Wow, it has been a long time, like a year and a half long. Life happens and things change, but I had inspiration to write this and I really hope you enjoy it!


The bullhead rocked as the winds buffeted though the open doors, threatening to knock all of the passengers over. The aircraft and many more hurtled towards an open plaza in downtown Vale, an area normally bustling with activity of shoppers and commuters, but was currently vacant with the exception of huntsmen running into an open tunnel.

The bullhead landed on the ground roughly, not taking any extra time to avoid damaging the vehicle, and the huntsmen inside jumped out and sprinted towards the tunnel. Well, huntsmen was maybe an overstatement. A true huntsman had years of experience and dedication to fighting the monsters of evil that hunted humanity, the majority of the huntsmen running into the tunnels were students, young and inexperienced to the true horror of the Grimm.

The students were barely briefed on the situation before they were sent off to evacuate civilians from the tunnels connecting Mountain Glenn and Vale; a massive horde of Grimm attacked the city, forcing the population underground to the train tunnels in order to escape to Vale. The students were there to hold off the Grimm so that every civilian that made it to the tunnels could live and evacuate to Vale. Then, the tunnels would be sealed and closed off with explosives, preventing any Grimm from reaching Vale and slaughtering the survivors.

As the students entered the tunnel, they saw the first refugees from Mountain Glenn a couple hundred feet down the dimly lit tunnel, walking to the light that showed safety from the city they were fleeing. The incoming students move to the sides of the large tunnel to try and move past the refugees to get to the back of the pack of thousands of civilians evacuating.

"This is madness, how is this even happening?" Laura Vermillion asked, a green haired and tall huntress, one of the four members of Team OATZ. Roman Torchwick scoffed and Bart Oobleck sighed, agreeing with the sentimentality of his teammate but not the naivety, as Roman often chided her for.

Mountain Glenn was the first major expansion effort ever done by the kingdom of Vale, connected with an underground subway for commuting between the two cities. At first, it was a beacon of hope that humanity could permanently claim land occupied by the Grimm, helping uncrowd the overpopulated major cities across Remnant. However, Mountain Glenn lacked the natural defenses of Vale and, as Roman pointed out when the city started evacuating, Merlot Labs for years had been allegedly testing on Grimm in Mountain Glenn. The initial reports on the situation hinted that some of the experimental Grimm may have escaped or attracted even more wild Grimm to the city.

"It matters little how it happened." The last member of Team OATZ spoke, Tristan Azullite, a well-built man with blue hair and two oversized swords, "Only that we evacuate all of the civilians to safety." Bart normally found Tristan's unwavering focus on mission objectives to be lacking in creativity and flexibility to a changing situation, but he agreed with him whole-heartedly this time. It was a huntsman's duty to protect innocent people from the Grimm, no matter the cost.

Their team was in its fourth year at Beacon Academy, graduating in a few months to become full fledged huntsmen. Most of the other teams in the tunnels were in a similar position, only the upper year teams from Beacon were sent into the tunnels to hold back to the Grimm with as many huntsman Vale could muster on a short notice. The lower year students were in Vale, prepared to provide humanitarian and first aid to the civilians about to flood the city.

Although the huntsmen were pushing and running past the evacuating civilians with as much speed as they could, the line seemed endless. Every minute of running past countless civilians there always seemed to be countless more ahead in the dark of the tunnels.

The tunnels were made to be traveled by high-speed train since it took well over eight hours to cover the distance from Mountain Glenn to Vale by foot. While using the train for evacuation sounded like a good idea initially, there were only two stops: one at the entrance to the tunnel in Vale and the other in the middle of the underground city underneath Mountain Glenn where the Grimm were coming from.

It was nearly half an hour of running from the Huntsmen teams before the sound of fighting and Grimm was heard. "I don't like how little gunfire there is, there should be more." Tristan led off as the sound of roaring Grimm became louder, echoing off the walls of the main tunnel, "There were supposed to be a decent amount of huntsmen in the city."

"Maybe there were a decent amount in the city." Roman replied. Laura grimaced and Bart nodded. As cynical as Roman could be, he was probably correct.

OATZ and the other teams finally took a slight bend in the tunnel that gave them sight of the Grimm horde, a sea of black and red behind five huntresses, barely preventing the civilians at the end of the line from meeting their demise.

