Chapter Twenty
- Memories -
Scars
Year 85 AGW
Chaos was the ultimate governing principle of the universe, at least according to Neo.
Everything had an end with even the most ordered structures succumbing to unforgiving time and unraveling into pure disorder. Though the universe's process for its degeneration was theorized to be several billions of years ahead of the current era, the decay of Remnant could be counted in years.
Ruby absentmindedly completed one of the many paper forms neatly stacked on her desk, preferring the old method over electronic due to espionage attempts.
The cold war between Vale and Atlas had initially not been, with her government rapidly mobilizing its military and preparing its navy to combat the incoming Atlesian armada predicted to assault the western ports.
With Beacon's destruction came the frantic panic as the Hunters dispersed into the districts to avoid the growing infestation in their former headquarters, enormous Grimm preventing them from retaking their sentimental home.
Qrow had been thrust into the emergency role as Acting High Commander, but with no other Hunter willing to contest the position, he quickly became the leader his forces looked to for guidance in the changing dynamic of Remnant.
Hunters were extraordinary in skill, but when asked to take leadership, they all balked and scurried away from the role.
Initially content with moving Beacon's operating location to Mt. Glenn and regrouping its surviving defense force, the rapid and numerous onslaught of Hunters into the condemned districts had overrun the camping nests of Grimm and made the area safe for the first time in decades, granting them a safe haven and time to recollect.
Within hours Qrow had received near demands to appear in front of the Council to answer for his predecessor's failure to secure the Colosseum and allow for thousands to die under the watch of the Hunters. A few of the more passionate Hunters had had to be restrained to prevent them from mutilating the poor messenger sent to Glenn before being sent back scurrying back to the Council House.
But when the Council had sent a squad of their heavily armed soldier to politely escort him to the House, he'd done nothing more than grumble and leave with them, ordering Glynda to oversee the reconstruction of Glenn until he returned.
He returned in the near record time without an escort and a grimm smirk on his face, hand twitching lightly as it resting on Harbinger's grip.
While under interrogation by the Council, he'd been informed of the planned invasion set to traverse west across to continent before swinging north to strike at Atlas behind their planned defensive line. With the main portion of the Vale army set to leave its homeland and bring about a quick planned victory, he'd been kindly asked to provide defense against the Atlesian navy set to bombard their eastern port, given command of the fleet a fraction of their size to repel them, while being asked to deploy his own Hunters to support the effort.
It didn't take more than a few sarcastic blinks for Qrow to calmly tell the Council to kindly go fuck themselves if they weren't going to listen to his advice while trying to trap him with the near-guaranteed failure of allowing the Atlesian navy to land and commence their siege.
When they tried to order him to perform his duty, he destroyed the circular table the Council cowered behind and manhandled the Chair out of his seat and held him under his malevolent crimson stare, telling him in no uncertain terms the Hunters were and always would be an independent organization chartered with defending Vale from Grimm, and not the personal special forces of the Council.
He'd left them quaking in their tailored suits, telling them in harsh words to never bother him with any messengers unless they were facing a Grimm invasion on equal footing as the Atlesian one.
Vale was on their own in their war, without their special forces commander to rely on as a source of advice and without their Hunters to repel Atlas' Hunters.
Immediately upon returning to Glenn, Qrow had removed half of the Hunters from any non-border district and placed them around the borders. Though not trusting Atlas to not send troops against them, he could trust James and Winter enough to not have Hunters slaughter each other in the states' bid for revenge or self-defense.
That had been the start of the grueling war Qrow didn't want his Hunters participating in. Their standing orders primarily dealt with repelling any Grimm or Atlesian invasions but had no orders to actively prevent the Vale army from moving outward. It wasn't within their scope of responsibilities to get involved in this affair, and with the large majority of them predisposed against the Council, none of them wanted to get involved.
Until the first engagement between Vale and Atlas at the northern tip of Sanus ended in a bloody firefight costing both sides tens of thousands of lives. Glenn normally shouldn't have been concerned about the lives the Council threw away, but Qrow had been left cursing himself for his carelessness and stupidity when the subsequent wave of negative emotions had caused an invasion of Grimm from the Forever Falls.
The war he had wanted no part of had come to his doorsteps and had cost him several teams before the Grimm had been eradicated and Vale was safe again. RWBY hadn't been the same after the twenty-hour defense as they ripped through mankind's enemy, only to watch the endless hordes of nightmare descend and mutually rip through their allies and innocent civilians alike.
