mutt!", somebody called after her. It was annoying, sure, but she was used to being yelled at for being a faunus, nothing special.

Suddenly, two armoured policemen approached her. Compared to the rest of the city and its inhabitants, they looked polished and clean, not in any disrepair. "Why are you not working?", one of them exclaimed brashly, not even trying to sound civil and nice.
"Hello, officer. What can I do for you?", Blaire replied sweetly.
"Don't get cheeky with me, dirty street rat!", the officer spat. "Rat? Oh, officer, I am not a rat, I am a cat. Although I can see why one would confuse the two." A smile played on Blaire's features. With a final bite, she finished her mango.
One of the policemen, the one who hadn't spoken yet, pulled out his gun and aimed it at Blaire. "Now, now. No need to escalate things."
"You don't belong here, smartass. Get back to your worker camp! Now!"

Blaire rolled her eyes. "If I knew where to go, I'd get that problem off your hands." Blaire licked her teeth.
"Quiet! Walk, or you'll be punished! We are already merciful.", the gun wielding officer exclaimed and came up behind her and poked her back with the muzzle of the gun. Violently, the other officer grabbed her arm. "Where is your number, mutt?"
Now it was Blaire's turn to be slightly confused. Numbers? Was her information wrong? "How messed up is your city...", she whispered and shuddered a bit. She feared the situation of the faunus in this city were far worse than she had heard.

And that was her first mistake. The officer who had her arm in a tight grip trying to find a "number" had heard her and shoved her top the ground. Surprised like that, she tumbled to the ground, but managed to catch herself in such a way that the landing didn't hurt.
"Why do you not have a number! Answer me!" A shot rang through the now slightly more crowded marketplace. Next to her face, a bullet hole had appeared in the pavement.

Blaire narrowed her eyes, her ears turned slightly backwards. "You do not threaten me.", she growled. It was over, she knew. All pretenses of remaining hidden and silently leading the faunus out were gone. "I am Blaire Dawn from Vacuo. I have come to free my brothers and sisters and you will not stop me. Not you, not your wretched regime, not your hive of scum and villainy that is this city!", Blaire growled and her eyes flared in anger.

For a moment, the two officers and the crowd froze, but then both officers pointed their guns right at her head. "Well, well. We can't have that. We cannot allow an insurgency from outside now, can we?"
"Say good night, animal."

Blaire grinned and activated her semblance. Red eyes stared into those of the officers and they froze, shivering, crying, sobbing. Fear crept into their every fibre of their being.
When her semblance deactivated, the officers shook their heads trying to clear their heads as best as possible. But when they looked up again, the cat faunus stood proudly in front of them, a black cape blowing in the wind behind her, a shield in one hand and a weird, curved blade in the other. "I'll advise you to back down.", Blaire called.
It didn't appear to faze the policemen much.
Another shot rang through the market and a high pitched "ding" as the bullet deflected from Blaire's shield. Quite quickly, the crowd disbanded and hurried into cover or into any building they could.

Blaire grinned widely, her sharp fangs very visible and then she rushed in. A hail of bullets simply ricocheted off her shield held in front of her. Arriving at the first policeman, she slammed the shield into him, whirling around with a backstroke, she sliced apart the gun of the second officer before, in the same motion, she destroyed the gun of the officer on the ground as well.
"And stay down! I don't want to have to kill you."
Swiftly, to not even get the chance to try and fight her, she ran, through the streets of the city towards where she thought, the faunus quarter was.

She went by the desolation. The closer she came to the faunus part of the city, the more ruined and destroyed the city looked, the closer she felt she was to her destination.
And then she saw it.
A huge fence right in front of her and at the end of the street, guard posts, like a ghetto. This wasn't fun. This wasn't going to be fun at all.
Just from watching the guard post, she could spot at least six guards. At that number, she couldn't really try and not injure them or she might die herself.

She hadn't expected this, a full lockdown, it appeared, as if they were imprisoning the faunus, keeping them as far away from the regular citizens as possible and keeping them trapped in this... prison city. She had to expect patrols in the complex and a lot more guards at the gate than those six she could currently see.
Blaire sighed. She never wanted to do this, but... it seemed this was the time for her... to do things she didn't like to do.

Her weapon clicked softly and snapped into musket form. Silently, she sneaked closer to the guard post... and fired.
With a dying scream, a guard on one of the towers toppled over, dead.
Blaire breathed, then rushed in, her khopesh in her hand again, the shield in the other, blocking the first shots with it.

When her first slice cut down one, the smell of blood flicked a switch in her. She danced around blades and flames, left, right, ducking, jumping.
Not soon after, all the guards lie dead.

Blaire kneeled and bowed her head. This was not how it was supposed to go, not at all.
She got up and darted into the compound, the noise of the battle already attracting additional guards, but also some obviously very ragged looking faunus, who tenatively peeked out of windows and open doors.

Another guard keeled over, hit by a shot from her musket. "I have come to rescue the faunus of this city. I will not allow anybody to oppose me! If you don't want to end like your colleagues, you should stand down and drop your weapons!", Blaire threatened loudly.
Lots of clanging later, she saw several braver faunus who collected in front of her. Calls of "Who are you?" "Have you really come to get us out?"
A soft smile played on Blaire's face. A smile of relief.
"I'm Blaire Dawn. It is my task to rescue you all. Where I am from, our people are free. And where I plan to bring you is a whole continent just for us. Menagerie. But if you don't like it there, you can move to any of the kingdoms! You will be free, you can do any job you want, you don't have to work like this anymore! Now gather up everyone, nobody will get left behind. We will meet at the beach. My ship will pick you up."

Content, Blaire watched as the faunus, barely believing their luck scurried around, gathering their things, their relatives and friends.
Meanwhile Blaire led the remaining guards out of the compound and returned to lead the exodus.
About two hundred faunus were following her to the beach.
Most of them looked horrible. Dishevelled, dirty, weak. But now, they seemed to look happy.

Reaching the beach, the faunus were talking excitedly amongst themselves when they saw the ship anchored in such a way that it allowed the loading of passengers through the dinghies lining the beach.

For a group of people who never boarded a boat, the loading of the dinghies went very smoothly and Blaire smiled at the progress. Almost everybody who wasn't already on the ship, was not in a boat getting ready to deploy, when she heard a loud yell from the land side.
"Where are you going with my workers?!" The voice of a man cried.
It belonged to somebody who looked so out of place in this city that it was almost comical. Decked out in fine coats with makeup on his face the leader of the city appeared in front of her.

Blaire huffed. "I thought we faunus were at fault for ruining your precious city? I am just solving your problem for you, good sir.", she quipped grinning. Even though the "king", or whatever he called himself, came with an army of at least 50 heavily armoured guards, Blaire was not afraid in the least. She motioned for the sailors to quickly take off from the beach.

"They were cheap labour. You are animals and animals live to serve humans." Blaire's smile dropped. "I cannot change the mind of the deluded. But I can at least purge them...", she muttered loudly. "Deluded? What are you talking about? You are an animal. And animals belong to humans. Animals don't have the right of free choice. Animals don't invent. Animals don't think. Animals don't..."

With a surprised gurgle, the "king" looked down as he was shut up by something sticking in his throat. A curved blade went right though him, the owner, Blaire, glaring into his fading eyes. "You were right to be afraid of us. Because, when we get treated like shit, we fight back..."

With that, she pulled her blade out of the dead body of the "king", sprinted to the ocean and dove beneath the waves before the guards could react and she disappeared, leaving behind a city that would now crumble even faster.

It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but also the most satisfying thing she ever did and being greeted as a hero by over 200 former forced labourers wasn't bad either...

“Morning, kiddos, everyone bring their gear?”

A chorus of affirmatives echoed around the airship. A couple of smartasses rolled their eyes, but they answered anyway. No one ignored the question. The students all knew better than to ignore their teacher, even if it was something that had taken ‘em a while to learn. She was pretty easy going, all things considered, but she demanded respect and your attention. Especially in this class.

“Don’t any of you roll your eyes at me. If you’d left your gear you’d have to stay on the ship, and I didn’t go through a buttload of paperwork for you to skip it.” Saeva Sareta leaned against the back of what was supposed to be her seat, looking her class over with a faint grin. They were excited. She was a little excited, too. She didn’t get to take ‘em on a field trip like this very often. The class was “Field Studies”, but usually that meant poking around in the woods on Patch. It had been a lot of work to get the principal to sign off on it. It took them out of their other classes for the day, and in theory entailed a lot more danger than Signal students were usually exposed to. She’d had to extensively prove that it’d be safe to get permission. “Let’s run through the ground rules, as usual. Who wants to give us a refresher? Samantha?”

“Stay in sight, stick with your buddy, and obey instructions.”

“Attagirl. And if I say back to the ship?”

“We go back. Immediately.”

“Bingo.” Saeva glanced over her shoulder towards the cockpit, doublechecking the landing site. The pilots knew what they were doing, but she was gonna dot the Is and cross the Ts. This whole thing was her responsibility. “Who remembers what we’re exploring today?”

“A controlled burn, Ms. Sareta?”

“Yep.” She flashed the speaker a grin and a nod. “A controlled burn, just a few days old. We’re a couple miles from the coast. A mid-level Datura has infested the area for years now. Why do we perform a controlled burn?”

“To prevent it from spreading?” The same student ventured, after a minute. A lot more hesitantly. Saeva wasn’t surprised, Datura weren’t covered until Grimm Studies at Beacon. She’d given them the basics a few days ago, but that was just a crash course.

“Mhm. If anyone remembers what we talked about, Datura grow by infecting adjacent vegetation. Left alone, they can get big. Stories from a long time ago talk about Datura that managed to be classified as Grausam, rather than Riesen. But even the normal ones can be bad news if we don’t keep ‘em in check. Some of you are from Shiroyama, you guys know about Vlitra, right?”

A few students nodded solemnly. Excited as they were, that was still a name that could give them pause. She didn’t blame ‘em. She’d seen the monster once, and it wasn’t something you forgot.

“Then you know what I’m talking about. So we keep track of known Datura. We kill ‘em, when we can, but when they’re hibernating we can’t find all of ‘em. So we do a controlled burn once a year. Kill all the plants around where we know it is, destroy any biomass they’ve grabbed. It’s a hard job. Infected forests are filled with all sorts of nasty critters, and we have to keep the fire under control. But it’s important. It’s how we prevent another Vlitra from being created.”

“You ever done one of the burns, Ms. Sareta?”

“Yep! I did this one, when I was out of class on Monday. Now, this one is pretty safe.” Her tone turned serious, and she looked over the class again. “The fires only just went out yesterday, and we cleared the area pretty thoroughly when we were here. We shouldn’t have anything more than a couple Feind to worry about, if anything. But anything bigger than that and you back off, got it? That’s what I’m here for. And if we find anything really big, you guys haul ass back to the airship. Capisce?”

Her students nodded.

Man, it was weird being the serious one. Being a teacher. Yeah, it had been a couple years but it snuck up on her every now and again. She dressed professionally most days. The monkey’d laugh at her if he showed up to one of her classes. Not after she punched his teeth in, but definitely beforehand. That was part of why it was so nice to get out in the field. She got to go back to combat gear. Not as much as if she were going on a mission, yeah, but still. There were boots on her feet again, and not heels. And her sword… God, it was nice to feel that on her back again. The blade, wrought iron, scarred and pitted, looked little like the clean, well-crafted weapons that her students bore with such pride. Half of those were mechanical marvels, the sort of sh- thing she’d never understand. But they’d come to feel as comfortable with theirs as she did with hers. It was a journey they were just starting. Most of them had only built their weapon recently, let alone spent much time training with it. Field Studies was an elective but it tended to attract the younger students, since it was a prerequisite for the handful of more advanced classes taught at Signal. Most of her students were first or second years, with a couple of outliers.

It would have driven her crazy dealing with them when she was younger. As a teacher, at least. She always got on fine with kids. They had fun, unlike way too many adults. Being their role model was a little different. She needed to watch her mouth, set a good example, all that jazz. Saeva had almost laughed Sloan out of the room when he told her about the job opportunity. But he made a good case. These kids… All the lessons she’d had to learn, they were going to have to learn too. There was no one better to teach them than someone who had to work at learning. Someone who could understand where they were coming from and show them how to grow.

She’d mellowed out a little. That was her thought, at least while she started to lead her class around the burn zone. Most of it was as she expected. The fire hadn’t been put out until the night before, so there wasn’t time for the Grimm to start to flock back to it. As long as they steered clear of the contaminated zone at the center of the area, there wouldn’t be much to worry about. Blackened vegetation crunched underfoot, and every now and again she would stop to point out the telltale signs of Datura infestation in the charred area. It was a bit of a hike towards the clearing she had picked out ahead of time, a welcome bit of exertion in her opinion. She had to keep the pace even for her class, but getting to move at all was a welcome change. Saeva had to spend most of the day behind her lectern, at most pacing about the front of the blackboard. It almost had driven her up the wall, her first few days on the job. She couldn’t understand how other professors could sit so still, she needed to move. Field Studies was her best compromise. It wasn’t exactly riveting, but at least she got to move around.

