RWBY: Destiny of Remnant

by UGX7

In the wake of the fall Team RNJR sets out to bring Cinder Fall to justice while the new Fall Maiden overlooks her master's plan in Haven City. Meanwhile Weiss tries to help a friend, Yang struggles with the loss of her arm, and Blake deals with guilt over the White Fang. Meanwhile someone from Cinder's past returns and Salem's newest pawn rises. Arkos, WhiteRose, SunnyBees, Renora

73. Salem Strikes Part II, Attack on Atlas

Here's the soundtracks for this chapter:

Visitor in San Diego by John Williams from The Lost World: Jurassic Park Soundtrack

Subway Predator by Alan Silvestri from Predator 2 Soundtrack

9 Trailer Soundtrack

Also, there's something to keep in mind about this chapter and the next few: They're all happening at once, with various scenes occurring simultaneously.

Chapter 72: Salem Strikes Part II, Attack on Atlas

"Specialist Schnee, we've arrived at the Odinson Complex and are about to begin landing procedures." reported one of the two pilots of the Atlesian dropship that was carrying the Specialist and Task Force Omega to the plain grey building located on the edge of Mistral's capital that served as Odinson's business headquarters. Looking out through the cockpit's transparent screens, Winter and Central could see that it was a fairly luxurious building that seemed to be a combination of an office building and a mansion. It was fairly large and about three stories tall with a descending road going beneath it to an underground garage. Gardens and boulevards surrounded the entire place which was set on a gently sloped mountaintop, and it looked from afar like a reasonably-sized but defensible fortress.

Nonetheless, from the intelligence granted to them from a member of the Mistral Council who disliked Odinson immeasurably, they had a decent grasp on the interior layout, as well as places where a single member of the Task Force in particular could take refuge to… obtain information in his own special way.

Winter looked back to Central who was standing with the rest of his hand-picked team, the latter consisting of Jammer, Javelin, Shocker, Invictus, and Fieros before saying, "You all know the plan, and the consequences of what will happen should we fail on this mission."

"It will cause a major international incident, nothing we haven't risked before." Central told her confidently, "My team will help you pull this mission off, Specialist Schnee. You have my word on that."

Left unsaid was the fact that another member of Central's team, Raider, was keeping the cloaked Retribution on standby a short distance away from Odinson's home. It was carrying four full squads of heavily armed Atlesian soldiers with another forty Altesian Knight-300s as additional support within its two deployment bays in the possible event that Odinson attempted an escape. Other squads deployed from Atlesian dropships and armored personnel carriers have quietly sealed off every possible road leading to and from his house while a squadron of rapid-response airships flew overwatch at a safe distance. If and when that happened, the situation would become an aerial and ground assault operation very quickly.

"And I'll hold you to it. Just play the part I have told you and we shall have no problems." Winter said before she looked out again and saw the aging form of Garrett Odinson approaching the landing pad with eight bodyguards and a shady-looking bespectacled assistant whose name was identified from the Mistralian Council's intelligence briefing as Seymour.

"Omega Five, secondary target identified at two o'clock. Ready to go to work?" Central turned and asked Shocker.

"Didn't even have to ask sir," Shocker replied a little smugly, as the Omega Trooper in question had memorized the layout of the entire building from the blueprints they had been given and had spotted several locations that were low-key enough to perform his assigned task away from any prying eyes and ears.

The transport dropship landed and Javelin pulled the doors on the side of the airship open for the rest of the covert ops team. Central and his Omega Troopers all jumped out and briskly marched into place, creating flanking lines on both sides of Winter as she disembarked from the dropship and strode straight towards Odinson with a very subdued expression on her face.

"Well, well! I was surprised when I was told a Specialist needed to question me, but it's more surprising that it was actually Winter Schnee herself." Odinson said as he stopped in front of Winter, a bright smile on his face.

"As Mr. Meredith was an employee of my family's company, I was assigned to this case. I hope that won't be a problem, Mr. Garrett Odinson?" Winter said as she quickly shook hands with the mustached man, making it as brief as she could.

"Not at all. I've met with Willow Schnee a few times over the years back when we did business together, but I'm quite glad that I finally get to meet one of his lovely daughters." Odinson complimented.

"Ah, flattery. You really are an old-fashioned man of business." Winter remarked, raising an eyebrow.

Odinson chuckled lightly, "That I am. Shrewd, I'd expect nothing less from a Schnee." Gesturing to his assistant who made a small bow, "And this is my devoted assistant Seymour."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Specialist Schnee." Odinson's assistant spoke in a tinny voice. Winter gave a small nod in return, not willing to give him any more of her attention than was required.

Odinson then took a quick glance at Central who was standing with the other Omega Troopers and asked conversationally, "Would you be introducing me to your entourage?"

"These elite Atlesian soldiers are here as my security escort," Winter replied sharply, "Their names, however, are classified and irrelevant to our current situation at hand."

"Of course, I understand. You Atlesians sure have a lot of rules and regulations eh?" Odinson nodded as he waved a hand in jest, "Come in, I'll take you to my office and answer your questions to the best of my ability."

A pair of black-clad bodyguards held the mansion grand doors open as Odinson, Seymour, Winter, Central with the rest of his Task Force Omega team, and the other bodyguards entered the fancy building. Its interior looked rather comfortable with white marble-tiled floors and tall arched ceilings, while plinths displaying statues in various imaginative poses occupied the sides of hallways along with framed expensive paintings that wouldn't be out of place in a museum. He must have quite a network of agents to help him amass such a huge collection of possibly ill-gotten items.

As Central took in his surroundings in search of potential ambush places and escape routes, he mentally wondered which artefacts within Odinson's mansion were fakes and which were potentially real, and how he was able to acquire those which archeologists would probably kill to even lay a finger on. After all, a lot of cultural and historical artefacts were considered lost during the Great Wars, either destroyed or hidden away to prevent them from that fate. Fakes were common in the black market, while millions of lien were often bid in those underground auctions for beautifully-carved things like vases, plates and small statues.

Winter quickly took notice of the blue-uniformed workers working on the wiring in the walls near the security cameras and inquired casually, "Is there something wrong with your security systems?"

"Ah yes, as a matter of fact. You see, it began suffering from glitches last night. My system analysts say that there's a rather troublesome bug in the system, so they're tending to the wiring and repairing the mechanics of the system before they try to rewrite the code. So I'm afraid you won't be able to search my security database for the time being." The 'businessman' justified as they made their way towards an elegantly-curved staircase.

Central and Shocker exchanged skeptical looks behind their helmets, they knew it was too convenient for such an irregularity to be happening today, but it also unintentionally gave them a slight advantage over Odinson as well. The commander of Task Force Omega twitched his head in an unseen gesture in Winter's direction, who nodded as she was apparently thinking the exact same thing they were.

Before they began up the stairs, Odinson tuned to his assistant and said, "Uh, Seymour? Can you go off to the security room and keep a watch on those repairmen as they work? I want updates on their progress once I'm done speaking with Specialist Schnee."

"Yes, Mr. Odinson." The assistant answered dutifully before walking off into the building.

Central nodded subtly to Shocker before asking, "Mr. Odinson, would it be all right with you if I have one of my troopers perform a security check of your impressive-looking mansion? It's just standard operating procedure for us when we are assigned to security detail."

"Certainly, my guards will accompany him and provide him with whatever assistance he needs. If that's not a problem?" The aged man gestured for a couple of his bodyguards to follow Shocker as he stepped out from Central's team.

"Not at all, sir. I am sure I'll find no problems with your security." Shocker agreed. The members of Task Force Omega all smirked behind their helmets as they watched him and two of Odinson's bodyguards walk away; they all knew that getting rid of his assigned 'escort' would be a ridiculously easy task for Shocker.

They soon arrived at Odinson's personal office on the third floor, the biggest room in the building aside from the garage, the art gallery and the cafeteria on the first floor, with a large desk made of pine wood sitting before the long glass window that allowed them to see an enjoyable view of Mistral's capital. Scattered around the office were several sofas and chairs around a large table capable of projecting holographic images. Two chairs were placed in front of the perfectly-carved desk and a slightly larger one behind it, and multiple trophies, trinkets and decorative paintings were mounted along the walls or placed on wooden shelves.

"Please, take a seat." Odinson gestured to Winter, "Can I offer you a drink? I have a few nice Mistralian vintages…"

"The only things you may offer me right now are your full cooperation and the truth." Winter said before coming to a stop in front of his desk, her stern light-blue eyes fixed unswervingly at the 'businessman'. Behind her, Central and his team spread out across his office with Jammer and Javelin standing at the room's extreme left and right respectively while Invictus and Fieros stood guard at the main doors. The Task Force commander himself stood a few steps behind Winter, watching Odinson's every move carefully and although he maintained a seemingly relaxed posture he was more than capable of exploding into sudden movement effortlessly should the bearded man try anything.

Odinson smirked before saying, "You already have that, my dear. Now, I suppose you want to get right to it?"

"Indeed so," Winter confirmed with a nod, "For starters, how did you hear of Charles Meredith's death?"

"I have connections in many places, as you no doubt know. I was honestly shocked when I heard he had been killed in such a brutal manner." Odinson answered as he sat down on his comfortably-padded chair.

Winter's eyes narrowed a little as she sat as well, before asking, "Even after he betrayed you and cut off the arrangements between your company and the S.D.C.?"

"I may have a reputation for a bad temper, which isn't totally unearned, but I am no sociopath Specialist Schnee." Odinson rested his palms on the table's surface, "True, I did my fair share of ranting after he, if you'll pardon the expression, screwed me over… but I eventually got over it."

"I see. And what exactly is your relationship, if any, with a crime lord by the name of Damien Ante?" Winter inquired.

"Ah, you think he's responsible for Meredith's murder?" Odinson reached up to tug at one end of his mustache.

"From what we know, it's a possibility." Winter mentioned, "Now, answer the question."

"My ties with Ante aren't fabricated as I wish they were, but they're not as strong as my enemies make them out to be. Ante was a low-life thug I hired years ago during a… nasty conflict with a mob in the capital. I needed all the help I could get and the guards I hired at that time just weren't doing enough to protect my businesses, so I turned to criminals to fight other criminals." Odinson explained.

Winter nodded at this, as she knew the Mistralian 'businessman' had more than a few conflicts with other crime syndicates and mobs in the eastern Kingdom. Most of those usually involved disagreements over business profits and territories, but Odinson always escaped persecution due to his substantial clout and vast sums of money which bought him the necessary protection from the Mistral authorities.

"Well, I paid the price for that. Ante spent some years under my employ, and I had hoped to make him and the other criminals I hired productive members of society but Ante seemed to have crime running in his very blood. After an unfortunate incident which he got a little …erm… carried away, he left my employ for Haven City, where he started up his own crime syndicate, and some of my businesses have been his targets more than a few times." He quietly continued, looking down at his desk's flawless surface for a moment.

"I see," Winter nodded as she mentally noted down the details, "We have reports of Ante stealing from the weapon caches your company had been shipping to your shareholders in other Kingdoms and smaller cities. Tell me, Mr. Odinson… what do you know of Ante's new employers?"

"New employers? I heard a few rumors from my… reliable sources that he was apparently running with that Cinder Fall woman behind the Vytal Festival disaster in Vale and the rather huge incident at Haven last year is practically common knowledge among those who are well-informed, and I do my best to keep up with recent happenings that concerns my businesses." Odinson mentioned normally.

"And what do you know of Cinder Fall?" Winter put forth, crossing her arms as she lifted her head a little to give off an intimidating impression.

"Nothing much," Odinson lied as he shook his head, "And what information I have managed to get are all lies, forgeries and fabrications. I only knew she stole something from Beacon Academy, raised all kinds of hell at the Vytal Festival to cover her tracks, and seemingly was laying low in Haven while working with the common criminals like Ante. I do understand that the young Huntress known as Ruby Rose dealt her a nasty blow during the battle at the CraftTech factory in Haven, that's what I've read anyway, and hasn't been seen since. Other than that, I'm totally ignorant of that woman."

"So I take it you know nothing of the individual who employs both Fall and Ante?" Winter narrowed her eyes.

"Wait, there's someone actually employing them?" Odinson feigned surprise expertly, "You mean it doesn't end with Fall?"

"No, Mr. Odinson, it does not. Cinder Fall is a ruthless fighter and a cunning adversary, but she is not capable of causing so much trouble around Remnant on her own. It's clear that she as well as Ante answers to someone else. Do you know who?" Winter inquired again.

"No! If I had any knowledge of who they actually worked for, I would report it directly to the Council!" Odinson lied again, letting a little fear appearing on his features which he hoped would be convincing.

Winter scrutinized him carefully as though looking for any hint of deceit, before nodding to herself and said, "I see. Now, let's get back to the topic of Meredith…"

---

Elsewhere in a remote section of the huge building, Seymour cried out in pain as he struggled in the metal fold-up chair he was tied to. He watched with anxiety as the Omega Trooper shut the door behind him and placed a circular electronic device to the lock to made sure it stayed locked before stepping over the bodies of the two unconscious bodyguards Odinson had ordered to follow him which he had dispatched with contemptuous ease within five seconds.

"Wh-whatever you want, you're not going to get it, Atlas thug! Mr. Odinson will have your head for…" Seymour began only to be silenced by the shock baton being brought up to his face.

"Is that any way to treat a guest of your master's? I thought working under him should have taught you better manners." Shocker sighed as he adjusted the voltage on his baton, "Now then, from what I understand you are Seymour Barnes, Odinson's loyal assistant for over a decade."

"Th-that's right…" The fearful assistant stammered.

"And you have intimate knowledge about his dealings and operations. Both on and off the official records. Knowledge that he'd have to do quite a long jail time unless kept secret. You see, we know he's a professional and he's definitely not going to give our Specialist the whole truth, since he's been through too many questionings and interrogations not to develop a rather admirable skill for lying with a straight face… but you haven't been. Have you?" The Omega Trooper glared as he grabbed Seymour by the collar of his nice suit roughly and pulled him in close.

"N-No…" Seymour confessed, sweat beading on his forehead. By now his bravado had all but vanished.

"Now we know these rooms are soundproofed for… well, for various dubious reasons of shaky legality, so that and the really convenient 'bug' in your security system you fabricated to get away with eliminating all of us should the need arise also gave us the perfect opportunity to get away with this." Shocker said as he coolly twirled his shock baton in one hand while looking at the distressed assistant.

"What you're doing is very illegal!" Seymour shot a little boldly.

"Yeah, but that's just part of the job sometimes. You should know. I really find it ironic that someone like you who worked for a questionable master like Odinson is trying to lecture me on what's legal and what's not." Shocker gave a harsh laugh, "Now tell me, what does Odinson really know about Meredith's murder?"

Seymour let out a whimper, knowing that he was in for a whole world of pain in this soundproofed room, as the sparking shock baton got closer to his chest…

---

Admiral Aqua Nemo walked down the main hallway of her impressive flagship, the Nautilus II, nodding to the various rifle-wielding soldiers and naval officers who smartly saluted her as they passed by, or when they had to walk across her path from adjacent corridors, stopped instantly on their tracks and maintained their salute respectfully until she had passed.

She knew many details regarding every single one of her officers, crewmen, soldiers, pilots and technicians who populated her vessel, even down to their birthdays. Nemo treated everyone equally on board her flagship, and while she was strict at times everyone who had served under her knew that she still cared for them unlike the more hard-lined Atlesian military officers who commanded the other Atlesian airships and battleships.

A pair of Atlas Elite Troopers from the 212th Assault Battalion, clad in their signature white-grey armored suits with three orange stripes on their right shoulder pads, snapped to attention and saluted when the elevator doors in front of them hissed open to reveal Nemo in her military uniform. She keyed in a code and scanned her hand in front of a security scanner beside the bridge's door and it smoothly parted to admit her into the bridge.

