The Breach of Vale

by Mawkish Warden

Your people have risen to create civilisations meant to last an eternity. You have erected walls and groomed your young to fight, making the old and weak forget about the monsters that hunger for their souls. You know it's only a matter of time before your illusion of safety is shattered forever. Let me show you that the time has come. Let me show you that it's time for war.

11. Sequel Announcement: The Fall of Beacon

Codex Entry: Interview of Qrow Branwen (98 AGW – 11 Years After Salem's Defeat)

Should they have been there? No.

This whole thing with Salem, with Ozpin, with the Maidens and the Relics and all that shit…it needed to be handled with finesse…with tact. But here comes General James 'Fucking' Ironwood, all puffed up with righteousness, delivering a whole bucket of his toy ships and soldiers right on our doorstep. And those idiots in our government just let him in with their wagging tongues. Result? – All the hardware you could ask for in the world, just waiting to be jacked and turned against us.

But…when everything went to hell. When that little android girl was cut to pieces and we all collectively crapped ourselves. When the White Fang and Grimm started pouring into the city. When we all fell nice and neatly into that bitch's trap, those Atlesians fought. In the first few hours, when chaos reigned, they fought with a confused desperation, trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. When the higher ups started getting their shit together, and the enormity of what was happening came crashing down on their heads, they fought with anger, determined to make those assholes pay for killing their buddies. And when we saw that we'd lost, that we had to pull back and regroup, they fought with a stubborn tenacity to get as many people out of the crumbling city as they could.

During the battle, they were shot, stabbed, and ripped apart, just like the rest of us. Whereas another force might have ran off or broken ranks, they stayed strong. Through loss after encumbering loss, they kept the fire of our fighting spirit burning bright into the night and the following dawn. When the evac shuttles finally came for the wounded and frightened, they stayed behind as long as they could, just to get that one more civilian or critical out of the killzones.

So, yeah. I wish I'd never seen those Atlesians. I wish they'd stayed in their own damned continent and let us work things out in a way that didn't result in half our Kingdom being reduced to rubble. But I also respect that, when there was no hope, when everything seemed lost and our backs were against the wall, they were there for us.

And Jimmy? If you ever watch this…for the record, if I was one of your men, I'd still shoot myself. But now, I'd at least give you a salute before I did it.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Fall of Beacon

1st of January 2021