'Harrowing' was the word they had used to describe it.
Another sheet of paper was set aside, this one detailing a change to the patrol schedule surrounding Glenn, and for the captain to be rotated and sent into the innermost district as a reward to relax for his service over the last few weeks.
And for Qrow's attempt to successfully seal the border, the Council had rewarded him with nothing but scorn and criticism, the public hanging on to their every word, conveniently ignoring the very reality of the near destruction of the country.
The media vilified them, and the sheeple of masses with no functioning critical brain followed their coverage, believing every piece of news about the people who failed to defend them. Even the more critical news stations covering the Grimm invasion asked how Glenn could've let it happen, but ignored the reason behind it, only hyping up the brewing conflict with Atlas.
And so the war had evolved to cold as Vale's Hunters now intervened with any outgoing military expeditions, and to prevent more ceaseless violence, James had adopted the same policy, forcing his Council into a tentative ceasefire despite the lives they had lost. Their military was stuck between listening to their long-time Hunter Commander and his Generals, or the wiles of their Council.
It wasn't a difficult decision to make.
But then the other two city-states followed along their old alliances and waged a proxy war against each other, and however often the strength of Hunters was extolled, their Academies were fractions in power compared to the two superpowers and were unable to lock their countries' borders down.
The continent of Sanus had been decimated in the aftermath as the Atlesian fleet annihilated the desert surrounding Vacuo to prevent them from moving major forces west towards Anima and Mistral. But their armada hadn't been suited to shooting down the tiny strike craft the Vacuoan military preferred, leaving those countries free to snipe and assault each other.
In typical fashion, the cold war had devolved into an influential proxy war with the Vale and Atlas Councils subverting their Hunter Commanders to funnel resources to show their dominance. Brutal and unrelenting was the brawl, the Atlesian fleet unable to prevent either side from retaliating. Unable to prevent Vacuo from attacking, they were likewise unable to prevent Mistral, being forced to leave the two alone or risk them both turning to attack them.
With the Atlesian Hunters already stretched thin between securing their borders to prevent Grimm attacks. Thankfully, with the majority of their military patrolling around the vast Remnant Ocean, they hadn't needed to keep their country in isolationism like Glenn had to.
"Ruby." She glanced up from the slurring paperwork to catch the gaze of her wife's amber, the dim light of her office making her tarnished silver eyes gleam with tiredness, a potential sign of healing after the terrible ordeal she had been saved from months previously.
Those eyes couldn't express empathy, only perfectly mimic the emotions of others as a mirror, her own brand of empathy, complete apathy as the basest emotion, the ultimate protection for the fragile Ruby locked within the perfect leader of Summer.
"It's time." Blake was a dark silhouette against the starkly lit hallways of the mountain base, a halo blanking out any definition of her form save for her piercing eyes. Her clothes were her usual black anyhow, dozens of straps, pouches, and knives littered around her body, a virtual arsenal of weapons used to stab, rip, and tear.
Another piece of paperwork was set aside, this one an amendment to her Will in case the worse came to pass for their next mission.
She may not have liked the implications behind the reasoning for it, but with how experimental Weiss' designs to Serenity's engines were, she was updating all of their Wills to ensure Glenn could operate without the command of Team RWBY. With Glynda having been killed a few months ago, there was almost no one left to leave the title of High Commander.
Jaune would've to make the best with them gone.
"Has Serenity and the team been prepped?" Those important files were laid bare across the metal work surface, properly marked for JNPR to find if they never returned. Blake nodded and she reached to her side to strap Crescent Rose to her back plate.
Their footsteps echoed lightly as they pathed towards their personal hangar. A few Hunters nodded gravely to her in respect, or they could've just been nodding because it was a greeting.
She never quite understood why they couldn't simply say 'hi'.
Such nuances.
Those tiny little nuances her team tried to instill in her contributed to the vast expanse between them. The ability to say 'hi' with a nod, cry when a team was killed, hug back when someone hugged, hold doors open for people, or hate when powerless to act against Cinder.
Human.
Those were human nuances.
And she was anything but.
Those haunting silver eyes chased away the pesky Hunters looking to harass or challenge her position as Commander, leaving only those with enough will or guts to converse with.
Only JNPR and Winter remained in the vaunted circle.
Serenity looked perfect as always, a muted gunmetal grey, painted in the best radar obscuring nano-material Yang could get her hands on.