Compared to the other Atlesian military vessels and battleships, Nautilus II was considered by many as a queen among the fleet compared to the likes of Resolute and the Spirit of Winter. While its overall design looked like a massive Atlesian airship with pointed sword-like prow, it was actually built according to Admiral Nemo's requirements in the most illustrious shipyards of Atlas, and hence was essentially a floating battle cruiser with the added capabilities of a carrier. The best shipmakers in Atlas crafted each and every part of her, and the entire Altas Council was present at her commissioning ceremony.

Easily capable of carrying several full complements of fighters, interceptors and Atlesian Eagles for various deployment purposes, it was also the assigned vessel of the fearsome 212th Assault Battalion which was considered one of the Atlas's most distinguished military divisions with history dating back to the Great Wars. Few ships could boast the amount of sheer firepower that the Nautilus II was capable of, as she was armed with four triple-barreled Main Railgun Turrets on her forecastle, while many Close-In Weapon Systems and missile pods studded the length of her port and starboard sides. Additional retractable laser anti-air turrets and missile batteries could be further deployed from within her hull whenever necessary, and the sight of her sailing magnificently through the seas gave heart to the various Atlesian fleets and struck fear in the hearts of her enemies.

The bridge of the vessel looked almost the same as the other battleships in the Atlas military, except that thick armored sheets could slide into place over the wide viewports once entering combat operations. If there was a single noticeable difference, it would be that the admiral's seat was situated at a slightly elevated section of the bridge surrounded by various holographic screens above her naval officers in the various communications, weapons, operations and navigation consoles. More blue and green screens showing various kinds of information were arranged in neat rows around the circumference of the bridge, beeping softly as they constantly updated with fresh information collected from the powerful vessel's many sensors.

"Admiral on the bridge!" The lieutenant in charge of the communications systems shouted to the rest of the bridge, announcing Nemo's presence. Everyone on the bridge promptly leapt to attention and saluted her as she strolled in.

"At ease. Good morning, everyone." She greeted normally as she made her way to the front of the bridge, receiving her usual responses from the various bridge crew officers that sounded very familiar to her after spending so many years of doing this.

"Have we received any word from General Ironwood or gotten any reports from our scout ships?" She asked her executive officer Chris Blanc, who stood dutifully over his own control console. A loyal and capable officer with admirable qualities, Nemo had groomed him to become her second-in-command and he had repaid her actions with more than a decade of faithful service.

"No, Admiral. No new messages from General Ironwood or the Council, but a report came in an hour ago from scout ship Cold Tide that there seems to be an unusually heavy fog bank rolling in from the sea." He reported before pointing out to the open ocean beyond the vessel's main viewports.

Nemo looked out the main window at the dense and ominous-looking mist slowly but steadily approaching the port city of Margarite in the far distance. She then raised a questioning eyebrow, "That's odd, I don't remember last night's weather report saying anything about a fog bank that heavy."

"Well, you know how the weatherman's predictions aren't exactly one-hundred percent accurate at times." Blanc said with a shrug of his shoulders, "Our scout ships have went through it during the night and their meteorological scans did not pick up anything out of the ordinary. Our own long-range scanners came up clean as well."

Nemo hummed quietly to herself, a finger under her chin as she thought about the situation but without further information she wouldn't be able to plan any course of action. The strange fog that was nearly blotting out the bright morning sky did give her a strong sense of unease though, as it looked very much like some kind of danger portent. She was definitely still going to keep an eye on it, just in case anything happened.

"Continue to direct our long-range scanners on that irregular… weather condition, and inform me immediately if anything comes out of there." She ordered, and a couple of the bridge crew quickly got to work on their own consoles, "Now what's on the agenda for today besides our usual patrol route?"

"Well, our support vessels are scheduled for target practice…" Blanc began listing off, and the female admiral carefully made notes in her mind to look through later in her own office. As if the paperwork plaguing her wasn't bad enough…

After hearing out her executive officer for around ten minutes or so, Admiral Nemo got up from her chair and walked out of the Nautilus II's bridge and onto the battle cruiser's forecastle by herself so she could get a brief period of solitude before another long day in the navy. As she looked at the calm sea of grey that turned to blue, stretching out in all directions underneath and beyond her vessel, she closed her aquamarine eyes briefly and breathed in the salty sea air, listening to the waves crashing against the shore and rocks of the northern Kingdom's coast, hearing the wild seagulls flying overhead and the loud echoing foghorns which were echoing around Margarite Harbor warning ships about the incoming fog.

As she opened her eyes once more, she turned back to look at Margarite Harbor, a vast bustling harbor city full of many different businesses, docks for both sea and air ships, seaside markets, tall buildings and homes among other things. Like all the other major ports on the Solitas continent, the harbor and its outer coastline were heavily protected by a ring of massive twin-barreled anti-ship cannon emplacements that pointed out daringly at the sea, and each daunting emplacement was further augmented by several smaller machine-gun and anti-air turrets to handle any enemy who manage to get close. As if those weren't enough, a tighter ring of even more massive cannons and supplementary missile batteries guarded the vast stretch military docks and its associated tall martial buildings. Each building was like a monolith forged from solid steel and smooth glass while their visible radar and communications devices were clustered like barnacles around their level roofs.

She watched as the tugboats went out on duty, some helping a huge cargo airship out of port while fishing boats sailed past them, the fishermen aboard attending to their nets and equipment, hoping to net some good catches today. A memory momentarily surfaced in her mind of a long time ago, when she had been on such a ship with her grandfather who taught her how to catch fishes the old-fashioned way and imparting the lesson of patience to her at the same time. He was quite a talented sailor as well in his own right, with a passionate love for the sea, so much that he specifically requested that his ashes be scattered in the ocean once he had passed away.

The Admiral turned her black and greying-haired head slowly to the side, and saw the other battleships of her battlegroup floating alongside her striking vessel, the flags of the Kingdom of Atlas flying proudly on their prows and sides as though shouting their endless watchfulness and unyielding resolve. Being one of Atlas's main military fleets, it fell to her large armada to protect one of the most strategically important places in the northern kingdom as both its sword and shield. Be it facing an enemy fleet, an invading swarm of Grimm or any other kind of opponent, Nemo was quite confident that the unrivaled firepower of her personal carrier and battle cruiser with its accompanying fleet would be able to repel any threat effectively and protect the people of Atlas.

Nemo looked back at the slowly darkening fog in the distance and felt something in her gut bothering her. Atlas's meteorologists were generally quite accurate at anticipating weather patterns including fog, and while they have missed the mark a number of times in the past, something about this didn't feel right.

So she took out a pair of modified binoculars from her belt and brought then up to her eyes, and looked out at the foggy sea. While she could have easily requested for a scanning update from her bridge crew, Nemo preferred to see things through her own eyes without overly relying on technology.

From her point of view, nothing seemed out of the ordinary even though she had flicked through a number of specialized filters on her binoculars. Maybe it was just an unusually dark fog bank caused by bad weather and she was just getting a little paranoid after seeing no tangible enemy for an extended period of time during her usual patrols.

But the drastic drop in pirate attacks in the oceans around Atlas and developing situation with the Maidens, who could blame her? Still, Nemo couldn't help but feel a rising sense of foreboding as she narrowed her eyes at the unusual fog.

Suddenly she caught a glimpse of an all too familiar creature surfacing for a fleeting moment through the lenses of her binoculars, its intimidating red eyes making it stand out amongst the dense fog. Nemo's eyes widened before she looked up from the Grimm creature and now noticed the faint outline of a huge ship moving through the fog.

"What in the name of…"

She was cut off by the ear-shattering sound of a Dust-loaded cannon shell smashing into and blowing apart one of the outer buildings on the docks in a bright orange explosion, sending wood, brick and metal debris flying high into the air and into the sea as the sudden shelling lit up the entire coastline with a burst of sudden fire. Screams and shouts echoed through the air as military personnel and civilians scattered, looking for safety. Although when Nemo looked back she saw several figures lying among the debris of the destroyed building, whether injured or dead she couldn't tell.

'First blood for the enemy.'

It took her a few seconds to realize that her personal mobile communication system was beeping urgently, and as she raced to the nearest airlock she accepted the incoming call and her second-in-command's voice echoed through her ears, "Admiral Nemo! Are you injured?"

"I'm fine, just stunned," She said into her communicator as she watched the anti-ship cannons automatically rotate on their emplacements to acquire the targets hidden within the fog, "Why aren't the cannons already firing?"

A panicked reply from an ensign named Armin Rosen told her, "The anti-ship cannons' systems can't get a target lock on the targets hidden in the fog! Something's hiding them from our scanners!"

"Damn it!" Nemo swore as she pulled the airlock open, stepped inside quickly, and slammed it shut behind her, "Use my authority to override their systems and get them launching full barrages in a wide spread! That will buy us and the rest of the fleet some time!"

"Aye, Admiral!" Came the reply.

As she ran towards the bridge of her vessel, past various crew members and soldiers who were also running to their posts, Nemo saw one of the outermost cannon emplacements took a direct hit from a salvo of missiles and cannon fire. Flames and plasma fire wreathed the cannon for a moment, before the entire thing blew up in a spectacular explosion which sent many tons of scrap metal and twisted wreckage dropping into the ocean and shrapnel flying in all directions.

Nemo followed the direction of the salvo, and through the transparent windows which were slowly being covered by protective armor plates she watched with alarm as a trio of huge, familiar-looking pirate ships emerged from the fog, every single weapon on their hull already opening fire at the port city and at her hybrid carrier battle cruiser. To make matters worse, she felt a rare chill in her chest when she witnessed multiple Sea Feilongs rising out of the churning waters below the fog.

Activating her connection to the bridge once more, she shouted, "All hands, battlestations! Man the guns! Bring all weapons to bear and launch all fighters, including the Atlas Eagles! Bring shields to full capacity and charge the Railgun cannons!"

The Nautilus II shuddered as she took a couple of hits before her shields were activated, and Nemo staggered a little before she finally reached the bridge. As she settled herself into her chair and began barking out more orders to the various other lieutenants scattered across the bridge, she watched the unceasing cannon-fire blitzing up exterior of Margarite Harbor's dockside.

"Dauntless moving to engage enemy fleet!" reported a hologram at her right showing a captain of the said battleship.

"This is Vengeance, enemy forces detected and all weapons already firing!" Another captain bawled out as the his own ship's cannons opened fire with shells and missiles towards the pirate ships.

"This is Redoubtable, my battleship's hit! Shields down to thirty percent! Multiple casualties aboard!" A third captain shouted from her flickering hologram as her battleship lit up with explosions as missiles and Dust-loaded cannon shells slammed heavily into it.

Nemo cursed as more damage reports came in from the other airships and battleships that comprised of her fleet, while her own vessel shook slightly as it took another couple of hits on its shields which flashed brightly for a moment before disappearing. They were holding for now but they won't hold forever, especially under such punishing barrages of enemy firepower.

After giving more orders, she opened a hologram which showed a heavily-armored Atlesian soldier saluting her with the background of the main hangar behind him, "Commander, I want the entire 212th Assault Battalion ready to repel boarders should the pirates manage to send out boarding parties! Do not let them take one single step on board my carrier battle cruiser! And make sure none of them get into the city!"

"Aye Admiral! I'll personally make it so!" The helmet with the modified visor of the 212th's commander gave a small nod.

Nemo waved the hologram away and shouted loudly, "Sound the alarm to evacuate Margarite Harbor, or at least issue an order for all citizens within the city to take shelter immediately! Engage all carrier battle cruiser defenses, and someone get me a priority transmission to General Ironwood!"

As Nautilus II's Main Railgun Turrets roared out their fury and the bridge officers scrambled to disseminate her orders, the admiral prepared herself for another naval duel against her foes as she looked at the generated hologram in front of her which painted the out the entire nautical battlefield, her analytical mind already forming strategies to effectively counter her enemy.

Once her targets were selected on the holographic map, Admiral Nemo threw out her hand and howled, "All weapons and batteries, fire at will!"

---

It was an ordinary day at the Atlesian military base known as Fort Valor which was located at the eastern side of the Kingdom, sitting in a natural cleft between two huge mountains. It was a fairly large base, easily housing over five hundred soldiers and their associated support staff who were stationed there and called it home. It boasted a large main complex similar in design to Fort Lakeford, though with a more refined Atlesian style to it and an upgraded command tower with sophisticated communications systems.

The tall, thick reinforced walls of the defense perimeter enclosed the base's many buildings in a pentagon-like shape, ranging from its barracks, several large hangars to house Paladins and airships, landing pads for incoming and outgoing aircraft, multiple power generators and many more structures that help the armed forces function. Along the top of those walls were mounted enough batteries of anti-air cannons, anti-infantry gatling gun turrets and anti-vehicle missile launchers to deter any Grimm or enemy commanders from ever attacking the base, and its front gates were further protected by powerful twin long-range cannon emplacements that could shred through enemy battle tanks and troop carriers with ease.

Up on the perimeter wall, a pair of sentry guards stood at their posts looking out into the dense forest just across the snowy plains from Fort Valor. Even though they were wearing their body armor and helmets to keep out the worst of the cold from getting to them, they were nevertheless still feeling the chill seeping into the ends of their limbs. If there ever was a benefit to the biting cold of the northern continent, it would be that its harsh and unforgiving climates helped to suppress the threat of the Grimm.

Of the two lookouts, the one with dark skin was leaning against the parapet of the wall, dozing off as he did his best to ignore the cold, like most Atlesians, and the background sounds of the bustling military base just beyond the wall he was standing sentry on. His partner, a lighter-skinned man with a neatly trimmed goatee peeking out of the lower edge of his helmet, grunted in irritation and nudged him with an elbow.

"Hey, stay awake. I told you not to go to the commons room for the Thrashball match last night." He admonished gently.

"Ugh, I had money on the Cougars… needed to go." The sleepy guard retorted as he shifted his pose to get more comfortable.

"Yeah, and I'm happy you hit the jackpot, but from now on we-" He was brusquely cut off by the sound of a loud 'thump' coming from the direction of the forest. This grabbed the attention of the two and made them look out towards the woods and it was then that they noticed the tall trees were shaking, and several flocks of birds were flying out of the treetops.

"What the hell is that?" The drowsy guard asked as another echoing 'thump' echoed out of the dense woods.

"Beats me. Maybe at Command is having the trees cut down so spotting something in the forest will be easier?" The light-skinned Atlesian soldier guessed before they received a radio transmission from the Command Center located in the middle of Fort Valor.

"Outlook Patrol Six, this is Control, do you copy?" asked a female voice over the communication channel, presumably one of the Command Center's staff.

"This is Outlook Six, we copy." The guard reported before they heard the unmistakable cracking sound of a tree falling.

"Outlook Six, our scanners are picking up something coming towards us from your direction but we can't tell what it is, some of our exterior cameras in the forest are down and not responding. Can you spot it from your position?" She asked as the thundering thumps continued, getting closer and closer.

The lookout sentry looked to his drowsy partner, who handed him a sniper rifle with a scope equipped. The more alert of the two guards took the rifle and set it on the steel handrail to steady it before he looked through the scope and out into the forest across the plains that separated Fort Valor from the dense woodlands.

When all he could saw were shaking leaves and dropping piles of collected snow, the sentry guard adjusted the sniper scope and squinted a little more carefully at the large but blurry dark shadow that was stomping through the forest. The other guard beside him glanced down and saw various animals; rabbits, squirrels, deer, wolves and others running out into the open plains to get out of and away from the forest while the constant thumping got louder and louder, and soon the trees towards the end of the forest began shaking wildly as well.

"What the shit is doing that?" He muttered under his breath as his more alert cohort adjusted the scope again, but with no better results at spotting what was causing the disturbance.

"Uh, Control? Something's moving in the trees. I can't tell what it is, but it's huge." The sentry reported into the open communication channel to the main Control Center.

"Copy that, Outlook Six. We will prepare defenses for…" The female operator's voice was cut off when the guard with the sniper rifle witnessed a large animal burst out of the snow-capped treeline. He brought up a hand to point and shouted for his partner's attention.

It was an unusually large grizzly bear, clearly over a dozen feet long and weighing more than six hundred pounds, and it was running helter-skelter on all four legs as though the forest was on fire with distressed roars echoing across the snowy plains.

