Chapter 15: Where There's Smoke…
Time since last contact with RobCo GPS services.
15 days, 0 hours, 16 minutes, 42 seconds...
15 days, 0 hours, 16 minutes, 43 seconds…
15 days, 0 hours, 16 minutes, 44 seconds…
Remnant's broken moon had only just risen over the bay separating the city of Vale from the cliffside castle overlooking it from afar. It's owner stood beside his throne, staring down at the thousands of lives that still wandered about their daily business, each and every one of the citizens under his care blissfully unaware of their world's true history. The man who had called the castle home for almost a decade could not break himself away from the sight of the broken gem that now adorned the night sky after allowing himself a glance at the most constant reminder of his past failings. He stayed there lost in thought, indifferent to the world at large, until a frantic messenger burst into his throne room and kneeled before him without his knowledge, breaking the tranquil silence with an unexpected message.
"My lord! Forgive me for my intrusion, but our spies have brought us news from Vacuo!" The messenger shouted, careful not to incur the wrath of his beloved master.
The ruler of the castle didn't bother to look down at the winded man prostrating himself before his throne, only raising an open palm as he waited for the messenger to heave in a few deep breaths into his burning lungs. The messenger enjoyed the brief respite they were allowed, enjoying it long enough to test his master's patience.
"Speak, Gerald. I do not have all night." The lord commanded, his young voice no less demanding of respect than his predecessor's.
"Of course, my liege." The now refreshed messenger pulled a battered piece of parchment out of his pocket, quickly scanning for the hastily written information he believed was dire enough to intrude on his precious lord's privacy.
"Our spies have informed us that Major Ironwood has been assassinated within the Mantlesian's own embassy and that most, if not all, of Mantle's forces are pulling out of Vacuo and retreating back to Solitas. They have speculated that it will be months before Mantle or Mistral attempt any further actions in Vacuo, at least until the riots that have started to occur throughout the kingdom end on their own." Gerald announced.
The castle's owner had not moved from where he was standing as he listened to his messenger's news, still gazing at the moonlit spectacle from beside his golden throne while clutching onto the ancient clockwork cane he insisted on carrying with him wherever he went. But as stoic and unflappable as he tried to appear, even the natural born ruler of Vale could not hide the excitement in his voice upon hearing this news.
"Someone has finally put those warmongers in their place?" He gasped, quickly restraining himself afterwards upon reflecting how out of place his outburst had been.
Still, just because he was glad to hear that the situation in Vacuo was now starting to fall out of Mantle's grasp without his interference didn't mean he intended to stand idly by and allow someone else to fill the void those tyrants left behind. He knew a lot about the powers that vied for whatever scraps of power Mantle didn't see fit to secure for themselves, and being one of the more influential players who stood a chance of securing control of the kingdom, the ruler of Vale intended to make the most of this sudden opportunity. Vale and Vacuo did share a continent, and being neighboring powers, it was in both of their interests that he looked out for both of their continued prosperity, regardless of what forms that assistance came in.
Yet, just as he was about to send out his messenger with new orders for his agents in Vacuo another, more sinister thought etched itself into his mind. Mantle had been prepared to crush many of the various factions that fought for supremacy within the city, although they clearly had not been prepared enough. One group, or maybe several, had to have rallied enough of their forces together to not only fight but triumph against one of the strongest militaries on Remnant.
As far as the lord of the castle could recall, no such faction or leader charismatic enough to rally the various peoples of Vacuo together existed. While whoever thwarted Mantle's attempt to control Vacuo had been successful, until their identity and allegiances were known, they could just as easily be as great a threat to Remnant as Mantle. The ruler of Vale intended to at least learn that much before taking any action in Vacuo.
"Who do we have to thank for this unexpected favor?" He inquired, taking a wild guess at who The Major's slayer could possibly be. "Was it the 'so-called' revolutionaries led by that renegade faunus we have had our eyes on? Did he sacrifice what little control over the territories he possessed across the kingdom of Vacuo for the city, or did some of our friends in Vacuo's underworld finally take the initiative without our insistence?"
"It seems that a third party managed to put an end to Major Ironwood's rule over Vacuo, my liege." Gerald answered. "Although, it does appear the Spirit of Vacuo was quick to coordinate an attack across all of Vacuo at the same time as The Major's assassination. There is a high possibility that this individual is a loyal member of those terrorists. The Xiong Clan also appears to have come in contact with the man that was personally responsible for Mantle's hasty departure from Vacuo and inducted him into their ranks."
"So, the Spirit of Vacuo is up to their old tricks again? I thought they had lost their will to fight ever since their previous leader was executed." The king mused. "At least Baba Xiong was smart enough to ally himself with the new piece that appeared on the board before they were stolen away from us this time. Perhaps we might yet have a chance to recruit them to our side."
