Still don't own RWBY as much as I'd like too.
RWBY: War in the North
The mass of the student body had collected in the main hall waiting for Ozpin to address them. Everyone was getting ready for their finals. Team RWBY had passed the paper test with strong scores across the board. Now they and every other student were going to be sent on full fledged missions with a hunter shadowing them to grade their performance. Naturally the first years wouldn't be doing anything to overly dangerous.
Ozpin took the stage and spoke to the crowd before him. Noting their progress both as fighters and as huntsmen and huntresses. He gave a word of warning of the danger they would be facing in the coming days of their mission. When he finished he stepped away and the screens rose so the teams could pick their missions.
"So what should we do? Something simple or exciting?" The team's leader asked.
"Do you even need to ask? This is our final, let's make it the best we can get; explosions, action and all."
RWBY walked up to the screen labeled 'Search and Destroy. One was to clear out a forest so Vale could build a outpost near the trade route that goes by. Another was to cleanse the area around a mountain top that pilgrims traveled to. One to the desert far south, another to a tropical forest even farther south. The second to last one stood out not only for being near the northern arctic ring but there was also a small skull next to it.
"Staying near the city sounds nice, but the danger mark on that one has me intrigued."
"Sorry Yang, but the skull means first years can't take it."
"Unless I approve."
The turned to see their grey-haired professor standing behind them.
"If you want that mission go ahead. The teams that showed exceptional skill in combat have been pre-approved to take the more dangerous missions. And I'm glad to say you all made the cut."
"To the north then!"
Ozpin took a sip from his coffee before going on. "Now your missions before you were shadowing a hunter, this time he will be shadowing you. He will not be helping you unless the situation demands it."
The group collected the mission files, collected their equipment, filled their bags and headed for the skydock. Leaning next to their ship the "White Kaiser" was the hunter they would be escorting.
"You the brats I've been assigned too?"
"Depends are you the one heading north?" Yang replied, returning the attitude in full.
He groaned, rolling his head as he climbed through the door next to him.
"Alright, you have your mission briefing? Supplies, enough arms, and anything else you'll need, because we will NOT be coming back to pick it up. If that means you go hungry all you'll get from me is a laugh."
"Yes sir."
He popped his head out before they could get in.
"You all went to the bathroom right?"
"Yes."
"Also Ruby right? You're that girl Oobleck went with at the start of the semester right? you didn't bring your dog this time did you? Because I can assure you this is not the kind of mission you want animal companions on."
"No, he's back home."
"Alright load on, let's get this train wreak going."
The girls shared a glance then piled in. The hunter sat in the center seat across from the door to the cockpit.
He was clad in a dark violet cloth robe-shirt and pants, and covered in very ornamental armor. Plate boots were adorned with ram horns along the top rim at the knees. Elbow plates rested over a plated glove. The fingers ending in sharp points, and skulls with enlengthened canines decorated the forearms. Small red dust crystals held firm in the back of the eye sockets.
His Breast plate protruded out from his chest so any blow would merely deflect off it, also adorned by a ram's head in the center. Only the right side had a shoulder plate, the left had large beautiful white feathers standing from where the metal and cloth met.
His face was covered in a mask made of the same metal as the armor. It held a skull like shape with the teeth being long and narrow, coming to a point making even the maw of a grim look pleasant. The rest of his head was covered in a hood, but a few locks of black hair could be seen in the back just in sight.
The girls took a seat across from the man with them. The ship took flight and Beacon disappeared over the horizon within the hour. The four sat in awkward silence as the hunter didn't even bother giving them a glance, preferring to look out at the world they were passing over. Finally after almost fifty minutes Yang broke down and addressed the man.
"So are you going to give us any details on the mission or even a introduction on who you are? If we are going on a mission together don't you think we should at least know a little of each other?"
"Reading, how does it work?"
Yang was about to snap back, but realized he was referring to the folder Ruby had, that held the mission details. She awoke the daydreaming girl back into reality and pointed out the folder for her to read.
"Oh, um... Mission number 26.
Mission Briefing: Eliminate all grim activity in the Icefounder area.
The Kingdom of Vale wishes to preform a archaeological dig at the dead kingdom of Icefounder and wishes all hostile grim in the area to be eliminated. additionally the kingdom wishes for the mission recipients to establish a defendable base of operations within a modest distance of coordinates 0013-B and 0121-J if able.