Ozpin had been more than happy to absorb the cost of such craft given the seemingly endless supply of hot cocoa they sold off from Beacon Hangar 1.
Unfortunately, Weiss' SABRE engines would make sure the aircraft appeared on any and every radar by removing the limitations originally placed on the thermal emissions. Though not afterburners by any stretch, they burned more fuel than the stock design attached to every other bullhead, including the pair of engines already detached from Serenity to make room for the new design.
"Ready for takeoff Ruby." Weiss always had that extrasensory ability to know when her partner and leader appeared, her glyphs always lining the area around her to make sure any assassin could never sneak up and tickle her.
*cough* Blake *cough*
"Oxygen and hydrogen tanks pressurized and holding at 100%." Yang rattled off the most important numbers displayed on the console, flicking another key to close the rear door and seal the compartment. A pneumatic hiss echoed around them as the craft stabilized.
A decisive push on the throttle launched Serenity from the hangar, carried by the swept delta wings until the specially crafted engines kicked in, air rushing into the intakes and getting blown out the exhaust.
The old stealth engines couldn't serve the range nor the conditions Serenity was meant to fly into and through. For those, she'd need SABRE, along with an onboard supply of liquid oxygen and hydrogen, the first to make sure her occupants survived and the second to make sure they could make it past normal jet engine altitude ceilings.
Shooting away from Vale, accelerating far beyond the sound barrier, Serenity left a booming shockwave to resonated across the lands below her, harkening the beginning of the explosion waiting to be heard across the world.
Team RWBY remained silent in the cockpit, watching the world become ever smaller as Serenity soared deep into the atmosphere, the engines starting to choke the higher she flew. Tails of fire trailed her as she tore into the upper atmos, the sturdy aluminum alloy shuddering the brunt of the heat and pressure.
SABRE had been created specifically to break past the operational limits and were no ordinary jet engines. The Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engines were designed to specifically fly above the serviceable altitude of 21 km, turn into hybrids until 28 km, and then turn into closed-cycle high-performance rocket engines burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to get them to the altitude they needed.
Weiss had originally meant to call them RAPIERs, but Reactive Alternate-Propellent Intelligent Engines for Rockets was a mouthful, even abbreviated, and calling them after her weapon type would've seen RWBY never hearing the end of her bragging, so Ruby had smacked her on her head until she created SABRE.
As Serenity climbed past her ceiling, the pressure within the cabin steadily dropped, the air thinning in preparation for the terrible ordeal about to take place. Yang handed out portable oxygen tanks when breathing became difficult, Aura no longer able to compensate for the lack, full masks fitting around their heads to provide comfort and protection.
"Serenity fully decompressed. Changing to hybrid mode and proceeding to 28 kilometers above sea level." The air intakes clamped shut in half as the engines switched to a semi-closed cycle, pushing Serenity higher and faster, the sapphire armored window protecting them from the harmful radiation.
They were pinnacles of Weiss and Yang's genius, inventions meant to help mankind break the bonds of the Remnant and slip away into the stars. Breaking Dust down to their core, distilling elements into usable forms, revitalizing science from before the Atomic Wars.
They definitely hadn't almost ripped open the mountain base when they'd accidentally used a small particle accelerator to create antimatter.
A rather fortuitous discover as Yang had taken the idea of particle-antiparticle annihilation and applied it to her own Semblance to create her magnum opus, the ultimate suicide technique, and namesake of her second identity, the Supernova.
Nothing save for her other team members' ultimate techniques came close in sheer complexity, but nothing they created could ever come close to the possible destruction Supernova could bring about. A ticking time bomb ready to go off if RWBY ever needed a final option.
A sleeping dragon lying in wait to be awoken.
Fitting.
"Approaching the stratosphere. Switching to closed cycle." Serenity hummed as the fan openings in the wings slid shut, the jet engine hybrids switching to their full rocket potential, liquid hydrogen pumping into the combustion engine, unadulterated thrust roaring from the dual nozzles.
With how stupidly dangerous even the concept of antimatter was, any sort of research associated with it hadn't even been hidden, but completely destroyed; any handwritten notes ignited by Yang's Aura, any hard drives ripped apart to their smallest elements.
And with nothing stored on the data cloud, the research could never be used to incur a possible armageddon eclipsing the Atomic Wars to bring about a planetary extinction rather than the nuclear winter the first had brought about, forcing humanity to endure underground for hundreds of years.
