Missions: The Village (Part 1)
"Wheeeeee!"
"Nora! There are way too many Grimm for you to…"
"I win, I win, you're all dead and I win."
Nora Valkyrie stood triumphantly on top of a mound of dead Grimm singing her victory song while Ren, Velvet, and Scarlet looked on in disbelief. The tiny terror had just pulverised a whole pack of beowolves, maybe ten in total, without ever breaking a sweat.
"Nora, you should get down from there before those Grimm start to…"
"Ouch! I landed on my butt, hahaha."
"…Disintegrate."
"When Ren and Nora are done being adorable we have to get to the village before nightfall. If we're not out of the woods before then we're screwed." Velvet was always the worrier of the group and their current situation was doing nothing to change that.
She was always a little nervous when separated from the rest of team CFVY. She had spent her time at Beacon learning how to fight as part of a team, and her roll usually relied on the rest of the team shielding her from the bigger threats while she built up her aura to unleash hell. But after everything that happened during the battle of beacon all the teams of students were being split up. Every student who was willing was named a full-fledged huntress or huntsman and they were all being sent on their own missions.
Glynda Goodwitch and Qrow Branwen had taken over the duty of assigning huntsmen to missions. They preferred to keep teams together when possible but certain missions required certain skills and the individuals with those skills were in short supply. When teams were split up the remaining members were put together to complete low risk jobs. Although these days low risk jobs were pretty dangerous too.
The events of the last few months had made the whole world a more dangerous place. Towns that used to be perfectly safe were now attracting more Grimm than ever before. Anger over the events of the Vytal festival and fear that Atlas were going to invade had driven Grimm incidents through the roof. It was all the huntsmen and huntresses could do to keep the Grimm at bay and tackle any local gangs or White Fang operations that popped up.
"How many Grimm could there be in this forest?" Scarlet asked. "We killed so damn many on our way out here."
Team SSSN had all volunteered to stay in Vale at first to clean up the Grimm in the outlying villages before heading home to Mistral? But when team RWBY basically vanished they ended up staying longer, as Sun was searching for signs of Blake and Neptune was sure that finding Blake would be the key to helping Weiss get out from her family's imposed seclusion. Those two were using every opportunity out in the field to check for signs that Blake was still in Vale, but if she was then she did not want to be found.
Scarlet and Sage meanwhile had been pitching in where they could on missions. Neither of them had semblances that were in high demand but both could certainly handle themselves in a fight. So they found themselves frequently clearing out large swathes of Grimm or joining local police forces in routing out gangs or White Fang hideaways. This time however Sage was part of a specialist team that provided an overwhelming amount of muscle, he and Yatsuhashi of team CFVY were clearing out Grimm in a mountain pass. They had to clear the debris the Grimm left blocking the road too.
That left Scarlet here with Velvet, joining a mission to clear a way to a small village on the southern edge of Vale territory. The village was to act as a staging post for a huntsman base. Which they needed to effectively patrol the region. But the bigger bonus for this village was that they wanted to establish a transmit tower there.
A big part of Qrow and Glynda's work was trying to repair communications between the kingdoms after the White Fang attack knocked out the CCT? The first step in this plan was to set up a lot of local towers in strategic spots to allow the huntsmen to communicate within the kingdom itself. Unfortunately this meant sending teams outside of radio range to establish the towers.
After a week of trekking and fighting down a narrow and winding road in the forest and fighting more than a pack of beowolves a day, plus one really pissed off Ursa, they were finally in sight of the village. It had held up surprisingly well considering the number of Grimm in the area. In fact the town was so unharmed it was a little suspicious.
"Guys, I think we might be in trouble." Ren was always careful about his environment. Its part of what made him and Nora such a good team, he pointed out danger and she smashed it into pieces.
"Yeah, why wouldn't all those forest Grimm try attack this place instead of us?"
"I don't know Scarlet, but I don't think it can be anything good. Move slowly and stay near buildings you can use as cover."
As the makeshift team advanced through the village they became more and more convinced that something was very wrong. There were no people about, but the place didn't look abandoned. There were no deserted belongings, all the buildings had the curtains drawn but none were boarded up. There signs of a fight but not like the Grimm attacked, more like there was a gunfight. Which usually meant the White Fang these days.
And almost as if on cue, just as the team noticed the bullet holes and blast burns on some of the walls Ren spotted what looked like the barrel of a rifle coming out one of the upstairs windows of a large house to the teams left flank.
To be continued…
A/N: This is my first two parter in this collection. Part two coming next. I will be revisiting this idea of the characters in the direct aftermath of the Battle of Beacon but they won't all be connected directly, more like an anthology.