This hike was the best class she’d had in ages. Nothing like stretching the legs.

Gave her a chance to admire her handiwork, too. The burn had been all her. Some of her colleagues had helped start it up, yes, but controlling it? That was her. Her Semblance made her uniquely suited to it. It still took ages to learn. A burn like this one needed to be controlled strictly to prevent it from spreading beyond the intended area, and it just wasn’t something she’d ever had patience for as a student. Or the temperament. It was a lot more fun to let it blaze than keep it stifled. ‘Collateral damage’, that was a term she’d had to learn a lot.

Weirdly enough, that one took a while to learn. Beacon was all about teaching the skills, but it took much longer to get around to controlling the strength you learned. Some things hadn’t changed. Earlier this year she’d heard about some overzealous kid that’d burned down an entire area, just to kill an Ariadne. Saeva had winced hearing about that one. It was the sort of behavior that tended to get her a lecture, and she had to imagine he’d gotten one too. It took a while, figuring out how to mete out reasonable responses. The requisite amount of force to deal with a problem. Young Hunters, they tended to be more than a little over the top. Whatever force necessary, no-holds-barred, all-or-nothing. Lacking in restraint. That tended to come with experience, as did a more measured approach. Dropping napalm on an area could kill every Grimm inside, yes. But it could also do significantly more damage than necessary. A measured approach for every situation was the sign of an experienced Hunter or Huntress.

…

She would’ve scoffed at that sentiment ten years ago.

“Ms. Sareta?”

“Hm? Yes?” She blinked a little and looked over her shoulder, where one of her students was looking at her curiously. “What is it?”

“Where are we going?”

“Right up here.” She pointed to the clearing ahead, picking up the pace just a little. The rest of her class had chatted between themselves while she had her little moment of introspection, but it was time to pay attention again. The Mantle native raised her voice a little and turned to address her students again. “Class! This clearing was a major point in the Datura’s infestation. That big tree trunk, there, he;d part of its mask. It was from right here that it spread its biomass.”

Saeva gestured expansively, encompassing the clearing with a sweep of her arm.

“Take a look around. Stay in the clearing, stay with your buddy, but look around. I want every group of two to bring me the best example of infected biomass they can find. Remember the signs we talked about.”

The students all chorused their acknowledgement and scattered in a heartbeat. Nothing was quite as fun as getting permission to go exploring. Hunters and Huntresses in training they might be, but they were all still kids. Getting to roam about a cool bit of forest, even burned (or perhaps especially burned), was cool as heck. She would’ve loved it, when she was their age. Gone looking for the neatest thing she could find. Made Negasi give her a boost to check out something at the top of the burnt trunks. Maybe found a Grimm to fight. Or fought the monkey. Maybe taken the time to gossip with Tor. The thought brought a smile to her face, while she leaned against the big trunk and took a sip of her water.

It wasn’t too hard to keep track of the class. They all knew better than to wander too far off. She’d give them about half an hour, then they’d get moving again. They were going to get to about kilometer from the edge of the infected zone, close enough to get a look at the still-infected part of the forest with their binoculars. Back to the clearing for lunch, and back to the airship to get back before the end of the school day. Easy peasy. Everything was going according to plan, too. She’d thought there might be a few Klein-class to deal with, but the Grimm hadn’t come back at all. Not a one.

… Actually, that didn’t sound right.

Normally it took a few hours for Grimm to start venturing back out of the infected area. The Datura would begin to try to spread again in a week, there just wasn’t enough vegetation to support it. Even if they didn’t dare engage a large group, she should have seen something. Saeva hauled herself back to her feet and dusted off the back of her pants, beginning to walk towards the far end of the clearing. Maybe it was nothing, but she needed to be sure. With the type of Grimm that lived in this part of Vale, she had to be sure. So as soon as she reached the edge she started to walk the perimeter, peering into the hazy, smoke-laden horizon looking for anything amiss. Students to her right, forest to her left, she continued her march in silence. Checking for tracks wasn’t easy when the ground had been disturbed by an inferno for almost two days, but she kept an eye on the ground anyway. Something didn’t feel quite right. One rotation, two, another half, and nothing.

Until, when she looped around to the far end of the clearing again, that the particular set of jagged tree trunks beyond the edge, a few dozen meters away, were not trunks at all. It had to have been there since they arrived, but it had stayed buried under a thin layer of ash. Probably sizing up the group, trying to decide whether or not it could attack. Riesen were aggressive, but not stupid. Especially not Ankou. They were the smallest of the class, but no less deadly than their insidious colleagues. Now that it had been spotted, she needed to proceed very carefully. Measured response was the key to getting everyone out of this unharmed. She kept walking, trying to pretend she hadn’t seen it, but turned towards the center of the clearing again. A single sharp whistle cut through the air, and served to get the attention of her class.

“Back to the airship, class. Now.”

“But Ms. Sareta-”

”Now.”

Something in her tone clicked for them, that time. Saeva was very careful to be measured and calm with her class, the sharp undercurrent to her voice was alien to them. They all turned serious and started filing back the way they came, while Saeva turned to try and monitor the Grimm behind them.

Fighting it wasn’t Plan A. It wasn’t a matter of winning or losing, it was a matter of making sure this didn’t escalate. She could report the Riesen later, but getting the class out of harm’s way needed to take priority. The Ankou had made up its mind, shaking off the ash and beginning to lumber into the clearing. Smallest of its class it might have been, but it was a nasty creature. Powerful hind legs, a pair of front legs that doubled as wings and a smaller, secondary set of arms. Without getting into the absurdly tough armor that protected its body. It wasn’t slow, either; it had crossed about half the clearing while she backed away slowly. She clicked her boots off of each other in a shower of sparks, just once, and slowly pulled her gloves onto her hands. A fight wasn’t the plan, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be ready. Saeva clenched her fist, hard, and sent a small shower of sparks raining to the ground.

The beast gave pause, for just a moment.

Not for the reason she hoped. A screech cut through the air, emanating from the Ankou’s beak-like mouth. It was calling in the cavalry, and it wasn’t waiting to get into the fray itself. It lunged with surprising speed, and she was forced to duck under its claws. She drove her fist upwards into its underbelly, but the Grimm was so armored it barely noticed. Her boot ignited to propel her backwards as the air slowly filled with the growing cries of the oncoming Grimm.

“Class! Double time! Upperclassmen, guard the flanks. Schwarzes, I swear to God, if you try to pick a fi-” The next swipe caught her square in the stomach and knocked her aside, making the professor spit out ash when she landed. And say something severe in old Atlesian that she was pretty sure made one of the aforementioned Shiroyamans gasp.

God, she was getting slow.

And wishy washy. When the fuck did that happen? What lesson was she teaching here, really? How to run away? How to let a Grimm push you around? What was she sparing them, by holding back? She could have killed it, first. Prevented it from calling up its flunkies. And where were they going to go? They weren’t going to run that entire hike.

Somewhere along the lines, she’d gotten wary of letting loose. That wasn’t the lesson she needed to learn. It wasn’t the one her students needed to learn. Discretion was important. But it was a scary, scary world out there. Everything they fought, everything they would learn to fight, was hellbent on killing them. That was a frightening concept. It was something they’d need to grapple with, every day between now and retirement. They didn’t need a role model on how to fucking prevaricate, when push came to shove.

They needed to see how to stand up.

They needed to see how to fight.

They needed to see how to face a foe and kick its fucking teeth in.

“Change of plans, kids!” Saeva rolled, letting the Ankou’s claws stab into the ground she had occupied a second before. “Group up! Third years, the front. Second years the flanks. Firsties, anything that slips through and that means you Schwarz! Class is now in session!”

“Ankou are armored! Brute force isn’t gonna do shit!” Her boot hit the ground, hard, the ensuing explosion propelling her up and back. Showy, sure, but practical; it gave her some room. She drew her blade off her back, parrying the claws that swiped her way and stepping into effective range of the Grimm. It sure as hell didn’t shrug off the riposte, screeching as the blade bit into its armor. The blade began to glow, dull red at first but brightening intensifying every second she held it, biting into mankind’s enemy again with a deep slash across its chest. The Ankou backed off, this time, growling long and low.

And getting the same growl in return.

“You have to use something sharp! And you have to watch out, because-” The Grimm screeched, and bathed the area before it in fire. Only it didn’t do much. Wherever the flames hit the Atlesian professor they simply stopped, soaked in by her very body. A stream that abruptly ended when her left hand slammed into its throat, wrapping around as much as she could grab. Its flesh started smoking where her skin touched, softer plating melting under her grip. “These bastards breathe fire. More of a problem for you guys, but worth knowing. Now, those Grimm charging us? Those are Salamanders and Itzamna. We’ll deal with those in a second.”

“First…” She growled lower, ignoring its attempts to pry her off. Her blade sunk deep into its chest, and kept it there until it started dissolving. The flick of her blade as she withdrew it was contemptuous, and she turned to face the assembled students besieged by a dozen Grimm. “The Ankou. Avert your eyes, class.”

“Before I let you harm my students, demons, I will burn the whole world.” Saeva snarled, stomping her foot once and letting the jet of flame erupt from where boot met earth. The flame squirmed like something alive, lancing from one Grimm to the next. It clung to their jet black forms, scorching until nothing remained. “Make them bleed, and you’ll burn.”

They hadn’t been in dire need of her help, to their credit. Ankou aside, they probably would’ve been okay. But the Grimm had made her lose her cool in front of her students.

That wasn’t allowed.

“Back to the ship, kids. If anybody’s hurt, come see me on the way. Weapons drawn, in case there are more.” A beat. “... And please don’t tattle to the headmaster on me for language. I don’t need that headache, too. Keep that our little secret, and I promise to tell some stories next class.”

Man, Sloan is gonna want to know about all this….

He fought for humanity.

There was little ambition he had aside from that. Aside from that rather straightforward and even generic goal he had, he was a person, like any other.

Whenever he passed by the hangar, he would want to meet his friends.

Whenever training was over, he would want to grab a snack and relax.

He had those thoughts, too.

And he knew he wasn’t the only one, so that was why he fought.

He was sure that others thought similarly as well.

---

An iron gargantuan made its way past the debris.

Ashes filled the air, painting the world a gloomy orange. Whereas orange would often be correlated with an afternoon sky in the past, now there was simply nothing but the same color. It painted the destroyed cement in the form of dust and ashes, marking almost the entirety of the land as inhabitable.

Time before the Quantum Cataclysm had since been deemed unrecognizably useless, as there wasn’t much left of humanity in the first place. The quick-witted had been the ones to survive the dimensional breach in the atmosphere as invaders in the appearance of iron monsters appeared shortly afterwards.

The GRIMM Threat, as many called them.

Sleek, yet bulky, the tall machination floated past the remains of Vacuo. There wasn’t much to be lost in Vacuo in terms of environment, really- only the people were its true value, and they no longer inhabited the land.

A single three story building would be of even height with the machine. Inside the mech, a single radio crackled, void of presence to the outer world.

“The feedback’s getting stronger,” the voice said. It appeared to belong to a young woman, her tone calm yet precise. “Take a turn to your left.”

Behind the mech, a large city stood from a distance, once the home of Shade Academy. In front stood a small canyon jutting out of the desert. Within the canyon was an entrance to a mine.

“Grab whatever Dust you can,” the voice told him once more. “Remember, Oak, the goal isn’t to search and destroy- your top priority is extracting as much Dust as possible and getting out of there safely, as the GRIMM can tear this place down at any moment.”

The man began inputting several commands to the mech, sitting within the complex control deck surrounding him. Metal slid out behind the seat of the deck as it began encasing the man in a light set of armor, as well as equipping him with life support. From two sides, metal surrounded his face as a helmet soon formed, its visor sleek and masking any sign of his human face.

“Understood.”

Humanity wasn’t what the GRIMM needed- it was what they wanted.

The chest of the mech opened as he soon emerged, a heavy rifle in hand. As a set of stairs formed down to the sand beneath him, Trad Oak walked down and soon set foot on Vacuo.

Stepping into the cave entrance, Trad wasted no time- little, if he did at all.

Cold air greeted him as he went deeper into the cave. The logo of the SDC passed by him, along with a single bony hand attempting to claw its way out of the cave. It wasn’t uncommon knowledge that the SDC had actually contributed towards elevating the dire circumstances of Remnant through their poor management of the mining sites at the time of destruction. A fat lot of help having Faunus workers ended up being, considering nobody had been responsible enough to secure the Dust to some form of authority at the very least.