Neo had been strangely silent during the era, but whether it had been because Ozpin had punished her for pressing the big red button, because she'd felt some measure of guilt for actions, or because there'd been no humans left to track her across the ages had yet to established.
At least with particle-antiparticle annihilation, there'd be no nuclear fallout.
Small saving grace.
But then again, she and her family had known intimately the devastating effects winter had on people, so she could've been completely innocent in causing the event.
It was the reason for her family's motto after all.
Unlikely, but not impossible for the psychopath.
Searing cold seeped through Serenity's framework, chasing away the ambient warmth provided by Yang's passive Aura. Though Glenn had required them to alter their most commonly worn outfits, nothing but their own Aura shields could protect against the freezing -90°C atmosphere anymore. The rebreathers tanks would protect their lungs and allow them to spend some time in the upper atmos before they'd be forced down.
"Beautiful." Only once in the history of Remnant's existence had the curvature of the planet been observed, a scarce few photographs proving it was of spherical shape, and not, as many conspiracy theorists claimed, flat.
Ruby only passively observed the planet, mind dead set on only one objective.
As they had wrapped around Remnant to reach their destination, the vast stretch of Sanus lay stretched under them, the few identifiable landmarks being the enormous Vacuoan desert and the sprawling city-state of Vacuo itself. The island of Cassus peaked over the horizon, a stark deep green to the beige on the western side of the continent.
Their home couldn't be seen over the horizon.
And neither Atlas nor Mistral could be.
But the three other countries would almost definitely feel their unforgivable actions.
Vacuo may have looked impressive from their altitude, but the country itself was a festering mess of three distinct factions. One of those factions could be seen from their orbit, the constantly changing hordes of Grimm painting patches of black against the desert, feasting on the failed state.
Within isolated pockets of resistance were the Vacuoan people, holding out against the oncoming threat of humanity's enemy, unknowingly fueling its growth the longer they stayed within the condemned area, their fear calling them to their settlements.
And within the former capital districts were the remnants of the White Fang. Though small in number compared to their sections in Vale and Mistral, they could still field hundreds of thousands, enjoying their control of one of the four major powers.
"Vetos?" Ruby broadcasted over the comms, hovered a palm above the controls for the rear door. Her teammates' eyes all flickered to each other, searching for any logical reason not to go through with this, for any moral counter to this insane mission, and when those failed, any irrational reason to stop the madness.
None came.
They'd already known their answers before they'd boarded Serenity.
The rear hatch slowly opened, revealing the blue planet below their feet. Clipping Weiss onto the safety railings, she let her pass by and take her spot on the lowered platform. Yang joined her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, granting her access to her colossal pool of Aura.
It filled her with nothing but dread.
Blake watched the pair with somber eyes, taking her spot next to Ruby and reaching for her hand. Her wife didn't react to the contact visibly, only squeezing back in reassurance.
Kneeling down to place her hands on the metal floor, Weiss began channeling Aura down onto the planet below her, rapidly pulling on the seemingly infinite supply available to her. With no visible effect, she poured more, reaching deeper into Yang's reserve until even it started diminishing in size.
On the surface of the planet started appearing supermassive glyphs, first forming as near invisible planes before Yang's Aura rushed to reinforce them, painting the already bright landscape in white. Each glyph stretched on for hundreds of kilometers, blanketing thousands of square kilometers under it.
One order would fulfill their purpose.
One order would use up all of Yang and Weiss' combined Aura in an instant.
One calamitous moment would forever remain etched in their psyche.
"Activate." Ruby's words echoed in Weiss' head, a mute apology joining it as the order got transferred down to the glyphs, a single tear tracing down her cheek.
It started with a dull roar as the very air around Vacuo trembled, a shock wave racing away from the epicenter of the destruction. Every glyph detonated with force, replacing the soothing white light with anger and violence. Millions of metric tons of desert soared into the sky after the initial explosion, the landscape clawing for vengeance against Serenity.
A display of power beyond even the Atomic War.
There was nothing but silence in the craft, neither the shockwave nor the sound unable to reach into the atmosphere. The desert continued to climb, reaching ever higher in its desperate bid, but ultimately failed to come close to the gods standing above the world.
For what else could the beings wielding such Semblances be?
AN: Short chapter to keep you all clamoring for more. Hope you enjoyed, and please leave a review to let me know what you thought.
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