The sky was burning, the world was falling, the ground crumbled as the abyss approached, devouring everything in its wake, there was chaos everywhere, the black tide was engulfing all it could find, but even when all hope seemed lost, even when the end looked upon the world, even in this sea of dark, there were isles of light, places where life had refused to die out. The greatest of those held a beacon, a beacon whose light shone over the blackness so that every domain where life hold on could see it, and know that they weren't alone, that the end was coming, but not for them. And they knew that there was hope.
For the first time since her hometown had been destroyed Griza was looking at her reflection, her black hair was way longer than before, now reaching the middle of her back, she would have to cut it at one point, and for one reason or another some parts of it were gray now. Her amber eyes were looking back at her and she now had a scar taking most of her left cheek. She turned away from the mirror to take a look at the room behind.
The barrack was feeling really empty now, as Griza and James were the only surviving members and the latter was still in the infirmary, through not for long. The amount of training had also been considerably reduced, their sergeant being more useful elsewhere, he still dropped by occasionally to basically give her homework. It would be a while before the remplacement would arrive, so for now she was alone, alone and bored to dead.
Of course she had tried to pass time with everything she could get her hands on, at first she had sorted through her dead comrades's stuff, finding some interesting things like a silver handheld watch, a nice customized pistol. There was also a whip for some reason. Most of those cadets were orphans like her so their stuff wouldn't be missed.
After this there was a period in which she would train to pass time, mainly at the shooting range, where she met a heavy weapon expert called Laura, whose name she had only remembered because she was to be assigned to her squad.
In the end she used most of her time being at James's side, talking and joking, or quietly keeping the him company. They also discussed about his father even through he didn't seem keen on the subject.
The day Ironwood was finally able to leave the infirmary, Griza wasn't here with him, but someone else was already waiting for him outside, someone he hadn't seen in a while.
After James noticed him, he spoke first "I am very happy to see you, father, may I know the reason of your presence ?"
"Ah son, the pleasure is all mine, as for my presence, I was passing by and I heard from your sergeant that you would come out of the infirmary today."
"But of course this isn't the only reason for why I am here, you see my next assignment will be in Atlas itself, and I figured out that if you were to come with you could not only get your prothesis quicker, but you would also be able to try to pass the specialist exam."
"I am of course very thankful of this opportunity, but I have to ask, would it be possible for another cadet to join me ?" Answered James
"Oh, did you perhaps make yourself some friends here ? I was awaiting this for years, can I meet them ? Where are they ? What are their names ? Can you introduce them to me ? If you do so I will see if I can bring them with us."
Under such an onslaught of questions, James could only muster a small "yes", and after a moment they both entered the barrack.
They saw Griza looking at her reflection in the small bathroom at the back, at first James's father didn't recognize her, and started saying embarrassing things like "I see you've managed to get yourself a girlfriend son, I'm very proud of you, and she doesn't look half bad at all".
Before finally recognizing her and brutally stopping all movement. Just in time for Griza to notice them in the mirror and turn around.
"What are you doing here ?" She cautiously asked, she was still resentful from when he left her to fend for herself.
He seemed to think for a few seconds before finally answering, "I am sorry Griza. I have been... delayed".
"As for why I am here, it is because I offered to my son a one-way trip to Atlas, but he requested to be accompanied by another cadet, wich happened to be you" He continued, looking alternatively at James and Griza.
James continued on his father's tracks, "It will allow you to take the test to become a specialist in training earlier than usual."
"But isn't it too early, I don't know if I'm ready for this." Was Griza's answer.
"Are you kidding me ? You killed two Grimms by yourself, with a knife, and without aura ! If there's one person ready to be a specialist it's you."
"You were there too, and I also used a rifle."
"Listen, I understand your may not trust yourself, but you can trust me am I right ? Then trust me when I say that I trust you."
"I... I think I can do that."
On the first light of the fifth day, at dawn she looked to the east and finally saw it. Atlas, the city in the skies, symbol of their technological supremacy, home of one of the four huntsman academies, and their destination.
The city glistened under the morning, its towers piercing the clouds, reaching as high as the eyes could see, it was bigger than any mountain, and when she looked closer she actually saw multiple mountains on it. A steady stream of aerial vehicles was linking it with the city basking in its shadow.