"Wait. Control, we have a grizzly bear, and a big one at that. Maybe it was the source of the disturbance?" The guard guessed as he took his eye away from the sniper rifle's scope.

"That's not possible. Even the world's largest bear on record couldn't have been causing the ruckus we're sensing." The control operator dismissed quickly.

Just then, the constant thumping sounds continued echoing through the air and it was louder and closer than ever, and the trees at the very edge of the thick forest were shuddering and swaying violently despite the low windage.

"You're right, Control. It's probably best to raise…" The sentry's words died in his throat as an absolutely massive Grimm, the likes of which neither he nor his partner had ever seen before, exploded out of the forest, sending broken heavy tree branches and other debris flying as it charged at the Atlesian military base at insane, ground-shaking speeds.

The newly-emerged Grimm looked like something out of the worst nightmares known to Remnant, like the dragons of ancient legends but much more frightening. Its head was covered completely with thick white bone plating with multiple small horns sticking out of its scalp and skull, along with a pair of yellow-red eyes and teeth as long as an entire person's height crowding its oversized jaw. Conical spikes lined its spine all the way down to a pointed stinger at its tail capable of smashing a tank flat. While the hands on its heavily-muscled torso were small, they were nevertheless capped with sharp claws that looked like it could shred reinforced steel like paper, and its huge feet produced booming thuds that sent crushed snow and soil flying high into the air. It shouldered away the last remaining trees blocking its way out of the forest, turned in the direction of Fort Valor and roared threateningly.

"Holy shit!" The horrified, now wide-awake guard cried out in shock before he ran over to the small box on the nearest wall where the alarm button was covered by a glass panel. He quickly slammed his gauntleted fist through the glass onto the aforementioned button, causing sirens and klaxons to sound off all over the military base.

"Control, we have a giant unidentified Grimm, possibly an elder one, heading right for us! Scramble all of the troops! Launch the gunships! Deploy all the Paladins! For the love of Oum, bring the base defenses online right now!" The sentry shouted in panic into his helmet's communicator as he watched the giant Grimm charge towards the base's main gates, the ill-fated grizzly bear getting stomped under its clawed feet and left behind as a furry, gorey mess in the snow.

The sentry began firing at the huge charging Grimm with his sniper rifle as quickly as he could without jamming his weapon, while his partner yanked up his assault rifle and poured all the ammunition he could load into it at the terrifying Elder Grimm, but they were probably dealing tiny annoying bites at it for all the good they were doing.

The Tyrant let out another mighty roar as it withstood the irritating blasts from the pair of guards, who were soon joined by other snipers and wall gunners who added their gunfire at the new Elder Grimm. Hydraulics whined as the front gate's twin long-range cannons swiveled smoothly on their respective emplacements and unleashed their impressive firepower on the attacking Grimm creature. But it swerved to the left and right as it ran, avoiding the huge shells capable of devastating even heavily-armored targets and advanced to the thundering beat of earthquakes, aiming for the huge reinforced gates of Fort Valor.

When the Elder Grimm was a short distance from the base's walls amidst a hailstorm of intense firepower, it lowered its bone armor-covered body down as its powerful legs kept it sprinting at the gates. With a mighty push from its feet, the gigantic beast leaped into the air and came down right on top of the perimeter wall which caved in destructively. Metal and concrete crunched, folded and shattered like tinfoil. Several hapless soldiers manning that section were crushed into wet smears of red and scraps of broken armor underneath its tremendous body mass.

Shouldering itself through the damaged section of the perimeter wall with bits of organic detritus and pieces of the wall falling away from its enormous body, the Tyrant hauled up its head and unleashed another deafening roar, terrifying many of the remaining Atlesian soldiers in the base who looked up at it in slack-jawed shock.

"Open fire!" A lieutenant shouted to a group of soldiers armed with rocket launchers running across the main square of the military base. They aimed their shoulder-mounted tubes at the Tyrant and pulled the firing triggers, those rocket launchers belching smoke as their payloads rocketed out towards the Elder Grimm. The explosives lived up to their name and flew straight at the Grimm dinosaur, only for it to duck down and let the rockets either whip past it into the forest where they detonated and reduced some mighty pine trees to splintered chunks of wood, and some rockets hit the wall itself, killing or fatally wounding those Atlesian soldiers who had narrowly avoided being crushed by the Tyrant.

The Tyrant's tail whipped out and sent several soldiers flying, some of whom were cut in half or bisected by the sharp tail and the spiked, stinger-like bone at the end of it, while others were either emptying their weapons at the Grimm creature or trying to flank it by getting to other safer positions to attack it unseen. There was an ear-splitting screech as the huge beast reached up and tore off one of the main gate's twin long-range cannon emplacements with its large mouth, before flinging it brusquely in the direction of the main command complex. The entire mass of twisted metal and broken hydraulics smashed into a pair of battle tanks and an airship which was unable to get out of its harmful trajectory in time, killing the brave crews of those vehicles instantaneously as they were crushed by the giant hunk of twisted metal.

A single Atlesian soldier who had been lucky enough not to be crushed by the Tyrant's legs, now stood under the black pelvis of the Tyrannosaur Grimm and aimed his rifle up, letting loose a stuttering barrage of bullets, shouting angrily as he did so. The Tyrant snarled loudly and lifted up its left leg and slammed it down, instantly flattening the unfortunate soldier like a bug under a man's foot.

"Where are the Paladins? Where the hell are they?!" The lieutenant demanded to know through his communications channel as he took cover with a few other soldiers, as they watched helplessly even as the massive Elder Grimm demolished the remaining cannon emplacement by smashing its muscular and armor-plated tail through its cracked foundations.

"They're on their way out!" A communications operator hollered as an immense shadow came to loom over the lieutenant and the soldiers he was hiding together with. They fearfully glanced up to see the Tyrant looking hungrily at them and as they turned to run its jaws reached down and clamped them all within its mouth, crunching down hard and reducing the entire group to a pile of broken, bloody, screaming bodies before it devoured them all in one raucous gulp.

The Tyrant let out another booming roar before it felt several buckshots from shotguns hitting the side of its armored skull, so it swooped its body and head downwards, brutally slamming into the soldiers who valiantly fought against it, sending them tumbling through the air while severely injuring others. In the case of one unlucky man, he was bitten by the arm and hauled up screaming into the air before being tossed upwards, and eaten whole once he dropped back into the gigantic Grimm's fanged mouth.

Suddenly, several explosions ignited against the Tyrant's left flank, making it rumble in pain before it swung its bone-plated head to look down and saw a quartet of Atlesian Paladins opening fire on it with their energy guns and double-barreled guns. The Elder Grimm snarled fiercely and lunged forward, knocking three of them back while snatching up the fourth one with its mouth, putting several tons of intense pressure down on the robotic combat-suit with its sharp teeth which sheared through the Paladin's thick armor, crushing it completely even as the operator inside its cockpit screamed before the Tyrant let it fall out of its mouth and onto the debris-strewn ground where it was promptly crushed by a stomp of the beast's clawed foot.

The Dinosaur Grimm then spun around, lashing out with a tail whip to damage the remaining Paladins, managing to rip the legs off of the furthest one and slam it into a nearby airship hangar which collapsed and buried the battlesuit. The two remaining operational Paladins retreated back several steps to another area of the fort while firing their weapons continuously, gathering up a large crowd of soldiers who were following them and praying that the mechanized battlesuits could at least delay their inevitable deaths for a few more minutes. Some of them shot back at the roaring Tyrant which was following them, but their defiance only served to anger it even further if such a thing was possible.

A sentry on another section of the perimeter wall rose up from the nearby doorway, armed with a freshly-reloaded rocket launcher. He came to a standstill and carefully aimed his weapon at the giant rampaging creature's head, zooming in on the yellow-red eye closest to him through the scope. He took a deep breath, murmured a brief prayer, and shifted his aim a few degrees to the right to hopefully hit the Elder Grimm in the face with a high explosive rocket.

"Eat this, you ugly son of a-" He fired the rocket, which soared precisely towards the head of the Tyrant… only for the its stinger-like tail to come up and whip the explosive missile away, sending it into the side of one of the barrack buildings where it exploded and took out half of the structure.

The Tyrant's head turned to face the sentry, whose face drained of all blood as the yellow-red eyes of the Elder Grimm looked right at him. It charged at the wall, barreling through several retreating and scattered soldiers before it snapped the running guard off the defense wall and chomped down on him, his bones snapping and crunching within its gnashing fangs while blood dripped down the beast's orifice. His screams were short-lived as it devoured the offensive human being, and then turned its attention to the legless Paladin, the operator now working hard to fire the remaining missiles from the battlesuit's arms at the frightening creature.

The Tyrant stomped towards the downed Paladin, ignoring the weapons fire from other soldiers and the remaining Atlesian Knights that poured out of the command complex. It only stopped to snatch up a battle tank and flung it at a hovering airship which was blasting at it from the air, the two vehicles meeting each other in a tremendous crash and plummeted to the ground, where a massive explosion announced their demise. A couple of the android foot soldiers were taken out by its swishing tail, and the Elder Grimm even ignored the other Paladins firing at it, some of their missiles missing the terrifying beast altogether and impacting onto the other damaged vehicles, blowing them up or killing soldiers. For the most part, the Tyrant ignored these pests and kept heading for the downed Paladin, the operator inside still mashing his controls to fire the battlesuit's remaining weapons.

A lucky salvo of missiles hit the bone plates that armored the Tyrant's head, cracking it a little but not slowing it down one bit, simply enraging it further. The fear that was taking hold over Fort Valor was palpable, and it was driving the huge Grimm beast to further bloodlust.

The legless Paladin operator, who was now panicking, managed to aim the battlesuit's arms at the Tyrant's left leg and fired its final missiles, managing to score a direct hit and trip the biped Grimm as it staggered, but its head landed right in front of the Paladin's broken cockpit and with a snap of its jaws, the battlesuit pilot was consumed, the only remaining body part of him was a leg sticking out of the Elder Grimm's mouth as it rose up again, easily withstanding the blasts from the marching Atlesian Knights before it smashed into them, taking most of them down in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, up in the command complex of Fort Valor the colonel who was in command of the Atlesian military base, known to the rest of his command staff as Gotze, looked on in horror as the Tyrant tore the entire base apart, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

"Sir!" One of the operators called for his attention, "We're reading additional targets coming in on the sensors! It could be more Grimm!" She brought up the image on her console on the main screen, where a huge mass of red dots was shown rapidly approaching the devastated base.

"Damn it…" Gotze swore, beads of sweat running down his forehead and cheeks, "Where in Oum's name did that abomination come from?! What is it?!"

"Sir, with all due respect, those questions can wait for later! Right now, we have to deal with…" She was cut off as another explosion sounded off as another building, most likely a generator reactor, was damaged and went critical. Gotze nearly fell onto his front but managed to grab hold of a nearby console, and saw the Tyrant climbing atop one of the nearby buildings. It turned around, its spiked back and stinger tail facing them as it roared out in triumph to the remaining soldiers and mechanical robots below.

"You're right." He looked at the female operator and continued hurriedly, "Call Sentinel Base, they're the closest to us, tell them to send as many reinforcements as possible!" The various operators within the command center scrambled to carry out his orders, before Gotze looked out from the armored windows to the base under his command, watching as the Tyrant's right clawed hand plucked a screaming sentry guard off the perimeter all and crushed him into a bloody pulp within its claws as its armored tail warded off further attacks.

"Sir, we've established contact with Sentinel Base! It…it sounds like they're under attack too!" The operator reported fearfully.

"What?" Gotze asked, surprised before quickly giving out another order, "Contact General Ironwood and Atlas Military HQ right away!"

"Sir, Grimm swarms spotted approaching the base! Not as big as that thing, but the scanners have identified multiple Ursas, Beowolves, Boarbatusks, and Nevermore!" A male operator looked up from his scanning console with his blue eyes as wide as they could go, his voice cracking with fear.

"Scatter the airships if we can! Activate any remaining wall defenses and blast them down! We have to do everything in our power to stop this!" Gotze commanded as he saw the Tyrant snatch an Atlesian airship out of the sky and hurl it onto the ground where it exploded, crushing and injuring a number of troopers. His gloved fist clenched as he watched the colossal beast use its powerful tail to impale one of the last few Paladins, the bone-stinger at the end of the tail coming out with dripping red blood decorating it as it lifted the whole battlesuit into the air.

"Sir, we've established contact with Headquarters!" Called the female operator, a bit of hope in her voice.

"Then ask them for reinforcements right a-" Colonel Gotze never got to finish the rest of his sentence as the tail of the Tyrant, with the Paladin still attached to it, slammed into the primary room of the command complex. The giant's tail ripped into and out of the building a couple of times, spewing debris left and right and with a forceful jerk it shook the ruined Paladin from its tail which crashed into the control room and blew up immediately.

From outside the destroyed command complex, most of the remaining Atlesian forces watched in horror as the Grimm swarmed through the yawning gaps in the defense walls, destroying any lingering resistance and devouring every living being left in the ruined military base.

The Tyrant jumped off the remains of the wrecked command complex and roared loudly as it landed, and its roar was answered by the various sounds of the other Grimm as they rampaged through the thoroughly wrecked military base of Fort Valor, reducing it to further unrecognizable ruin.

The Tyrannosaur Grimm resumed its attack; it had been so very hungry, and now it could finally hunt and feed. And it would feed well today.

---

Some forty-five miles away, the Atlas military base named Sentinel was also under attack. Grimm Knights flew about wildly in the airspace above the base, blitzing everything in sight while others fought the Atlesian soldiers directly on the ground.

The large black coffin carried by the largest of the Grimm Knights were wide open, the red eye sigil imprinted on its surface now closed as the Geists within had been unleashed onto the base, freely possessing whatever debris or objects they choose. It wasn't long before they formed huge bodies made of scrap metal, tree trunks, damaged vehicles and weapons, boulders and rocks, various scattered components of downed robots, so the base's soldiers and mechanical android Knights fought not just the upgraded robotic warriors of the enemy, but also the hulking golems composed of various materials that were smashing their way through the base.

"Aim for the mask with the yellow eye! Hit their faces!" A captain named Crawford shouted as he fired his assault rifle at the Geist-possessed masses from behind an overturned truck.

A Paladin fired off its rocket pods, hitting one of the possessed amalgamations dead-on, blowing it to bits in a huge explosion and forcing the ghostly Grimm to flee from its chosen body. It swerved through the cold air amid a storm of assault weapons fire, until a lucky shot from one of the on-site Specialists hit it straight in the face which caused the Grimm to perish for real.

"That's the spirit! Keep on fighting! We'll show these freaks the cost of attacking Atlas!" Captain Crawford declared before he ducked back behind cover as laser blasts pounded into it from one of the Grimm Knights.

Crawford slammed another clip into his assault rifle and returned fire, managing to take down another Grimm Knight which had twin machine guns in place of its arms. He dodged a few stray blasts from other Grimm Knights coming his way and recovered, wiping the snow off of his uniform before he heard the screams of the soldiers under his command. With his heart pounding rapidly, he looked over to see a number of Atlesian troopers fighting the mysterious heavy-set man that led the attacking force, and they weren't really making much progress against him. If anything, the best they could do was only lasting a few seconds before that enemy commander's wrath as he demolished them violently and without any shred of mercy.

Despite being substantially outnumbered, Hazel didn't feel threatened in the slightest as he withstood the blasts coming from Atlesian troops' rifles, dodging half of them so as to not drain his aura too much. With a powerful punch his fist impaled the chest of an Atlesian Knight, quickly rendering it beyond any hope of repair, and then used its weapon to shoot down some of the soldiers before slamming the weapon through the head of another robot soldier.

He tossed the remains away and jumped up, kicking down a female Atlas soldier in the head with such force that he sent her flying a few meters away and rendering her unconsciousness upon impacting onto the rough ground. He smashed his fist into another armored soldier's rifle which shattered to pieces upon impact, grabbed him by the head and threw the screaming trooper into his squad who were trying to back him up.