"Help the huntresses!" Bart yelled, pushing past the end of the civilian line. "Move!" The civilians, having the Grimm behind them for hours on end, jumped at the sound of his booming voice. As the huntsmen teams broke free of the civilian crowd, one of the huntresses was grabbed by an ursa and thrown into the sea of Grimm, her screaming being drowned in their mass. Bart pulled out his thermos, took a quick drink, then changed his weapon into its combat form, Antiquity Roast. Dashing to the front of the swarm, he pointed the thermos end of his staff into the face of a large beowulf, pressed a button, and flames shot into the monster, incinerating its face instantly.

To Bart's right, Tristan stabbed his dual swords into two separate boarbatusks at the same time, killing one and leaving the other one squealing on the blade, a beowulf tried to take advantage of Tristan's extension into the Grimm line by swiping his arm at one of Tristan's wrists, but Bart quickly smashed the butt of his staff into the beowulf's arm, deflecting it. To their left, Laura fired a hail of bullets into the Grimm in front of her from her mechashift spear then stabbed the tip of her weapon into the throat of a beringel and knocked the dying monster back into the swarm.

Bart heard Roman audibly sigh behind him as explosions from his cane, Melodic Cudgel, blew up a multitude of Grimm. "I thought the worst part of our last year at Beacon would be finals, not a giant ball of Grimm."

Bart snorted and swung his staff into an ursa that attempted to leap over him, knocking it to the side into the trident of another nearby student. "Don't be so optimistic Roman, I am sure that the finals will be worse."

Roman laughed as he reloaded his weapon, placing fire dust explosives, into the bottom of the cane, "We'll see, won't we?"

The fight against the Grimm horde started off well, upper class teams from Beacon, although not as powerful as professionals, still were strong in their own right. Countless Grimm fell under the onslaught of steel, bullets, and explosives; but minute by minute they forced the huntsmen back, causing them to lose valuable yards. They were holding back the Grimm from reaching the civilians, even giving them some breathing room of a thousand feet or more, but that could not last forever.

The first student to fall was a giant muscled man using a two-handed mace. Bart saw him smash Grimm throughout the fight with ease, but the student must have taken more damage to his aura than he let on. A stinger from a deathstalker came out from the mass of Grimm and stabbed him in the chest, breaking his aura and pumping him full of poison. His teammates tried to rescue him but the poison in his system paralyzed him long enough for a beowulf to drag him into the horde.

Aura was depleting and ammunition was starting to run dry for every team there, having to rely much more on only melee combat to hold back the tide of Grimm, with a student falling to the onslaught once every couple of minutes.

Tristan and Laura worked together to take down a deathstalker that made its way to the front of the line, working together to flip the monster and attack its underbelly. Roman swung his cane at the beowulf Bart was fighting with his staff, knocking it down to be finished off with a quick strike to the head from Antiquity Roast.

"I'm almost out of ammo." Roman stated as he blocked a blow from a boarbatusk charging him, which Bart blasted back with a trigger-pull from his own weapon. "I only have one more ice dust magazine, I can't imagine everyone else is doing much better."

"We have to be getting close to the end of the Grimm at least." Bart replied, ducking beneath the paw of an ursa that would have decapitated him, "It can't get worse than this."

A roar sounded from their left as a beringel jumped from a side tunnel onto a huntress, dragging her to the ground. She pushed the beast off and stabbed it with a dagger but five beowulfs leaped out of the side tunnel and mauled her before she could have a chance to recover from the surprise attack.

"They're coming from the sides!" Another student shouted from the other side of the main tunnel. Bart cursed and leaped out of range so he could assess the situation as a whole while he reloaded fire dust into his staff. The refugees must have made it through a quarter of the tunnel, but there was so much more to go, and most of the civilians were still probably trapped underground.

Roman parried the pincers of a deathstalker in quick succession before slamming the butt of his cane into an ursa that tried to take advantage of the opening. Bart saw a stinger rise from the mass of Grimm as Roman held off another ursa that came from a side tunnel; he ran as fast as he could to block the stinger that was descending on Roman.

Roman gasped as a stinger punctured his right leg, pumping paralytic poison into him. The deathstalker followed up with a pincer to grab him that he would never have a chance to dodge. He was grabbed by something from behind and barely avoided the death grasp of the monster scorpion.

Bart hauled him out of fighting range and turned him over to look at the wound. "I can't move Bart." Roman slurred, having trouble even moving his face muscles to speak.

Bart collapsed Antiquity Roast into its thermos form and sheathed it behind him, then strapped Melodic Cudgel to his back, "Laura! Tristan! Roman's paralyzed! I have to take him back to the city, then I will return!"

Tristan merely grunted while cutting a beowulf into two pieces with his swords while Laura yelled back, "Just make sure to be back quickly, kind of need you here!"