He stood there in silent compilation, freezing deathly still for a brief moment before turning to face the messenger at the foot of his throne. His eyes flared a vibrant green for just a brief moment before the king could reign in his emotions once more, leaving the messenger who had witnessed his lord's sudden loss of composure trembling in fear. In all the years he had known his liege, he had never seen the young man look so shocked. For as long as he had known him, Gerald could not recall one time that the king of Vale looked genuinely surprised like that before. It was only after looking at the unexpected reaction of his beloved master that he began to realize that his news had been far more important than he had first realized.
"Did you say that an individual, not an organization, but a single MAN was behind Major Ironwood's death?!" The king shouted at his messenger in a wild frenzy.
Gone was the unshakable lord of Beacon Castle, the serene image of him shattered in an instant. In place of the once unflinching young man was a worried traveler staring at the edge of the abyss, moments before they fell into the all consuming darkness in front of them and powerless to do anything about it.
"Y-yes, my lord." Gerald quickly stuttered.
"Did SHE have anything to do with Ironwood's death?" The lord of Vale was panicking now, his own worry quickly working its way into Gerald's worried heart.
"N-no! Our spies claim that SHE has done everything possible to prevent the Major's death, my lord." The messenger responded, his eyes darting to the nearest door in case he needed to make a quick escape should his master grow any more unnerved.
The king calmed down considerably after this latest revelation. Whatever emotions came over him were restrained in an instant, and the lord rubbed the silvery hair on his neatly groomed chin with a thoughtful purpose that was no less intimidating.
"What, pray tell, is the name of this brave hero that has taken upon himself to liberate Vacuo from it's oppressors?" The king asked his messenger, his sudden calmness sending a chill down the terrified news carrier's spine.
Gerald gulped knowing his lord would not like the answer he would hear, but did his duty as best as he could knowing full well what would surely follow. "This man has many titles, but has yet to give anyone his true name to our spies' current knowledge. To those he trusts, he insists that they call him Courier Six."
He hoped against all odds that this would be enough to satisfy his lord's curiosity.
It was not.
"A Courier, you say? And one of six?" The king inquired, intrigued, if not disturbed, at the prospect of five other similarly destructive individuals wandering Remnant without his knowledge.
"Possibly. His apparent talent at surviving impossible odds does suggest a certain familiarity with fending off hordes of opponents without the support of any kingdom's protection, although it is still unclear this title is an indicator of any other individuals like him somewhere else on Remnant or whether it is an alias he has chosen for himself at random." Gerald answered with careful vagueness rather than voicing his own opinions.
"And what of his other titles? Surely Mantle would not run in terror from a simple mailman." The ruler of Vale demanded to know. He had inferred, accurately at that, that the title of 'Courier' was going by was one of the many names this new piece on the board possessed. Knowing just how little respect the people of Solitas had for anything they deemed archaic in their single minded war against the Grimm made it painfully obvious that they would have chosen a far more fitting moniker for the man that had slayed one of their greatest soldiers, even if The Major's leadership left something to be desired.
"Yes, my lord." Gerald informed his master, before trying to decide on how best to explain the reason behind the title his informants had collectively agreed was the most appropriate. "The Xiong Clan appears to call him 'Feng Xiong', or Crazy Bear, after he defeated an Ursa Major with his bare hands. Most of the faunus population of Vacuo city seem to think of him as a savior, seeing it fit to call him the 'Champion of Vacuo', 'Vacuo's Vengenace', and 'Hunter of Hunters', the latter in response to the numerous Mantlesian special forces teams he has personally wiped out during the three day rampage that marked his first appearance in the city."
"His final title, the one that he seems to be what most citizens of Vacuo know and fear him as, is not quite as flattering as the other notable designation both Vacuo and Mantle believe he has rightfully earned for himself. Although all of our spies have not ruled out the possibility that his this title might hold some shred of truth behind it's accuracy, I personally feel that we cannot afford to let such trivial matters sour any relationship between our kingdom and this courier." Gerald pleaded.
"Gerald, what is the name that you find to be so terrifying that you cannot simply say in front of me?" The lord of Vale was no fool, and from the subtle annoyance that he referred to his messenger with, he was not happy to be treated as such.
"Uhh… Grimm Wanderer, sir." The messenger took a hesitant step away from his master as he informed his lord of the Courier's final title. "It would appear that the new piece that has come into play has earned the moniker of ' The Grimm Wanderer of Vacuo' before his successful assassination of Major Ironwood."
The ruler of Beacon castle studied Gerald's face intensely after learning this final piece of news. Upon failing to find any hints of half-truths or lies, he turned away from his messenger and took in the sight of the shattered moon leering at him from beyond the windows of his throne room once more. Gerald waited one minute, then another, watching his lord strum his fingers along the pommel of his cane in fear of what he would say next. The messenger had been expecting to be excused carrying the immediate orders to either recruit or kill the Grimm Wanderer. Silence had been the furthest thing from what he expected of his master, and he did not intend to wait for his lord to simmer in anger for a moment longer.
He had no wish to die today, but he was loyal to fault, so much so that he was quite willing to break his master's concentration and ask what he would do next.
