Vale's first settlers erected a beacon for the lost to join civilization. The valley gave them fertile soil and defensible terrain, rich in minerals. Generations later, south-east, they discovered Mountain Glenn, and its bountiful Dust. The vein there stretched from Remnant's core to the tips of mountains. Surveyors captured the image of a man standing in The Glenn, his hand against a Dust spire that dwarfed him.
The Merlot family seized that abundance and changed the world. The Schnee family's vision of a Cross Continental Transmit System became real. The military replaced its lead bullets with dust cartridges. Huntsmen crafted weapons not even imaginable in the previous age.
There was one problem. As humanity's fire grew brighter, its shadows in the outlands grew stronger.
Atlas evacuated first. And Cherry responded first. Her pager wailed in her purse, and she knew that her vacation was over. She didn't say goodbye to her date. She stepped out of her high-heels and ran.
The platoon at the embassy had sealed the gates. She flashed her badge and slid through. In the locker rooms, she threw a kit harness on over her sun dress and started her equipment check. The door slammed open again for Olivia, White, and Hikari. In twelve years, they would be known as The Winter Soldiers, the elite of the elite. For now, they were seasoned veterans of Atlas' Special Retinue Service.
"Some vacation," Olivia noted.
She lifted a kit with green accents over her torso.
Agent Hikari snapped, "Updates?"
Cherry gestured for television. A holo-screen appeared. Lisa Lavender of Vale News Network didn't look like she was reporting the end of the world. She smiled at the camera and babbled about the weather, and a fair, and all the good reasons to visit Vale today.
"Been thinking of a vacation? Vale Transit Authority has announced free passes from Mountain Glenn to Vale for the whole weekend, in celebration of the Vytal Tournament's closing ceremony."
White asked, "Why aren't they mentioning the Grimm? Shouldn't they be evacuating?"
Cherry pulled her boots on.
Olivia shook her head. "They can't. They don't have enough time to get everyone out, so they won't announce an evacuation until their VIPs are clear."
The team hefted their rifles, ready for action.
"This is gonna be bad," Olivia guessed.
The door opened. Captain Gray entered in his infantry fatigues, and put on his helmet. "Agent! You're assembled?"
"We're ready, Sir," Agent Hikari nodded.
He tossed a data slate to her. "We're missing Apple Schnee. A huntress named Summer Rose says she has her at the base of the CCT. I need two of you to bring her back here. You have an hour until the last flight leaves. And I need two of you to come with me."
Agent Hikari nodded and pointed. "Cherry. White. You're with Gray."
Captain Gray turned to Cherry. "The Ambassador thinks he's still in command. We're relieving him of duty. I'll try to explain, but we might have to kill him."
Cherry raised an eyebrow. White shifted to his back foot. Olivia glanced to Hikari, whose smile was a mere dimple on her cheek. The Agent asked, "You think we'll help you kill Noir Soleil?"
Captain Gray asked, "Is that a problem?"
Agent Hikari nodded. "He founded our unit."
"Right now, he's the difference between getting everyone home and getting everyone dead. You worry about Apple Schnee, Agent. You two, follow me."
Hikari ordered, "White. I'll trust your judgment."
White nodded.
Hikari and Olivia sprinted out the door.
Cherry and White followed Captain Gray into the embassy's hallways. Cherry didn't know much about Captain Gray. This was his first commission. He'd been at Kolyma. But otherwise, he was fresh out of Officer School.
White, at her side, was a combat buddy from selection camp. They'd struggled together for the last six years. They'd climbed Mount Blue Balls, wandered the many forests of Remnant, and levelled a whole settlement together. Their height difference was a comical aesthetic, but had never been a problem. She looked up to check his expression. He frowned down at her. White, she knew, had joined to fight Grimm. He didn't like the jobs that pitted him against people.
Gray shouldered through the stateroom door and stopped with his fists against the desk. Ambassador Noir Soleil stared intently at the radio, and made no reaction, save that he lifted a finger for silence. Gray was patient enough to spare him a few seconds.
The radio said, "This is Cyril Ian, with Vale News Network. I have some unfortunate news from the Tactical Coordinator in Mountain Glenn. Grimm on the perimeter are harrying the walls defenses. The military is asking for the streets in the outer districts to be kept clear. There is also a voluntary evacuation in effect. City Police will protect your belongings. Now is an excellent time for a vacation to the big city!"
