Chapter 1-
Winter
Winter Schnee felt a small shiver run through her body.
The roaring winds outside of her airship could almost be felt even within the slightly warmer confines of the vehicle. The weather outside was not exactly ideal, but Special Operatives like herself always did take pride in their ability to execute their mission regardless of the circumstances surrounding it. They were the Atlas military's elite, and as such, it would simply not do for her to let something so small, like a little snowstorm deter her from completing her mission.
The mission was a simple one; the elimination of a growing number of Grimm around one of the towns near the border of Atlas's Northern Frontier. Normally, a basic job like this one was left to the more automated members of the Atlas military, the Atlesian Knights to be precise. A good chunk of the Atlas military these days was made up of their robotic counterparts, and they did the job well enough.
Most of the time anyway.
Headquarters had lost contact with the Atlesian Knights that had been originally sent out on this mission a little over a week ago. As for the town itself, there haven't been any forms of communication between HQ and Wakefield for over a month now. Most of the higher-ups have already assumed that the village had to have been all but destroyed by now. The only reason a Special Operative was being sent out at this point was due to regulation.
The Atlas military couldn't be seen breaking regulation after all, the media would have a field day.
Some would've called it cruel, and Winter was inclined to agree with them. But at the same time, being a member of the Atlas military herself, she knew that they couldn't possibly be everywhere at once. When it came to small outposts like these way out on the border, most of the time they were left to fend for themselves. The Atlas military devoted most of their resources into protecting the capital and the areas around it, those that happened to be on the outskirts were simply deemed to be acceptable losses.
Changes had been promised by General Ironwood, but progress was still slow. The wealthy were not comfortable with the Atlas military spreading its forces too thin in order to offer better protection for the many smaller towns and outposts along the border. Nonetheless, in spite of the initial backlash, General Ironwood continued to press for changes, and that was one of the main reasons why she was on an airship to a border town.
It was why Winter respected the general so much.
As the airship began to make its descent, she took a brief look outside of the window. The snowstorm outside was raging on in full force. Visibility would be low, and the terrain would be almost hazardous. Winter could see why the Atlesian Knights would've struggled against the Grimm under these circumstances.
"Attention: Special Operative Schnee," Came the robotic voice of the airship's pilot, "We have arrived at our destination."
The hatch soon opened and she was greeted with an icy gust of wind. Winter flared her Aura out in response, as she jumped down from the hatch, landing knee-deep in a field of snow. Her Aura did a good job at keeping most of the cold at bay, although having to constantly keep her Aura up like this would get tiresome soon enough. Just because she was trained to deal with the cold didn't mean she enjoyed it.
The hatch behind her closed with a hiss, as the airship's engines slowly began to shut off. Winter could make out the rough outline of the town from her location, in spite of the low visibility due to the snowstorm. The lights coming from the town served as a good beacon as she began to trudge her way through the icy terrain.
The walk was a tedious one, as her boots kept sinking knee-deep into the snow with every step that she took. The roaring winds did their best in their attempt to send her flying back, but she persevered and marched on. It simply wouldn't do for a mere snowstorm to keep one of Atlas's elite from completing her mission after all.
It began to occur to her that something wasn't right when she arrived at the front gates of the town to see that the barricades at the entrance had been all but destroyed. The guard that should've been at the top of watchtower by the gate was distinctly not there either. Winter simply narrowed her eyes and kept a hand close to her saber as she began to navigate her way around the debris.
An investigation seemed to be the next order of the day for her.
The inside of the town did not seem to fare much better, as a good deal of the buildings appeared to be in ruin. A few streetlights still stood up, illuminating the path towards the town square. The complete lack of people left her wondering just what exactly had happened here. Shadows that looked eerily like Grimm appeared to dance along the dark, but she didn't pay them any mind. Winter Schnee was long gone from the days where small trifles like that would put fear into her heart.
She had been through more life and death situations in her short career thus far than she would've liked to count.
As she made her way into the heart of the town's square, what she saw gave her pause. A group of people were huddled together in a circle, standing right in the middle of the town square. The few streetlamps that were still up provided just enough light for Winter to see that there were four of them with their heads turned low, looking down at something by their feet. She didn't know what they were doing, but she had many questions and they most likely had the answers that she needed.
Walking over towards the group, she let out a small cough in order to grab their attention.
"Excuse me, I'm Special Operative Winter Schnee. Atlas military," She introduced herself, "I'd like to ask you all some questions."
The only response that she received was a low growl. As the people in front of her began to turn around, she very soon began to realize that something was very wrong. Now that she was a lot closer, Winter was able to get a better look at the people in question, and what she saw was unnerving to say the least.