"My lord, I-"
"Leave. Now." The king of Vale ordered, his once calm voice seething with fury with a strange stillness that suggested an even more violent reaction was imminent. Not wanting to see if his lord was willing to remove him in the same way he had removed the previous king of Vale from his throne over a simple interruption, Gerald sprinted out of the throne room fearing for his life and paid no mind to the doors he burst through in order to escape his lord's presence, allowing them to slam shut behind him with a deafening *bang*.
Alone, and without anyone else to hear what he did for the rest of the night, the young man who ruled over Vale let out a soft chuckle as he thought about how chaotic the future had suddenly become. Ironwood's death had been inevitable, as the man had not only made enemies of his own kingdom and the one he was attempting to enforce Mantle's rule in, but his particular choice of allies to assist him from behind the scene surely would have spelled his demise by the end of the year. The Major's death, while expected, was nonetheless able to leave the sovereign ruler of Vale feeling equal parts worried and excited as he anticipated what the future would bring.
It had been a long time since the game of good and evil he had found himself playing had a piece stronger than the pawns both he and his opponent had been limited to for as long as he could remember. The possibility that a trump card capable of finally ending the stalemate he had endured for far too long had come into play was more than enough to bring a smile to his face.
While it was true that he had no way to be certain of this new Grimm Wanderer's intentions, it seemed that they shared a common enemy at the very least. Other rulers might have wanted more out of their allies than a simple pledge of fealty in the face of a shared foe, but the lord of Vale knew there was more than one way to gain someone's loyalty. Whether by taking advantage of his prospective new asset's greed or altruistic nature, the ruler of Vale was certain he could find something to sway the Grimm Wanderer to his side.
Even if he couldn't, everyone had something they held dear to them. All it would take is the right set of questions, promises, and possibly a few threats alongside them to secure the Courier's allegiance should he prove to be unwilling to volunteer his services.
"Courier Six." The owner of Beacon castle whispered, rolling the Grimm Wanderer's name on his tongue with the same care he would show a vintage wine. "What makes you so special? Is it your unmatched cunning, inhuman resolve, or a desire to change this world for the better? What is it that makes you so different from everyone else since the Brothers abandoned this world?"
The answer, if the ruler of Vale could hear what the man he was so enthralled with loved most at that very moment, was one of the last things he would have guessed.
"...SPURS THAT JINGLE, JANGLE, JINGLE~
Jingle, Jangle...~"
The Courier sang along to the recording as best as he could, spinning around like a drunken fool as he continued what had started to feel like an endless march, an empty bottle of drink in one hand and his anti-material rifle dangling from the other as he marched on without care in the world for anything other than one of his favorite songs. It was a stark contrast from his attitude in Vacuo, the city as opposed to the kingdom and desert wastes he had been roaming through for almost a full week, Courier Six no longer finding it necessary to tread carefully without the countless alleyways and corners filled without unknown threats he had left behind days ago. He hadn't quite found himself ready to completely disarm himself, as even while strung out of chems and liquor to the point of occasionally feeling something almost resembling happiness he knew that was a horrible idea, but he was at least willing to blare an upbeat song that anyone or anything miles around him could overhear, consequences be damned.
His partner, however, was reaching the end of her patience with what had once been an endearing quirk which quickly turned into the most annoying thing about the nonsensical courier.
"WILL YOU STOP SINGING THAT DAMN SONG ALREADY!" Julia shouted at her escort, doing everything she could to hold herself back from beating the Grimm Wanderer of Vacuo senseless and incurring his immediate wrath.
Six clearly enjoyed the annoyed look she sent his way, and immediately made it his mission to see just how far he could wind her up this time. "Oh come on and join in the chorus already, Antlers! You know you want tooo~ooo."
Julia didn't succumb to the blatant taunt, but she still intended to make it painfully clear how close she was to giving in if only for the sake of shutting him up. "No, what I want is to shove those spurs of yours up your ass the next time you even think about playing that song on your wrist Scroll again. Now, will you please turn that damn thing before we see if your boots aren't the only thing that can go jingle, jangle, jingle?"
"There you go! All you had to do was ask! How hard was that, girl?." Six laughed, popping out the holotape out of his Pipboy and storing it within his long coat now that he had his fun.
Julia was not amused in the slightest with him. "Where did you even find those things anyways? They look like you found them in a dumpster and glued them onto your boots." She asked, deciding to break the sudden silence between them before he started singing with the same grace and musical talent as a dying whale again.
"Maybe I did. So what?" Six fired back at her.
"They're cool, I like them, and I got really fucking bored one night while watching over you while you slept and needed something to occupy myself since there ain't fuck all in this desert to keep me entertained!" He ranted, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. Julia could only groan knowing that she was going to be forced to listen to yet another one of his insane complaints about their current job.
"I mean come on, are we really the only two living things out here for fuck's sake? Back in the Mojave, we'd have been up to our necks in bandits or geckos three times a day. Not seeing a fucking thing aside from sand, sand, and more goddamn sand is boring as hell." He whined.
"Are you seriously complaining that no one has tried to kill you recently?" She asked him, sounding genuinely worried and taking a step back from him, just in case.