Ambassador Soleil was an old man. Cherry thought he looked a little over two-hundred. He sounded older. "He's afraid. So The Wall is already breached. Our sins finally manifest."
"We're evacuating," Gray snapped. "We're leaving by air and flying directly to Atlas."
Soleil flicked the radio off. "I have ordered everyone to proceed to the trains post-haste."
"The wall is already breached, Sir. Once the line breaks, we'll be overrun, and Ozpin will blow the train tunnels. Lower the flag and report to the helipad."
Ambassador Soleil smiled. "Ozpin loves Vale. Nothing in all Remnant could possess him to surrender his Magnum Opus."
"I told him you just boarded a train, Soleil."
Cherry had never seen Soleil caught off guard, out of answers or quips. His mouth hung open at the realization that he was truly hated.
The explosions rumbled like distant thunder.
Noir sighed, deflating. "Do you realize how many you have just condemned?"
"As I told you in my report two years ago, Sir, Mountain Glenn is Not a defensible position. It Will fall. I just saved Vale."
"By air then," Noir relented.
"See you on the helipad, Sir." Captain Gray turned to leave.
Noir held up a hand. "Wait. The embassy has an obligation to fulfill. The Merlot family estate is near the wall. Their service to the State of Mantle places them under the protection of the Retinue. Or have we abandoned those principles? I know things have changed since my retirement."
He looked to Cherry for an answer. She thought it through. The charter of the Special Retinue Service was to serve the Crown of Mantle and protect humanity's strategic assets. That definitely included the Merlots. She glanced to White and shrugged.
He said, "We can do it."
Captain Gray tipped his helmet to them, and they turned to sprint. In the garage, they found Hikari and Olivia tossing crates from the bed of an armed truck.
White shouted to them. "Where are the other vehicles?"
Hikari gestured at the empty expanse of the garage. "The platoon took everything but this junk."
Cherry and White joined in, emptying the seats. They'd need the space for their VIPs. Cherry had the smallest profile of the group. She mounted the gun on the bed and started her functions check. Olivia hopped into the bed with her. White turned the keys, and the engine rumbled to life like a purring great cat.
Everyone perked up at the sound. Hikari turned to look at the engine.
"This a Diesel?"
Olivia nodded. "Yeah. Warthogs run on diesel."
"Warthog?"
White revved the engine. "Sounds more like a Puma."
He changed gear, and the Puma leaped out the garage ramp and onto the boulevard.
Their assignment to Mountain Glenn was supposed to be a break after Furburg. Moving-in day was awesome. Their daily runs took them past hectares of grass marked for construction. They'd all climbed Bald Mountain twice. It towered over the plains and stuck out at double the height of the other peaks. The whole place was surreal in its beauty. But now, driving full speed down an empty highway, the place was eerie. Traffic in the opposite direction stood still, with people abandoning their cars to run. That desperate mob stretched to the horizon.
Wind flapped at Cherry's dress and tore at her cheeks like gunpowder. She touched the sting on her skin. The powder and slug rifle on her back was days away from replacement. She'd already tested the new dust-powered laser rifles. She hated them.
Olivia spoke her mind. "I just realized, this is the last time we'll get to use gunpowder rifles."
Cherry nodded her agreement.
White called, "Brace! I'm swerving!"
They whipped past a line of concrete barricades, where green Vale uniforms braced their rifles in the slats like a phalanx of spearmen.
Hikari gestured at them. "That was Captain Scarlatina, Vale third Cav. Where's their armor?"
White shrugged. "They weren't on alert. It's probably packed up in the depot. Here's our exit."
The Puma swerved off the highway and down a tunnel. For thirty seconds, they drove through dim lighting and close quarters. Then the tunnel opened, and they were in the undercity.
The expanses of easy dust became commercial caverns, the city's second half. Cherry'd bought this sundress at the tailor's twinkling between two sparse veins.
The off ramp curved to the CCT subnode's first basement floor, a nexus of highways and footpaths to each of the colossal cavern's levels.
Olivia lifted her scope and noted, "No Grimm."