The Specialist who had blasted the Geist into oblivion charged at Hazel, jumping up and brought his sabre down in an overhead two-handed grip to cleave the broadly muscular man's head, only for the powerful human to easily grab hold of the blade without much effort and stopping the Specialist's momentum. He saw the Specialist's eyes widen when the latter saw that he didn't even get so much as a cut on his calloused hand.

"Try harder." Hazel commented before slamming his other fist into the Specialist's head, cracking the Atlesian officer's helmet and shattering his faceplate. He then threw the body through a window of one of the base's administrative buildings.

Crawford, watching the whole time, swore under his breath before the stomping of a Paladin nearby caught his attention. He quickly spoke into the communication device located on his right ear, "This is Captain Crawford to Paladin NP-190, I need you to focus all of your weapons on the human commander leading this attack!"

"But sir," Came the reply of the female operator, "He's just one man, don't you think that's overkill?"

Crawford looked back and saw Hazel tear an Atlesian Knight in half with what appeared to be a slight effort, and then saw him threw both ruined halves of the robotic soldier at the remaining Atlesian troopers.

"No! Turn about and open fire with everything you got!" He commanded, "That's a direct order!"

The battlesuit managed to pivot about, taking down a couple of the Grimm Knights as it did so, and it stomped towards Hazel. Once she saw the remaining troops pulling back, the operator within opened fire and sent a barrage of missiles at the unnaturally powerful man.

Hazel's form vanished in a powerful explosion of red flames, melting the snow around it as the massive blast expanded and contracted before calming down to just some flames and a lot of smoke. The missiles used by the Paladin battlesuits were capable of reduce tanks to shattered wrecks, so it went without saying that using such a huge salvo of missiles on a single human was definitely overkill.

"You did it, NP-190!" Crawford congratulated her.

"Sir, I…I'm still picking up life-signs!" She reported in a baffled voice.

"What?!" The captain cried before he turned to see Hazel's form rise out of the cloud of smoke where the most recent explosion had been.

Hazel stepped out of the smoke cloud mostly unscathed save for his shirt being in burned tatters as well as singed skin and hair. "All right then, I see I'll have to step it up a notch."

Everyone watching him was too stunned by his miraculous endurance to make a move as he took out four yellow lightning Dust crystals and then slammed them into his elbows two at a time, causing the veins in his arms to glow as his arms themselves began to enlarge while his eyes began to shine brightly with power.

Hazel let out a furious roar in a distorted voice as he slammed his Dust-powered fists onto the snow-covered ground, causing massive bursts of lightning to explode all around him, electrocuting many of the soldiers surrounding him. This also caused anyone struck by his attack to scream in pain and pass out, not helped at all by the liquid state of the snow that was rapidly melting due to the rising heat of the surrounding battle taking place within the base, further conducting the electricity of the jolts.

The dark brown-haired muscular man then jumped towards the Paladin and landed on it fists first, sending a bolt of lightning through its cockpit, frying its systems and overloading the entire battlesuit, as well as badly injuring the pilot within who screamed in pain before falling unconscious as well. The Paladin rapidly crashed to the ground and black smoke rose from its inert form in many places.

Salem's most physically powerful disciple snarled loudly as he held his arms akimbo, and lightning poured from his hands and hitting everything in the vicinity, scoring many hits on soldiers who were rendered unconscious in an instant and out of the battle, Atlesian Knights which exploded on contact, vehicles that were tipped over and thrown through the air, and buildings which collapsed or shattered open under the awesome might of his incredibly powerful attacks.

It was only then when Hazel was hit by something that caught his attention. He looked over to see Captain Crawford, armed with his assault rifle which was aimed directly at him.

The two men exchanged a brief glance before Crawford let out a scream and fired off every bullet in his rifle, and once it was empty he looked up in amazement to see Hazel was only a little annoyed, having caught some of the bullets with his bare hands before he let them fall into the snow while the rest simply bounced off his aura harmlessly.

"What are you?" Crawford managed to ask as Hazel got off the Paladin and approached him, the hulking figure's steps crunching through the snow.

"All you need to know is that you will not defeat me." Hazel told him with a terribly-distorted voice as he stepped closer to the captain.

Crawford let out a scream of anger before charging at the larger man, intending to club him with the assault rifle, but Hazel simply dealt the man a forceful punch that sent him flying into the side of a command building, the loud thud joined by the sounds of breaking bones. Blood soon pooled outwards from the impact site, mingling with the snow.

Hazel paid the now-deceased captain no further attention, and simply turned around to survey the battlefield. He, like many of the others attacking different locations around Atlas today, had only one goal: weaken the overall strength of Atlas's armies by dealing out as much damage as possible.

And so he set about doing his assigned task by climbing up one of the damaged buildings and aimed his hands at a water tower, letting loose a huge blast of lightning that caused the tower to explode and pour copious amounts of water down onto the remaining fighting Atlas soldiers who were soon electrocuted by the lightning Hazel was pouring onto them, their skeletons showing for brief seconds as they suffered terribly painful shocks before they fell to the ground twitching and writhing with soundless screams in their mouths.

Hazel then jumped off the building and landed behind an Atlesian Knight firing its weapons at the Grimm Geists, which soon had its arms forcibly removed by the large human before he sent it flying into the nearest wall with a kick. Around him, the Geist amalgamations were mopping up the remaining pitiful resistance from the remaining soldiers who had somehow survived Hazel's attacks, stomping on them or crushing them underfoot easily. A few other Geists have also taken control of the remaining Atlesian Paladins and turned them into their new vessels, ready to unleash further hell on any other victims.

He stopped and briefly looked up into the sky. "This is all for you, my sister. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end."

As his focus returned to the complete devastation of Sentinel Base, Hazel couldn't help but wonder if the others were having it this easy.

---

Dr. Toma Sherizawa allowed him a smirk from inside the Atlas Armor he had created and upgraded. The irony that the armor he had created for the protection of the soldiers of Atlas was now being used against them quite effectively wasn't lost on him the slightest, watching as dozens of the advanced variants of Grimm Knights blasting their way through the military complex of Europa base to get to the weapon laboratories and the newly-manufactured prototype heavy cannon that was held within.

The weapons facility was located in the snow-covered countryside of Alsius, a state in Atlas, where certain areas surrounding the location were used as a research and development facility during the Great Wars of Remnant. It was a fairly standard-looking base, with tall perimeter walls protected by watchtowers and turrets which enclosed a huge grey featureless slab of metal and concrete that looked more like a reinforced bunker than a military building. Apparently the Atlas Council has decided that since the weapons facility was practically located in the middle of nowhere and known to a handful of military personnel, a token security force was more than enough to protect whatever new armaments the scientists of the laboratories created there.

It proved to be a fatal mistake on their part.

The base was already on total lockdown to protect the technologies within its storage vaults, but that didn't really matter anyway since when Sherizawa and his Grimm Knights broke into the base in a series of lightning fast attacks which decimated the security forces protecting the base with ease. His main target was the prototype heavy cannon that, from what he had understood based on the files Salem's other agent in Atlas had passed to them, had been completed and fully tested as well. Ironwood and the Council ware satisfied with the results of those tests, and had approved for the cannon to be placed on the Resolute next week.

Too bad he would put a kink in those plans.

Although they weren't there to steal any of the other weapon technologies being worked on in those weapon labs, Salem had given orders that she did want the blueprints, scans, and information on them as well, so she would know what other tricks Ironwood had up his sleeve and how her acolytes could effectively counter them.

Sherizawa walked down the smoke-filled corridors of Europa base, ignoring the screams and endless weapons fire from the Grimm Knights which shredded both lab scientists and their security protectors apart as well. As he ripped an Atlesian Knight's head off with his armored gauntlet, the scientist held the sparking head up to look at the mechanical components within and commented, "These pathetic toys are what the Council chose over my armor? Poor choice, Ironwood, you know the Schnees' work tends to be shoddy half the time."

He tossed the android soldier's head into the air and blasted it to smithereens without a second thought, before walking into one of the cavernous weapon storage hangars and narrowly avoided being blasted by one of the Paladins which were fighting the upgraded Grimm Knights which were keeping their attention occupied by firing their arsenal of weapons at the battlesuits. Sherizawa quickly took cover behind a couple of pallets filled with large steel-plated containers that contained dozens of new energy rifles that would be distributed to the armies of Atlas, and programmed the Grimm Knights to keep the Paladins busy while he took on the one that was located at the far side of the storage hangar.

As the mechanized battlesuit turned towards him after blasting apart a couple of Grimm Knights, Sherizawa allowed his protective faceplate to slide down over his face before breaking into a run towards the Paladin, dodging the blasts of its weapons. The operator knew that any stray blasts would definitely rupture any of the stored weapons in the hangar causing a huge chain reaction of explosives, so he timed his blasts as he tracked the armored scientist which Sherizawa exploited to his advantage. He swiftly closed the distance between himself and the Paladin, jumped onto it with the power of his modified Atlas armor, and easily ripped the cockpit open with his gauntleted fists. Before the shocked operator can pull out his backup pistol, Sherizawa killed him with multiple blasts from his wrist-mounted machine guns, shattering the pilot's helmet and spraying red blood around the cockpit's interior.

Tossing the body out onto the ground of the weapon storage hangar, Sherizawa struggled a little to sit comfortably in the Paladin's cockpit as the Atlas armor he wore was somewhat bulky even in its new form-fitting iteration. After a couple of seconds, he managed to take control of the Paladin and fire its missiles and energy blasters at the blast doors of the main buildings, blowing them wide open to let the Grimm Knights enter as a couple of Geist-possessed golems made out of various inanimate objects wreaked havoc and kept the remaining security forces busy.

Given his progress so far, the task set before him was almost too easy. As the final Atlesian Paladin crashed to the ground with black smoke rising from its ruptured energy core, Sherizawa grinned to himself as he knew he was definitely enjoying the weapons he developed triumphing over the so-called advanced Atlas technology.

It wouldn't be long before the prototype heavy cannon would be his for the taking. And despite himself the scientist would have killed to see General Ironwood's face when he learned that his brand-new weapon was stolen from the Europa base.

That mental image gave Sherizawa himself a pleased smile as he marched his stolen Paladin battlesuit after his newly-manufactured Grimm Knights deeper into the weapons facility.

---

Mantle City was a sizably large metropolitan location, the third largest in the Kingdom of Atlas to be exact, and it had been a place Anastasia Bloom had visited many times before back when her family was more well off. The Bloom family had once been among Atlas' elite, and while they weren't close at all to the Schnees or the Maximiliuses in terms of wealth or power their Dust company still had enough influence to be considered among the better advantaged families of Atlas, and a young Anastasia had been a particularly privileged child since she had been practically handed everything she could ever asked for or wanted.

It was one of the reasons why Arthur Watts had approached her father, as he was weaker willed than others among the elite were, even Anastasia had to admit that. Her father had, after some clever persuasion, thrown in with Watts, supplying him and Salem by extension with Dust to fuel their plans that had been in the works for so long. It had been during this partnership with her father that Watts, who even then was a man of various talents and a well-known adviser to anyone who could pay his price, had gotten to know her, and sensed her potential as a fighter especially due to her Semblance; Aura Drain, which was a rare ability to steal the aura from one's opponents. It was at Watts' gentle urging that her father had allowed Anastasia to take defense classes, which taught her how to fight and protect herself.

Then, about thirteen years ago, her family fell on hard times when their company faced a corporate takeover by none other than the Schnee Dust Company, theirs being the latest of many businesses large and small to be absorbed by the Schnee's corporate empire. After his business allies cut their losses and left Mr. Bloom had begged Watts for aid, but his hands were unfortunately tied as well, and so they could do nothing to stop the Schnees without doing something that would unnecessarily expose them. But Watts did eventually offer her father a deal, in which Salem would take Anastasia under her wing and turn her into a warrior, one that would help instate a new world order that would put the rich overlords of business conglomerates like those of the S.D.C. in their place.

While her father was quite hesitant, Anastasia had been determined to become one of the Dark Queen's students and learn how to become powerful, so that she can take her revenge on the prideful elite of Atlas who cast her family aside without a second thought. It was this determination and greed for power that Salem took an interest in, and had eventually taken her in like she had with Cinder and Thorn, promising her the powers of the Spring Maiden.

Anastasia was going to get what she wanted, no matter who got hurt in the process of her doing so. And the people of Mantle City were no different.

She had already helped take out a group of Atlesian Knights, so now she simply watched as downtown Mantle began to descend into chaos. Fires were burning out of control in the floors of office buildings, while workers and civilians were doing their best to avoid being shot by the invading Grimm Knights or the hulking golems controlled by the Geists which went about demolishing anything and everything which stood in their way.

In her years under Salem's tutelage, Anastasia had gained an affinity for wanton chaos and destruction, something about it made her feel superior to those she had inflicted it on, especially now as she watched it transpire from atop a medium-sized office building.

She grinned under her black bandanna and mask as the wind blew her winter cape outwards, a disguise necessary to keep her identity secret lest any fleeing Atlesian recognize her as the missing daughter of the Bloom family.

Gunshots soon reached her ears, and she looked down to see a group of police officers doing their best to fend off the Grimm Knights which were unloading their weapons at their vehicles, and one of them with a shotgun managed to blast one of the machine gun arms off one of the robots.

"Can't have that now, can we?" Anastasia spoke to no one in particular before she whipped out her personal weapons, two Dust-powered chakrams with retractable razors. She had personally made them herself over a period of time, and spilled quite a substantial amount of blood with them.

She leapt off the building, landing with a crouch onto the street before rolling over behind one of the cops whose attention was occupied with a Grimm Knight firing machine gun bullets at him. Anastasia got close to him without making a sound, and slashed him across the back which caused the police officer to scream loudly. As he fell twitching to the ground his scream alerted the others to her sudden arrival, and they immediately opened fire at her. Sighing, she blocked their shots with wild spins of her twin chakrams, holding onto the handles in the middle before she swung them out into the air and sent purple arcs of Dust energy through the surrounding area which slammed into the cops. They were hurled into the air and slammed down just as quickly, severely injured or knocked unconscious upon impact.

A cop who managed to take cover from her first attack brought up his shotgun and nearly blasted her, but Anastasia managed to dodge the shotgun blast which nearly clipped her arm. She sprinted towards him before the cop could reload, slicing his shotgun apart before kicking up to score a hit on his chin which knocked out some teeth, sending him onto the ground where a vicious stomp on his face with her booted feet rendered him comatose.

"The gall of some people…" Anastasia muttered to herself before she turned her attention to a group of fleeing civilians, some of whom had stopped to watch the skirmish. The dark blonde woman smiled behind her mask as she noticed a rather exquisite diamond and pearl necklace one of the female citizens was wearing.

She smirked and began to saunter over to them, and this made civilians try to run. The blonde minion of Salem rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers, ordering the Grimm Knights to cut them off and they followed her given order by flying in front of the escaping civilians and blasting the street before the group which brought them to an abrupt halt.

"You there!" Anastasia called as she came forward, pointing at the terrified woman, "That's quite the lovely necklace you have. Hand it over."

The woman, a brunette in her late twenties, looked at Anastasia with a shocked expression on her face, "But… but this is a family heirloom, passed down for generations! I can't-"

"It's either the necklace or your life, dear, which will it be?" Anastasia sneered as the Grimm Knights rose their wrist-mounted machine guns at the crowd, causing people to cry out in fear.

"All right! Here!" The woman cried out as she lifted the necklace over her head with shaky hands and held it out for her attacker to claim.

"See? That wasn't so hard." Anastasia remarked condescendingly as she took it and placed it around her own neck, just as a Geist stomped over to them, "Now get back to fleeing!"

The people followed her advice and sprinted away under a low bridge as the Geist chased after them. Due to the form it had taken which was formed of rocks, metal and other debris, smashed through the bridge with some effort.

Anastasia then ordered one of the Grimm Knights to carry her up into the air and it mindlessly complied, flying her up with a strong grip around her waist and letting her see the city under attack. While this attack wouldn't wipe Mantle City out, it would probably devastate it enough to get the fear flowing through the other Atlesian cities.