"Yes! I mean, no… fuck!" The Courier stammered, dropping his bottle as he fumbled for the right thing to say. "I'm going to be perfectly honest with you Antlers, I ain't used to people not trying to kill me. Until I ended up in the City of Vacuo, I don't think I've gone a single day without at least something looking at me like I might be a tasty little snack if it wasn't on account of all the guns I usually carry with me."
"Riii-iiight. Next you're going to tell me that you haven't slept at all since we left Vacuo because you're too scared I'm going to try to kill you in your sleep." Julia joked, the smug look on her infuriating her partner who did everything he could not to show his annoyance.
The Courier stopped and looked her in the eyes, staring straight through her from behind the luminescent green lenses of his gas mask and sending a chill down her spine. He paused for what felt like a minute to calm himself before responding to her jab.
"Who said anything about being scared?" He calmly asked her, not a hint of anger hiding behind his words.
His dry delivery and lack of laughter made it all too clear to the antlered girl that he wasn't trying to scare her, but was dead serious. "Oh my Brothers, you really think I would kill in the middle of nowhere for no reason?"
"Hey, you said it, not me." Six quickly to pointed out. The faunus woman couldn't help but feel slightly concerned for both her own safety and her escort's sanity after his latest 'moment of honesty', as he had started to call the disturbingly enlightening facts he had developed a habit of giving her.
"Don't look at me like that Antlers. I've gotten stabbed in the back more times than I care to count by people I actually trusted, unlike yourself. Just think of what I'm doing as…" The Courier tried to think of something witty to say, but instead just shrugged and blurted out the first thing that he thought of. "Well, not waking up with a knife in my back, really. It's not an experience I can recommend. Not unless you like trying to breathe with a punctured lung and coughing up blood for a few hours."
Julia was about to give her own thoughts on the matter, namely by demanding her escort to hand over all of his weapons to her for both of their safety, but found the words frozen in her throat when the Courier pointed his M.A.M.R. to the quiet night sky in front of him. Not only was she hesitant to do anything that might convince him to point the barrel of that aura piercing monstrosity anywhere near where she was standing, but something about the way he had silently snapped to attention set her own instincts on high alert.
Thanks to the advantage of being a faunus, she didn't need the same high powered scope as Six to see what his scope magnified for him. Although it was hard to make out against the dark night sky that had settled above the surrounding dunes less than an hour ago, Julia could barely make out a plume of black smoke rising from somewhere in the distance.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire." The Courier mumbled to himself. "That's way too much to be from just a couple of bonfires or someone accidentally burning their house down…"
"What are you trying to say, Six?" Julia asked him, her sword already drawn and ready as she felt a growing sense of worry well up inside her.
"You mind checking to see if there were any settlements to the north of us on that map of yours, Julia? I'm gonna do the same, and God do I hope I'm wrong about this…" Courier frantically tapped at his Pipboy as his partner pulled out her map, both of them taking a moment to chart the distance they travelled to where they believed they currently were to see if The Courier's worries were unfounded.
A minute of searching was all it took to see that they indeed have a reason to be concerned. Julia would have told him to avoid travelling in the direction the smoke was coming from, but her partner was already in the process of ignoring her before she even had a chance to speak.
"Dammit. I thought I'd be able to get away from this shit after leaving the Mojave." Six groaned, sounding less concerned and more tired than anything.
"Looks like we've got bandits on our hands, and not the friendly, pathetic ones that are too high on Jet to be much of a threat to anyone but themselves. No, tha'd be too easy." He rambled on to his partner's continued annoyance. "Whoever they are, they're definitely the type to pillage what they can steal, burn what they can't, and probably get a little rapey if they have the time to spare if I were to take a guess."
"How can you be so certain that some bandits set fire to the town up ahead when it could easily have been a fire that got out of hand?" Julia asked him, her own mounting curiosity overwhelming her simmering anger for the time being.
"Because the last time I checked, it's pretty damn hard for a fire to happen naturally in the fucking desert. Not a whole lot of trees and shit to burn here, in case you hadn't noticed." Six's annoyance at her question was obvious, but Julia did not stop after being talked down to once. There was no way she was going to let that psychopath win an argument without a fight.
"Mantle could just have easily set fire to the place." She suggested, although even she found the possibility hard to believe.
Never one to completely discredit a potential threat, Six made an effort to at least remove one feasible culprit before surveying the carnage he was certain they would find up close. "I sincerely doubt that an army would burn down a couple of worthless houses in the ass end of nowhere, Antlers. Not only that, but judging from the smoke in the air, the town had to have been torched fairly recently. Had to have at least been within the last couple of hours. I don't know about you, but I for one would like to think I would have noticed a goddamn army was close by us long before we came close enough to see some of their recent handiwork."
Julia couldn't help but to concede to the Courier's point, but not without asking a question that had suddenly come to her. "Why are you so certain that the town was burned recently? I don't see how you can be sure it wasn't burned down earlier today or a few days ago."