Though the dig will last for several weeks, Hunters are only needed for the establishment of a forward camp, and assist in the establishing a temporary fortress once Vale military forces arrive. Afterward, all operation control will be transferred to General Garvarius Vargus Adulfus.
Mission Notes:
Hunter, Morvan van Disseral will be shadowing the mission acceptors.
Warm, arctic friendly clothing HIGHLY recommended.
Estimated emergency extraction time: Under 24 hours."
"Eh... What's Icefounder?" asked the white hair heiress.
"That kiddies, is the dead north kingdom. Also known as the 'Frost Tomb'. It is the oldest human kingdom built and lasted for almost 250 years before it was overrun. First to rise, first to fall. While grim are more then capable of living up here, they naturally tend to avoid it due to the cold. And I don't blame them, once you pass the C coordinates it starts to get very cold very fast. So while Vale and the other kingdoms were built and survive thanks to their natural barriers, Icefounder's first line of defense was it being hidden just beyond the sight of the grim.
The stories say, one cold winter a oracle warned that if anyone left the kingdom before the first flower bloomed the grim would find and destroy them. But one family didn't have enough food to survive the winter, and the whole kingdom was starting to starve itself and couldn't provide any to the starving man or his kin. So he snuck out of the city at night and found the best fishing spot in the whole north. He caught more fish then his family would need for the winter, and supposedly eventually enough fish to help feed the entire city itself. Note that back then, a city was a oversize village by our standards. But the smell of all the caught fish found the nose of a ursa that had been sleeping in a nearby snowbank. Needless to say you can guess what happened after. Grim have a strange way of sharing information over long distances."
The four girls were silent for a while as they took in the story. They passed over the open sea, a Nevermore flew by in the distance but didn't pay them much mind. The red eyes of a kraken in the sea followed them for a while before falling behind when they passed over a island.
Ruby, Yang and Morvan started playing a few card games while Blake read and Weiss took a 'beauty' nap in her seat.
The airship didn't bother landing when they arrived just south of the destination. Morvan grabbed a square bag with the bedroll on the bottom. He carried a long metal rod like object at his waist and bags of what looked like large ammo magazines from his belt and filled the outer pockets of his bag. Though Ruby noted the magazines were rather long to be bullets, even a .50 caliber wouldn't be that long.
They hit the ground in a defensive circle with Morvan in the center. Everyone but the mentioned in a combat stance ready for battle. Morvan just stood there rubbing his fingers together trying to invisible gunk off them. A few moments passed and when nothing hostile showed itself everyone dropped their guard. Ruby pulled out a map from the file of the landing zone and where they needed to go.
"Ok we are 5 miles directly south of where we need to go."
"So what way is north then?"
Ruby produced a compass and lined up so the red arrow was pointing forward. "That way."
"Are you sure it's not the white arrow?" Weiss pointed out.
The four started debating with each other on what way they needed to go. Blake pointed out the arrow was white to blend in with the background so it was meant to be ignored. While Yang noted that red normally means bad and that it might mean your not to go that way. Morvan just shook his head from the sidelines giving a sigh. 'Well I'm fucked, death by following a bunch of first years around in a circle till we starved. Rolanda and Jorvik will never forgive me.'
Yang called out to him asking the right way. He responded by point out to the west with one hand and south east with the other. While looking up told them "That way". Yang glared at him muttering something under her breath. Blake pointed out his job was not to help, and he's just here to watch. "Thank you!" he replied throwing out his hand to gesture to her.
Weiss noticed a mountain far to the south west on the map, the tip just over the horizon of the icy plane they were on. The red arrow now identified as the right one lead the way toward the dead city.
They had been marching for about a hour and a half growing more tired with every step. The further north they went the higher the snowbanks became. Hills started filling the once clear horizon on all sides. Yang asked Ruby how much further, but got a "I don't know" in return, but she reassured her sister they were going the right way.
"Alright ladies we are almost there." called out Morvan from atop a snowbank the others were climbing.
"How do you kno-, oh."
Yang and others came to the top of the bank to gaze upon a massive cliff of ice out in the distance. The four stood for a minute gazing at the awesome sight before them. Finally Morvan cleared his throat catching their attention as he walked down the bank side.
