A/N: a bit shorter than the last chapter, but whatever. originally, i just jumped from the events of chapter 1 to the first episode. technically, chapter 3 (coming in one week) was the original chapter 2. but i wasn't satisfied just doing a major timeskip like that, so i wrote some filler and some brief lore points
enjoy
Chapter 2: a year in the making
Rise and Fall slash through the Beringel, severing its head from its body. Carmine pants, limbs aching from exhaustion. Nearly fifty Beowolves, including 4 Alphas, and the Beringel lay dead in her wake, their corpses slowly dissolving to smoke. She looks over her carnage, silver eyes gleaming from behind her goggles.
She'd stumbled across a small village on the outskirts of Mistral, where a Grimm invasion has been happening for nearly the whole night. The chief of the village, upon seeing her weapons, had begged her for help, and Carmine never was one to turn down a request for help. The invasion was surprisingly large, and had left many of the village's buildings in tatters, as well as starting a fire that has slowly spread throughout the town square.
Carmine lets out a breath and sheaths her kamas. It was luck that Carmine was near the town that night. Only four people lost their lives before Carmine was able to sweep through the Grimm with an ease born of practice. She didn't even need to use her magics, or her eyes. She draws forth her scroll, quickly dialing the number the village's chief had given her.
"Yo, it's me, the huntress you hired." She says the moment the line is connected. "The Grimm have been cleared out. I'm sorry, though. They managed to kill four and bring down quite a few buildings." She listens to the man thank her and praise her. "Yeah, you're welcome. I've got to go, however." Her head tilts. "A reward? No thanks." The chief sounds incredulous on the other side of the line. "I didn't do this for money, sir. I just like to help people." With that, she hangs up. She stretches, joints popping. She looks around the burning village and sighs, "Almost been a month, huh?" Carmine looks at her scroll's map. "Got about two weeks before I hit Mistral." She cracks her neck and groans, "Better head on out then."
Carmine sits on one of the empty bleachers. Despite never wanting to enter the City of Mistral, she had to. No matter how many jobs she took, she couldn't legally receive a reward for them without a license. And since one needed money to survive in most places, and she didn't want to be arrested for vigilantism, she wound up applying to take Mistral's version of the Huntsman Licensing Test. The HLT for short. Most huntsmen never get a chance to enter one of the four academies, and instead apply for the HLT once they're over 18. Of course, the councils can't just give out licenses to whoever applies. There was a strict hiring process, which included a combat situation.
Which is why Carmine is seated inside one of Haven Academy's sparring arenas, alongside nearly a hundred other huntsmen hopefuls. A red haired man stands in the centre of the arena, a tablet scroll in hand.
"Alright, hopefuls!" The man calls out, and a hush falls over the crowd. "My name's Oliver Jewel, and I will be your proctor. To receive your license, you must do one of two things: win against or hold out for five minutes against one of our top huntsmen. We'll be going through all of you by application date." He checks his scroll. "Right, can Vera Polaris come down?" A woman to Carmine's right stands and makes her way to the floor. She has short cropped white hair and striking yellow eyes. At her waist is a sheathed dagger. Oliver presses a button on his scroll. Another man enters the room, a heavy-looking hammer on his back. His grey hair is slicked back, and two rounded ears stick out. His blue eyes are narrowed. "Vera Polaris, you will be fighting against Maz here."
The fight is disappointingly short. Despite Vera's seemingly good dagger-work, Maz fought like a well-oiled machine, tearing through her with ease. Oliver says something to the woman, who frowns and nods, before leaving. Oliver clears his throat and looks back at his scroll. "Alright, next up: Jules Lanoir."
It takes nearly an hour for Oliver to finally call out, "Next! Carmine Rosemage!"
"Brothers, finally." Carmine mutters, trotting into the arena. Oliver checks his scroll.
"Says here you have quite a bit of experience hunting Grimm? And that you have your semblance?" Carmine nods. "Alright. We'll have you fight against Maz. He should be well-rested by now." He looks up at the loitering huntsmen. "Oi! Maz! You're up!" The faunus man looks up and smirks. He saunters over, blue eyes raking over Carmine's form.