"Let's just say that I have some experience in this matter and leave it at that, Antlers." The Courier said dismissively.
"But-"
"I said I don't want to talk about it, Julia." The Courier growled, the sudden malice he summoned causing the faunus woman to flinch in shock and grab her sword in reflex. He waited for her to let go of her weapon before saying anything else.
"Now, if you don't have any more stupid ass questions to ask me, let's go ahead and check the place out." The Courier said. "Maybe we'll get lucky and find a couple of survivors that managed to stay hidden long enough for the bandits to pass."
"What if there aren't any survivors?" Julia asked, hesitant to follow the madman's lead without hearing more of what he intended to do.
"Then I doubt a couple of burnt corpses will complain about us looting the place." The Courier smiled from underneath his mask, savoring the look of absolute contempt his partner shot towards him.
"You're the worst." She spat at him.
"Thanks. I almost forgot about that after going a couple of weeks without someone reminding me." The Courier sarcastically remarked. "Now shut up, stay low, and keep your eyes peeled for any signs of movement. There's no telling what we're about to walk into."
The Courier's words had proved to be far truer than even he believed them to be at the time. The two had not entered the small settlement with high hopes after spotting the trail of smoke leading to it from a couple of miles away, but even that could not prepare them for what they found. Their dismal hopes of rescuing any survivors quickly plummeted when the final sand dune obscuring the ravaged town from their sights revealed a dozen crumbling buildings on the verge of collapse, a far cry from the sleek and sturdy buildings of the city of Vacuo.
When they were close enough to see the various signs of resistance the inhabitants of the small town put up against their attackers, in addition to the fate that befell them, it became clear that what happened was no accident. Various bullet holes adorned the walls of every building, and the various kitchen knives and battered lever action rifles discarded on the ground every few feet implied that the inhabitants of the fallen town put up at least a token effort to defend themselves. Although they surely fought back against the attackers to the best of their abilities, it was clear that they had been defeated all the same.
What was waiting for them in the middle of the town was undeniable proof that the defenders had been outmatched by their assailants, and that it was no mindless abomination or Grimm that had attacked them. Dozens of bodies, stacked together with little care or respect to the fallen inhabitants of the village, burnt beyond recognition but not so much so that neither Courier nor faunus were unable to distinguish the bodies from one another, turned out to be the primary source of the smoke that first alerted them to the ravaged settlement. The fire that had consumed the fallen had mostly burnt itself out, although a few embers still glowed with indifference to the people they had yet to consume.
Julia dropped to her knees at the sight of so many bodies laid out before her, shocked and appalled at the carnage before her. She found herself frozen in disgust at the very sight of so much death, a striking comparison to her companion who did not hesitate to draw close enough to the pyre and overwhelming smell of burnt flesh. Six stayed silent as he paced around the mass of burnt bodies, careful to inspect the remains before him but never once lowering the M.A.M.R. in his hands as he did so.
Julia was the first one to break the suffocating silence that had fallen between them upon finding what was left of the town's inhabitants. "What the hell happened here?" She asked.
"Bandits." The Courier grumbled, his calm appearance quickly shattered by the unrestrained malice leaking out through just a single word.
"How do you know it was bandits?" She questioned him, her expression quickly souring as she considered the possible alternatives. "Mantle could just as easily have killed everyone here."
"This was definitely done by bandits." The Courier responded, his voice devolving into a savage growl while the weapon in his arms trembled from how tightly he clenched it. "Those Mantlesian fucks would have just leveled the town with a couple of Vertibirds or whatever you people call them in Vacuo. Those bastards wouldn't have bothered wasting time gathering up this many corpses just to prove a point so recently after getting their asses handed to them in Vacuo. The city, not the kingdom."
Having grown weary of inspecting the carnage up close, or perhaps wanting to ensure two more bodies weren't added to the pyre before dawn, Six walked back to his partner and helped her back to her feet. Julia was at first reluctant to accept his help, but when he offered her the submachine gun he had accepted from the Xiong Clan a week prior, she gladly accepted his aid in addition to the extra bit of 'reassurance' she now had access to.
"Julia, stay close to me while I check out some of the buildings around here. There's something I need to look for, and I'd rather not have to keep an eye out for any stragglers that might be waiting to stab me in the back while I'm distracted." He ordered.
"What the hell are you talking about?" She shouted back at him. "We need to leave now before any Grimm are attracted to this place!"
"Not happening, Antlers." Six walked towards the nearest building whose front door hadn't collapsed in on itself, his partner following him despite her desire to flee. "Until I can figure out everything I can about why this place was attacked, who the hell did it, and which direction they headed off towards, I ain't leaving this place."
Julia scoffed at what she believed to be his suicidal insistence to be eaten by Grimm, and the Courier was quick to rebuke her. "You don't have to help me out if you don't want to. I'm sure you will do just fine on your own without me, especially if the bandits that raided this place are headed in the same direction we are."
The faunus gave his words a brief moment of thought, and couldn't help but to see the logic behind his decision to search for information on whoever burnt down the ravaged town.