It was a moment that no one looked forward to, but they had to first go through mantle before being taken to Atlas itself. And as they entered Griza saw one of them for the first time, a faunus, a disgusting creature that had the audacity to pretend to be human.
She may have never seen one before, but it didn't meant that she didn't know them, she knew those were brutal and savage animals who wouldn't hesitate to hurt innocents if they were given a chance, she knew they had come as invader during the great war, but had never left, and she knew that her grandmother and great-grandparents died under their claws.
Sadly she didn't have the occasion to put this beast back to it's rightful place, and the convoy kept moving forward as her eyes lingered on the faunus.
The others passengers were more focused on the ambient stench and the lack of light, making life very hard for their driver, some of them were anxiously fixing the floating isle overing overhead, two soldiers were discussing together and she overheard bits of the conversation.
"This time the council voted to abandon my outpost, it's happening more and more often, I hope there's gonna be some bonus pay for the inconvenience."
"Guess your region wasn't worth keeping, but look on the bright side, it means we will less job to do, who know maybe now you won't be alone on guard duty."
"Stop messing me, you have no idea how boring it can be, sometimes I wish for Grimms to attack just to have something to do."
But before anymore could be said they had arrived to the launching ground, where their taxi was already waiting, the taxi in question being a good old airship, simple, reliable and effective. It wasn't the most powerful or sophisticated but it would bring them to Atlas and back without problem.
It's reinforced wooden structure sat there, radiating more power than it had any right to. People were entering it continuously and a member of their group signaled them the quickly get in the airship while there was still room for them.
The moment the airship took off, Griza learned something important, she didn't like it, at all. After one minute she had a horrendous headache, after two she couldn't walk straight anymore and after three the airship's toilets were full.
Thankfully for the toilets, the flight didn't take much longer, it was more a long elevator ride than anything. Griza rushed out first, no longer caring about what the other thought of her, she just wanted the pain to stop.
Once she got on the somewhat stable ground, she was distracted from her suffering by the view in front of her. She had catched a glimpse of it while on the ground but now it was completely different.
Atlas academy was a gargantuan masterpiece of engineering, the top being hard to see from how much she had to raise her head, even the entrance alone was bigger than most mantlean buildings, the academy was even higher than the mountains who sat on the same floating island.
As she was admiring this material manifestation of humanity's ingenuity, the rest of the crew catched up with her. James had stars in his eyes, as if it was a dream coming true, he didn't even try to hide his excitement as his father came next to him.
"Ahhh... Atlas, the city in the skies, you may not see it from here but all of these towers are overflowing with paperwork." He said, quickly destroying the magic in the teens minds.
"It is here that I leave you, I have work to attend to. The third building on the right deals with prothesis, you should go there before taking any test."
With the crowd around them quickly dissolving, Griza and James were soon left alone. With nothing better to do, they took one last look at the imposing structure in front of them, before heading to their destiny.
Griza's physical apparence is basically this fic's picture in case you haden't guessed.
I believe I did a good job at showing that Griza wasn't a perfect person, and I actually gave a lore reason as to why Atlas hates faunus, to put it simply during the great war mantle was invaded and then occupied by a Vacuo-Vale army essentially composed of faunus, in the end the war took so long (10 years in canon) that when it ended, a lot of them chose to stay, either in hope of a better life there, or because they ended up seeing mantle as their home. It also gives a good explanation as to why almost none of them live outside of mantle, as during the great war most towns and small cities around mantle weren't part of the kingdom and thus not occupied, only occasionally raided for supplies.
I will try to reach an average of 5k words per chapter, wich is a very ambitious goal considering my last chapters but for my defense I am writing all of this from my phone.I came back to my old style of chapter start, I hope this one's meaning isn't too obvious.A lot of references in this chapter, a few from Gandalf, one from Gurren Lagann I think.I longly hesitated if I should show Atlas already flying, or if it should still be in construction.m, and then I told myself: fuck it, it's literal magic, let's make it fly. But because of this Atlas will probably be more empty than at the time of rwby, so no SDC headquarter on it yet and things like that.Also bullheads haven't been invented yet, it will still be some years before they become reliable enough to be used, because of this most people use old style wood airships with a few steel ones in the mix.James-Aldric relationship in one word: awkward