Speaking of which, Anastasia grinned as she saw swarms of wild Grimm approaching the city, sensing the fear and other negative feelings emanating from the metropolis and eager to hunt down their prey.

"Come and get it, beasts!" Anastasia shouted as she began wildly waving her chakrams around, sending arcs of purple Dust energy this way and that, dealing more damage to the city below.

"Yes! Run! Run and hide!" she called out with a laugh as she watched the scattered citizens run for their lives while other cops and a few Huntsmen and Huntresses valiantly fought on. Without the help of the Atlas military forces, it would be a matter of time before Mantle City was overrun.

Elsewhere in the besieged city, a certain petite girl with multicolored hair and eyes of brown, pale-pink and white finished stabbing a Grimm Knight through the head with the cylindrical blade that was normally concealed within her umbrella. As she kicked the ruined robot away, she shook her head and thought, 'And today was going so well too… looks like it's time to play the hero again.'

And so Neopolitan walked out into the bedlam-covered streets once more, this time with the intent to save as many lives as she could.

---

North Point was a town of average size, not particularly famous to the world at large but well known enough amongst the people of Atlas. Unfortunately, it also had a rather infamous history of prejudice against Faunus, something that had only diminished in the last twenty years or so, and even then it still took time for the two races to become used to one another.

Which was why Salem chosen it as a target for Steppenwolffe.

The Beowolf Grimm Commander growled as he grappled with one of the town's resident Huntsmen, a human in his late forties who was a decent fighter who was doing his best to fight back against the enraged hybrid while dozens of Beowolves attacked the town from other directions. The other Hunters and the local law enforcement fought against the Grimm, leaving him on his own to fight Steppenwolffe

Steppenwolffe was pushed back again but managed to recover himself quickly and met the Huntsman's next chop with a parry before striking out at him several more times, nicking his armor plates and landing a few bad cuts where his sword pierced through the Atlesian Huntsman's white and grey armor-plated suit. Thick rivulets of red blood dripped from those rents, falling onto the bloodstained snow.

The Huntsman seethed as his aura went to work healing him. He glared at Steppenwolffe and snarled, "I don't know who you are, freak, but you're not going to…"

He didn't get to finish as Steppenwolffe attacked again, relentlessly striking at him over and over with his sword, forcing the Huntsman to fight back as much as he possibly could. The Grimm Commander grinned darkly as he blocked a stab and then ducked under a swing of the Huntsman's sword before knocking it aside and then plunging his own blade into the man's torso, piercing directly underneath his chest.

The wounded Huntsman's breath went out of his lungs as he struggled to breathe before Steppenwolffe, grinning evilly, withdrew his blood-covered sword pushed his latest victim down to the snow-white ground. The Grimm Commander's eyes shone red, summoning a group of five Beowolves to him which leaping over burning debris as they converged behind him, drool leaking from their fanged mouths as they awaited his order. He smirked at the severely-wounded Huntsman who was lying in a spreading pool of blood beneath him as the Grimm gathered around them both, and then with a mental order he lets the beasts indulge themselves.

He watched silently as the small pack of Beowolves tore the Huntsman limb from limb, killing him quickly. Steppenwolffe began to walk through the half-destroyed town, watching as the other packs of Beowolves and other Grimm went about their purpose of destruction and killing, feeding hungrily off the flesh and fear of North Point's inhabitants.

He heard the shouts of Atlesian soldiers and the mechanical sounds of Atlesian Knights flying, and looked up to see a small army patrol arriving at the fall end of the main street and began fighting back against the Grimm hordes swarming into North Point. Armor-clad troops climbed out of armored personnel carriers while their cupolas provided covering fire, while android foot soldiers shot and grappled with various Grimm beasts, destroying them and getting themselves destroyed as well. A valiant effort, but it was already too late. The most they could do was hold out the inevitable a little longer before Steppenwolffe brought in the more powerful Grimm to teach them all a painful lesson.

Steppenwolffe drew his sword, more than ready to fight again and smiled to himself. Salem was right, this might not be Atlas's ultimate reckoning, but it would be enough for now. He looked forward to the day where he could tear down the walls of Atlas's capital, and teach those within the true meaning of pain.

---

Aszod City was located close to Atlas' capital, and hence by extension also wasn't that far at all from the great fortress that was Atlas Academy and the Kingdom's military headquarters, so it was a reasonably well-protected city. Hence the reason why Salem had chosen it among the targets for her Grimm Commanders to strike, to show the rich and the elite of Atlas that they wouldn't be safe for long. Sure enough, the inhabitants of Aszod City were swiftly overwhelmed by shock and horror when Ziz and her massive flocks of Griffons, Nevermore and Vampires launched a massive attack from high above, swooping down to strike at the civilians populating the roads of the Atlesian city and snatching unlucky souls off the streets.

Panic soon spread through Aszod City like a virus as the Grimm hordes rampaged indiscriminately throughout the town, despite the efforts of the Atlesian military forces who had mobilized from the nearby military base on the outskirts to protect the city as much as they could.

Currently Ziz flew as fast as she could, taking down the airborne Atlesian Knights that were assigned to protect the city. It gave her some comfort that she had the alternative of fighting and destroying lifeless machines as opposed to actual people, which was something she had lost the taste for some time ago. In the past it had given her something akin to a sense of satisfaction when she spilled the blood of a living being, but now it somehow left her cold, empty, and the bitter taste of self-loathing.

As she went about evading the laser blasts of the robotic android soldiers, she remembered the incident over a year ago when she and Steppenwolffe attacked a joint Vacuo/Atlas military base near the jungles of Vacuo, in a move to turn the two Kingdoms against one another. It hadn't worked out, but the memory of what she did that day haunted her.

One action of hers during that attack in particular made Ziz utterly disgusted with herself: murdering that innocent young soldier who was praying for her life and telling her that no gods heard her prayers and even if they did, they most likely didn't care.

And she callously took that woman's life without sparing another thought.

Ziz, hot anger flaring inside her like an active volcano filling every bit of her being, swung her axe and cleaved an arm off of an Atlesian Knight before slamming it into the back of another blow, destroying its flight systems and causing it to crash into the road below.

As she used her weapon's alternate gun mode to obliterate the head of another one of the robotic soldiers, she felt hatred and regret course through her mind and soul; hatred for Salem, hatred and regret for what she had done, regret for how she had doubted her Team who never gave up looking for her, and most of all, hatred for what she had become.

The flying Grimm Commander swooped underneath a flying Atlesian Knight, grabbing its leg before she blasted through the small of its back and hurled its twitching remains into another one which was drawing a bead on her with its arm-mounted guns. Both mechanical robots slammed into each other with a loud crash, spiraling down to impact on an empty car which detonated in a ball of fire.

She came to a stop above the chaotic city, watching as the flying Grimm went about their bloody work, and silently hoped that additional help would arrive for these people soon, because Oum knows she wasn't able to help them, not unless she wanted to surrender her life to Salem today. But she did use her powers as a Grimm Commander to direct some of the aerial Grimm hordes from the more populated civilian centers, holding them back to attack other parts of Aszod City instead where fierce resistance was being put up by the Atlesian troops which had already arrived to fight the Grimm.

'It's not much, but at least I tried.' Ziz thought to herself, although she wasn't sure she believed her own thoughts. She couldn't rebel openly against Salem now, who had deceived her and turned her into another tool to be used and probably discarded away when she had no further use of the Grimm Commanders.

No, she had to be patient for the time being, and wait for a chance to exact her revenge on the Mistress of Grimm.

---

Somewhere else in Atlas, twenty miles from away from the main mountain range, was one of the other bases of the Atlesian military forces. Borealis base, which stood some fifteen or so miles away from Borea which was a medium-sized town with a substantial population, mostly human. Borealis had once been a small outpost during the last Great War, but over the years it had expanded to be a full-fledged military base, albeit one smaller than most.

The captain in charge of Borealis was Wagner, a not-too-pleasant bald man in his late fifties who seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, entered the main room of the base's command center that he had been called to by the howling alarms. "All right, what's this ruckus all about then?" He shouted at the operators who were scattered about their consoles, tucking the small stress toy he had commonly used to calm his easily irritated nerves out of sight. He could feel his blood pressure rising, and tried to control it as his brown eyes searched for someone who could give him an immediate situation report.

"Sir, we have received a message from our patrol units in town, there are hordes of Grimm attacking!" A male operator reported concernedly.

"What?!" Wagner spluttered.

"It's true, sir! We're just now picking up scattered images from the city's security systems! Damn faulty things…" Another operator to Wagner's right muttered as he gestured to the video capture of their patrol units which were already engaged in combat on the town's main screens, which showed what looked like to be a few squads of soldiers with armored support fighting off hordes of Grimm as civilians ran for the safety of nearby shelters.

"Oh, son of a bitch!" The captain swore before he reached for the base's Public Address microphone, flicked the broadcast switch and spoke to the men and women under his command, "This is Captain Wagner, we have received word that the town of Borea has come under Grimm. Scramble all airships, Atlesian Knight-300s and troops immediately! Pilots, get your Bullheads up in the air right now!"

He looked out of the nearest window, seeing the base's assigned troops and pilots running towards the various airship hangars from the barracks, while the first few Bullhead aircrafts were preparing to taking off vertically with their engines roaring and passenger compartments filled with armed soldiers ready for a fight. As Wagner watched the personnel moving rapidly about beyond the command center windows, he sighed and added, "Go ahead and send those Atlas Eagles as well. We only have two but they'll get there quicker than our airships can."

"Yes sir!" The operator beside him acknowledged obediently, "Atlas Eagles activated and on their way."

Not long after the two Atlas Eagles took off and flew towards the nearby town, the first Bullhead which was loaded up with a dozen soldiers and two pilots began to slowly rise from its landing pad. The remaining five Bullheads were ready as well, along with the small convoy of armored personnel carriers and battle tanks that were rumbling towards the base's main entrance which was already opening thanks to the base's alert sentry guards. They were all ready to roll out for Borea.

"Borealis Control to Bullhead One, you are cleared for take-off. Good luck out there, and leave some Grimm for the others." The operator said encouragingly to the pilot of the Bullhead which was steadily lifting off the ground and into the air.

"Acknowledged, Borealis Control. Bullhead One, out." One of the Bullhead's pilots answered back as the aircraft's twin engines switched direction and turned it to fly out of the base.

"Oum's speed everyone, protect the people of Atlas and make us proud." Wagner added in through his microphone as the army airship gained altitude and flew away into the blue cloudy skies.

The bold determination to fight the Grimm and protect the citizens of Atlas was coursing in nearly every person at the base in that moment, but it was prematurely cut off by a rocket suddenly corkscrewing out of nowhere and slamming into the side of the first Bullhead, engulfing the ship in flames and smoke.

The pilots struggled futilely as they tried to keep the ship aloft, the engines letting out an ear-piercing shriek, but it began to spin out of control and fall from the sky and it crashed into the trees and ground below, shredding pieces of flaming metal and broken bodies all around the crash site.

"What the hell was that?!" Wagner demanded to know, as everyone within the command center watched the Bullhead go down in surprised horror.

"Bullhead One is down! I repeat, Bullhead One is down!" A panicked report from the wall guards emitted from the communication channel on the console of another operator.

"What are you waiting for? Send out the search and rescue teams, damn it!" The captain shouted as he slammed a fist down on the main system console.

The guards hurriedly opened the base's front gates, with medics and other support staff rushing out to help the wounded inside the downed Bullhead. However, before they could get near the flaming aircraft another rocket whooshed out of the forest and slammed into the airship, the second time finishing it off in an explosion that killed everyone inside, making the anyone trying to get to them stop in their tracks as the ball of fire rose into the air.

There was a brief moment of horrified silence before one of the Atlesian soldiers noticed something coming out of the treeline of the dense forest. His eyes widened as he pointed and shouted loudly, "Look! Over there!"

Everyone immediately turned to look at the fearsome-looking figure clad in jagged armor plates of black with red edges who was now approaching Borealis base, having abandoned the rocket launcher it used to destroy the Bullhead in the duffel bag he brought it in. Darkened glass lenses looked at the gathered Atlesian troopers from the intimidating masked helmet, the blackness contained within them completely devoid of emotion except of that to follow whatever orders it had been given by its mother.

"Who the hell is that?!" One of the medics cried out in shock.

"Who cares?! He's the one who shot the Bullhead down! Let's make this son of a…" The soldier who was eager to make the intruder suffer didn't manage to finish his sentence as the dark armored figure drew and fired a powerful rifle at his head, sending an armor-piercing, high-caliber bullet right through his helmet.

As the body with a new hole in its head collapsed onto the white ground with blood leaking out of the fatal wound, the other soldiers quickly brought up their rifles and shotguns, pointing their barrels at the terrifying intruder.

"Captain! We have spotted the hostile!" One of the sergeants shouted into his communication channel back to the base.

"How many of them are there? A squad? A company?" Wagner demanded to know, "They better be at least Battalion-size!"

"Erm… there's only one enemy present sir! But-" The sergeant spoke once more, his voice cracking with terror.

"Then what are you waiting for?!" Wagner's voice came across the communications channel at full volume, "Kill him! Kill him now!"

Needless to say, the soldiers didn't need any more encouragement as they screamed defiantly and charged at the lone attacker, unloading every single bullet in the weapons they had with them at him.

The Son dodged most of the gunfire coming his way and sprinted at them, whipping out an impressive long double-bladed red sword from its sheath and leaping high up into the cold air. He came down blade first, cleaving his sword diagonally through a soldier's shoulder and down into his chest before he ripped it out, causing the trooper to fall away in two separate pieces which was gushing blood all over the place. The sword's vein-like black lines seemed to writhe as it absorbed the blood that had splattered all over its length. The attacker swung the huge blade sideways to decapitate the next soldier, whose head flew away into the forest.

The rest skidded to a halt as the Son of Salem gazed emotionlessly at them, his red sword now covered with the blood of his latest victims. They couldn't see a face underneath that Wyvern-shaped helmet that concealed his head so well, and something about the lack of a face clearly disturbed them. Was this thing even a person? Was it a machine? An android? Or something else?

One soldier armed with two machine pistols decided it was better to shoot first and ask questions later, so he opened fire on the Son of Salem, only for the Son to dodge the blasts easily due to the soldier's distress hampering his accuracy, then getting up close and stab his frightening sword through the man's right shoulder, making him scream piercingly as he dropped the gun, before he was cut off by the removal of his head from his body.

"Come get some, you bastard!" A large Atlesian soldier armed with a chaingun yelled as he brought up the spinning barrels and opened fire on the Son, with the others following his example by emptying everything they had at him. The Son dashed through the deadly storm of bullets, jumped over them and landed behind the chaingun-wielding soldier and another trooper behind him, and before they could turn around he impaled them both from behind before tearing his sword out and finished off another female soldier with a vicious slash across the stomach.

The Son sidestepped the heavy butt of a shotgun which nearly whacked him in the helmet as yet another soldier, one with an empty clip, tried to melee him but the Son put an end to that by slicing both of his arms off. The soldier fell to his knees screaming in pain before he was silenced by a heavy-handed cut across the throat.

One of the remaining troopers let out a furious scream as he threw a grenade at the murderous figure, but the Son simply batted it away with the flat of his black sword which caused a large burst of fire, snow and dirt to explode into the air a few meters away as the Son shot forward and kicked the man in the gut, landed a crushing punch into his helmeted face, and finished him off via decapitation.

"Retreat! Retreat!" A trooper screamed before meeting his end just as he began running due to being shot by the Son's powerful rifle which hit him square in the back and severing his spine.

Wagner watched in horror as so many of his troops had been wiped out in such quick succession by this mysterious… thing. While he wasn't prone to fear, this seemingly unstoppable lone enemy filled him with soul-numbing dread.

"Sir!" The voice of one of the base's snipers came over the communications channel, "I'm now on the top of hangar six and I have a clear shot at the enemy. Permission to take the shot?"

"You didn't even have to ask! Just kill that son of a bitch!" Wagner hollered.