"Fine, but I will leave you behind if you take too long." She spat back at him.
"Don't worry. I don't plan on waiting around long enough for any scavengers attracted by the smell of an all you can eat buffet to show up for a free meal." He joked, earning a grimace from his partner at the reminder of the foul smell she was doing everything she could to ignore.
His partner gagged at the smell and did everything she could to ignore the sickening aroma hanging in the air around her. "Brothers, I wish I had a mask like yours so I didn't have to smell those… those…"
"My gas mask doesn't do a damn thing to make the smell of burnt flesh any better, Antlers." The Courier interrupted, quick to insist he wasn't suffering any less than she was from the smell assaulting them both.
Julia refused to believe that. "Bullshit. Do you mean to tell me that you don't mind that stench? It's so strong I can taste it!"
The Courier stopped his search for a brief moment, lost in thought, before turning to the faunus to deliver his answer. "It isn't so bad once you get used to it."
"What?!"
"When you've seen one town that's been burnt to the ground, you've seen them all. Smelled them all too." The Courier shrugged, the resigned look he shot Julia from behind his mask making her feel that much more worried about him. "Now shut the fuck up unless you see something to shoot, Antlers. I don't want to talk about what happened here anymore than I have to."
Rather than asking how or why the madman in front of her was so familiar with the carnage they found, Julia decided to respect his wishes and stand on lookout for Six as he continued his inspection of the building in peace. There were few things she wanted to know about the man she had the unfortunate opportunity to travel with, and many more that she didn't. The reasons behind his familiarity with the smell of burnt bodies fell firmly into the latter
The first building they investigated left the duo with no tangible evidence of whoever raided the village, forcing them to continue their hunt for answers so their efforts wouldn't be for nothing. They repeated their search again and again, sometimes finding valuables left behind by the bandits Six believed to be responsible for bringing the town to ruin, and other times finding nothing more than a few broken pieces of furniture and crumbling foundation.
With every piece of jewelry, hidden stash of Lien, and weapon that Six found left behind, he grew increasingly confused as he tried to piece together what the town's attackers were after. Whatever they were motivated by, it clearly wasn't riches, as Six was quick to identify and collect the hundreds of Lien cards that remained undisturbed and even purposefully discarded in a few houses that appeared to have been ransacked. Weapons didn't appear to be the bandit's target either, although since Six didn't find anything lying around worth taking for himself, he could hardly fault them. The lack of bullets in the town concerned him, but he wrote it off as the bandits just recuperating some of their losses from the battle against the town's inhabitants.
The lack of any corpses from anyone he could possibly identify as a bandit was something else he couldn't wrap his head around. Unless these were the luckiest bandits to have ever existed, Six was certain that they should have at least lost one of their members to the dozens of people defending their homes and lives. There was a chance that the attackers might have burnt their own dead along with those of their victims, but the Courier couldn't help but to doubt that. If anything, given how he had yet to find any traces of the bandits that attacked the ruined settlement, he thought it was more likely that they hadn't suffered a single loss. Whoever attacked the town clearly were competent enough to slaughter the inhabitants and cover their tracks well enough that even a master of desert survival couldn't figure out where they came from or what they attacked for, so the idea that they were professional enough to have not suffered a single casualty didn't seem too outrageous compared to any possible alternatives.
That did not make the thought any less concerning to Six once he became certain that the bandits that assaulted the town were far more effective than the Legion were in Nipton. The motivation that thought inspired in the Courier convinced him that he was not looking hard enough for clues, as even if he didn't miss something in his search until that point, knowing how to avoid the bandits responsible for the destruction around him soon became his most pressing concern.
Julia's warnings against staying in the ravaged settlement were soon forgotten as his search became more and more cautious and intense, two hours of the night passing by in the blink of an eye before even he or his partner had realized it. The antlered faunus had been quick to point out the risks of staying so close to such a source of fresh suffering, but the Courier's insistence that they learn more about the bandits that attacked the settlement convinced her to stay silent as he continued his search.
It was only as they looped back to the pile of burnt corpses, the last pockets of flame having died mere minutes ago, the embers of which could now no longer be seen, did he finally declare their search to have come to an end.
"Fuck! What the hell happened here?" Six shouted in rage after having his search end in failure.
"I don't know, but we have to leave this place NOW!" Julia demanded, her patience and will finally reaching their limits after hours of failure without finding anything useful to their search.
The Courier, while angry that he had not found anything, was at least willing to admit defeat rather than restart his search a second time. "Might as well. Let's just hope we don't come across whoever did this shit or else we probably won't end up much better than these poor bastards." He conceded, giving the pyre one last glance.
Seeing no further reason to discuss what to do next, the duo made their way out of the village, both of them eager to escape the ravaged village. The shattered moon was still providing enough light for them to see despite the thick cloud of smoke partially obscuring it, the past several hours dispersing the black curtain of ash to the point it was barely noticeable anymore. It was because of the extra illumination that the moon now provided, that the two travelers were able to see that something else had noticed the ravaged town was rushing towards them from the south, kicking up a large cloud of sand as it drew closer and faster than anyone travelling by foot could produce.