Hikari turned in her seat, elbow up on the headrest. "Give it an hour. Everyone remember, your only objective is the VIPs. We didn't make it through Furburg to choke on a hairball here."
She took a long look at Cherry, at her dress, and smiled. She glanced to White's cargo shorts and the orchid in Olivia's hair.
Hikari laughed, "You guys look ridiculous."
Olivia shook her head. "Normal people have a civilian wardrobe, Agent."
Hikari gestured to Cherry. "Don't civilians wear pants?"
"She was on a date," White defended.
"So much for that," Olivia lamented.
Hikari held up a hand. "Hang on now. Ebon Merlot's rich and hot. Maybe he'll be grateful Cherry rescued him."
Olivia frowned. "Sadly, no. He's after Raven Branwen. And she's a Huntress."
White glanced into his rearview. "Cherry's in luck. Branwen shot him down already."
"Really?"
Hikari nodded. "Yesterday."
Cherry cleared her throat into her mic. Hikari sighed. Then she nodded. And said, already regretting it, "Alright, Cherry. Permission to speak."
Cherry spouted, "I could get Ebon pregnant and you'd be clear to go for Branwen."
Olivia squinted.
White shuddered in his seat and shouted. "God damnit, Hikari! This is why we don't let her talk!"
"Yeah, yeah," Cherry dismissed, "Hikari, seriously, Branwen's available. Think about it."
Hikari adjusted her harness. "Uh… Qrow Branwen's really not my type," she said.
Everyone laughed. Olivia managed to say, "No shit! She meant Raven!"
Hikari shook her head and smiled. "I, uh… I was waiting for the right time to tell you guys. What, uh, gave it away?"
"Receptionist at the embassy's into you," White said. "And she read you when you walked in."
"Great. Thanks for telling me, guys," Hikari groaned.
White pulled them into the parking lot and skidded to a stop.
Hikari checked her watch. "Grab the Merlots and meet us back here in thirty. Stay on mission."
White and Cherry nodded.
Hikari and Olivia jumped out and bolted to the tower.
White made the engine roar, and put them on the onramp to the surface.
In the tunnel, just as the radios began to crackle, Hikari whispered, "Soft contact. Stay safe up there."
The Puma soared as it cleared the surface, and their radio contact ended.
A nevermore glided in the distance. The wind turned shrill and sour. The highway climbed into hills and trees. The grassy plains turned to sparser, pebbled dirt.
Cherry looked down to her battle buddy. "White?"
White aligned to the road paint and then glanced at her in his rear-view. "Yeah, Cherry?"
"They said you climb Blue Balls by finding out who you are. That was twenty years ago. Still got no idea who I am."
White shrugged. "We've got, like, two-hundred years to figure that out."
Cherry shook her head. "One-Twenty. All the 'roids and Dust infusions they give us girls reduce lifespan. And fuck up our ovaries."
White cast her a sympathetic glance.
She said, "One-Twenty years to figure this out. Days like these, I think we've got hours."
They zoomed past a road sign, and White gently swerved at his exit.
Cherry asked, "How do you deal with it?"
White cringed in the mirror. "I don't."
The trees broke. Cherry saw the mansion. She called, "Window broke on the third floor! Evade! Evade!"
White zigzagged off of the road and hopped a small hill over the aesthetic wall. They skidded to a halt in the driveway without contact and sprinted through a side door, weapons up.
They found the first bodies in the kitchen, where the staff lay in flour and blood. The haphazard wounds meant someone had poorly sprayed the room with a pistol. That someone hadn't had the decency to tap their heads. Cherry saw the Dust effects on the tile walls. Small caliber. Aura Piercing.
The next bodies lay in the foyer. Ebon Merlot lay faceless in the entryway.
His Nieces were charred masses, one glued by her hand to the door handle, swaying open in a breeze. The other had hugged her by the waist, and fused there.
She'd done that to a faunus once. With a Plasma rifle. A whole battery. Thirty seconds of sustained fire.
The breeze nudged the door open, shoved the corpses, blew the cooked-flesh smell into Cherry's face.
She swallowed and moved on.
Countess Merlot looked alive, sitting in her chair after two-hundred years of living. The knife in her heart, and nothing else, was a giveaway.