The female sniper, who was laying on her stomach atop the nearest airship hangar, watched through her rifle's scope as the Son of Salem withstood several cuts and gunshots from the remaining soldiers. The one wielding the combat knife and pistol didn't last long as the Son grabbed him by the neck and rammed his black sword through the soldier's gut before tossing him away to bleed to death.

"Just a little bit more… Say goodnight, you freak…" She murmured to herself before taking the shot, the armor-piercing round exiting the barrel of her personally customized sniper rifle as she pulled the trigger. Luck, however, wasn't on her side even though her skill was perfect as the Son somehow managed to dodge it, the sniper's bullet missing him by mere centimeters and hitting the snow a few meters away from him harmlessly.

"Shit!" The sniper shouted, accidentally drawing attention to herself as the Son looked in her direction. She quickly ejected the breech of her sniper rifle, pulling back the handle on receiver to chamber another round as her helmet sensors narrowed down on her target again. She took the second shot, but it produced no better results than her first.

The Son, after dispatching two more soldiers, whipped out a grappling hook attached to his belt and shot it at the communications tower that overlooked the whole encampment. He flew up into the air, avoiding the gunfire sent his way while shooting a number of Atlesian soldiers on their faces and limbs with an assault rifle he had picked up, before letting go of the gadget and fell onto the hangar's rooftop where he slammed his sword down on the markswoman who barely managed to parry it with her sniper rifle, and had to let it be cut in half in order to live a little longer.

She cursed at her broken weapon, tucked and rolled away from him before leaping upwards and whipping out a blade of her own which was much smaller than his. The Son threw a horizontal slash at the woman but she ducked and tried to stab him in the chest. Unfortunately, she underestimated his speed and strength as the Son stepped back but managed to turn away her strike with the flat of his sword. His comeback swing was also intensely powerful as well, and the sniper's blade went flying out of her gauntleted hands which left her in quite a bit of shock and unable to stop him from beheading her with a swift second stroke, a spray of her blood ending up on the Son's masked helmet which he wiped off without much thought.

A small thud caught the Son's attention, and he looked over to see a grenade landing atop the roof. He leapt off just as it exploded behind him, landing on his booted feet right in front of another Atlas soldier and cut his assault rifle into two pieces. He shouted a curse and slammed a fist into the Son's masked helmet, which didn't even rock the armored figure back a step. The weaponless soldier tried to punch again, but this time the Son grabbed his fist mid-swing in an armored gauntlet and twisted the entire arm, breaking the bones within and then whipping the man's entire body around and slammed his sword into the screaming trooper, running hm into the grey concrete wall of the hangar and sticking him to the side of the building.

Despite his blood flowing from the gaping stomach wound the man still continued screaming, letting his horrendous pain be known before he was granted the mercy of death as the Son shot him in the head with a discarded pistol. The dark attacker then yanked out the Blood Blade in a spray of blood, letting the newest corpse fall into the snow, and was about to head back into the fray when several grenades landed in front of him.

The Son turned and tried to outrun the grenades' explosions, but the ensuing blast still knocked him off his feet and onto the snow and dirt-covered ground. He tried to get up, only to be hit by multiple weapon blasts by the revenge-hungry Atlesian soldiers, looking to make him pay for all the brave, loyal lives he had taken today.

The Son forced himself up from the churned earth he found himself in, only to be shot again in the torso a couple of times, sending him back first down onto a pile of dirty snow.

An Atlas soldier wielding a shotgun roared as he kicked the Son in the head and chest a few times spitefully, "Not so tough now, are you? Piece of shit!" he ranted as he and several other soldiers continued beating the Son with everything in their hands.

"Captain Wagner, we have brought down the assailant, repeat, hostile is down!" A female Atlas trooper reported.

"Good work. Bring him to me, I want to know who this bastard is!" Wagner ordered.

The brutish Atlas trooper kept on raining blows onto the Son with the butt of his assault rifle, even after the others have stopped, and the female soldier pulled back his arm forcefully while saying, "Come on, Bekins… let's cuff this asshole up and take him to the Captain. Spane, get the handcuffs!"

"That jerk can wait! This guy needs to pay for shooting down Bullhead One! My best friend was on that ship!" Bekins barked as he delivered one last smash and knelt down in front of the seemingly defeated Son. He saw the blood on the Son's damaged armor plates and added, "At least our mates hurt you before they died."

On pure impulse alone, Bekins dipped his gauntleted fingers into the blood and brought them up to the armored warrior's concealed face, using the bright red fluid to create two dots for eyes and a ghoulish smile across the faceplate. For some odd reason, the soldier who had lost his brother-in-arms began to laugh, and managed to say "Ha! What's so funny? What are you smiling about?"

He kept on laughing while keeping himself balanced by holding his hands against his knees, his fellow soldiers were creeped out by the macabre scene. None of them noticed the Son's fingers twitching.

Suddenly the Son of Salem snapped to life, grabbed the laughing Bekins by the head and twisted his head in one abrupt motion, snapping his neck. The unexpected action caused the others to cry out in shock before opening fire, but the Son used Bekin's deceased body as a shield against the incoming bullets, soaking up the gunfire coming from the others' rifles.

The Son brought up his boots and kicked the corpse into the group, knocking them all over with surprised cries. In the fingers of one hand he had already held the safety pins of the four grenades on Bekin's waist, and he tossed them away while jumping behind the nearest hangar as the grenades detonated and killed the entire group instantly. He dashed over to the armory, which he climbed atop via the back ladder, taking out a bandolier of several grenades and tossed them to the base of the command center with the communications tower.

By the time the other soldiers began firing at him, the bandolier of grenades went off and the tower fell into a pile of crumbling debris and dust and plumes of snow, cutting off any chance of calling for help.

The Son walked to the edge of the armory, wiping the smile painted with blood off of his mask. None of them would survive this. His mother had ordered him to kill everyone there.

And good sons always obey their mothers.

---

The mining town of Solitarius, nestled deep within Atlas's countryside, was fairly large for a village due to the raw materials it provided to the Kingdom. Hence it was well defended by a tall sturdy wall which was made of only the finest metallic ore the families living in that town had mined long ago, which had done well in protecting the town's inhabitants from many a Grimm attack.

Until now.

Today the wall failed Solitarius, as the infamous Elder Grimm monster known as the Nuckelavee led a sizable Grimm horde made up of Beringels, Beowolves, Nevermore, Boarbatusks, Ursas, Sabers and Hellhounds in an attack on the town. The Grimm rampaged wantonly through after the Nuckelavee, undeterred by the serious resistance put up by the gate's security forces, smashed the entrance wide open with a mighty kick of its horse-body's hooves, letting the Grimm pour in and set about killing everyone and everything in sight.

The Nevermore flew in erratic flight patterns to avoid the blasts from the turrets which were placed along those walls, and while some got their wings or heads vaporized by the anti-air cannons, the turrets were in turn soon eliminated by the Beringels who leapt onto the wall and began smashing away anyone in their path and demolished those turrets which tried unsuccessfully to blast them away. A few turret crews succeeded in fending them off, but the majority failed and were destroyed by the primate Grimm.

The Nuckelavee howled its chilling screams as it used its unusually stretchy limbs to pull down a hovering Atlesian Knight which was unloading laser blasts into the Elder Grimm. The intelligent Grimm had endured far worse damage in its unusually long life, so it simply ripped the mechanical robot in half and tossed its two separate pieces at the other Atlesian Knights. Its lower horse body reared up, and both heads let out a blood-curdling screech that struck fear into the hearts of every person who heard it, human or Faunus.

One of the local Huntsmen dashed out from an alleyway between two buildings and fired off his weapon, a large bow, and the arrows managed to hit the abominable Grimm in the shoulder of its horse body. The heads screeched out angrily and the long, slender arms retracted back to yank the arrows out before snapping them in half. The two heads of the Nuckelavee jerked over, speedily focusing on the Huntsman who shot it and looked into both pairs of yellow-red eyes and saw nothing but a bottomless pit of unimaginable malice and hunger.

He brought up his bow and fired again as the Nuckelavee approached him slowly, and used its arms to swipe the arrows away as though they were harmless pebbles.

'What the hell is this beast doing here?! It's been in Mistral for over a century! Did it swim across the ocean or something?' The Huntsman thought to himself as he jumped away from a heavy swipe of the Nuckelavee's clawed hands.

He tried to get away from the Elder Grimm and link up with the others to rally against the beast, but so many of the other fighters were occupied trying to fend off the huge horde of Grimm pouring through the shattered gates, and with that many Grimm the situation seemed hopelessly out of control. The Huntsman reached for more arrows from the quiver at his back, but all of a sudden the Nuckelavee's clawed hand shot out and grabbed one of his legs, tripping him up as it pulled him off the ground and making him drop his bow.

The Huntsman shouted for help as he drew a small combat knife, struggling in the Nuckelavee's grasp as he tried to stab it. With a painful whack the Grimm beast knocked away his last weapon, and turned the doomed Huntsman around to face it.

He screamed loudly in terror as the Elder Grimm brought him towards its open mouth and its fangs bit down on his neck, ending his life in a sickening crunch of bone and a spray of blood.

---

Camp Independence was a renowned military base located near the capital of Atlas, known for its disciplined and professional soldiers stationed there as well as the amount of successful missions and eliminated Grimm hordes by those Specialists-in-training who received additional training there while undergoing the Specialist program. Among its honored graduates, as seen in the Hall of Honor within the main command building, were many of the Kingdom's heroes and heroines; among them Commander Central and Specialist Winter Schnee.

Colonel Jackson Chamberlain stood in front of a large holographic screen in the primary control room located within the command center at the military base, watching the highlighted red areas of Atlas which had come under attack by the Grimm increase with each passing minute, and black arrows showing the directions where the Grimm hordes are moving according to intelligence provided by Atlas Eagle squadrons. Around him the entire command center was at full alert with troopers and operators moving quickly to their designated locations, while outside the huge armored glass windows every active and reserve troop within the base were preparing to set out and protect the people and the many important towns and cities of the northern Kingdom.

Chamberlain had been visiting for a routine inspection, more for the nostalgia he had for the place than anything else, but the sudden alarms and distress calls for help had forced him to take charge and help organize the counterattacks.

General Ironwood's image was currently occupying the main screen, looking a little troubled as they both listened to a distress message from a student they were both familiar with; Flynt Coal.

"I repeat, can anyone hear me?! This is Flynt Coal of Team FNKI!" The static-laden masculine voice emitted from the speakers in the command center, accompanied by the sounds of fierce fighting in the background.

"This is Camp Independence, Colonel Chamberlain speaking. We read you loud and clear, Mr. Coal." Chamberlain answered.

'My team and I were wrapping up a mission in my hometown here in Nashville when a literal ton of Grimm attacked out of nowhere! We're holding them off along with the town's security forces as best we can, but we need backup asap!" Flynt's voice spoke urgently.

"This is General Ironwood. Keep fighting and hold out as long as you can, Coal," Ironwood spoke up, "We'll send help as soon as we can, but it appears that the Grimm are going after every other town and village in the Kingdom."

---

In his hometown of Nashville, Flynt Coal was surprised, but nonetheless glad to hear from his former headmaster, "Headmas- I mean, General Ironwood, sir! I understand, sir, my team will do our best to protect the town as long as possible until help arrives! Just get here as fast as you can! Over and out!" He ended the call and passed the communication device back to one of the town's cops, who stood up again and fired his shotgun rifle at the onrushing Grimm.

"Flynt! Did you reach anyone? What'd they say?" Neon asked hurriedly as she skated over to him, sending a swirling Dust blast at a roaring Beowolf with her nunchaku-glowsticks. In the cold winter weather she wore a long skirt of bright pink with a blue sweater, rainbows lining her sleaves.

"Looks like Nashville isn't the only town under attack. There're Grimm everywhere, and while the military are sending us help it will still be awhile before they get here, so we're on our own for now." Flynt told his partner when they heard a fierce growl nearby. Both members of Team FNKI looked up to see a Boarbatusk charging at them, when it was blasted down by Iggy Gallup, the fourth member of their team, who was a grungy-looking teen with long, dirty blond hair and wearing a battered vest over a black t-shirt with faded, torn jeans and black boots.

In his thickly-gloved hands Iggy held his weapon, a fancy-looking guitar with a smoking gun barrel at the head of it, and as he brought his fingers down against the strings and grabbed the trigger on the instruments side, he sent a Dust-infused bullet sailing straight into another Boarbatusk, ripping right between its yellow-red eyes and out of its rear.

'Ain't it just that way? Here we are protecting this town with nothing but some local cops and robo-Knights to help! How in Oum's name are we supposed to take on a Grimm attack of this size?!" The guitar-wielding Huntsman grumbled as he jumped down from the brick wall he had been standing on, putting a couple of bullets into a roaring Beowolf as he did so.

"Iggy, we do what we can. We always knew something like this would happen one day, so we best get back to kicking ass and protecting people!" Flynt told his team members before he used his trumpet to send out a high frequency soundwave right at a bounding pack of Beowolves, forcing the Grimm beasts to stop in their tracks and howl at the powerful blast as they were blown backwards, therefore allowing Iggy and Katrina to shoot them from up above.

Katrina Faa, the third member of Team FNKI, stood on the rooftop of a nearby electronics store as she supported her team. She was wearing a fashionably multi-colored winter coat and a blue scarf as she steadily played a harmonious tune on her weapon, a modified patrician violin that she used to create blast energy waves powered by both the Dust within and the sounds it produced, so that a melody that was too soft or out of tune wouldn't do much damage, but a music theme played just right or furiously enough would be quite effective in taking down a reasonably-large Grimm.

"Flynt, I think… I see Goliaths approaching the town!" She called over the competing sounds of Grimm roars and weapons fire being laid down by the law-enforcement officers fighting beside Team FNKI.

"Oh crap, how many Katrina?" Flynt shouted as he blasted back a Beowolf which leapt towards him.

"Six, two are smaller but the rest are fully grown." Katrina informed him before sending off another sound-powered blast that sliced off an Ursa's claws and knocked it off the roof.

Neon looked to her partner and said, "It's a good thing your dad still had some Dust supplies left for us, I don't think we could do this without it."

"I don't even know if we can do this with the extra Dust." Iggy commented as he reloaded his guitar-rifle hybrid weapon with a fresh clip, "…and by the way, that pack of Grimm looks kind of bored, don't you think so?" He pointed with a gloved finger as Team FNKI noticed a group of Grimm, mainly comprised of Beowolves and Boarbatusks, coming towards them from down the street.

"We don't have to destroy them, just hold them off long enough for help to arrive," Flynt said as he loaded a purple vial into his trumpet, "They sure do, so let's play 'em a song!"

He ran past the cops who were hiding behind their patrol cars and pouring bullets whenever they could into the Grimm, and created his signature "Killer Quartet" with his Semblance and blew hard on his trumpet to create powerful sound blasts that blew away most of the Grimm, while Katrina sent thin ribbons of energy that finished off the escaping ones, assisted by Iggy who also blasted any remaining stragglers.

Neon skated her way back through town, knocking Grimm out of existence with her nunchakus and her powerful kicks. She dodged a couple of Boarbatusks, then somersaulted over a slashing Beowolf and slammed her yellow-colored nunchakus down on its head, electrocuting it and causing the defeated beast to vanish. As a trio of Beowolves began to chase after her, she skated quickly towards a flagpole and snagged one of her nunchakus on it and began to go around in circles, lifting both her feet up and using both her momentum and the retractable blades of her skates to cut down the Grimm numbers.

"Woohoo!" Neon cheered as she let herself go flying into the air, performing a few cartwheels before landing skates first onto a Boarbatusk and impaling it with her skates. "Never miss a beat!" She smirked as she skated back to safety beside her teammates, and changed her nunchaku colors back to its usual sky-blue.

"Nice moves as always, Neon!" Glynt praised as he blew down a Griffon with fire-infused sound waves.

"Thank you!" Neon grinned before she looked back at the raging battle and asked, "Flynt, do you really think we can do this?"

Flynt shot her a kind smile and replied, "I only know we're not giving up."