Their clothes were torn in many places and dried, frozen blood could be seen stained across the various injuries that raked their form. Their faces were a haunting sight, as their skin seemed to glow with a sickly yellow, and their eyes… Winter could only describe as cataractous in nature.
These people looked sick.
"Are you all feeling alright?" She asked, with a frown evident on her face.
The only response that Winter received was in the form of one of the men clumsily staggering forward, swiping out with a hand with claws far too long for even a Faunus to possess. She easily stepped out of the way before backing up, creating some space between them.
"Stop!" She demanded, "Why are you attacking me!?"
Another guttural growl was the only response as they all began to stagger forward with a frenzied look in their eyes. At this point, it was becoming quite clear to Winter that there was no reason to attempt to communicate with these people any longer. Whether it was due to some affliction or drug, these people were obviously not in the right state of mind.
She'd simply have to put them down with force then.
With a click of her tongue, she pulled out her saber from its sheath. When one of them got close enough to her, she swung her saber hard, striking him in the back of the head with the blunt side of her blade. In an almost practiced motion, she dodged another strike and did the same thing to the other man, sending him flying towards the frozen ground. Within a matter of seconds, the entire group was now lying face down on the floor.
She didn't want to use force, but they didn't leave her with much of a choice.
As Winter was about to sheathe her saber, a low primal growl gave her pause. Turning her attention back towards the group of people she had just subdued, she could see that they had begun to clumsily push themselves back up. Winter frowned, she had used a good deal of strength in her blows, definitely enough to knock someone out for a while.
Although judging from how the group of four had begun to stumble towards her once more without any worse for wear, it seemed like she hadn't used enough.
How long had she been fighting?
Winter wasn't sure, but it felt like an eternity. Whatever it was that was causing these people to lose their sanity, it had apparently affected a good deal of the town, as she had run into a lot more individuals that were in similar frenzied states. As an elite huntress, they weren't too hard to deal with, but the problem was that they wouldn't stay down. Every single time Winter had used enough force to knock a normal person out, these people simply brushed off the blow like it was nothing.
Lethal force was definitely off the table, as they were still citizens of Atlas, not to mention that most of them were civilians.
In the end, Winter had simply resorted to running away. She had hoped that she would've found someone that was still sane enough to let her know just what in the world was going on by now, but all the people she had seen thus far seemed to suffer from the very same ailment as the rest of them. It was a frustrating situation to be in as she felt quite useless.
Contacting HQ was out of the question, with how bad the snowstorm was still raging on, there was no way any communications were getting through. Winter couldn't help but let out a sigh as she slumped against the wall to catch her breath. She was hiding out in an alleyway, unsure of what to do in her current situation.
Her, an Atlas elite, a Special Operative hiding in some rundown alleyway like a scared little puppy.
The very thought itself annoyed her to no end.
Retreating was a possibility, making her way back to her airship wouldn't be much of a problem. She could return back to HQ and let them know about the situation here in Wakefield. But that would take time, and she wasn't sure if Wakefield would still be standing by then. With how the people were, it was a miracle that the Grimm hadn't all but destroyed the settlement by now.
Retreating would also mean failure, and Winter Schnee did not fail.
A low growl signaled that her little break had come to an end. That was fine by her, she couldn't stand the thought of hiding away in a little alleyway for any longer anyway. Dashing out of the alleyway with a quickness that would've impressed even her General, Winter easily sped away from the townsfolk that had spotted her in the alley.
There had to be someone in town that still had enough of their sanity to tell her just what exactly had transpired here.
And so she searched on. She looked through buildings, alleyways, rooftops, whatever places she thought that people might have been hiding in, she searched them. She had searched through a good half of the town only to come up with nothing. Any townsfolk that she had found displayed the very same frenzied aggression as the people from the town square.
As she stood perched on top of a rooftop in the northern part of the town, Winter could feel her frustration levels rising by the minute. There were few times in her life that she had been faced with a problem that she could not solve. She did not want a routine Grimm elimination mission to be one of those times.
A loud howl in the nearby distance caught her attention, breaking her away from her thoughts.
Winter's eyes briefly narrowed at the direction of the howl before she leapt off the rooftop. The howl had come from a portion of the town that she yet to search. The first thought in her mind was the Grimm, and judging from the howl, a Beowolf specifically. With the state that the townsfolk were in, they might as well have been defenseless if a Grimm was inside of Wakefield's walls.
The source of the noise led her to an empty clearing, and there standing in the middle of the snow covered field was an Alpha Beowolf howling against the sky. Winter had slain her fair share of Alpha's before, but she had never seen an Alpha quite like the one in front of her. Its coat of fur was much more prominent and its claws were a great deal larger than normal.
The most striking detail however was the eyes, or to be more precise, the lack thereof.