White placed a hand to the Countess' forehead and mouthed, "Warm."
Next room. The four most famous brothers on Remnant lay dead against the dining room table. In life, they'd been called The Four Seasons of Industry. Cherry lifted one's head to see the foam at his mouth. They each had an empty glass. And in the table's center was a decanter. Poisoned wine.
Cherry cleared the parlor, and saw out the windows that the dogs were all at their chain's end, their corpses piled together where they had cowered.
She met White at the stairs, and they both signaled clear.
Through the open door, a raven soared into the room and perched on a bust of Pallas Athena. How quickly nature reclaimed.
Cherry kept her attention up the stairs, but signed to White: ENEMY?
White signed: TWO-FAUNUS.
Cherry shook her head. That didn't explain the poisoned wine.
Cherry pantomimed shooting someone execution style, and then herself. White shrugged that he wasn't sure.
A round expended upstairs. Pistol. And a body hit the floor.
A young girl screamed, and her footsteps passed overhead. A man followed, bellowing, "It's better this way, Fola!"
"No! No!"
Cherry and White sprinted up the stairs. The man screamed, "Fola! You are too young to understand! At least grant me that you will die with dignity!"
They found him in the hallway, the eminent Doctor Merlot, trying to kick down his granddaughter's door. He shot at the lock, but only put holes in the wood and emptied his magazine. The slide on his pistol clicked back, empty, and Cherry lowered her rifle to charge and tackle him.
"NO!" he screamed, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
Cherry put him down with a swift ball tap and a fist to his jaw. She kicked the door open.
The next moment was governed by reflexes. Cherry had a gun in her face. She reached out and jammed the slide with one hand. With the other, she bopped Fola Merlot's cute little nose.
Fola was a scared child, but she'd chosen to not play victim. A copy of Crusade sat open on the nightstand, hollowed out. Cherry tossed the weapon aside and forced Fola to the ground. She cuffed her. They made quick work dragging the Merlots to the Puma.
In the driveway, Cherry strapped Dr. Merlot into the cargo belts on the Puma's bed. White secured Fola's seatbelt, murmuring, "Hey, sweetie? Are any of your relatives still alive?"
She sobbed.
"Okay," he hummed.
He hopped into the driver's seat and turned the ignition.
Cherry's kit harness rumbled with the engine. She checked her shoulder monitor: Pattern Blue. Grimm spawning.
Motion drew her eye to the dog yard. Just a flicker. The corpse pile was collapsing, flesh melting away and shuffling as something birthed inside.
"White? WHITE!"
"What?"
"TIME TO GO!"
Cherry hopped on the truck bed and brought the gun around. White called, "Brace!" and the Puma crashed through the mansion gates.
Where the dogs had died was now a shadow, roused by the cacophony. Red eyes and pearlescent bones pointed at Cherry, and she felt the dread attention of the Grimm. A great void reached out and touched her soul. The damned turned their sullen whispers to her ears.
She called, "Boarbatusk! Go! GO!" And answered those whispers with Bone Piercing Incendiary .30 at ten rounds per second.
They swerved onto the highway, but the monster had closed distance. It swiped at the wheel just as they accelerated away.
No real creature could keep up with a car. But Grimm cared for physics like they cared for municipal codes. The shadow rolled onto its face, and the bone carapace along its curled body acted as a wheel, turning as if the god of death had decided to drive them down. White swerved to let it pass and crash into the highway's walls. The boarbatusk unraveled, and Cherry sent a burst of ammunition at its exposed belly. The rounds deflected. She'd seen that before, but… Only on a huntsman. She knew she could have seen it wrong. The rounds could have hit asphalt.
Or there was something different about this monster. She'd never seen bones glow neon green.
White asked, "Did you get it?"
"It's still up!"
"It won't work!" Fola wailed.
"Cherry! Left! High!"
She spun the gun around and spotted a young Nevermore, only the size of a man, diving into a high-G turn to try and swoop her with its claws. She spent a heartbeat leading the shot and unleashed the cannon. The rounds deflected again, and she saw how the sunlight played off of an aura around the Grimm.
"Shit! Evade!"
"Damnit, Cherry! I can't do this!"