"Hey, you two!" A cop who was nearest to them shouted to get both of their attention, "Save your idle talk for later! We need your team to bottle up the Grimm and keep them in the main street! Or else more civilians will die before the army reinforcements get here!"

"Never a dull moment." Flynt sighed as he nodded at the police officer, "Okay, we're coming!"

---

Meanwhile, back at Camp Independence, the on-screen general looked to his dependable colonel who was supplying him with details about the progress the entire military base was making in scrambling all of their available forces.

"We've sent out over twenty strike teams so far, each with a Specialist in command, but it will take some time before they'll reach their destinations." Chamberlain spoke after looking through the details of an electronic tablet handed to him by a working female command staff beside him.

"Good, we're doing the same here at Atlas Military Headquarters. We've already gotten fourteen Atlesian aerial battleships off the ground and I am also planning to take the Resolute out myself." Ironwood's blue eyes looked back at Chamberlain from the main holographic screen.

"Good idea, sir. I take it you would be bringing Blizzard Company along with you?" Chamberlain mentioned carefully, knowing that the 101st Company would be already on board Ironwood's personal battleship since they were known by the famed designation of 'Ironwood's Gauntlet'.

"They're already on the Resolute, getting ready to drop into the thick of battle once we reached the largest Grimm intrusion on Atlesian soil." Ironwood replied, "However, I'm under the impression that this is the enemy making their move. We have received reports and distress calls for help from Aszod, Mantle, North Point, Sentinel Base, Nashville, Halfix… it looks to be more or less a full-scale invasion of the Kingdom. To complicate matters further, we have just received word from our agents in Vacuo that something similar is also happening to the Vacuoan capital."

"That's where two of the…" Chamberlain thankfully caught himself and chose his words carefully so as not to accidentally reveal anything to the staff, "…very important individuals we have to protect are at this very moment!"

Ironwood's reply was simply a grave nod.

"Damnation," Chamberlain muttered, slamming down his hands hard on the communications console in front of him, "With Atlas coming under attack on multiple fronts, we can't send any other forces to Vacuo to assist with the attack on its capital." He looked up at Ironwood once more, "What do you plan to do, sir?"

"I'm going to contact Headmistress Maple. We're going to need all the help we can get right now, and while I am against sending students who have not graduated into battle right now but the current situation clearly has changed due to what we're currently facing." Ironwood told him.

"With all due respect, are you sure that's wise?" Chamberlain posed the next question that surfaced in his mind.

"It's worked in the past, so I can't argue its effectiveness. I'll contact Captain Samson at the Vacuo Ranger outpost and have them report on what's happening there and provide any necessary support, but for now we need to take any and all measures to protect our Kingdom." Ironwood answered and took a breath before continuing with, "What will you be doing?"

"After I've made sure the next ten or so airships set out safely with their troops on board I'll send for my personal transport which will bring me to the nearest city under attack by the Grimm." The Atlesian colonel replied back to his superior, "I will protect the Kingdom in any way I can."

Ironwood offered a faint smile before saying, "In that case, good luck to you colonel. Ironwood out."

"You too, General." Chamberlain saluted as he watched his superior's face vanish from the holographic screen.

After the transmission ended, Chamberlain set about giving out orders to as many people as necessary and once that was done he headed out of the command center and saw heavy battle tanks, armored personnel carriers and Paladins upgraded with extra armor and weapons rumbling out of their respective hangars across Camp Independence, while troopers and other military personnel quickly attended to their given tasks. He heard the sounds of roaring airship engines and turned to watch the next squadron of fighter-transports filled with heavily armed soldiers and Atlesian Knights depart into the grey-blue sky, flying off to assist whatever town or city they were assigned to protect.

"Where's that next airship headed to?" He stopped and asked one of the passing lieutenants amidst the departing airships and fighter-transports, pointing to one in particular which sat on its landing pad.

"Nashville, sir."

"Good, I'll be going with them." Chamberlain said just as Camp Independence's perimeter alarm suddenly rang out piercingly.

"Grimm!" One of the lookout sentry guards on the watchtower reported alarmingly through the main communication channel, "Grimm hordes, heading straight for us!"

Chamberlain and the officer exchanged surprised glances before the colonel ran back towards the command center's main control room. Once there, he saw the security feeds appearing on the main screen and gaped at the massive horde of varying Grimm species charging towards the military base from down the steep hillside of the mountains, but the real surprise was what, or rather who, was leading it.

"Oh Oum…" Chamberlain murmured to himself as he recognized the description of the Grimm Chimera and instantly remembered the insane murderer who was currently controlling the horrific body, "Norvik."

Outside, Norvik ran on all four legs and led the charge of the Grimm hordes directly at the esteemed base. He had never been anywhere near the place before, but he had heard a few times about it in the past, and of the claims that only the best highly-trained and disciplined soldiers were stationed there, the cream of the crop, the best of the best.

Well, now he would get to see how the best stood up against him.

The turrets began unleashing heavy fire at the hordes, with several Grimm creatures being mowed down into nothingness by the fusillade, so Norvik commanded the Griffons running with them to ascend upwards and give the gunners a surprise. With the majority of the base's turrets focusing on keeping the ground-based Grimm occupied, the remaining anti-air cannons were enough to stop most of the Griffons from flying over the perimeter wall but some got into the base, pouncing on any military personnel who happened to be in the open or attacking the airships that were just lifting off.

Next came the Beringels, which shrugged off the heavy bullets slamming into them and jumped high into the air when they came near the base's walls. Propelled by their powerful legs, they landed on the parapets of the walls, their huge fists smashing into the reinforced metal or into any sentry guards who were unlucky enough to be in range. While a few were taken down by heavy weapons fire, the others set about clearing the top of the wall, sending screaming soldiers flying in every direction with every swing of their mighty fists.

Norvik pounced onto the concrete and metal wall in front of him, the Grimm hordes shielding him from the worst of the turrets' fire with their bodies, his thick, sharp claws digging deeply into the surface of the defense wall as he began climbing, followed by several Beowolves that overtook him and leapt into action over the wall before he could. No matter, as long as the Grimm hordes he controlled got their fill of death and slaughter he was confident he would too.

The Chimera Grimm Commander made it to the top of the wall, letting out a feral laugh as the Beowolves, Beringels, and Griffons attacked the base with all the savagery and viciousness they were known for, but the amount of sheer weapons fire coming from the troopers and armor meant some Grimm were eliminated shortly and reduced to fading black dust. Alongside the other leaping Grimm, Norvik leapt off the perimeter wall and into the Atlesian base itself, landing behind a soldier who was shooting the legs off an alpha Beowolf with an assault rifle, and promptly bit his legs off.

As the man with his legs removed screamed loudly on the ground, his aura failing to stop the bleeding as the horrific Grimm creature devoured his torn legs, Norvik lurched forward and finished off the man's life with a sickening crunch of bones. He savored the feeling of wholesale mindless slaughter, allowing the sensation to flow over him with relish.

"At last! Now I can continue my work!" Norvik laughed aloud, disturbing all who heard him.

Chamberlain's fists clenched as he remembered what Norvick had done to those potential White Fang defectors back at the destroyed Vacuoan base. Marching over quickly to a nearby wall at the back of the main control room, the colonel retrieved an assault rifle from the weapon locker and checked that it was loaded with armor-piercing incendiary rounds.

He vowed that he would do his best to make Norvik suffer for the lives he had taken.

---

"I've already sent out the word to my fellow Winter Templars, and they will do everything in their power to help the people of Atlas, General Ironwood." Snow Blade's carefully-controlled voice spoke from the holographic image that was transmitted to Ironwood from Elsa's sanctuary. The Atlesian general had called up an emergency communication with the Knight Vanguard of the Winter Maiden to see if there had been any Grimm attacks in their vicinity and to make sure Elsa's safety was uncompromised.

"My thanks, Snow Blade. We're going to need all the help we can get." Ironwood steepled his gloved fingers on his personal console as he maintained a severe expression, "However, I find it quite strange that none of the mountain towns close to the Winter Maiden's sanctuary have been attacked, as far as we know."

"Perhaps they're too remote to be targets." Snow Blade mentioned guardedly, "Regardless, the Winter Templars will do our utmost to protect this Kingdom. And we will inform you immediately if there are any new developments."

"I'm sure you will perform it to the best of your abilities." Ironwood agreed, and the Knight Vanguard gave a nod of his elaborate helmet before the image vanished as the holographic transmission ended.

The Atlesian general sighed and took another breath to calm himself as he manipulated the holographic screen to connect him to his replacement as the head of Atlas Academy, Jacqueline Maple. The revolving gear and spear emblem of Atlas blinked a couple of times before the new headmistress's face appeared on the screen, her dark-skinned face clearly showing quite a bit of anxiety but thankfully she kept it under control.

"James, so good to hear from you. Are the reports we're hearing on the feeds true?" The new Headmistress of Atlas Academy asked worriedly.

"Indeed they are, Jacqueline. We're being attacked on multiple fronts and I am afraid we're going to need all the help we can possibly get, as the Atlas army is stretched thin at the moment." He told her.

"You're referring to the students, aren't you?" Jacqueline had a brief look of unease, "What about the Winter Templars? Can't they deploy some of their forces to fight the various Grimm incursions?"

"I just talked with Snow Blade, the Knight Vanguard in charge of the Winter Maiden." Ironwood answered cordially, "He's already been in touch with the rest of his Knight Legion, and they're deploying their forces as we speak. With regards to the students, many of them are talented and also knowledgeable enough about killing Grimm to face the beasts currently attacking the various locations around the Kingdom."

He narrowed his blue eyes a little and continued, "We have also gotten many distress signals from multiple locations under heavy Grimm assault, including one from Team FNKI in Nashville. I've already sent a large number of fighter-transports with some of my troops on board from the nearest military base to Atlas Academy, and I advise you to send the students out in large groups, preferably three or four teams per aerial transport. Make sure that none of those student teams, especially the first years, go alone and remind them to obey the orders of their assigned military officers exactly if they want to survive this day."

Maple sighed as she mentally deliberated on what she would do and replied a moment later, "Very well. I've seen what these students are capable of, especially the second-year teams and above. You're right, they can make a difference if we send them to those contested areas as support troops. I'll see what I can do, just send me a list of the towns and cities under attack and I'll start assigning any available teams into groups."

She locked her eyes with the Atlesian general and finished with, "I will try to be as quick as I can, James. But I am very concerned that the Atlas Council might want to have words with you over this particular decision when they hear of it."

"I will handle the Council after we have thrown back the enemy." Ironwood said curtly and nodded at the holographic image of Mapel, "Thank you, Jacqueline. I knew that appointing you as a successor was the right choice." With some quick movements of his fingers, the general of the Atlesian military forces sent her an updated report summarizing the locations that had come under attack.

"You can thank me after this madness is over. Wish us luck," She nodded to him before the headmistress ended the holographic transmission and set about preparing her students for the battles ahead.

"General Ironwood, sir!" An aide's call caught his attention, "We're receiving a priority transmission from Admiral Nemo!"

"Put it through now!" Ironwood commanded.

The image of Admiral Nemo appeared on the main screen of the Atlas military headquarter's command center, and it was clear that her vessel was currently in the midst of an intense battle given the deafening sounds of cannon fire and many explosions happening in the background

"General, it's about time I reached you! Margarite harbor is currently under attack, as well as the other major ports along the coast line. I know it's hard to believe this, but I am seeing it with my own eyes, the main pirate ships are being assisted by the aquatic Grimm in invading our seaside ports!" Nemo reported hurriedly as yellow sparks cascaded down from a damaged ceiling conduit behind her.

"What did you just say?" Ironwood asked incredulously, realizing at the same time that if what Nemo said was true then the major pirate gangs had to have thrown in their allegiance with Salem as well

"I know it sounds utterly insane, General, but it's the truth! I recognize the ships belonging to the infamous pirates known as Lizbetha and Stephenson, and The Bloody Hook, Captain Silver's ship! Other naval patrol fleets are also reporting more attacks in Halfix, Pearl and others! My entire fleet is doing their best to fight back, but with the Grimm beasts on their side it doesn't look too good, especially since our submarines are presently in drydock for maintenance!" The Nautilus II's commander informed him.

"Just fight back as hard as you can, Admiral! Unfortunately, you're not the only ones who have come under attack by the Grimm and other assailants, as even as we speak attacks are happening all over the Kingdom." Ironwood revealed to her.

"By the Four Gods..." Nemo's marine eyes widened as far as they could go before another salvo slammed against her vessel, causing lines of static to burst across her holographic image. "Someone get those hull breaches in sectors twelve and twenty under control right now!" She shouted off-screen for a brief moment.

"I know the situation's deteriorating, but we're scrambling all available military assets to deal with these incursions as quickly as possible. I'll send reinforcements as soon as I can, you have my word on that, but in the meantime you must fend those pirates off, even if they're backed by the Grimm." Ironwood locked eyes with the female Atlesian admiral, "Just do whatever you can, old friend, I know you can do this."

"While I thank you for the vote of confidence, General, I only hope to live through the battle so I can make the enemy properly pay for this." Nemo replied, her voice nearly swallowed by the competing alarms screaming intensely on the bridge of her vessel.

"As do I, Admiral. Now defend Margarite harbor with everything you've got. Fight to the last." He ordered her.

"Gladly," Nemo nodded as she saluted him, "Admiral Nemo, over and out."

As the latest communication transmission ended Ironwood sat back on his seat and his blue eyes looked skywards at the command center's featureless ceiling as he quietly murmured, "Oum help my Kingdom."

The words barely left his mouth when another operator piped up, "Sir! Incoming emergency transmission from Captain White of The Spirit of Winter!"

Ironwood held up his left hand for the operator to wait, momentarily closing his eyes to calm the tumultuous thoughts within his mind. The battle for Atlas had only just begun, and it would not do if he allowed even a bit of anxiety to seep into his carefully ordered thoughts. If he was going to pull through this battle, he would need to be calm and composed in order to bring the full might of his military command to bear on the invading enemy forces.

Taking a deep breath and then expelling it through his mouth slowly, the Atlesian general was all business once more as he called out, "Main screen, now! Let's hope he has some good news for us…" He muttered to himself as the face of the airborne assault carrier's captain appeared on the main screen.

"Captain White, how fares the battle at your end?"

---

'Fight to the last. To the last what? Last shell? Last bullet? Last battleship? Last man? Last Pirate? Last Grimm? At this rate, it would be a battle to see which side will be wiped out first…' Nemo mentally mused as she rose from her chair, watching the pirate ships getting closer and closer to the docks while dealing out huge amounts of weapons fire that nearly covered the whole stretch of the port city with explosions.

Despite the fleet's quick response time, the pirates' intense bombardment of the harbor had given them quite the head-start and had effectively weakened the port's considerable defenses. The aquatic Grimm hordes were making things worse, as unusually large amounts of crab-like Claw Hammers and swordfish-like Broadbills were also attacking in force as well, keeping the other smaller naval vessels occupied in smaller battles while the larger Grimm like the Krakens and the Sea Feilongs were causing terrible damage to the other fighting battleships.

Meanwhile the outer ring of twin-barreled anti-ship cannon emplacements were firing endlessly at every visible Grimm their targeting systems can identify and lock on, while the secondary machine-gun and anti-air turrets poured copious quantities of bullets and laser blasts into the churning waves around them, killing as many Grimm as they could while trying to take the heat off the embattled Atlesian battleships. A significant number of the Claw Hammers were already crawling onto the smaller ships and boats which weren't fast enough to escape their attacks, and the brave crews of those ships armed with steel picks and shotguns fought hard to dislodge them from their vessels, forcing or blasting them off the ships' hulls while other smaller aquatic Grim held on and attacked the crews with their powerful claws and globs of searing acid.

Krakens attacked from below the shifting waters with their extremely lengthy tentacles, and in retrospect it was rather fortunate that their fleet's submarines were in drydock at the moment as the Krakens would have overwhelmed them by crushing those submarines within their tentacles or tearing them apart and devour the crew with their terrifying mouths which were filled with uncountable numbers of sharp teeth. If those submersibles had been able to participate in the battle, it would have inevitably led to the deaths of pretty much everyone aboard.