He hadn’t become a Huntsman for no reason, though. Cleaning up the mess of the past and destroying the obstacles of the present- that much, he understood as his duties. For these duties would ultimately protect the powerless and frightened.

Was he frightened? Of course he was. A few Huntsmen also extracting Dust at Vale were reported to have been torn apart not too long ago. Ironic, considering he initially preferred the idea of heading to Vale first.

Ms. Cirsium had objected at Lionheart’s suggestion of sending Huntsmen to Vale, stating that much of the GRIMM there were far more dangerous than the ones at Vacuo and Mistral. A compromise had eventually been made between Ms. Cirsium, Lionheart, and Ironwood- one of the leaders of the Huntsmen- to send Huntsmen to both Vale and Vacuo. More had been sent to Vale, though many returned injured or outright shocked to the point of danger.

That was to say that there weren’t many who returned in the first place.

A light flickered on beside his visor, several canisters contained within the two Dust cases he brought with him. He needed to be fast.

By the time natural light had faded, Trad began seeing old lightbulbs dangling on the ceiling, though many of them were shattered on the ground. He had been going on a downward slope for quite some time, so there should be a visible mining site soon…

A few minutes later, Trad froze as he made sure he was looking at things right.

“Bingo,” he muttered to himself as he intensified the flashlight.

A massive mining site greeted him, wide and full of cart rails all towards a now defunct Dust storage container. It was like a giant cavern, with a whole lot of nothing. But he knew that veins of Dust would be hiding within the area. The platform he stood on was probably where the SDC employees used to stand on.

“Beginning extraction,” he spoke to the radio. Taking the stairs down to the area full of rails, he headed to one of the tunnels.

Red Dust. A common, but valuable Dust for its heated properties. This was his third extraction mission, and quite honestly the entire experience was still nerve-racking. Training had been rather intense, but missions weren’t just intense- they were often intense enough to get you killed, and it’s not because people wanted you dead. This had to be the highest amount of natural Dust veins he had seen so far, however.

Placing one of the canisters on a large Red Dust vein, he set aside his rifle and inputted a code, prompting the canister to latch onto the vein. Ms. Cirsium had pointed out to always attach the canister away from any entrances if possible, though it often got confusing when the Dust veins started to have weird shapes.

Picking his weapon up again, he left the tunnel. As nice as it’d be to watch the Dust all trickle down into the canister from crystals to powder, that was literally the equivalent of watching a more exciting version of paint drying. He needed to get all the Dust he could, unless he wanted to end up like the guy who returned to mother base in several pieces.

Another tunnel contained Blue Dust, and another with Yellow Dust. When he reached the fourth tunnel, however, he blinked as he found a floating Dust vein.

This had to be Gravity Dust. As many as there were back in Atlas, these things were pretty crucial to their Semblances. Yeah, sure, flying was cool and all, but you didn’t want your mech to suddenly lose juice and plummet you into a horde of unsuspecting GRIMM.

Latching a canister onto the Gravity Dust vein, Trad picked up his rifle.

Click.

He halted abruptly, his breathing going shallow as he felt his throat tighten, turning off the flashlight as quickly as possible.

Click.

A single red light shone past the tunnel. Glancing behind him, Trad took a step back. When his footsteps proved to be rather quiet, he took the risk and retreated more.

Come on, come on…

His tough luck- of all places, he had to be surrounded by Gravity Dust veins just floating around him! But their footsteps were pretty loud, so maybe if he timed it just right…

He knew it was a dumb idea, but whatever. He’d heard of people do crazier things than him, though he wasn’t sure if they survived or not.

They were getting closer…

One… two…

Another footstep. He had to do it now.

Leaping onto one of the veins with his rifle on his back, he took out two all-terrain knives as he slammed it into both a vein and a wall close to him. Much to his fright, the vein shook… but did not go any further. He made sure to bring the vein close enough to the wall to shield all of his body.

The footsteps stopped briefly.

So did his breathing.

The last thing he needed here was the radio crackling to life to scare him, or the sound of firepower being sent at his direction.

…He did make sure that all canisters were looking away from the tunnels, right?

Maybe.

His life would prove it.

Much to his surprise and relief, the footsteps started growing distant, and the red light began to die.

Remaining still for one whole minute, Trad did not move an inch.

“Oak? You’ve been dead frozen for a minute now. Is everything fine?”

Trad nearly jumped at the voice. Thankfully, it was Ms. Cirsium’s voice. Had it been, say, Peter Port’s voice, he might’ve just fallen off the Gravity Dust chunk immediately.

“Yes, Ms. Cirsium,” he responded. “Just, uh… avoiding some mishaps.”

A brief pause came from Ms. Cirsium, though it seemed that she was quick to catch on. “Get out of there as soon as you can, Trad,” she spoke rather urgently. “The Dust is important, but your life is far more important. We don’t need people being idiotically brave-hearted and getting themselves killed.”

As he steadily got off the Dust chunk, he pulled the knives out as he glanced at the Dust canister.

“Stay on your toes, and give me a heads-up if you happen to confront the GRIMM at any point.”

Putting away the knives, Trad took out his rifle again as he quietly walked around the Dust he had latched himself onto.

Kneeling over one of the Dust canisters, a dark figure covered in ashes that constantly puffed out of itself fiddled with the canister he had placed earlier.

Trad’s eyes widened as the figure jerked its head around, its red eyes glaring straight into his.

Without any warning, he pulled the trigger, blasting its head right off.

“I think things are gonna be rather shaky, Ms. Cirsium!” Trad shouted in his helmet, quickly unlatching the Dust canister. Three-fourths of it had been filled up. “GRIMM’s right in front of me!”

“Leave the mining site!” Ms. Cirsium spoke, almost as if it was an obvious thing. “Don’t do anything stupid- secure yourself for departure first.”

Gladly!

Running out of the tunnel, Trad took out a hook shot as he analyzed his surroundings. Two of the ash-covered figures turned straight at his direction as they revealed their long fingers. As subtle as they looked, those were the same claws that Oswald told him to be careful of before. Reason being?

Well, those guys who came back in several pieces didn’t do that to themselves, obviously.

Launching the hook shot at the root of a stalagmite, Trad began running as the two GRIMM pilots rushed over to him at a frightening pace, their movements jerky and unnatural. He pulled the trigger, pulling him straight out of their clutch as they simultaneously attempted to slice him apart from both sides.

As soon as he reached the stalagmite, with all of his strength, he kicked the very protruding terrain he had latched onto before firing his hook shot again to make sure he didn’t land like a flattened bug. The sharp thing fell straight on one of the pilots, impaling the pilot from the head through its stomach. As Trad descended while flying towards one of the tunnels, he took out his rifle and opened fire on the remaining pilot.

Moving to the side quickly, the remaining GRIMM pilot raised an arm as it fire a ball of magma straight at him. His eyes widened as he pulled one of the hook shot’s triggers, causing it to let go from the terrain it had been stuck to. Tumbling as he got back on his footing, he put away his rifle as he hid behind an empty Dust rock near the Fire Dust tunnel.

Taking a deep breath, Trad took out a sleek blade and a small handle, occupying both of his hands. Leaping out of the rock, Trad activated the handle, creating a large kite shield composed of Lightning Dust. He held the large Gravity Dust canister with his shield arm.

The GRIMM pilot let no roars or the kind- it simply stared at Trad, devoid of emotions he could discern. It lashed out eventually, claws first.

Raising his shield, he let the claws weigh down on him before he lifted the GRIMM pilot up. With a small push, he moved his shield away and kicked the pilot across the mining cavern. He then made a beeline towards the Red Dust tunnel and unlatched the canister.

The canisters were huge and were seriously meant to be attached to the Dust cases, but he had no time to lose. As the GRIMM pilot got up, Trad rushed up the stairs and began making a run for it.

As natural light began to show up, so did his tension. The pilot was faster than him, though he had his hook shot to give him boosts of speed when he needed it. Eventually, he burst out of the mining site entrance and ran up the stairs of his Semblance.

Tossing the canisters into the control room, he smashed the docking button as the stairs were pulled away quickly, and the Semblance’s chest began to close.

“System online,” a monotone voice echoed in the mech, “Svalinn Root- combat active.”

Retaining its crouched form, Trad forced the mech to activate its rockets, pushing itself away from the mining site. There was no GRIMM at the surface, meaning that…

In an ear-deafening entrance, the mining site blew apart as a monstrous mech appeared, its appearance beastly and inhumane. Trad took several short breaths as he watched the monster advance towards him.

Beowolf.

A common GRIMM. As common as it was, only a few of them were needed to tear down Vale’s capital.

Getting up from its crouched position, Svalinn Root assumed a standing combat stance as it continued to rocket away from the Beowulf GRIMM. And as soon as it stood, it began firing at the enemy mech with raw firepower. Twin heavy rotary cannons caused a bullet storm as the GRIMM advanced, shrugging off most of the damage.

Trad hastily changed the mech’s grounded status to an all-range mode. Ascending up to the air, Svalinn Root continued to fire before it turned and blasted straight into the skies.

The GRIMM, too, soared into the skies, its monstrous shape turning into that of a triangular ship.

It’s only one, Trad thought to himself. I need to get rid of this thing before I head to the base.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to leave. It’s just that this thing was far too close for him to safely activate hyperdrive and just leave the place for good. He needed to deal with it as soon as possible.

Turning around in the air, Svalinn Root began firing at the ship with one rotary cannon, creating a larger version of the shield he had used earlier on the other hand of the mech.

The ship maneuvered wildly, only a few bullets scratching its surface as it fired bolts of magma-like substance at Trad’s mech. Svalinn Root strafed to the right as it raised its shield, letting the magma bounce off its Thunder Dust shield as it continued to fire its rotary cannon. Bullets lit the orange skies of Vacuo as the ones that missed punched the sandy grounds with small holes and unknown magma.

The GRIMM’s patience soon ran out as it eventually morphed back into its Beowulf form, leaping straight onto Svalinn Root’s shield. Ignoring the damage it was receiving from the shield, the GRIMM began clawing wildly, attempting to attack around the shield and damage the mech itself.

It’s trying to bring me down to the ground first, Trad realized instantly.

He needed to stay in the air to survive. This much, he knew. He wasn’t going to let a single GRIMM bring him down.

Let’s do this.

As the Beowulf managed to tear off chunks of Svalinn Root’s shield arm’s armor, Svalinn Root’s cannon arm morphed into that of a regular one. It then pulled out a giant sword from its back, its edges lit with a serene green that contrasted to the orange all around him.

Smashing the Beowulf off his shield, Svalinn Root charged towards the Beowulf in the skies. The Beowulf, maintaining its monstrous form rather than morph into its more compact self, remained in the skies, fire blasting out of his back as it extended its black metal claws.

At the very moment the Beowulf lunged one of its in attempt to hit Trad’s head around the shield, Trad suddenly turned off Svalinn Root’s shield, instead turning the mech’s head ever so slightly. The GRIMM’s claw ended up scratching the side of the mech’s head.

Gritting his teeth, Trad had Svalinn Root pull its former shield arm back before driving it straight into the GRIMM mech’s chest. The GRIMM pilot had to be inside the head, unlike his Semblance.

Svalinn Root’s engine roared as the blade it held glowed brighter. Its form began to extend as it revealed a Dust core, containing five Thunder crystals loaded into it as lightning began to crackle down the mech’s arm.

As the mech raised the GRIMM up, Trad roared, “Eat THIS!”

Pulling its shield arm out of the GRIMM, Svalinn Root twisted as it kicked the GRIMM straight forward into the skies. Before the GRIMM had a chance to retaliate, Svalinn Root’s rocket boots throttled to maximum performance as it rocketed towards the enemy, its blade raised behind itself.

With a single, vertical, upward slash, Svalinn Root cleaved the Beowulf in half.

The skies were lit with a single explosion that covered both mechs. And out of it, only Trad emerged, his mech partially damaged.

Taking a deep breath, Trad sighed. He then spoke to the radio,

“Leaving the extraction point with a Red Dust canister and a Gravity Dust canister. Heading to Atlas now.”

“Do you have any injuries that need treatment?” He heard Ms. Cirsium speak from the radio.

He glanced at his body, raising an eyebrow before he muttered, “I think I have a head ache.”

The radio went silent for a moment before Ms. Cirsium responded rather amusedly, “Well, it’s good to hear that it’s no worse than that.”

As Svalinn Root exited combat mode and began to charge up its hyperdrive, it remained still in the air.

The skies were still bleak, and he was certain this wasn’t going to be the last time he visits Vacuo. They always would, eventually. What mattered was how much more experience he got from these missions, as well as trying to survive.