"Six, do you see that thing coming at us too?" Julia asked her partner as she remained motionless, turning to him to see what he prepared to do.
Rather than receiving an answer from Six, the man that had leapt at a car to take down its driver without any hesitation, she instead caught himrunning for cover inside one of the town's crumbling buildings . She muttered a series of curses under her breath as she quickly followed in his lead once more. It didn't take long for her to reach the same building her had fled to, and she had every intention to let him know just how much she hated him for fleeing without her.
"What the hell were you thinking, leaving me behind like that?" The faunus woman shouted in rage, her anger stemming for a moment as she tried and failed to find her partner. It was only when she thought to check the floor, expecting him to be cowering in fear, did she finally find him in quite the awkward position.
"Did you see that huge fucking thing that was headed straight for us?!" The Courier shouted back at her in between gasps of pain as he laid in the wreckage of the wooden table he had the unfortunate luck of landing on.
Julia quickly nodded and prepared to smack him depending on how he defended his actions.
"Then why the hell didn't you run the moment you saw the huge fucker tunneling after us?" Six bluntly asked her.
"Of course I did. How couldn't I-" She yelled at him. The faunus only stopped herself from slapping him in the middle of her rant when a terrifying thought crept to the forefront of her mind
It was with barely restrained horror that she dared to ask Six for more information, namely their unexpected guest's means of travel. "Did you say that thing was tunneling towards us?"
"Yeah." He replied, slowly pulling himself to his feet and retrieving a syringe of Rebound out of his medicine pouch after noticing Julia's sudden change.
"Please, for the love of all that is good in this fucking joke of a world, tell me whatever is headed for us isn't a big, mean Grimm capable of eating us alive?" He asked, readying his chem as he awaited her answer.
The antlered woman didn't say anything. To the Courier, her lack of an answer was an answer in and of itself.
"Of fucking course its a big ol' fuck off sized Grimm. Why wouldn't it be? " He groaned, not bothering to wait and see his opponent before injecting himself with the shot of chem infused adrenaline.
"I told you we shouldn't have come here." She growled at him in an attempt to calm her nerves.
"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Feel free to slap me upside the head as much as you want once we get out of this mess. I don't have a fuck to give you right now." He grumbled back as he took a hesitant look at the window.
Julia swiftly joined him, and the two of them watched on in absolute silence as whatever was producing the large trail of dust and sand behind it grew closer. It wasn't long after they started their watch that they heard the few pots and pans hanging in the ruined house start to shake, and no more than a few seconds later they could start to feel the ground tremble underneath them as well.
"That's definitely bigger than a Deathclaw Matron." The Courier groaned, quickly rearranging his 'Quick Select' so he could have immediate access to a few explosives at the press of a button instead of hoping for it to rematerialize close enough for him to catch it this time.
It was clear to him that whatever was coming their way, the various types of 11mm ammo that had been set to materialize in his pockets would likely only piss the mystery creature off instead of doing any real damage to it. With the small change he made to his inventory, he found some comfort in knowing that if he did need another explosive of nuclear proportions, it wasn't going to randomly drop somewhere in a five foot radius around him again. It was a small price to pay for not blowing himself up with the same weapon for the second time in a single month.
The two travelers didn't have to wait much longer to see what else had been drawn to the ruined settlement. The creature's head beached the surface of the dunes it had been partially concealed under, revealing a giant Grimm whose head was covered in a thick layer of bone white armor, the behemoth's body still lurking out of sight beneath the sands.
Julia froze in terror as the massive Grimm turned its head towards them, while Six found himself equal parts amazed and compelled to punch it in the face for reasons he couldn't explain. To him, it looked like a giant mole rat with bones covering every part of its enormous, flattened head, the only exception wide maw of razor sharp teeth the Grimm had spread across its face in a permanent cheshire smile, and a comically large button nose at the very tip of its face that did not make the abomination look any less terrifying. It sniffed the air as it faced their direction, taking far too long searching for something to not see the Courier and faunus frozen in awe and terror respectively, as it appeared to search for prey.
The creature let out a wheeze, not a roar, but a wheeze that soon devolved into a fit of coughing as it choked up a clod of wet sand and dirt between it and the two onlookers, before starting to 'swim' through the sand in their general direction. Julia attempted to leap through the window in an attempt to escape to another building from it, but was stopped by Six who hadn't spotted any eyes and the creature and was more than willing to bet his life on what he hadn't seen. He made sure to cover his partner's mouth as he restrained her, confident that his gamble wouldn't get them killed, and forcing the both of them to continue watching the giant Grimm in silence.
Sure enough, it slunk past them without so much as turning in their direction, instead heading towards the middle of the town where the mass of bodies were located. Satisfied that they were no longer in immediate danger, Six let out a breath he didn't remember holding onto and turned Julia around to face him, careful not to uncover her mouth for a single moment, and did everything he could to make it so that she wouldn't get them both killed.