Where there should've been the familiar red glow of the Grimm, there were simply empty sockets. The Alpha turned its attention towards her and Winter couldn't help but stare at those empty eye-sockets. It was as if she was staring into the face of a skeleton rather than a Grimm. It was a bit unnerving.
The Alpha howled into the storm once more before charging at her.
That was fine with her. She needed to vent out her frustrations anyway. She drew out her saber and held it out in front of her in a defensive position. In a predictable fashion, the Alpha simply went for a straight on assault which she easily side-stepped before driving her saber deep into its hind leg.
The Alpha roared out in pain, and she couldn't hide the surprise on her face when a torrent of blood gushed out, staining her clothes a dull red.
Pulling out her saber, Winter leaped backwards and took a surveying glance at her clothing. She had killed more Grimm in her life than she could've counted and never had she seen a Grimm bleed before. But now, right in front of her eyes, there was an Alpha that was now limping, as a torrent of blood continued to flow out from the incision she had made.
The Grimm viciously snarled at her before it charged her once more.
Its movement was a lot slower now because of its limp. Winter simply stepped to the side once again and repeated the same motion, piercing into its remaining hind leg with her weapon. Blood flowed out once again as the Alpha soon lost its balance and fell down into the snow. Winter simply walked over towards the wounded beast and finished the job, thrusting her saber straight through one its empty eye-sockets.
Blood leaked out from its mask, as if it were an actual living creature rather than a Grimm. Pulling out her saber, Winter simply waited for the inevitable. When it became apparent that the Grimm wasn't going to disappear, she couldn't help but furrow her brow. A Grimm that bled and one that left behind a corpse?
That simply didn't make any sense.
Clap.
Clap.
Slowly turning her head towards the noise, Winter could see a man in the nearby distance clapping. As the man got closer, she could see that he wore a dark overcoat which could only be described as being old-fashioned. A similarly colored cap stood atop his head and a bandana covered most of his face, leaving only his dull golden eyes visible.
"I must say, that was a quite the display of swordsmanship that you demonstrated there."
His voice had a strange melodious tone to it.
Clap.
Winter's eyes narrowed.
"As a fellow hunter of beasts, I can't help but express my admiration for your skills."
Clap.
"There is a certain elegance in the way you hunt. It is almost as if—"
Winter didn't give him the chance to finish his sentence as she had rushed him quicker than he could blink, and pinned him against the wall of a nearby building. Her forearm had him pinned against the wall by the shoulder and her saber by his neck. He didn't try to struggle and simply stared at her with a curious glint in his eyes.
"Who are you?" She demanded, her eyes narrowing to slits, "Are you the one responsible for what happened to the town?"
"I can assure you that I am not the one responsible," The man simply replied, "As for your first question, well I am all for exchanging pleasantries and introductions. Although I would like to suggest it be without having our weapons drawn, it is a lot more polite that way, wouldn't you say Miss?"
A sudden pressure against her abdomen caused her to take a quick glance down towards her stomach. The barrel of a small primitive looking pistol could be seen pressed against her stomach.
When had he managed to pull that out?
She could probably take a shot or two from that pistol from this range, but her Aura was already low enough from all of the fighting that she had been doing so far that it wouldn't be worth the risk. With a click of her tongue, she released her hold on the man and slowly removed her blade from his neck. She could feel the pistol move away from her abdomen in response.
Once they had both sheathed their weapons, she backed away and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Well now, isn't that much better?" The man asked as he began to readjust his hat, "Now we can have a nice pleasant conversation."
"Who. Are. You." Winter grounded out, her patience wearing thin.
"Right, maybe another time then... As for my identity? Well, I am simply another hunter that hails from the city of Yharnam. You may call me Ephraim."
Ephraim gave a small bow.
"And might I have the pleasure of knowing your name Miss?"
"Winter Schnee, Special Operative. Atlas military," She recited out from memory, "Do you know what happened here? What caused the townspeople to go into this frenzied state?"
"Yes, I am afraid that the people of this town have been afflicted with the Scourge of the Beast," Ephraim replied with a sad look in his eyes, "I would love to go into the details with you, but I am afraid that our introductions are going to have to be cut short."
Winter frowned.
"And why is that?"
Ephraim simply tilted his head towards the southern part of the town.
Winter's eyes darted towards the direction that the man had alluded to and saw the outlines of a shadowy figure perched atop one of the rooftops of the taller buildings in town. Visibility was still low because of the still raging snowstorm, so Winter couldn't see much, but the outline was distinctly not humanoid in nature.
"It seems that the hunt is upon us."
Before Winter could even question what the man had meant by that, the creature screamed.
And then the sky seemed to rip apart.