There was a time when the skies were stated to be blue, and he lived only when he didn’t remember those skies. But hell, nobody told him to not want to see it- cause he really wanted to. Maybe he would.

After all, he probably wasn’t the only one who wanted to.

“Good work, Trad,” Ms. Cirsium told him as he left the area.

In the distant future of 2005, man has conquered the stars, colonizing world after world and never sating their lust for expansion. Of course, to these once peaceful planets where life had never even been a concept before, humanity also brought with them their hate and anger. Despite decades of technological advancement, no amount of distance could quell the violence within their hearts. So as man was inclined to do, they made war against each other and no where was the fighting more intense than on the planet Beacon in the Vale System.

Down on the planet's surface, a single squad of huntsmen walked alongside the canyon's edge, searching for the secret base of the White Fang. Huntsmen were the Federation's most elite mecha pilots, usually only sent in when a mission was deemed near suicidal for their regular forces. However, for some odd reason, everything appeared to be... quiet. It happened, albeit rarely. Sometimes command was given the wrong information and it ends up their time was nothing but a waste. Usually though that didn't happen with something as vital as the location of the White Fang's leader. How could military intelligence fuck up this badly? There was nothing here for miles.

"Hey Sarge, I think it's safe to say that this mission's a dud," Corporal Robert "Robin Hood" Fallson told his commanding officer, his mech kicking a large boulder down into the trench below as if it were a small pebble.

"Well it's a good thing that you're not the one in charge than Robin Hood. Otherwise, we'd have to return to the brass and tell them we gave up before finishing our recon," replied Staff Sergeant Sand Vespa, continuing to lead her team to the end of the designated combat area. She was a professional and that meant that she'd call this a bust if and when they were 100% sure the area was clear.

"Come ooooon. My feet hurt," a voice spoke up, this one belonging to Lance Corporal Trad "Druid" Oak who was sitting comfortably in his much heavier war machine. Unlike the others three, it was built for tanking damage rather than avoiding it, with the added bonus of also having the gun with the biggest punch.

The last member of the team rose her brow in confusion as she turned her head in Trad's direction. "How the hell can your feet hurt while sitting down for several hours, Druid?" Lance Corporal Violet "Wolf Girl" Steel questioned.

"The pedals on the H-variant require a lot more force to push forward. Compare pushing down on the accelerator during a long drive with holding down the brakes while stuck in traffic."

"You're just going to have to put up with it, Druid. We've still got a couple hundred klicks to go before I'm allowing any of you to call for pick up."

"Okay, we can't have the shuttle take us back home, but what if-"

"You're not going to order a pizza, Robin Hood."

"Damn. Am I really getting that predictable?"

"Yes."

Several more hours would go by with still no other signs of life. It was beginning to look like the corporal was right all along... until.

"Hey, Sarge?"

"What's your status, Wolf Girl?"

"Is it just me or do you see a shimmer up ahe-"

Bang! Suddenly, a shot rang out as a bullet the size of small car sped across the open ground. The screech of bending metal could be heard as it impacted with Robert's mech, completely severing the left arm and sending it into the canyon below.

"They've got active cloaking! Everybody scatter!" Sand called out to her squadmates, all four hulking machines diving for cover. With their large sizes, the best the team could do was stay as low to the ground as possible so they'd be the smallest target they could possibly be. With the exception of Trad of course. With his heavy armor and even heavier gun, the tank would lay down covering fire until everyone else could get their bearings.

"Druid! Do you have eyes on the tangos?! What are we dealing with here?"

"I saw the cloaking drop for a split second before they hunkered down... Sarge, it was black and white."

"Shit!"

A black and white color scheme was non-existent for a White Fang mecha to have. That palette was reserved only for one group. The Brothers Grimm. These four brothers were a PMC hired solely by the White Fang and they were the best damn pilots this side of the Milky Way. Each of their mechs were painted to represent an animal that coincided with their nickname. The eldest brother in the wolf mech was named Beowolf, the next one was Ursa in the bear, after him was Death Stalker who even had a scorpion-like tail welded onto the back of his, and finally Nevermore as the youngest who was most likely flying above their heads right at this very moment.

"Right. We need to move. If it's the Brothers Grimm then we're dead meat if we stay here." Sand began to push herself off the ground, lifting up the barrel of her rifle to cover their retreat. "We move on three. Everyone ready?"

"Ready to rock and roll, Sarge."

"I've got a round with Beowolf's name on it. This dustball only has room for one wolf."

"What about you, Robin Hood?" the staff sergeant asked her last remaining squadmate.

When no answer came though, she asked again. "Robin Hood, what's your status?!"

Still no answer.

"Robert!"

(Stopping here for now. If anyone's interested in more I could be convinced to write the rest of what I had planned, but that'll have to be after I get some sleep and get home from my shift in the morning. Sorry for the late entry @Crimmy)

(If you're wondering what the title has to do with the entry, the answer is nothing. I just wanted to find a way to include the pun and also couldn't think of a title. Sorry for the lack of kaijus.)

All she heard was her own breath.

All she saw was pitch blackness.

All she tasted was stale air.

All she smelled was a hint of the sweat off her brow.

And all she felt was the cold steel at her back.

She was far from dull in any one of these areas— by contrast, it was only through methods beyond the ken of normal man that she had begun to force definition through the filters placed upon her by this situation. An expert at manipulating aura and using it to bolster her own capabilities, she was being hailed as a once-in-a-generation product of her home. By pushing her aura through her nerves she could stretch her senses to the absolute limit and perceive things more clearly. This had results of mixed importance:

The faint ozone of ambient, latent electricity hiding within dust wafted through the air and into her nose.

She, if she strained her bluesteel eyes and pale skin, could see and feel control surfaces clearly enough to place her overall position within the box— and it really was just a steel box that she’d been enough of a dummy to lock herself into.

Upon her skin, the thin new-age membrane hugged her athletic and late-blooming figure tightly enough that she had some certain misgivings about it, but she had to admit that it was rather… ignorable for something vacuum-sealed. Whether or not that made it worse in her mind was, unfortunately, a point she could only hope to have long and heated arguments about later. Such things were fine in an Anno work, but this was her actual self, here!

Though maybe if a certain officer of the law could see it… No, that’s not right! She didn’t want that dummy to know about this, not at all! It wasn’t like it was even a consideration in the first place, it was above his hot police boy paygrade!

She fought to push the red out of her ears before focusing on what they were supposed to do— and in doing so, she heard the faintest hint of a voice saying something about starting up. That meant that incoming would be a—

BANG BANG.

A signal that it was time to begin operation.

She was told that this plugsuit served more of a purpose than to just titillate otaku with a visual reference and most guys everywhere with curvaceousness. Now it was time she put the theory to the test. She pushed her aura well, the one that had been bolstering her abilities and formed a natural barrier ‘round her person, into and through the conductive fabric—

And a world’s worth of information slammed into her every sense.

Sight, shapes, sharpness, clarity, color, detail, all fed through her eyes in a honeycomb that surrounded her.

The fresh air, tinged with a suggestion of salt, breezed against her as more impressions, suggestions than actually buffeting her physical skin, tongue, and nose.

A definite weight to her frame, hand-in-hand with her own but not conjoined. As though there was something heavy that was occupying the shadow she cast, following her movements but not quite her, the individual.

But most easy to process was, of course, hearing. Beyond the light hum of the charged wrath of nature that powered this beast she drove—

<<Target Course unchanged— Bearing Vector Two-Three-Zero, forty miles out.>>

<<Bastard’s taking his time. Thank Kami-sama for that.>>

<<We’re throwing a college kid in this thing?>>

<<A Beacon kid. Best educated out of all of us to take this thing on.>>

<<All motor and power systems looking green. Communications?>>

“Uh,” she responded to the clear and agreeable voice that played through the main on-board speakers the loudest, still adjusting from the sudden bombardment of knowledge that the ambients had given her. “Yeah. I hear everything. You guys got me?”

<<Loud and clear. Well, I wish we could do this a bit more gracefully, but it seems we made too many movies about giant monsters popping out from the ocean right under our noses. Universe called our cinemas on the bluff.>>

“You mean Kaiju, Captain Matsumoto.”

She heard her more-or-less-AWACS tsk, and she knew that the older man’s tanned brows furrowed under his aviators for a moment when she grinned impishly for the video feed. To his credit, he didn’t let it show in his voice.

<<For my sanity’s sake, I’m not calling anything a ‘Kaiju’ until Gojira himself washes up and kicks the shit outta this thing for us. How’s the COFFIN system treating you, Holly?>>

Now it was her turn to voice displeasure.

“For once, your skunkworks guys had good naming sense. I felt like I was dead in here before we got going.”

<<Well, let’s hope you never have the chance to compare that with the genuine article, else we all will. We’re clearing the field and lifting you out of the hangar now, so if you need one last refresher, now’s the time, pilot.>>

There wasn’t any humor in those words, despite their easy inflection. She may have been a bit goofy for somebody with her ability and training, at times even a “dummy” according to her friends, but Holly Schwarz knew the unsaid message in the man’s words: No more time for idle words. Cut the chatter.

“It certainly can’t hurt. Study before the night of the test to reconfirm the week you did beforehand, right?”

<<Wouldn’t we have killed for a full week.>>

As the captain made one last bone-dry remark, the young almost-Huntress watched her vision fill with the heads-up-display. Within that, a white point appeared and a screen of dark blue appeared in the upper left quadrant of her field of view, showing a map of the northern peninsula that Shiroyama bordered, and a chart attached to a point along the coast.

<<Five days ago, at 0110 hours, seismographs along the peninsular coast began picking up irregular vibrations in the earth. They were fairly faint in the grand tectonic scheme, but the fact that they were big enough to be picked up at all was cause for intrigue.>>

The graph was magnified, and Holly could pick it up as well. A distinct peak and valley, repeated in perfect intervals as the view scrolled across the day’s data.

Too perfect to be happenstance by miles.

<<So naturally, the scientists investigated— Diving teams were sent out, and they more or less managed to figure out the epicenter of these pulses.>>

“Under Hachiji Reef.” she said with a nod, treated to a rather pretty image of the marine “structure” for her efforts.

<<Exactly. That would have been strange enough, but evidently somebody amongst them had a few other thoughts. They took themselves a good, hard look at the sandbar and the distance between it and one of the eight “temples” and found that it had shifted roughly two feet south—with no real explanation.>>

“It couldn’t have been a riptide.”

<<Too deep for currents like that, and this was the only abnormality in the ocean save for one other.>>

“Desert reef.” she answered, flexing her hand and feeling the giant mass of steel mimic the motion. Aura patterning was insane, essentially turning her into the brain within the brain of the machine. They really were going to turn something like this against Vale in the War?

<<Not only that, but the seismographs began to show increasing frequency, and both terrestrial animals and Grimm alike also began to flee the area in droves to move inland. You might remember that. The eggheads did, and when they put those three finding together they basically scrambled their way to us as soon as they could. Whenever every beast’s instincts howl at them to book it…>>

“Something big and nasty is on the way.” she finished, tone grim. She did remember that day— even Slate had found it in him to put his training to actual use instead of just swindling kids out of jawbreaker money.

“I can make a killing when there are this many to tear through, Holly.” he had said in that same put-upon tone he used to complain about Tanner Oshino’s ridiculous Hawaiian shirts, like he was offended he was having to experience her honest surprise. “Why wouldn’t I be out here, doing my part for the sake of my team leader’s community?”

<<So, we were skeptical at first, but the mayor’s immediate granting of heightened security clearances to key staff and greenlighting of reactivating the project you’re sitting in gave everyone the bureaucratic shove we needed to take it seriously. He obviously knew something we didn’t. We were glad we did once the tides receded like a Redwood man’s—>>

“Does he have the power to do that?” Holly asked, incredulous enough to whip her head around towards the control tower and barrel right over the captains diplomatic insensitivity before it could coalesce. “Isn’t that overstepping bounds?”

<<...Well, looks like you can move this thing like a natural. Good sign. And, to answer your question…>>

A helpful image of the bearded man, mouth set in a stern line and orange shades illuminated by bright white light, appeared on her screen.

<<Are you going to tell him no?>>

The young woman grimaced in spite of having stared down the stuff of nightmares and laughed in their faces.

“I guess not… Not if our home’s at stake.”

To her shock, the “image” then steepled his gloved hands in front of him, obscuring his mouth.

<<I appreciate, Miss Black Blade, that you see the bigger picture. My first priority always is the well-being of our fellow Shiroyamans, and that includes the defeat of a rampaging monster on the scale of a natural disaster.>>

“Y-You’re here, sir?!”