Despite the odds stacked against them, they were all fighting back with vigor and giving it their all. Not a single ship on either side was unscathed, every vessel had suffered small fires, gaping holes from weapon damage, great gouges and scrapes marring all of their armored bodies. Nevertheless, both sides fought on in a deadly dance out on the agitated seas, with no quarter asked and none given.

Since the scum of the sea wanted a fight, and Admiral Nemo and the Atlas naval fleet would give them one that none of them would ever forget.

Nemo stumbled and grabbed the nearby console for support as the Nautilus II took another hit. "Intensify fire!" She commanded, "Don't let the pirates land!"

"They're practically right in front of us, Admiral!" Ensign Rosen shouted.

"Engineering reports additional damage to carrier battleship engines!" A female operations officer stated loudly.

"Admiral, dockside anti-ship cannons B19 and E45 have been destroyed!" Another female officer reported urgently.

"Direct hit on starboard's Sea Feilong, it's dead!" The ship officer at the weapons console cried out in an optimistic voice.

"Krakens are attacking the Dauntless! They've been hit bad!" Yet another female crewmember called desperately.

"Atlesian troops reporting that the Claw Hammers have been driven off Pier C!" Came another male's pressing voice.

Nemo listened to the various status reports and updates on the battle, both good and bad, but the former wasn't nearly enough for her liking. She watched as the two sides, the distance closing rapidly between them, exchanged horrendous amounts of weapons fire which severely damaged the warships of both factions. A tugboat with a small crew who were using an old harpoon and shotguns to fend off the aquatic Grimm, was hit by a wayward cannonball which caused the wheelhouse to explode and knocking the boat onto its side.

"Send out help for those men before they're eaten!" Nemo ordered when all of a sudden a massive weight slammed aggressively onto the Nautilus II, nearly jolting everyone off their feet. Nemo and the rest of the bridge crew looked out of the main windows and were shocked to see a Grimm Sea Feilong had brought its long body onto the bow of the carrier battleship, its fanged snout snarling right at them. However, despite the terrifying sight she noticed something else much more surprising; a young woman with skin as white as snow, glowing eyes as red as blood with lengthy raven black hair was riding atop the bizarrely majestic beast's head.

'So that's a Grimm Commander,' Nemo thought, instantly remembering what Ironwood had privately told her about the hybrids that could control the Grimm. She had personally been expecting some kind of grotesque-looking Grimm hybrid that wasn't in any way close to a human, but it appears that she was given the exact opposite because despite being a humanoid with Grimm features the enemy commander's face strangely seemed more akin to a girl who was innocent and kind instead.

But she was nevertheless still an enemy.

The Feilong opened up its mouth, in which a crackling bolt of yellow lightning was gathering power and about to strike the bridge at point blank range. Knowing that a concentrated blast would undoubtedly penetrate even the armored viewports of the carrier battleship's bridge, Nemo moved quickly to her chair and pressed a button on the weapons' control panel, which activated the point defense cannons to emerge from their armored ports on top of the bridge and unleashed their explosive payloads on the huge draconic Grimm beast, blitzing up its entire head with bright red and orange-colored explosions and knocking Mavis off of it. As the Feilong roared angrily and mis-shot its lightning bolt which streaked past the bridge by a few scant meters, Mavis slid down the length of its thrashing serpentine body before the serpent-like dragon Grimm's head exploded, causing the rest of it to disintegrate.

Nemo let out a breath of relief and then spoke to her executive officer, "Dispatch some soldiers to go down to the lower decks and see if that… girl is still in the water. If she's still alive, take her into immediate custody. I want to know what she is."

"Orders acknowledged, Admiral." Blanc said as he activated a communication channel on his console and began rapidly giving out orders to any remaining squads of soldiers still on board in reserve.

A navigation officer near the front of the expansive bridge noticed something on her console's screens, and she called out for Nemo's attention, "Admiral! I am picking up another large Grimm signature on the scanners!"

"Well, what is it?" Nemo ordered when Blanc pointed out towards the vicinity of Margarite Harbor where the majority of the twin-barreled anti-ship cannon emplacements had been put out of action by either Grimm attacks or accumulated enemy weapons fire.

"Admiral, look! Right over there!"

Nemo followed the finger of her executive officer and saw the body profile of the same feminine Grimm Commander already riding on the back of another Sea Feilong, which let loose a sizzling lightning blast into the side of Nautilus II, severely scarring the carrier battleship's thick armor plates at the point of impact and taking many systems offline.

The Atlesian naval admiral growled furiously before the bridge officer in charge of communications shouted out, "Admiral, one of the pirate ships is hailing us!"

"Acknowledge it." Nemo ordered, already half-expecting who would be at the other end.

The hologram projectors set into the ceiling of the bridge extended downwards and activated, bringing forth a picture of an exotic-looking, but battle-hardened woman decked out in the motley clothes of a pirate captain.

"Hello there, Aqua." Her contemptuous drawl echoed from the hidden speakers scattered around the bustling bridge, "You seemed… rather busy."

"Lizbetha." Nemo scowled angrily, "I recognized your ship out there wreaking havoc with the others. I knew you were a criminal, but I didn't take you for an idiot. You honestly think you can get away with this?" She gestured around at the raging battle that engulfed her battleship fleet, "I'll have you and your fellow pirates hunted down like the animals you are!"

"All this blustering of yours won't mean anything once you're dead." Lizbetha replied smugly, "I am coming for your head, Aqua."

"Admiral, her ship is currently on a direct course with our vessel!" Blanc looked up from his console screens, and the navigation officers confirmed shortly that he was indeed right. Nemo shot a death glare at holographic Lizbetha's arrogant smirk she saw the female pirate's vessel seemingly about to collide into the damaged Nautilus II, only to stop suddenly and come alongside them, launching broadsides from the cannons studded along the ship's length which impacted ceaselessly against the port side of the Atlesian carrier battleship. A careful look towards the choppy ocean waves showed that the pirates were undoubtedly helped around by the Grimm Krakens.

"You know, the Grimm are actually quite helpful if you have someone to control them." Lizbetha remarked gleefully, "Prepare to be boarded! I will see you soon." The hologram of her face vanished before Nemo could hit the correct button to end the transmission.

Suddenly two massive harpoons the size of anchors slammed into the side of Nautilus II, one into the lower decks and the other a couple of decks below the bridge, rigging the two ships together. The cannons of the pirate ships ceased firing for the moment, although those not pointed at Nemo's personal vessel were still unloading their fury at the other Atlesian battleships.

"Here they come!" Blanc shouted as he saw the pirate crews cross the distance between the vessels on those firm chains, shouting war-cries and waving curved swords as well as carrying an assortment of firearms that ranged from antique pistols to the modern rifles and shotguns. Other pirates shot grappling hooks that latched onto the damaged sections of massive Atlesian vessel, swinging across while their shipmates exchanged ferocious fire with the disciplined troopers of the 212th Assault Battalion.

Nemo yanked her patricianly-decorated sword from its sheath at her waist and shouted, "Sound the alarm to alert all hands to repel boarders aboard our ship! We're going to face them head on and push them off our ship!"

"Aye, sir!" Her executive officer agreed and slammed his fist down on a nearby red button, sounding the boarding alarm throughout the military vessel. All around the bridge, sections of the surrounding walls retracted to reveal carbine rifles with accompanying extra extended magazines and grenades while hidden compartments underneath popped out beneath consoles to expose the gleaming white forms of energy pistols for the bridge crew to defend themselves with. Behind the closed blast doors of the bridge, the sounds of pounding boots signaled additional squads of Atlesian soldiers getting in place to protect the bridge with their weapons and their lives if need be.

"Re-target the Close-In Weapon Systems to repel the boarding pirates!" Nemo shouted to her weapons officer who nodded and made the necessary target changes on his console's screen. Within seconds, the multi-barreled gatling guns on the bridge's roof and along the sides of the carrier battleship reoriented themselves smoothly and opened fire on the invading pirates, mowing them down by the dozens with heavy armor-piercing rounds. Some pirates died as they lost heads, others were severely maimed by the salvoes of remorseless gatling gun fire, and quite a few were blasted backwards and knocking them into the Grimm-infested ocean.

"Admiral, we're getting word from the Vengeance! The vessel identified as The Bloody Hook is about to make landfall." The same communication officer shouted to be heard over the boarding alarms, "Those Krakens probably helped them get by us!"

"Where in Oum's name is the Redoubtable?" Nemo almost screamed.

"The Redoubtable's down! It has been destroyed by The Bloody Hook and the Feilongs!" A lower-ranked bridge officer replied fearfully.

Nemo muttered some curses as she picked up a pistol from a compartment in her seat and checked that it was fully loaded. It looked rather simple in its grey and white design compared to the pistols used by the other naval officers, but to Nemo herself she knew it was something of historical significance. Her grandfather, who had fought many battles in the last Great War, had used the very same pistol to execute turncoat traitors and enemies of Atlas… and now she would be following in his footsteps by using the very same weapon to kill the pirates who were attacking her vessel and the city. She vowed there and then that she would kill every last one of those pirates who had set foot aboard the Nautilus II, even if she had to throw them overboard with her own hands.

"Contact Lieutenant Commander Warfield at Margarite Harbor's headquarters, tell him to deploy all available land forces to hold off the invading pirates with everything they have at the docks. They are to use whatever weapons that can dish out heavy firepower available to them. This city will not fall as long as we live!" Nemo declared with fiery conviction as she watched the surviving pirates begin to make it on board her battleship.

"You have the conn, Blanc." She nodded at Chris who nodded back at her, "I'm going out with the 212th to repel the pirates. You will take command of the ship until my return or permanently in the event of my death."

Chris Blanc's jaw dropped open, "But admiral Nemo, your place is on the bridge! I can't take your place so suddenly! I… I'm not ready for such a responsibility!"

"You can, and you are ready." Nemo replied calmly and laid a reassuring hand on her second-in-command's shoulder, "Just try to keep my battleship in one piece as much as you can. That's all I am asking of you. But if you have the shot to take out the enemy…"

"Take the shot, no matter the consequences." Chris whispered.

Nemo nodded approvingly while patting him on the back, "Now if you excuse me, I have a few maritime articles and regulations I would like to politely explain to Lizbetha. And I best not keep her waiting."

She then left the bridge a few armed engines and guards following her, the blast doors sealing shut behind her and going out onto the main deck to face enemy.

On the dockside, The Bloody Hook got closer and closer to Pier D until it collided with the berth there, the firm dock of wood and metal was split apart as the massive pirate ship released anchors, and rope ladders were dropped onto the barely stable, ruined dock.

"Get out there, boys! Let's have some fun!" Silvers urged as he watched his pirate crew climb or swing down onto the pier before rushing towards the coastal city. He then looked over to see some Atlesian troops rushing to block them off, and so aimed his flintlock at them and fired off a couple of shots which killed one of them.

"Oh gods, I haven't seen a sight like this in years! Makes me feel young again!" He declared delightedly before he gestured for his personal entourage of pirates to head down as well, "All right lads, search all of the dockside and the town and take everything that's valuable! Since we're here, we might as well get as much loot out of this as we can!" The pirates ran past him and roared their joy with the new orders.

From her place above the churning waters a reasonable distance away, Mavis sat on the head of a softly growling Sea Feilong, petting its head to gently comfort it while doing her best to control the aquatic Grimm and direct them towards the more dangerous military targets at Margarite harbor. Unbeknownst to any of the pirates, she was actually doing her best to make sure no civilians were killed, and that the Grimm hordes only ate people who were already dead from the attacks wrought by the pirates themselves.

Mavis looked around at the ruined, flaming and smoke-choked harbor, hearing the sirens blazing endlessly and the sounds of furious battle seeping through her ears, and wrapped her arms securely around herself as she witnessed the needless devastation.

This wasn't remotely close to what she wanted, so what in Oum's name was she doing here?

---

Deep within the Atlesian mountains a colossal airship belonging to the Winter Templars drifted into the air serenely, its highly-advanced cloaking systems shrouding it from the world at large. The creation of even one of its like would have consumed a bulk of Atlas' abundant resources, and the secrets of its construction would had long been lost to history with the death of its engineers to the calamitous event known as The Great Shattering that ended the world before Remnant. It was a mighty vessel the Remnant Knights discovered at the dawn of their order and had been used as a sanctuary prior to the creation of Tintagel and as the years went by the Knights refashioned it to be a massive airship once again.

It was two kilometers long, looking more akin to a floating fortress or a gigantic cathedral that had been ripped from the ground and given the ability to fly. The vast aircraft was several times bigger than even the carrier airships of the Atlas military, and every single inch of its surface bristled with multiple complex sensor systems, arsenals of multi-barrelled turrets and immense cannons capable of laying waste to entire cities. It was also sheathed in layers upon layers of solid heavy armor plating with the emblem of the Winter Templars emblazoned proudly upon its prow, proudly claiming that the formidable flagship vessel belonged to one of the four main Knight Legions of Remnant.

The gargantuan vessel could carry an entire Knight Legion and its support crew, plus their assorted vehicles for land, air, and sea, and it possessed enough firepower to deter even the most ferocious Grimm as well as incredibly powerful shields that could hold against massive barrages of enemy fire. It was also a mobile fortress and the primary base of operations for the Winter Templars, carrying the forces of the legion to their designated battle zones.

Its name was The Indomitable Bastion.

After the emergency transmission was received from the Snow Blade, the rest of Winter Templars immediately sprang into action, with agents already out in the field setting to work. The massive embarkation deck of the huge aerial vessel rang to the sounds of a mighty clamor. Squads of Remnant Knights marched up ramps into transport holds of heavily armed and armored airships, while other knights knelt in front of their Cavaliers to renew their sworn oaths and receive blessings for the upcoming battles.

Behind the steadily marching white and silver armor-plated knights who proceeded towards their assigned airship transports after their oaths and blessings have been undertaken, huge assault tanks rumbled across the deck plates towards even more bigger transport gunships that would ferry them into battle to provide much-needed combat support for the Remnant Knights.

"When we joined the Knight Order we took an oath." A Knight Champion of the Winter Templars known as Cold Steel intoned as he walked down the length of the embarkation deck, his boots marching heavily upon the decks. His armor plates were pristine and immaculately detailed, and his voice was refined and measured like the rest of the Atlesian Knight Legion. He carried a massive longsword that was as long as a fully-grown man as his personal weapon, and an equally huge shield that looked like it could withstand a direct hit from a tank.

"In accordance to our duty, all without exception!" Rank upon rank of Remnant Knights shouted, their helmets bowed and clasped polished swords reversed in front of them as the esteemed champion strode past them.

"On the blood of our ancestors. On the blood of our children. We swore to uphold the principles of the Knight Order." The Knight Champion spoke measuredly, unsheathing his longsword and raising it high into the sweltering hot air of the vast foredeck.

"To our final breath, our last drop of blood!" The gathered lines of Winter Templars recited loudly, their voices filling the length and breadth of the embarkment deck and rising above the whining airship engines and thunderous machinery.

"Those who embrace the dark shadows and serve the Grimm Mistress, they are neither worthy of pity nor mercy. Even now they continue to strike out at the innocent people of Remnant, bring death and destruction alongside the vile creatures of Grimm." The solid-looking Knight Champion continued speaking to the assembled Winter Templars.

"We shall grind them into oblivion—" Every gathered Knight roared out the final line of their creed.

"—And fulfill our sworn oaths to the rightful King of Remnant!" The Knight Champion of the Winter Templars concluded with a deafening roar which was echoed by many others of the Knight Legion.

He spun around, sweeping a vambrace-covered arm to encompass the many ranks of Remnant Knights kneeling in front of him, "Now, Winter Templars, to battle!"

To Be Continued...

This chapter was co-written by Relentless Crusader

This 'Salem Strikes' arc got out of control, as I mean for a lot of this chapter and the next to be one and the same, but this ended up being so long I decided to cut them up, and the same thing kept happening with the various chapters as they were written.

If you liked this story fave, follow, and review. Some feedback on what's good and what's not would be appreciated, thanks for everything guys.