"Another little girl, Ollie? Really?" Oliver just shakes his head and motions for them to begin. Maz grins, grabbing his hammer. "Alright girl, you better not start crying like the last one." Carmine tilts her head, but doesn't move. The arena is silent for nearly a minute, before Maz snarls, "C'mon bitch! We're supposed to be fighting! Get your weapons out already!" Carmine smiles and flicks her hands open, Rise and Fall shooting into her palms. The faunus man's grin widens, "Now that's more like it!" He rushes forward with a painfully obvious opening move. Carmine easily dodges beneath his hammer, her kamas slashing against his armour. He makes to grab her shoulder, and she vanishes, leaving a single rose petal fluttering to the ground. "Fuck!" He immediately turns around, hammer raised. But Carmine reappears right where she had been, and hooks Rise and Fall around his neck. Her foot slams into his back, sending him to the ground. She brings her arms back, slicing his throat. His aura crackles as he thuds to the ground. He growls, leaping to his feet, hammer mid-swing already. Carmine smirks and disappears again. "Not this shit again! Fucking fight me!" She reappears right inside his guard, Rise aimed at his face.
"Match set, huh?" She says with a grin, before firing a shot. Maz's aura breaks, and he stumbles back, eyes wide. Oliver steps forward, hand raised,
"Carmine Rosemage wins!"
"You have to remove your goggles for your photo." The exasperated administrative woman says, for the umpteenth time.
"No." Carmine says, "I need them to see. Since I'm always going to be wearing them anyways, might as well include them in the photo, right?" There's no way she's removing them this deep in enemy territory. She has silver eyes. While she's not sure when Salem gets to Lionheart, she can't take the risk. The administrative woman groans.
"Fine! Fine. Just, stand still." The camera flashes. The woman heads to her computer and taps something in. After a short while, a large printer near the door begins to move. The woman waits a moment, before retrieving the printed license. "Here." She holds out a small red and gold card. "This is a physical copy of your license, since some missions may take place outside of CCT range. If you lose this, it costs 350 lien to replace." Carmine's eyebrows hike up, as she takes the card. 350 lien is surprisingly expensive, for a piece of plastic. Her scroll beeps. "A copy of your license has been imputed into your scroll, as well." The woman gestures to the door. "You can go now."
"Thanks."
It's nearly four months later, when Carmine first hears it. On a whim, she'd bought (read, stolen) a skull-shaped mask, after her goggles had broken in a fight against a pair of stupidly powerful Geists that had taken over a small dust mine in eastern Anima. Carmine wasn't going to run around proudly displaying her eyes for all to see. Not this close to the beginning.
"Hey, hey!" A little boy calls out. Carmine turns, the fading sunlight glinting off her mask. A small blue-haired boy runs up to her, eyes wide in awe. "You're the Grimm Harvester, aren't you!" 'The what?'
"Uh..." Carmine has no clue what he's talking about. The boy grins,
"Yeah, yeah! You have the mask and the cool sickles!" She looks down at Rise and Fall, both of which are in her hands, since she had just slain a pack of Beowolves that was threatening the town.
"They're kamas, kid." He looks at her weapons in awe.
"Kamas! You're so cool!" He holds up a pen and a piece of paper. "Miss Harvester, can I have your autograph? Please?" Carmine is still thoroughly confused by the name, but she grabs the offered items with a nod.
"Uh, what do you want me to sign again?" He smiles widely,
"Your name! The Grimm Harvester!" 'Right.' Carmine quickly signs the paper with the moniker and hands it back to the excited kid.
"Here you go, kid. Show your friends or whatever." With that, she vanishes.
'Are you fucking kidding me.' Carmine thinks, scrolling through the news on her scroll. She's seated on the bed in her rented motel room. The only light in the room is from the TV on the wall is muted, playing some soap opera from Menagerie, and her scroll. She pulls up an article and frowns. A picture of her, from a fight with a Nevermore about two weeks ago, is proudly displayed at the top. Luckily, her mask was on.
The Grimm Harvester Spotted Near Mount Glenn! Was the title of the article.
Friday evening, a travelling group of merchants stumbled upon a battlefield. "Almost a hundred Grimm were dead!" One of the merchants explained to us here at Vale Central News. "And then she appeared! Fighting one of the biggest Nevermores I've ever seen!" The woman mentioned, our dear readers, was indeed the Grimm Harvester herself!