<<I am. I expect great things out of you two. A Huntress should be allowed to use whatever means necessary to defend her homeland. To hell with the treaty if it says we can’t reactivate this for exactly that. Good luck out there.>>

His brow tightened, and the video feed winked out with one final message.

<<The gods know we all need it.>>

A pregnant pause, before Matsumoto took charge of the comms once again.

“There we have it…”

<<We’re all riding on this, Holly. And to speak of riding—>>

Next to pop up was a detailed model of her chariot, and she got one final chance to study it in-depth. It was absolutely a mecha— a towering giant of steel and aluminum in the shape and body plan of a heavy armored, heavily armed man. While more gracile in build than many would assume a robot of its some 60 meters would be, there was a definite…

Hm. A definite sense of “ah, this is a prototype” about it. Perhaps it lay in the boxier, more jagged armor plating where she could easily see a more streamlined profile in the prospective future, perhaps in the unornamented helmet plating upon the head, or maybe even the dull, uninspired military grey coat of paint. Perhaps the name at the top right, a simple and blocky “X-01”.

But, fortunately, aesthetics weren’t what saved the world. Several eye points were highlighted in red, starting at the head and working their way down.

<<Seems like you already have a handle on moving this thing, blessed be the design team that came up with the Auric Pattering system, so we’ll start with armaments. Up top, you’ve got a pair of 30mm autocannons that… honestly, could be a distraction in a pinch or catch the thing’s eyes. Unfortunately a GAU-8 would be too wonky to mount onto you, plus we don’t exactly have Warthogs lying around to cannibalize from.>>

Moving down past the shoulders(! No progressive knife!), the captain continued by dragging and dropping a very large bullpup rifle into the hands of the X-01, with the label of “Type 53” appearing.

<<The Type 53’s your best bet. Developed alongside the big guy, you’ll be pumping out 120 millimeters of hot lead at this thing with a maximum rate of 20 rounds a minute. Semi-auto only, automatic at that size would be a nightmare.>>

“And if it gets screwed up?” she asked, eternally wary of the nightmarish “jammed gun” scenario. In response, the focus shifted upwards, to the X-01’s forearm.

<<Should you need to get down and dirty and go out swinging, within each wrist is a telescoping sword— you’ll be working with about 15 meters of aircraft-grade steel here, so it’s better than nothing, but we’d like to avoid that. At pretty much all costs. Melee Combat’s going to involve more movement, thus more power and Dust usage. You run out of dust in there, you’re stuck on the manual controls, and you’re good as cooked.>>

“I dunno, I like to think I’m pretty good at swordplay. I could get it done quick.” she chided, before a red triangle appeared on her HUD’s radar display. The Beast From Below, creeping inexorably closer, closer, closer to humanity. To Shiroyama.

To home.

…

“So that’s it, then.” she spoke simply, with little inflection beyond acceptance.

<<In a nutshell.>> Captain Matsumoto solemnly agreed. A silence hung in the air…

And then the sirens began.

“Well, let’s make it snappy.”

<<Mission Start.>>

The generators that had been feeding constant electricity to the mechanical knight released in concert, freeing Holly of her last restraints. Weight, balance, horsepower, locomotion— through the Aura patterning and feedback system she could feel them all. Account for them all. Adjust for them all.

Own them all.

“Unit X-01, launch!”

The goliath, upon whose shoulders carried mankind’s hope for salvation, burst forward into a sprint, snatching the massive Type 53 DMR off the flatbed truck that was to transport it to her in a smooth motion that was almost humanoid.

She was moving well, very well. She could feel her giant frame storming through the air, above trees, and towards combat, towards an absolute uncertainty that she would bring the fullest brunt of her might to bear upon for the sake of her own. Her soul was inhabiting this machine, giving it the instruction firsthand, an Exalted Argus of not destruction, but salvation.

Well, okay, yes destruction, but destruction of bad guys and kaiju. It was different!

This was destroying a threat to those she cared about. Those she loved. Her team. Her family. Her home. The man she intended to marry one day. All of them were depending on her, whether they knew it or not, to destroy this thing. To win.

It had to be her. Nobody else had the aura, finesse, and youthful resilience to pull this thing off and come out in one piece.

In this moment, she was Shiroyama’s guardian. A young woman with a pretty face, long black hair sporting an ahoge that was prey to its own weight, and a heart beating with the hot blood of an old, old family of monster hunters.

<<Target’s a mile out. Godspeed.>>

“Let’s go, you ugly bastard.”

She drew upon the Beast in minutes, and was greeted with something that seemed far more nightmarish than even the Grimm she had faced in droves through her burgeoning Beacon career.

It was huge, towering over even the X-01 by a good five, even ten meters, and easily over a hundred long when one too its powerful tail into account.

A long crocodylian snout dominated its head, with powerful jaws working a maw filled with teeth the size of a man..

A gait like a gorilla’s, with stumpy, short hind legs acting has mere supports while massive forelimbs did locomotive work.

A body with rippling muscle, matted with sickly green scales and ashen fur that reminded Holly of rotting seaweed and the carcass of a goat. At certain key points like the head and pack, the scales fused into plates— including the eight distinct spines that still carried the reef that had grown atop the beast during its slumber.

But worst of all were the eyes. So deeply set within the skull that the shadows the brow cast made them seem just black pits. Could that thing see?

A roar of warning, high and hellish like a tortured shriek, assaulted her ears through the speakers, followed by a low bass rumble of a growl as it began to warily circle through the plain. Warning the strange, shiny new thing its size, that looked so much like the tiny things it used to stomp as ants and make light, light morsel of.

Evidently it could.

“Well, let’s see if I can’t mess up your hearing, Kaiju-kun.”

THOOM.

In one smooth motion, she had shouldered the Type 53 and fired straight into the damn thing’s solar plexus. The impact staggered it, stopped it in it’s tracks, and even earned a cry of pain—

Before it lunged furiously forward, swiping at her with absolutely enormous claws. Holly kicked off to the side, carrying herself and the mech out of their path and avoiding instant defeat by a hair. This thing was fast…

As if the sound of metal tearing wasn’t proof enough of that.

<<Schwarz! Status, now!>>

“Fine!” she grunted in response, backpedaling and shouldering to fire again. “He clawed through my left forearm’s plating, but I’m still in it!”

<<It looks like that first shot pissed him off, shit…>>

“No, it was worth it!” she replied, diving to one side and thanking the designers for the extra mobility and deftness of movement that this prototype had been built to possess over common mecha understanding. “I definitely hurt him, his armor’s chipping there!”

<<If you could feasibly whittle it down, yeah, but he’s moving too quick for such a huge animal! If it keeps you moving, you’ll be stuck in manual before you know!>>

Well, it wasn’t as though her mech was any better. It was truly responding as faithfully as she could have ever hoped. Strength, speed, the full capability were available, and it was just as well when the Beast opened its maw wide and pounced, intending to no doubt bite off the X-01’s head and blind her.

Though metal would never quite have that whip-like crack on a good front kick like your own body could, the young Shiroyaman was definitely satisfied that a teep intercepting the monster’s lunge sent it tumbling to the earth from midair.

Finally having bought a moment, she fired again—

THOOM.

And hit the same spot once more, heavily damaging that section of chest armor. To stand up to two tank shells in a row, pinpointed on the same spot was proof of this guy’s toughness, sure, but at the moment her pinpoint accuracy with them had severely compromised it.

Forget the Dust worries.

She could do this. She could win. She woul—

<<What in the hell are those energy re— Schwarz, GET OUT OF THERE!>>

The beast had slowly hauled itself up with pained roars, displeased, angry, tiring, losing.

And then it had showed its eyes.

Within those shadowy pits, the baleful yellow orbs within first appeared when they glimmered—

Glowed—

Shone—

And Holly’s danger sense ROARED at her, louder even than the triumphant screech that heralded the lance of raw force that she narrowly, narrowly hurled herself out of the way of.

Too narrowly. The explosion carried thousands of tons of metal into the sky, sailing and tumbling end over end until Holly crashed back to earth with an impact that jarred her bones even deep within the metal cage.

Her COFFIN was damaged. But, it might have also lived up to its name once again. Her feedback was on the fritz. She lost ambient senses like sound and scent, her vision was effectively halved, and worst of all…

“Matsumoto-san?” she blearily asked, desperately trying to right her mech, to get its legs under it, as the Beast cautiously stalked towards her.

<<...>>

Garbled. Unintelligible. Dammit. Dammit! Not now, not here! Not with so much at stake!

It was upon the X-01 as it rose to its feet, looming over it imperiously like an old god would a mortal man.

She refused, and saw the city she had grow up in, depending on her whether they knew it or not, her family at the forefront.

Quickly thinking, Holly grabbed the warped and useless barrel of the Type 53, swinging the whole affair into the snapping jaw of the beast hard enough that the heat-weakened metal gave out entirely.

She refused, and saw three figures, those of the people she was chosen to lead in their journey to true huntsmanship, to greatness. A hawaiian-shirted mysticist, a drone-building pinkette, and a dour penny-pincher. All waiting for her to come home and buy them the next “mission accomplished” dinner.

“Eat this!”

She fought to shove the metal lump down the maw of the beast, and lost that entire hand for her trouble. Acceptable. Maybe. It had ripped it clean off, but it lost a valuable second or two spitting the barrel out and freeing up its jaw.

She refused, and saw a lance-wielding woman exactly her age, with a knack for magic and a love of strawberry.

“Why don’t you…”

She charged forward, telescoping sword extending out from the ruined wrist, and slashing across the chest, hoping to capitalize on the weakened plate—

But it was fruitless. The blade was damaged from the improper extension, the steel still couldn’t penetrate the scale, a slash would glance off due to the angling of the Beast’s armor.

And now she had it right on top of her.

It grasped at the mech’s arms, forcing down, bringing its weight, it’s might to bear. Holly’s own arms burned and felt ready to snap from the sheer force of feedback alone, as muscle ground against steel and motor for dominance— and was winning.

Through her damaged COFFIN’s window, she saw it glaring down at her with its enraged, hateful yellow eyes. Eyes that began to glimmer—

She was running out of Dust. Running out of Aura. Was this it?

And glow—

Did she lose here?

And shine—

Did she die here?

The glare crescendoed into a cross, heralding the unholy spear of light to come—

And the head-mounted autocannons roared to life, filling those dark pits with searing lead.

She refused, and saw a scruffy young man in a deputy’s uniform, earnestly cheeky smirk on his face, black hair an eternal bird’s nest, and grey eyes filled with a staunch adherence to and belief in justice.

She refused, for all their sakes, to die.

The beast squealed, clutching at its eyes in agony and rearing back onto is hind legs once more. And if this machine, if the X-01 could conduct aura, the soul itself, to guide it’s movements…

“...Just—”

So too could a Semblance, the soul’s purest expression.

The second blade was drawn, from the opposite, fully functional wrist— but it was a blade of pitch black, catching the light with a dangerous obsidian gleam for a mere moment.

“—FUCKING—”

And then plunged it through the dent, through the armor, through muscle and bone and heart itself. With every ounce of force she had, she had stabbed it straight through, all but punching the sword in. The cries of pain were now weakening, gargling moans, punctuated by the fevered yet pitiful swiping of an animal that had only one thing left in life to do.

“...Die.”

She twisted the blade to vertical, and ripped upwards.

As the panicked military teams arrived on site, they would find that their grey War Experiment had received a fresh coat of red paint. Its existence would continue to be kept under wraps from the public, and was officially still registered as decomissioned to avoid major diplomatic backlash from the country that Shiroyama had spent decades integrating into— old weapons of wars long past, it was said, were to pass with them—

But it would still remain an ace in the hole for years to come, in case another monster, perhaps an unchecked Vrirtra, arose like this one.

And the young woman within, one exhausted Holly Schwarz of just twenty years, had just logged its first and only recorded kill: 1 Kaiju.

Even by the time he had retired and she'd become the mother to three that would follow in her footsteps, she still teased Captain Matsumoto about having to call it that.

Halloween. All Hallows Eve. I find it ironic that we, the people of Remnant, celebrate this Holiday. In ancient times, it was believed that the as fall turned to winter, the realm of the dead grew closer to the realm of the living. and the spirits of those who died could meet once more with those who still lived. Including the spirits of the Grimm. Hunters and Huntresses slain by the Grimm, and the ghosts of the defeated Grimm themselves would rise and do battle once more. The Grimm, to do what the Grimm do: kill and destroy. The Hunters to guard both living and dead on their journeys. It was a day of fear.