White slammed his breaks, and the Nevermore swooped ahead of them. He spun around to dodge the boarbatusk, and pulled a full doughnut to keep on the right way.
"That won't keep working, Cherry! You've gotta hit it!"
"I did! No effect!"
"Fucking what?"
The nevermore pulled an impossibly sharp turn and accelerated toward her. Five sets of talons emerged from its chest. Cherry dove to her back and drew her sidearm, the Retinue's "Last-Resort" Revolver. She screamed and fanned six rounds of .45 Aura Piercing at her deepest fear. It puffed like smoke struck by a bellows. Its bones scattered around her, their red-spiral inlays glowing, then igniting and burning out of existence before they'd finished bouncing.
The boarbatusk made a third lunge, but White swerved down into the undercity. A Grimm that young wouldn't be clever enough to follow them. Cherry stayed down on the bed, panting and reloading. On a second thought, she radioed, "I'm alive."
"Same," White chuckled.
They broke from the tunnel into the depths of hell. The echoes of gunfire and screaming filled their ears. The radio crackled, and White seized on that opportunity.
"Hikari! We're on our way back! You need a ride?"
"Yeah! Switch to your side-arms and come in hot! Repeat, Aura-Piercing! Use Aura-Piercing!"
The ramp turned down, and the Puma's suspension made it jump, as if from rock to rock down a cliff.
White skidded into the parking lot, and Olivia climbed into the bed, carrying another kid.
Hikari stood farther away, surrounded by Beowolves. Old Beowolves; And that meant smart Beowolves. She'd never seen so many bones on a Grimm. Yesterday, she'd never seen bones that glowed green, nor Grimm with auras.
One of them sensed an opening and lunged. Hikari brandished her rifle at it and shouted like a caveman with a spear. It retreated.
If Hikari pulled the trigger, they'd realize she couldn't hurt them. Another lunged forward, but it had learned caution in its decades. Hikari turned to face it, keeping Apple between her shoulder blades. The monster retreated to its pack and kept circling.
Apple's marble dress sparkled even in the parking lot's fluorescent lights, catching the light as her skirt twirled. The SDC logo on her vest had a green sheen that flared as she moved.
Cherry had an idea. She brought the Puma's gun around and sprayed the ground. The beowolves made an opening, and Hikari shouted, "Now! Go! Run!"
Apple jumped into the truck bed. Hikari backpedaled her butt onto the tail, and the Beowolves fanned out under the attention of all four soldiers. White revved them to the highway onramp, and the pack split up to find easier prey.
Hikari sighed her adrenaline free. Cherry sat beside her, so they were dangling their legs together over the road.
Hikari turned to her and asked, "Casualties?"
Cherry nodded. "The Merlots had a mass suicide. We rescued two. White and I are fine."
"Good. I mean, you two." Hikari pulled a Scroll from her kit and flicked it open. "Barometer's still dropping. White?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we go faster?"
"No."
Cherry and Hikari watched the barometer tick down. "The wave is catching up to us," Hikari murmured.
The Puma cleared the tunnel, and they saw the sky again, now overcast. Darkness pooled in the clouds. In the distance, Cherry saw smoke rising, and Nevermores circling. Hundreds. She turned to look at Olivia and her rescue, another girl Apple's age.
She asked, "Who's that?"
Olivia panted, "Ciel Soleil. She's the ambassador's daughter."
Hikari turned into the conversation and snapped, "You sure? Soleil didn't mention a daughter."
Olivia shrugged.
Hikari looked to Cherry. They both shrugged. They turned back to the road, and watched it trail out from under them. This was the best part of the nightmares.
In their silence, Ciel crawled out of Olivia's lap, across the truck bed. "Apple? Are you alright?"
Cherry watch them interact, quietly trading emotions. Fear, uncertainty.
Apple nodded. The two looked to Fola, watched her cry. Ciel asked, "Fola? Where's Mauve? She was at your house right?"
Fola cried harder.
Hikari nudged Cherry's arm. "Sorry about Ebon."
The loss did hurt. He'd been an icon of the few safe places on Remnant. Now she had a lifetime of warfare ahead of her. There would be no respite in her One-Twenty years. She imagined his mangled corpse, faceless in the lobby. It was a scary thought, the kind Grimm presence causes, she realized. These feelings were an outside influence.