"Is that the Ice crown? It's bigger then I imagined." came Blake.
"No the Ice Crown is still about 200 miles north of here still. That is the wall of Icefounder."
"I noticed you seem to know a lot of Icefounder." the black hair girl retorted.
"You learn about the 'Dead Kingdoms' in your third year. Unless the curriculum changed since I graduated.
Any ways, the wall averages at 30 feet high reaching 50 at some points and down to 20 at others. The wall is actually a very solid 10 feet of stone all around, but after the first winter it froze over so the builders started using wood to act as a stand for the ice to grow around letting the cold grow the wall on it's own. This is the higher side, the breach is a half mile west of where we need to be. It was also the second and last line of defence for the city, and It held for 34 years after the grim found it before finally falling. But by then most of the citizens had fled the city and were fleeing south by boat. Many of them would go on to help found the three successor kingdoms. The military stayed behind to fight in hopes that if they pushed back the grimm, they would send word to the survivors and call them back to the city. Naturally that didn't happen."
They neared the wall as Morvan dumped the truck load of information from his class on them. From the towns general layout to important buildings, all of which were marked on the map already.
"So you want to climb or go to this breach that Morvan was talking about?"
"The breach sounds less troublesome then climbing"
They started heading for where the breach supposedly was. Only about ten minutes of walking took them to a massive hole in the towering wall. Where once it stood tall and proud was now lay broken on the ground falling inside the city, crushing a few small buildings.
"Wow, what could have destroyed a wall so big and tall?"
"The power of grimm."
They walked through the gaping portal to see the city on the other side. Each building was made of stone only about a story or two tall with a very uniform appearance to each building. They actually looked very modern in architecture. the windows were bare never holding glass in them, and only the occasional stray piece of torn fabric seemed to survive the centuries. The untouched snow and the low moan of wind flowing between the buildings gave a very creepy feel to the town. The sun had set below the wall and the shade darkened the corners and buildings giving them a very ghost town appearance. Mountain Glenn looked like a generic ruin, only it's importance to Vale giving it a disturbing feel. This place though, this place, it looked like it hadn't been touched by grim, like one day everything just died all at once. Empty houses with dead dreams.
"First order of business should be finding shelter, it will be dark soon, and I bet it gets very cold up here at night."
Ruby pulled out a new map with a more close up view of the city. The team gathered around and discussed where to set up camp. They didn't have enough time to scout out the area so just choose to take the building on a hill overlooking the bottom half of town. The lack of grimm despite the area supposedly being overrun didn't go unnoticed. The group expected to be attacked at every corner only to find more empty snow covered streets. Not even footsteps to indicate that anything other then them had been in the city since it's destruction.
The building they selected to hold up in was one of the few to stand three stories tall. it's flat top with battlements and arrow slits covering it indicated it was a guard tower of sorts overlooking the center of the city. The old wooden door had been smashed open ages ago. The snow had infiltrated the building through it's many portals.
Smashed tables and chairs were converted into firewood for the hunters as the sunset for the day. Morvan had gone ahead to sleep while the girls decided turns for night watch. When the moon peaked over the side of the far side of the wall. Howls of beowolves lit up the night. Blake who was on watch became very alert, the few calls soon became many; the number becoming frightening numerous. The howls lasted for a solid five minutes, and Blake could see a few of the black figures starting to emerge from the buildings.
The howling came to a abrupt end when it was drowned out by loud aggressive roar. The others were woken from their daze, while Morvan sprung up from his sleep the metal bar at his waist immediately snapping open into a crossbow with two cylinders filled with bolts with dust chambers on the primer ends hovering over the stock ready to be loaded in. He swept it around rapidly looking for the threat that awoke him.
"Is something wrong?"
"No... no, just go back to sleep it's just a loud grimm."
He put away his crossbow and went back to sleep, leaving the girls a little more shifty then they were before he tried comforting them. Blake continued her watch, but behind her she could tell Morvan was still awake. His voice was very soft and she couldn't understand what he was saying, even with her enhanced hearing. She could tell one thing though, it wasn't simply garble in his sleep like Weiss and Ruby had a habit of doing. It was actual constructed speech.
"This is going to be a long night." She thought as a loud howl recaught her attention.
Thanks for reading. Checkout my other story while you wait for part 2. s/10747964/1/RWBY-Reaver