Fire was believed to have great significance to the dead. It’s light and warmth would remind the Departed of the life they once had and provide a beacon to rally them to the dwellings of the living they are to protect. Upon the Grimm, it was said to have much the opposite effect. The fire’s heat and brilliance would burn them and weaken them. But the fires alone were not enough. Some crafty Grimm would take on monstrous, but somewhat human forms to lure the living away from fire and safety. To go about their business in safety away from the fire, both the spirits and the humans would put on masks and costumes so that the spirits of the Grimm could not be sure if they are attacking a vulnerable human or a powerful Hunter in disguise or even one of their own. To tell each other apart, the humans and spirits would go about begging boons of those they met, with the threat of attacking if they failed on the theory that Grimm were incapable of basic goodness. These legends were flanderized and built upon until Halloween as we know it came to be.

Which still doesn’t adequately explain why I’m wearing this bloody costume.

“Feeeerriiiisssss!” Called a female voice all the way from downstairs. “Hurry up! We’re gonna be laaaaaate!”

“Yeah yeah, hold your horses, sis.” I muttered, not bothering to yell back. I took one last look at myself in the large, vertical mirror hanging up on my bedroom wall. Staring back was a reflection I didn’t quite recognize. Me, but not me. I tugged (gently) at the ridiculous collar. “I cannot believe I let myself get talked into this.” I grumbled, not the first time. And not the last either. I worked my jaw, feeling with my tongue the strange obstructions in my mouth. I made faces at myself at myself and amused myself practicing getting an accent down. “…I want…No, not quite…I vant…Hm…I vunt…too much?”

“FEEEEERRRRRRRISSSSSSS!!!” Came the cry again, so loud I fancied it shook the very walls.

“ALL VIGHT, ALL VIGHT!” I yelled back, finally provoked into answering, but unintentionally doing so in the cheesy accent. Woops. Hopefully the walls would muffle and distort the sound enough that it wouldn’t be noticed. Otherwise I’d never live it down. I flourished the dreadful costume one last time in the mirror before grabbing my now empty coffee mug, sitting on a dresser, and venturing out to placate an impatient sibling.

I stepped carefully down the broad staircase, getting a good view of the commotion going on in common room as I did. Three creatures had taken over the place and made it their den. A bleached white ghost stood nearby the door, looking quite cross, a small, ginning witch ran around, giggling madly, and a great, black Nevermore with folded wings lounged on the couch. A fire that occasionally turned various colors crackled in the hearth and spiderwebs hung everywhere, spiders included, amid décor that leaned toward the black and orange and featured many spooky decorations. A grinning skull hung, sat, or peered out everywhere you looked, a few with the rest of the bones included. Incongruously, one appeared to be playing the trumpet. Some of the skulls were even Grimm-like in shape, including a whopper over the mantel that was life-sized. Other decorations included grinning pumpkins, miniature Grimm, and a fog-belching humidifier shaped like a witch’s cauldron, cackling, stirring witch included. The windows were open and clear, but I knew they were set up to project holographic images of ghosts, ghouls, and other nasties that go bump in the night when darkness fell. The whole effect seemed garish to me, but tis the season, I guess.

“There you are.” The Ghost snapped, watching me duck a low-hanging web on my way down. “Honestly, we were ready to leave without you.”

What a shame that would be.

The Nevermore on the couch leaned back to look at me and grinned. “I told her if she kept looking so cross, she’d ward you off.”

Groan. Oh Li.

I had a feeling he was going to keep this up all day, then get worse during the night.

As I bottomed out from the stairs, I was abruptly tackled by the little witch. Although, considering she was no taller than my waist, the effect was somewhat diminished. “Fen!” She shouted with glee, then squealing in delight as I picked her up and swung her about. “Hiya, Del.” I laughed, setting her down. Delany, my youngest sibling, looked ready to burst from joy. Despite being eight, she either refused to or was unable to pronounce my name properly, so I generally got called some odd abbreviated version. “Look! Look!” She laughed, bouncing backwards and a twirling a bit. “I got a costume, Imma which!” She somehow made it sound like the wrong homonym. “You look…” I searched for a word. “…Fantastic.” I finished, unable to find one that properly conveyed what I wanted. Indeed, she did. The little witch had on a great, big, black pointed hat that dominated her little frame, and might have been a size too big. It kept slipping down, causing her to push it up again. Her little black curls just barely escaped the rim to poke out but were nearly lost in that great black expanse. Beneath it, she wore a long dress so black it seemed a shadow with shiny silver buttons and a cape that that hung all the way to the floor, shortened just a tad so that it wasn’t in danger of being stepped upon. It had big, poofy shoulders and was closed in at the wrists, covering her faunus feathers. Her face and neck where done in light green paint that matched the gloves over her feathery hands. And, of course, it came with a genuine wood and twig broom, taller than her. It was simplistic, but convincing. The dress was of a high-quality fabric and the paint was meticulously done in an even shade that didn’t show fingerprints or brushstokes. Her costume reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Del looked puzzled. “What do fans have to do with it?” She asked. Groan, again. Li’s bad influence I bet.

I bent down and booped her on the nose. “You’ve been hanging around Li too long.” I accused, attempting to sound somber, but my voice was colored with laughter anyway. She was too gosh darn cute.

“Ah-hem.” The impatient poltergeist by the door faux coughed. “Come on!” She demanded. I exchanged a long-suffering glance with Li. This was going to be a long night. The raven-faunus carefully got to his feet, and I got a good look at his costume. It, like Del’s, was fabulously made. It took advantage of his natural faunus wings to create a disturbingly convincing Nevermore. He wore a cloak, black, with a carpet of hanging feathers and a long, sweeping tail that hung down and back. His legs were covered in pants that were patterned to give the illusion of more feathers, and his feet ended in white talons that clacked softly on the wood floor. His very real black wings were folded behind him currently, but, when spread, they created an ominous shadow. On his hands were gloves with white fingers, obviously imitating claws. But the real shocking part of his costume was the mask he was donning: Bone-white and patterned with red, the long top part had four red-orange eyes and painted with the ominous signature red design of mankind’s greatest enemy. It angled forward and ended in a terrifying black beak. I say mask, but it was really almost a full helmet, part of it went over his head and down his back, true to form as the jagged protrusions on a real Nevermore. Even knowing it wasn’t real, having face one before, his costume made me uneasy.

Fear. A gallium kind, that bypasses rational thought and appeals to the instincts, but disappears when you stir it up and take a close look.

“You look like an overgrown dyed chicken.” I told him, ignoring the increasingly impatient ghost.

“And you look like you stepped out of a B-rate novel. At least I’m actually frightening.”

“To whom? Children? Babies? Chiefs? The Fashion Police?”

Before he could get a word in edgewise, the ghost shouted, “Guys!”

We turned to her, Li putting a hand on his chest and feigning surprise with his body language. “Oh! So sorry, little ghost. I didn’t see you there. I thought I heard a rush of air, though.”

I lifted a hand chuckled softly into it. Unfortunately, she noticed.

“You are so mean and- and rude! Rude rude rude rude Rude!” She gestured angrily and stomped. I fancied I could see steam coming off her. Winding Rosa up was Li’s favorite pastime. She has a hair-trigger temper and gets frustrated easily. That combined with her obstinate dislike of wordplay, often lead to the two of them clashing. How she didn’t inherit our mother’s fondness for them, I’ll never know. Li’s love of it, despite not being directly related, was just as much a mystery to me. Despite being sixteen, she could be more childish than Del sometimes. Then again, those ‘sometimes’ tended to coincide with Li’s teasing and my, occasional (er, maybe frequent) joining in. But hey. Siblings.

Her costume, and the source of Li’s current jibs, was just as quality as the rest of ours. She wore a white dress that was artfully sewn to look torn and ragged, trailing lace from her arms and body. Wrapped about her was a light, silvery chain that connected to an iron-colored, realistic-looking lantern. It even glowed, not with fire though, but a little lightbulb on the inside. Her natural white hair merged seamlessly with extenders that fell about her, giving her an ethereal appearance. Her face, arms, and nearly every bit of skin was a faded white with what must have taken a massive amount of paint and work to cover. Her face was a few shades paler than the rest, and she had dark circles painted around her amber eyes that she and I shared with our mother. Her lips were a glossy silvery, just enough to give them distinction, and were currently set somewhere between a pout and a scowl. A dark colored amulet gave a spot of color to break the monotone.

Damn, Mom really came through and went all out on our costumes this year.

“She’s a ghost all right.” I leaned in and said to Li in a sotto voce that was clearly meant to carry. “Our own, private poltergeist.”
Li grinned and nodded, playing along. “She certainly has the loud and obnoxious part down.”

Del giggled.

“Uuuugh. You two! Mrrrhgrrrgrr.” Rosa growled, words failing her.

Li and I laughed, Del joined in, and after a few seconds of irritation, Rosa did too. Until a voice from the kitchen made us jump.
“Li! Ferris! Quit pestering your sister and get going!”

“Okay Mom.” Li and I called back at the same time. Ritual ribbing done, the four of us gathered our props and things and were out the door.

In the little town near by our current house, Halloween was a major all-day festival. It was, in part, dedicated to a successful harvest and one good day of fun before the long winter. Winters in Atlas could be brutal, with Christmas being the only real pleasantry throughout. It was a time to enjoy ourselves and ward off the fear of a longer-or-colder-than-usual winter, which rarely happened, but could be devastating. Grimm seemed to like the dark, winter days and it was often hard to keep one’s hopes up. So, in typical human fashion, we throw a big party to spit in the face of what we fear.

This kind of fear is an Aluminum fear: shiny and useful, but weak, insubstantial, and buried everywhere. But, despite being malleable, it’s enduring.

As we walked the distance from our house, our shoes left imprints on the freshly fallen snow and crunched softly. Mom really knew her stuff. Despite the mild chill in the air, we were warm in our costumes. I kept an eye on Del, being the youngest and most susceptible to the cold, but I didn’t need to worry. She was skipping and laughing and running around without a care in the world. This Halloween was mostly for her, Li and I were a bit old for Trick or Treating, being eighteen and seventeen, respectively. We were mostly around for chaperoning. Rosa was getting there, but she could have one last year of fun being a kid on Halloween.

“Man, these costumes are amazing.” Li said, interrupting my thoughts. “Mom really out did herself.” Despite not being related, he still called his stepmother “Mom”. I think it’s a sign of respect. They get along famously. Which, considering their shared interests, isn’t surprising.

“Agreed.” I said, looking down at myself. His next words made me freeze in my tracks.

“They are also excellent for hiding weapons.”

Rosa looked aghast. “Li, you didn’t.”

He reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a familiar long, metal pole.

“Highwind, eh?” I said, recognizing his gunlance. “I thought Mom forbade us from carrying weapons to Trick or Treating.”

“Oh yeah? Is that Damocles in your pocket or do you just like candy that much?”

“Huh?” Delaney tilted her head, looking at Li.

Rosa sighed. “Del, please forget what your brother just said.”

I placed my hand on Damocles, tucked in my belt, hidden beneath the cape. “I couldn’t leave it. I’d feel naked without it.”

Li gave a ‘well-there-you-go’ gesture. “Ditto here.”

I eyed him. “A pistol is one thing. A rifle-cum-spear is another.”

Highwind somehow disappeared beneath his cloak. “What spear?” He asked, innocently, holding out his hands, showing that they were empty.

I raised an eyebrow. “You missed your calling as a stage magician.”

As we walked, Li and I fell back a little, behind Rosa and Del, who had grabbed her sister’s hand and was talking animatedly. “Jokes aside,” He said in a rare moment of seriousness, “I think your costume is the best.”

I blink at the unexpected complement. “Really? I think it looks rather…showy.”

He clapped me on the back, driving me forward a stumbling step. Hunter training had really built him up and he had some serious strength. “That’s because you have the fashion sense of a rock: you wear nothing but boring, plain gray.”

“I like it.” I said defensively. “And rocks can be colorful.”

“Not the ones in your head.” He laughed, all seriousness gone. I growled and bent down to scoop up a snowball, but he skipped away, still laughing. I straightened and bounced the snowball in my hand, scowling after my elder brother. “One of these days…Pow!” I grumbled, tossing the ball with a flick into a distant pine tree. It soared true, splattering against the trunk and leaving a white smear.

I checked my costume again. Was it really stylish? For me, Mom had chosen a vampire theme: The outfit consisted of a lavish cape, royal purple on the inside and a much darker purple on the outside. It flared up at the collar, forming a pair of crisp triangles that flared outward. Beneath them on the mantel part was embroidered in gold thread designs reminiscent of bat wings. It hung down my chest ending in a zig-zag of knife-like geometric strips. Over my right shoulder was a throw of black feathers with gold decorations. Its purpose was beyond me. The whole cape was bound together and held by a spindle of golden thread across my throat. Underneath the ostentatious cape I wore a vest the same shade as the inside of the cape, edged in gold, over a stiff, light grey shirt whose collar mimicked the cape’s by flaring up and out at my throat. Around my neck and tucked into the vest was a black tie embroidered in silver with my Hunter’s symbol. Fortunately, the silken pants were much less showy and much more comfortable, being unremarkable other than being the same shade of purple as the outside of my cape. Heavy, black boots and white gloves with gold cuffs completed the ensemble. And of course, not one to miss small details, and being supremely multi-talented, Mom had somehow crafted fake but super realistic fangs and pointed ears, which I had ruefully put on.