"Yeah, well," Cherry finally mumbled, "He's kind of a stiff, anyway."
Hikari laughed.
Cherry continued, "And now that his face is all messed up, I dunno'. The attraction's gone."
"Gotta find you a livelier guy," Hikari offered.
"They have auras," Fola shouted!
Hikari and Cherry turned to look at her. In desperation, she repeated it.
"They have auras!"
Over the headsets, White crackled, "She's got a point."
Cherry looked to Hikari. She saw that her friend was scared.
"You too, huh?" Cherry whispered.
Hikari nodded. A bolt of lightning lit her face. Then thunder cackled across the sky, and a sprinkle of rain began. Fell winds competed with her voice on the radio.
Hikari gestured to Olivia. "We saw Rocket artillery hit that Goliath. It should have been annihilated."
Cherry swallowed.
Hikari reminded them, "White. We have to be on that bullhead."
The Puma swerved onto side streets. They skidded to a stop out front of the embassy. Two guards remained on the perimeter, shivering in the unnatural gusts of ice-wind. Their bullhead idled on the rooftop. Cherry pushed the three little girls inside first. Upstairs, Fola, Apple, and Ciel were first on the tilt-jet. Captain Gray had waited on the helipad. Rain soaked his uniform and dripped from his helmet. White flopped Dr. Merlot's body into the aircraft. Cherry stood guard beside Captain Gray.
He leaned into her ear and shouted to be heard over the engines and wind.
"That's all the Merlots?"
She couldn't find the words for it. She nodded. He read it in her expression. He looked out to the horizon.
"Apple's the only one we need," he admitted.
He seemed stuck, staring at the darkness creeping from the East.
"I'm glad I don't live in Vale," he said.
And he turned with Cherry to sit in the bullhead's side door. The tilt-jets screamed. The craft lifted.
Cherry motioned Gray closer.
She shouted into his ear. "The goliath has an aura!"
"What?"
The engines were too loud, or he didn't believe her. She made hand signals.
HUNTSMAN-GRIMM-AURA.
She watched his squint fade to disbelief, then understanding.
She shouted, "Alert Vale!"
"They already destroyed the tunnels!"
She signaled: GOLIATH-TOPSIDE-WALL-NEGATVIE
Captain Gray shrugged. "There's nothing any of us can do! Vale's done for!"
The engines waned off as he shouted the last line. He checked his shoulder, to see who'd heard. Everyone.
Gray shook his head and looked out to the distance again. As they rose to the cloud layer, the vanguard of the Grimm came into perspective. The whole of the suburbs was overrun. They tore at every structure, muzzles uprooting gardens, disassembling people and their things in a frenzy of annihilation. The peripheries of the swarm reached the embassy gates.
Gray wiped rain from his face and pointed. "Close call."
Cherry nodded her agreement. She'd been advised in selection camp that tragedy and comedy were two faces of the same coin. She had a quip ready, something really dark. But she never told her joke. Apple Schnee stepped between her and Captain Gray. And then she jumped.
Grey shouted, "NO!" and tried to grab her. His hand caught on her necklace, a silver chain. She dangled from his grip for a few seconds.
She'd been shell shocked before. Now her eyes brimmed with sapience. She put a hand on his and said, "It's going to be okay."
The chain snapped under her weight, and she tumbled away from the craft. They lost sight of her as they lifted into the clouds. Gray stared at the chain in his fist. Blood trickled from his grip and dripped from the silver. He uncurled his fingers to reveal the charm on the end, a small apple emblazoned with a snowflake. The curved edge had sliced his palm.
He looked at Cherry.
She screamed, "FUCK!"
Cherry pushed her way to the front of the bullhead and grabbed the pilot.
"Go back! Down! Down! We have to go back!"
The bug eyed helmet shook its head and pointed. There, she saw something worse than the dead Merlot girls, or their Uncle's mangled face, or the pile of dogs in their yard.
What they had seen on the ground was a mass of Grimm greater than any army. What she saw above the clouds was a monster of impossible size. The whole airborne horde of the Grimm swarm stretched over the curvature of Remnant. And this beast's wings covered that swarm. As it moved, it eclipsed the sun, as if the last of the gods had finally closed His eyes and turned away.