"Alright Antlers, I know you're probably pissed at me but before I let you speak, I'm going to make a few things very clear to you." He whispered to her. "I can tell that thing is blind, but I don't have a damn clue if it is deaf, so if you even think of raising your voice any louder than mine, I will gut you where you stand. Is that understood?"
Julia remained motionless as she glared back at him. The Courier, unwilling to entertain her petty revenge for even a moment, pulled out the same knife he disemboweled Frost with and pressed it against his antlered partner's stomach. Her aura did nothing against the jagged blade as it came towards her, even when it stopped tearing through her aura and felt it press against the leather covering her stomach. She frantically nodded her head as she had seen just how easily that knife could tear through clothes, skin, and anything else its wielder intended to slice apart.
"Good." The Courier muttered back to her. "Now, when I let go of your mouth, I want you to tell me what the hell that fucking thing is before doing anything stupid. Is that understood?"
Julia glared at him once again, but accompanied her murderous look with a single nod this time. True to his word, the Courier let her go and waited for her answer.
She took a moment to back away from him, just enough to keep clear of his knife, before answering him.
"That thing is the largest Deathjaw I had ever seen, let alone heard of." She whispered. "I didn't know they could grow that large."
The Courier, to his credit, didn't immediately break out in laughter or tears at this news. Instead, he looked up to the whole in the ceiling, straight at the shattered moon, and let out a muffled scream from behind his helmet that was no louder than anything he had said since the Deathjaw's arrival. He stood there, screaming softly and incoherently for reasons only he knew for at least a minute.
"It's a Deathjaw? Of course it fucking is. Goddamnit, Europe fucking sucks." He quietly lamented as he regained control of himself.
After properly venting some of his mounting terror and frustration at this sudden turn of events, Six prepared to think about how the hell he was going to kill a creature whose head was over ten feet long and could easily swallow him in a single bite. Whatever solution he came up with for dealing with the abomination, the one thing he was sure of was that dealing with the Grimm would at least be as painful as dealing with the Legendary Bloatfly.
For the first time in months, he truly felt that the night could only get worse.
Author's Corner:
Something I have always been intrigued by in RWBY were the Grimm and just how amazing the giant abominations could be in the show. I am a huge fan of giant monsters capable of tearing shit up, the Grimm being one of the main features that attracted me to the fandom in the first place, so I of course had to try my own hand at writing one that was an actual threat instead of canon fodder that can be killed by an extra large toothpick or gardening tool. I won't lie, my Deathjaw takes heavy inspiration from two particular monsters that already exist in fiction, so my apologies if you know what they are.
Comments:
TigerTrainerXD: (Lots of grammatical mistakes and missed edits being pointed out)
Damn, this is why I am looking for a Beta Reader. Is it a bad time to mention that I usually write this story after a couple shots of vodka and rum? I'm starting to feel like it shows...
The first, third, and fourth lines you pointed out were corrected. The second was left unchanged as I wanted someone to not give a weird look to the guy giving a toaster a piggyback ride.
Crazypumpdude: this mf carrying 35 gold bars. How?
That's the weight, not the number he is carrying. I included that bonus at the end to lay all the cards my protagonist has on the table to prevent any lifesaving asspulls in the future… from those item categories.
MuffledCornet: I'd say he finally lost it, but that implies he ever had it.
I personally feel that EVERY PC in New Vegas is insane. Let's list the reasons, shall we?
First, after getting shot twice in the head, buried for dead, and waking up from a week long coma, instead of getting the hell away from New Vegas they hunt down the fucker that damn near killed them. Next, there's the fact they always end up vying for control of the entire Mojave, whether or not it is with the help of one of the three other armies fighting over it. Finally, there's the fact that before Benny 'happened' in Goodsprings, they were either ready to pass through Quarry Junction's pack of Deathclaws or the other route filled with Cazadores and Fiends.
So yeah… I'd definitely say there is clearly something not right about most Couriers if they are not outright psychopaths, suicidal, or extremely OCD about completing their job.
"Yeti Man": I love this courier, he is very resourceful and insane, a perfect mix. Also the execution was cool.
Thank ya for saying that. This was also another reason I didn't have my Courier fully kitted out. With a high Survival, Science, and Repair skills you're practically a post-apocalyptic MacGyver. I've always wanted to imagine what a 'slightly' unhinged person with this skill set could do, so I figured why keep on imagining when I could write one such character? And, while having high Intelligence would help such a character in their endeavors, making them as dumb as a brick would certainly lead to a lot more 'entertaining' creations...
BONUS!
Reputation:
Mantle (Kingdom): Vilified
Spirit of Vacuo: Unpredictable
Vacuo (City): Sneering Punk
Vacuo (Kingdom): Mixed
Vacuo (City Slums): Idolized
Xiong Clan: Smiling Troublemaker
? ? ?: Accepted
? ? ?: Neutral
Thanks again for sticking around with this story, and I hope to see y'all again real soon. I'm still looking for a Beta Reader, so please PM me if you're interested!