I will admit, the look strongly appealed to my dramatic nature. But to be wearing it myself?

“Hurry up, Count Weiser!” Li called. “We’re leaving you behind.” I grumbled at my brother’s cursed sense of humour and spend up.



The town was only a brief walk away, taking us mere minutes. We could hear the merrymaking and see the light from the bonfires long before we arrived. Decorations abounded, from the silly to the downright morbid. Someone had hung a stuffed dummy from a tall oak tree in the middle of the town square. Graves, skeletons, zombies, pumpkins, reapers, and Grimmwards, carvings containing symbols that supposedly warded off the Grimm abounded. Nearly everyone we passed wore a costume of variating quality. Some were elaborate (like ours), others were merely bedsheets and rags draped on. There were wagons and carts of goodies, stalls and games and things to do or eat everywhere. After warming ourselves by one of the enormous bonfires, we immediately made a break for the sweets. Li, Rosa, and especially Del, love caramel apples. I didn’t take one. I’m not fond of caramel. True to form, Li ribbed me about it. I did, however, partake in the chocolates, nuts, and oh gods the coffee!!!. Being stuck out in the cold made a hot drink even better, as if that was possible for coffee. I was sure to sample every coffee stand I could drag my siblings to and even a few I didn’t. We all had a stipend of Lien for spending and I blew most of mine on coffee, coffee, COFFEE!

…ahem.

Besides the food and drink, there was a costume judging which all four of us entered. We stood around for what felt like hours as people came in to enter and show off. In the end, I won third, second went to a couple who looked like a pair of animated skeletons and Li, of all people, was voted first. Apparently, not many had the gall to show up dressed as a creature of Grimm and the judges loved him for that. Del won first in the kid’s division. Did I mention Mom’s sewing skills and creativity are top-notch? She proudly displayed her Skull-shaped trophy to everyone. I thought the thing was a bit morbid for a kid, and I wondered if the same person who had designed it was also in charge of the decorations. I’d bet Lien it was so.

Later in the evening, we went by the usual haunted house, which Del begged to go in, and Rosa tried valiantly to refuse. She failed, in the end. Del had the most fun, shrieking and giggling at the jumpscares and gasping in horror at the morbid décor.

I reflected, once more on fear. This was an interesting concept: the illusion of fear without any of the actual danger. Quicksliver fear: a flash and then it’s gone. Somehow this is entertainment?

Being a Hunter, well, one in training, I wasn’t impressed at the false fear. How can I, when I had felt true fear? Fear with genuine danger and no guarantee of safety? That kind of fear is a coppery fear. You taste blood and tremble, your nerves drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer, but it does and grows more until you think you might die just from the fear itself. It closes your throat and clouds your mind until it’s nothing more than a whimpering animal that chooses between fight or flight.

Li seemed to not share my, as he called it, morose, attitude. He played along like a champ for his younger sister, jumping with her, intensifying the mood when he could, then cracking a joke when the tension got too thick, sending her into fits of quaking laughter. Poor Rosa actually seemed frightened. She turned pale as a, well, ghost, and clung to my arm the whole time. I just soldiered on. I think the expression on my face was scarier than the house itself, because one look and the actors left us alone. Which was fine with both of us. Rosa and I emerged long after Li and Del, having been separated along the way. Rosa has slowed our progress to a crawl.

Li, never one to miss a beat, called out when he saw us. “Hey, Rosa! You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Were there mirrors?”

“Rust off jackass.” She snarled. Well then. Li was probably ginning like a fool, but I couldn’t see it underneath his mask.

“Aww, come on. Just trying to lift your spirits!”

“Li.” I drawled slowly, holding up as fist. “You crack one more pun and I’ll crack that stupid mask and your face behind it.”

“Looks like you’re the one who’s cracked.”

I smiled at him. Nice and wide, fangs on display. I took a step toward him and raised my fist.

He backed away a bit.

“H-hey, look! A coffee stand we haven’t been to.”

That’s cheating. But it worked. Right up until I later pegged him with a snowball when he wasn’t looking.

“Oh that’s it.” He shouted, scooping up a fistfull of snow himself.

Which rightfully kicked off a snowball free-for-all. It was getting late and sometime during the day, he snow had started falling again, giving plenty of ammunition for all. Some other kids even joined in until our section of town was a blizzard of flying snow, more flying through the air then lying on the ground. You couldn’t stand up without getting hit at least three times. Li had set aside his mask at some point, and I showed my gratitude by a very well-aimed three pointer curve ball in his obnoxious mouth. He repaid the favor by getting innocent Del to scoop snow down my back. Cheeky bastard.

Eventually, an ice ball flew into a window breaking it, causing a chain reaction. Someone got mad and every one of us made ourselves scarce, zipping off in every direction with the practiced speed of mischievous children who know they didn’t do it.

Puffing and giddy with adrenaline, I stopped underneath the eaves a house. In the confusion, I lost track of my siblings. But, I wasn’t too worried. All of us had our Scrolls, and I immediately popped mine out to call Li.

It was nearly dark, even later then I had thought, the twilight closing in like a curtain being drawn on a play. But these actors weren’t finished. Around town, the bonfires were being stoked in preparation for the night’s revelry. Trick or Treating, dancing, songs and tales told around the fire by gleemen and minstrels.

Li picked up in a single ring. “Epicenter of the Universe, God Speaking…”

Yes. I swear. He answered the phone like that. I wish I was joking.

I couldn’t help myself. I facepalmed. “Goddammit, Li.”

“Nnnnope, sorry. I don’t do that anymore. Would you like to be transferred to the department downbelow?”

I grunted. “Quit messing around, Li. I lost Del and Rosa in the confusion, are they with you.”

His voice suddenly went completely serious. “No. I lost them too. I was about to ask you.”

“Great. Ring Del, and I’ll do Rosa. Call back when I get ahold of her.”

“Roger Roger.”

Oh Li.

I hung up and pulled up Rosa’s number.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Click

Voicemail.

Fear. This was a different fear. Lead fear, piling up in my stomach. Heavy. Hard. I told myself that there was nothing to be afraid of, she probably left it on silent or, worse case, dropped it. But all the same, I had an uneasy sensation in the bit of my stomach that I couldn’t explain. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a shiver passed through me.

My phone suddenly rang in my hand, making me jump.

Silvery fear, a flash that ran like lightning through me, setting my heart pounding and my adrenaline pumping. Cursing softly, I answered, knowing who it was from caller id.

“I can’t get a hold of her.”

All business. Serious tone.

I felt my blood freeze. Something wasn't right.

Iron Fear. The kind of absolute certainty that something bad has or will happen.

“Li.”

“I feel it too.”

There was a tension in the air and it was suddenly deathly quiet.

And that’s when the screams started.
Punctuated by the roars of the creatures of Grimm.

Silver and Copper played a medley on my nerves. I had to move. I had to find my sister.
I was trembling. I was running. But I was also frozen in place. WhatdoIdowhatdoIdosomanyplacestogosomanytolook!

I heard Li take a deep breath. “Listen little brother. We divide the town. I’m on the north side and those screams sounded like they came from the south.”

Following his example, I took a deep breath too, strangling my panic and dumping it into a river. “I-I heard it from the east.” I looked around and consulted my mental map. I’m near the center of town.”

“Right. I’ll head east, you go southeast. Check in a clockwise circle, if you meet Grimm try to put them down but don’t get tangled up fighting. You are on search and rescue, find and protect the people, take them somewhere safe, if possible.”

“B-but Rosa! Delaney!”

“I know. But don’t let your concern for them stop you from helping others who are in danger. Remember your semblance and use it wisely. There are groups of seasoned Hunters stationed nearby for just this occasion. They will head for the Grimm, so the best way we can help is to protect and rescue. The Shield to their Sword, understand?”

“Yes.” I managed, the familiar call of battle sequences helping me calm my nerves as discipline took over.

“Good. We will meet back at the house. If you find them, go there.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck.” He said softly.

“D-don’t need it.” I grinned, trying to muster some bravado.

The line went dead.

“Southeast.” I pulled out a coin, always kept on me, dropped it and stomped on it to keep it from rolling. “Hold on. I’m coming for you.” Activating my semblance, I shot up into the air on lines of blue and flew across town.



From my vantage point in the air, I could see fires breaking out along the east side, already the air was full of the smell of smoke. Alarms, wailed, the universal alarm for a Grimm attack. But something confused me, how had they gotten this close? Scouts and Sentries were posted all around towns like this one. Especially this one. The alarm should have already been raised, or even not at all once the Hunters moved in and eliminated the Grimm without a ruckus. But here they were and that was all that mattered now. I bounced from rooftop to rooftop, Pushing off the convenient metals abundant in construction. I angled my flight in the desired direction. The snow was falling even more heavily now, swirling about in my wake and getting in my eyes. The temperature was rapidly dropping as well, as if nature itself was reacting to the presence of the Grimm.

There! Between the buildings. I spotted a black, fast shape I identified quickly as a Creep. I alighted on the nearest building and sighted down Damocles (When did I even draw it?) The air was still and the street straight. I could make the shot.

Bang!

One.

It dropped and rolled. I made sure it was dissolving as I moved in. The town had really cleared fast. This wasn’t the first attack, so people were used to the protocols and procedure. Most of them were probably huddled in bunkers and cellars underground. Still, I need to sweep for any that didn’t make it. Nothing here, moving on. Please let them be safe oh please let them be safe. My worry for Del and Rosa gnawed at my nerves.

This fear was Magnesium. It burned quick, it burned bright, and it burned hot.

I kept this fear. It warmed me, gave me strength through anger. Anger and Hate go hand-in-hand-in-hand with Fear. When you are afraid, you instinctively hate the source of your fear. You want to either lash out or flee. Anger is more of the long term. How dare these filthy fucking bastards come to our festival and ruin our day?! How dare they come here and threaten us in our own homes and our own towns?! How dare they threaten my sisters.

See. Kinda like that.

I lowered myself to the ground and walked cautiously down the street. Creeps didn’t travel alone where there was one, you could find more.

Just as I finished this thought, a line in my aura-sight danced and a split second later, a second Crawler crashed through a window to my right, leaping straight for me.

How nice of it.

I sidestepped out of its way with a pair of dance-like steps, drawing Damocles across my body as I did, triggering sword form. It unfolded mid swing and left a long, deep, gash in the side of the Crawler. It went sprawling and I wasted no time. I drew back and shot it in the head with gunform. A third Crawler attempted to blindside me, but I knew it was there. I dropped flat, it went sailing over my head. I stood as it attempted to rush me head on. Dumb brute. Damocles laughed as it dropped with a bullet in its chest.

Two.

Three.

The area seemed clear of people, so I moved on. I was drawing near to the main body of Grimm, I could hear their screeches along with gunshots and the clash of metal on metal. I crested a building to get a look at what type or types of grim we were dealing with.

I couldn’t tell.

Below me was a screeching, wriggling mass of black, carpeting the ground. Hunters equipped with defensive gear barricaded alleyways, while those with guns stood on buildings, firing into the mass. But their individual bullets, even though most were creating little explosions of fire, were doing little. There were so many.

“Dust.” I breathed as a curse.

A few hunters were equipped for mass clean up. I saw one with a flamethrower mow his way through the black carpet, his flanks protected by teammates and buildings.

Eventually, I began to pick out individual Grimm. There were Creeps, Ratatosks, and Scavangers. A whole flood of them. They appeared to have erupted from this point and were pouring in hundreds of them at a time. I squinted and thought I saw a hole near the center. Maybe they burrowed or that was a nest somebody disturbed. Either way, there was a whole lot of Grimm down there. I grew conscious of my little handgun and the few bullets I had on me. I could use ten times what I had on me and not make a dent in that tide. My little sword would be no avail against so many. So, I did what my brother sent me to do and the best way I could help: look for those in need.

I cut back across the town, moving clockwise in a circle, checking roads and alleyways from above. So far, I didn’t see any more Grimm, but there could be Ratatosks and Scavengers anywhere, hundreds lurking in every shadow. I felt a drop of sweat drip down my back.
Just copper fear now. Long, drawn out tension.

Dark, true dark was falling. Nothing. I repeat, nothing is worse than fighting the creatures of Grimm in the dark.

Eventually, I smelled blood.