The legendary huntress was first documented saving Moru Village in Anima. Moru Village was overrun by a large pack of Beowolves, and one witness claimed there was a Beringel as well. We contacted Moru Village's Chief Burns about the incident, and he confirmed the presence of a Beringel, and the Grimm Harvester's lucky arrival. "It was pure luck that she arrived when she did." Burns said, regarding the incident. "Thanks to her, most of our village was salvageable, and only four people died. If she hadn't been there, there's no knowing what could have happened."
What follows is a description of her. Nearly every detail is spot on, right down to the grooves etched into Rise and Fall. The only things they didn't know were her real name, an accurate read on her semblance, her magic, and what colour her eyes were. Then again, if they knew she had magic that would be really suspicious. Especially because she rarely used it, and never near people. Though she thanks the brothers that they didn't know her eye colour. She doesn't need Salem's assassins breathing down her neck just yet. Then, a line near the bottom of the article catches her eye.
Several say that the Grimm Harvester is the Grimm Reaper resurrected. The two women use very similar weapons, have a similar fighting style, and wear similar masks. Could the Grimm Harvester be styling herself as the next Grimm Reaper?
Of course. Her eye twitches. Of fucking course. She should've just rebuilt Crescent Rose, damn the consequences. She groans and shuts off her scroll. All Carmine ever wanted was to help people. She doesn't care about the fame. She often turns down rewards for her jobs, only keeping a bare minimum amount of lien, just enough to keep her afloat. She only wants to protect the people. Then again, those who least want fame are the most likely to get it. She sighs.
Carmine looks back down at her scroll. Though it's off, she can just picture the time displayed on its screen. The date is slipping ever closer to the beginning. She looks out the window, up at the nearly full moon.
"It's almost time..."
Carmine races through the streets of Vale, hopping from roof to roof, trying to get to the scene of the robbery as soon as she possibly could. 'Of all days,' She thinks, as she leaps to the roof of a warehouse, 'the damned airship just had to be delayed today.' She lands on the roof opposite of From Dust til Dawn, and pants, briefly wishing she could wipe the sweat from her brow. She can't remove her mask, though. She can sense Cinder's half-powers in an alley just a block away.
A flash of red catches her eye, and she sees her mini-me jump onto the roof of the apartment complex next door to the dust shop. Carmine grabs Rise and Fall, as a bullhead lifts to the skies. 'Alright, if I remember correctly, one of them will throw a burn crystal and ignite it.' She watches as her mini-me fires at the bullhead, and as Cinder steps just barely into the light, readying her fire magic. Carmine tenses, as the false-maiden begins raining fireballs down at the roof. 'Where's Glynda?' The older huntress should have arrived by now. Carmine lets out a low breath and sends out her aura, feeling for nearby presences. 'Red, that's Ruby's aura. Orange, that's Cinder. Green, Roman. But where's...' She tilts her head. 'oh, there's purple.' Glynda's aura places her just beginning to leap onto the roof. 'Wait. What's – '
Carmine's launched herself forward before she could even comprehend her own thoughts, Rise and Fall slashing through the large burn crystal, weakening it. She flares her aura and runs her magic along her cloak, hardening it into a shield, as the crystal shards explode. Purple aura flashes behind her, and she can just barely see a large protection glyph form, protecting Ruby and Glynda from the explosions. Carmine looks up at the bullhead. She briefly locks eyes with Cinder, before the airship flies off.
"Y-You!" Carmine hears, and she turns to look at her younger self. Ruby bounces excitedly in place, hands clasped together and eyes wide in awe. "You're the Grimm Harvester!" Oh god her mini-me knew that stupid moniker. "Can I have your autograph?!" Carmine snorts and shakes her head, vanishing from the roof.
She reappears outside of Beacon's clock tower. If she's timed things correctly, she has about fifteen minutes to get into Ozpin's office. There, she can wait for the man to return, and then they could... talk. Honestly, she has no plan. Does she just come right out and say she's from the future? Or would it be more polite to not start with that? Brothers, she has no idea what she's doing. Carmine groans and rolls her shoulders.
"Better get up there then."