It was cloying, sticky. It wafted in the air, causing me to gag and retch. Undercutting the blood was a different smell. It was sticky sweet of rotting meat and fetid earth. Of things better left unmoved, dark places best left unchecked. I swallowed my fear and followed the smell.

It lead me to an alley, a small gap between buildings. I alighted to the ground, and immediately, the stench magnified tenfold. I held my hand over my mouth and tried to control my stomach. What was that? I had a feeling I didn’t want to know. The mouth of the alley was blocked by a big wagon of metal and wood, tipped on its side blocked the entrance, as if someone had tried to barricade themselves in. Drawn by an almost morbid fascination, I Pushed myself over the wagon and lifted my Scroll to used it as a light.

What I saw I will always remember. Blood. Red Blood everywhere. The floor, the walls, the eaves, nothing wasn’t painted red. It dripped from the eaves in a stream of droplets. There were scraps of cloth and bits everywhere, but nothing was in a big enough piece to identify.

I was abruptly and disturbingly reminded of what happens when you throw fruit in a blender and hit “smoothie” and leave the lid off.

I’m not really sure how I avoided losing my lunch. Maybe it was fear that kept the nausea at bay. Maybe it was shock. I’m not sure. Numbly, I Pushed myself to the tops of the buildings and walked along the roofs around the mess. Blood had even gotten up here. Like someone dropped a hundred tomatoes off an airship and they all landed in one spot. I’m not sure what happened, but I knew that this was beyond me. My shaking fingers somehow brought up Li’s contact. I hadn’t found Rosa or Del yet, but somebody else needed to know about this. If he was near some veteran hunters, maybe they could send help. I tapped call.

It buzzed

And buzzed

And buzzed

And buzz—

Next thing I knew, I was flying through the air, the breath crushed from my lungs. Then I saw a building and my next thought really didn’t matter because it was smashed out of my head. I hit the ground in a heap, dazed, but not actually harmed thanks to my aura. I had time to think ‘What fresh Hell was that?’ Before my unasked question was answered. It was barely lit by distant flame, a soft orange glow that did little to provide light, but enough to give me an outline. It stalked up, close to seven feet, massive claws to bladed back. Counting the blades added another three feet. Nose to tail it was nine feet long and the long, sinuous tail behind it added—god knows how many more feet. I knew what I was seeing. I had seen depictions of it in textbooks before. I’d had lesson after lesson drilling its strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics into my mind.

They were coming back to me now.

I giggled in terror. What Fiend almost always accompanies large groups of Scavangers? It had been multiple choice. Easy. I got it right. I always got them right.

Before me, in the darkness, was a Vermin God.

And I was alone.

In the dark.

Help me.

“HEY STUPID! CLAWS OFF MY BROTHER!”

A light flickered into existence. Or had it always been there? Something bright flew, smacking into the Vermin God’s head. It squealed in pain and clawed at its face. Fire. I see fire.

Out of the corner of my eye. Fire. I turn my head to see Rosa bearing a torch alight. Tears of terror in her eyes, but her face set in determination. Lying on the ground, was another flaming length of wood, sputtering in the soil near my feet. Eyes back on the Grimm, I lifted Damocles and fired.

No wait. No I didn’t. It wasn’t in my hand. I stared numbly at my empty hand. Huh? My brain took that moment to jumpstart itself. It’s tail. It waited until I was distracted, snuck up and smacked me with its whip-like tail. I must have dropped both my Scroll and Damocles in the impact. I glanced around, trying to locate it with my aura-sight. But all lines lead out of my sight. Finding it would be needle, haystack. Haystack with a very big, very angry, man-eating rat. Speaking of.

My attention snapped back to the Vermin God. It had turned it’s bready, hate-filled eyes on my sister, who was swinging her torch about to discourage it. Its eyes tracked the bright flaming orb that was all between it and its prey. Such a pitiful weapon. Why did it hesitate? I was a still a little brain scrambled, but I reached for the only weapon I had at hand, the guttering torch.

The Vermin God hissed as it crept closer to Rosa. She, brave girl, swung the torch, knowing that she couldn’t run, she couldn’t flee, if she turned her back she was dead. If she got so much as a scratch from its toxic claws or teeth, she was dead. Unlike me, she had no aura, no power, just a little training and a whole lotta guts.

My sister was in danger.

The thought galvanized me, electricity shooting through my brain, shaking off any fear. I pulled a handful of coins and threw them, Pushing with all my might. They zipped and whistled through the air.

Only to plunk quite ineffectually against the Vermin God’s outer shell. It looked over what might pass for its shoulder, grunted and swung its tail. I realized in that moment that in the darkness and uncertain light, I had underestimated the length of its tail. It must have been twenty or more feet long. I saw it flick a moment in the firelight before it hit me full on in a—dammit—familiar sensation. I was flicked away like a ragdoll into the side of yet another building.

Ow. This time, though I hung on to the torch and my wits. I wasn’t hurt again, but my aura had taken two devastating blows, and I wasn’t sure it could take another. Me dealt with, it turned back to the more vulnerable prey. Rosa made a lunge for its eyes, as if to poke them out, but the Grimm was done playing games. It snatched the wood out of the air with its mighty jaws and crunched down, the wood shattered.

Now there was nothing left. I flung coins after coins, Pushing them, then pulling them back in pure desperation. But I just wasn’t strong enough. A few lodged into chinks and soft parts of the Vermin God, but they were not enough to distract it from its prey.
It pounced and my sister screamed.

I had nothing in my head, no thought, no wish. Just pure rage. I would do anything, no matter the cost.

I screamed, feral and loud full of rage and terror, burning my semblance like it had never burned before. I ran forward. I didn’t really have a plan in mind. Or maybe I had a plan all along and just lacked the strength and conscious know-how to pull it off. But where intellect failed, instinct ventured. I Pulled as I ran. I Pulled on the upturned wagon, digging my heels into the mud, then I Pulled on the houses in front of me, taking the threads together like puppet stings and yanking with all my might. Torn between forces, I could feel my aura drop at a prodigious rate, both from Pulling and keeping me from tearing myself apart. But the wagon began to tip and tip it did, then roll and it kept rolling, building up momentum as it moved it was rolling toward me, and the Grimm beyond. Then what I did was all instinct. I pivoted as I Pulled, keeping the Pull tight while Pushing on the other end of the wagon. As the it swung forward and around, my push and its own momentum preventing it from slamming into me, as if it were a ball on a sting. Then, as it passed me, and with the last of my aura, I ‘let go’ of the Push, ‘string’, and then slammed the airborne wagon with a Push off the buildings behind me. It hurtled through the air and slammed into the Vermin God—the Grimm who dared to attack my sister!—with all the force of a full speed train. The wagon went flying and the Fiend with it, flicked off neatly as if with a broom. Wagon and Grimm hit a building and went through the wall, into the house, and out of sight. I sagged, emptied and spend. My Aura completely burned in that last move of desperation. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t rest.

My sister.

Dying torch in hand, I staggered on weak knees and dragging a heavy heart to where my sister had fallen.

Fear like none other had burrowed into my heart and dug through my veins. Poisoning my reason and killing me slowly. Mercurial Fear.
The light fell across her, revealing clawed earth, a broken arm, torn clothing and blood.

Very little blood. She was breathing. She was breathing. The blood was slight. I saw a few mild scrapes but nothing like what that Grimm could inflict. What. How. Then I saw a little translucent glow rising off her and understood. “Aura.” I breathed, my throat ragged and sore. My little sister had thrown up her Aura against the Grimm, and it held out long enough for me to smash it.

“Aura!” I croaked, dropping the torch in one of the terrible rends the massive Grimm had inflicted on the earth. “But not on my little sister.” I grabbed her in a hug as tight as I could manage. Tears streaming down my face. “Not my sister.”

She stirred. “Bro…ther?” She whispered. “Not my sister. Not my sister. You’re okay. You’re okay.” I repeated as if it were a prayer of thanks to whatever god was out there.

Then a large crunch. Followed by another one. And some crashing.

No.

The building with a big, gaping hole shuddered.

No.

The Vermin God, injured and trailing smoke, but still very much alive, crawled out of the wreckage of the house.

No! It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! I had hit it with all I had and a wagon that had to weigh a thousand pounds through a building and it was getting back up?!

No.

I was out of fear. I was emotionally wrung out. We were going to die. Nothing came but a weak protest. I pulled Rosa close to me. Neither of us were going to live through this night. It squealed long and loud. And in answer, Scavangers bubbled out of the darkness, summoned by their foul god’s cry. We huddled together her and I in a puddle of torchlight as the Creatures of Grimm closed in.

Then I heard something unearthly. A hollow cry. A human cry, like the whisper of the wind over water. Empty, but physical. I looked up. And saw nothing. But the Grimm recoiled. The Vermin God screeched as if it had been hurt. The little Scavangers started twitching and crying in pain, then to fall motionless and dissolve into darkness. Every now and then, I thought I’d see movement in the corner of my eye. Or hear a ghostly gunshot. But nothing was there?

I felt my consciousness slipping. I was too exhausted to focus as my adrenaline faded, stealing what last strength I had. I saw the Vermin God rear up, then falter and collapse, and in turn, dissolve into the darkness. The last thing I saw before I faded completely was a half-imagined face and a strange symbol ripping in a ghostly wind.
The darkness finally took me.

I woke up. You know.
Just in case you were wondering.

I woke in the hospital. Not terribly physically injured, all things considered. Some strain, like that of trying to lift a weight too heavy for my body, but my strong aura took the brunt of the force and when it returned, I healed quickly. It would be a week or more until my aura was back in fighting shape though. The Doctors discharged me in less than a week. Rosa spent a little longer. She had a fractured arm, mild concussion, and several broken ribs, but with her newfound aura, she should heal back good as new in two weeks. A normal person might need a month or more. Del, the silly girl, had gotten distracted by a fire show when the Grimm attacked. She had ended up crammed in a solid titanium bunker, safer than the rest of us combined. Her Scroll had died. She had forgotten to charge it the night before. She got a chewing out from Mom, then Dan, then a few puns and jokes from Li, then a hug from me and everything was all right.
No one really knew why the Grimm attacked. We did, however, figure out how. They dug. The hole lead outside the normal patrol and scouting range of the Hunters. It had probably taken months and they theorized the horde had been lead by a superior high-intelligence Grimm, such as a Vermin God, but they were unable to find any trace beyond the battlefield where I had been found. When questioned, I claimed to not remember anything, as I wasn’t sure of the truth myself, and telling them what I thought I saw would put me in a mental hospital for sure. Rosa recounted how she had saved me by distracting the Vermin God, but after that, she couldn’t remember. Eventually, the best those investigating came up with is that Rosa’s yet-unknown semblance had somehow killed the Grimm. That was better than a ghost story, so I let it be. She was hailed as a hero while I recovered quietly in a hospital bed with a good book and a strong cup of coffee. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After I was deemed well enough to move around, the first thing I did was visit Rosa. It was a bit of a trek, but I was up for it, wanting to stretch my legs a little. I found her, reading a book of her own. She looked up and smiled weakly at me as I staggered to a chair and sat. “Heya Sprout.” I used a nickname Li had come up with. “How are you feeling?”

She rolled her eyes. “Like I was run over by a truck. Then backed up on.”

“That good, eh?”

“Better even.”

We lapsed into a comfortable silence, just enjoying each other’s company and the fact that we were still alive.

“Hey. Brother.” She broke the silence in an uncharacteristically small voice.

I blinked. “Yeah?”

“Back there… That night…” She shuddered. “I was weak. Useless. Worse, a liability.”

Tears started leading down her face as she started to sniffle. I wrapped my hand around hers.

“I saw what you did. You moved that heavy wagon and flung that enormous Grimm through a house like it was nothing.”

Well...I wouldn’t say nothing, but I didn’t interrupt.

“I want…” She tightened her hand around mind in a white-knuckle grip. Ow, the kid had some strength.

“I want to be stronger. Like you, like Li.” She sniffed. “I never again want to feel that way ever again. Afraid. I want to be strong enough to protect you, Li, Del. Us.”

What could I say? I knew exactly what she meant. I wanted exactly the same thing. I looked into her amber eyes, reflecting my own and I saw the fire lit in there, reflecting my own.

“I know. So do I.” I said solemnly.

She nodded then the fire died and she stared down listlessly at her book.

“Hey, sis?”

“Hm?”

“Do you mind loosening up on my hand? You’ve got quite the strong grip now.”

“Oh, sorry.”



In the end, I’m not sure what happened. Is this a ghost story? Were those Grimm killed by Rosa’s semblance? Or were those just Hunters who happened to be nearby?

It may be silly, but I’m starting to believe there is truth to those old legends. And if they are true, what else could be true? Everything. Everything could be true.