Bart nodded, picked up Roman in a fireman's carry, and sprinted back to Vale as fast as he could. After a few minutes of sprinting, they found the back of the refugee crowd still miles away from Vale. "Excuse me! Huntsman coming through!" Bart yelled to the civilians, who parted as best they could in the tight squeeze of the main tunnel. It took another 20 minutes of running and pushing past civilians to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Fighting off the exhaustion from non-stop running and fighting, Bart forced himself to move faster and ignored the cries of angry evacuees he was pushing past. He finally made it into the plaza outside of the tunnel in Vale, where refugees were gathered and medical beds were set up in the open air.

Bart ran to one of the empty beds and set Roman down. After Roman was on the bed, Bart dropped to the ground to catch his breath for a minute before running back into the tunnel, "How are you feeling Roman?"

"I can't feel much, you know, poison and all." Bart rolled his eyes at his teammate's sarcasm, "But I can move my arms and legs a little bit." He tried to lift up his arms and legs, moving them a few inches while shaking.

Bart smiled and stood back up, stretching his legs. He placed Melodic Cudgel next to Roman on the bed, "I'll be expecting you to come in with the cavalry soon Roman."

Roman scoffed, "I'll get right on it." Bart laughed then looked back towards the tunnel where civilians were still coming out en masse. At the entrance and slightly further into the tunnel, members of Vale's volunteer militia were strapping what looked like explosives to the walls of the tunnel.

Bart's eyes widened and he looked towards Roman who seemed to realize the same conclusion. They're going to collapse the tunnels with half of the refugees still inside. With Tristan and Laura!

As if to confirm the awful action, a man with the militia uniform yelled as other militia members ran past him from the tunnel, pushing refugees down and out of the way, "Prepare to blow the charges! Set them off on my mark!" The evacuees that heard started panicking and causing a stampede to get out of the tunnel.

"I have to get Tristan and Laura." Bart started running full speed back to the tunnel entrance to join his teammates.

A familiar gun firing sounded behind him and his legs turned to ice, causing him to fall down onto the ground from the unexpected attack. He turned around and saw Roman using his weapon as an actual cane for once, barely being able to walk toward him. Bart hit his hands against the ice, causing it to almost shatter after one blow, but Roman fired another ice round at his legs, causing them to freeze over again.

"I'm not allowing you to go back in there Bart!" Roman yelled as he slowly forced himself closer, "They're going to collapse the tunnels early, there's nothing we can do!"

Bart growled and reached for his weapon only to have Roman freeze his arm to the ground, "Damn it Roman! Laura and Tristan are going to die if I don't get them!" Bart quickly grabbed his weapon with his free hand and used it to smash his icy prison. He looked back up to see where Roman was only to meet a fist to the head and a body forcing him back on the ground.

Roman's face was in massive pain as he tried to force his aura into his limbs past the poison so he could hold Bart down, "They're going to die no matter what Bart! I'm not losing you too!"

Bart screamed in frustration and rage as he grappled with Roman, pushing against his teammate until he broke his grip, and kicked him back a few feet. Bart took the opportunity to run a few feet closer to the tunnel before a hook fired from the tip of Roman's cane that grabbed his leg and tripped Bart's feet out from under him.

Roman sprinted for a second then stumbled and collapsed on top of Bart, too tired to hold him down but hoping his body weight would slow him down a little bit longer. Bart pushed him back off when an explosive sounded from the tunnel, followed by many more and the screams of innocents still trying to escape.

By the time the explosions ended and tens of thousands of pounds of rock blocked the entrance to the tunnel, the screams could no longer be heard from the other side.


Dark clouds covered the sky, covering the light from the shattered moon and casting a gloom over the city of Vale. The normally energetic man sighed as he walked towards the monument to the victims of Mountain Glenn, buried under rubble by human monsters and torn asunder by Grimm.

There were a multitude of benches surrounding the monument to the tragedy, normally crowded today, on the anniversary of the event, but at almost midnight there was no one there except for one other person.

The first man sat down next to the second man, pulling out his thermos and taking a sip of coffee, "Torchwick."

The second man looked away from the monument, "Oobleck. Never could get you to quit drinking coffee, you're an addict."

Bart scoffed, "Says the man who chain smokes cigars. I would say that is worse, although not as bad as a life of crime."

Roman smiled, "Guilty as charged, I just can't help being so good at being bad."

"Speaking of guilty as charged, I heard some interesting events happen to our dear friend Jackson Belleview."

"Whatever ever happened to our friend who ordered the early collapse of the tunnels?"

"You know damn well what happened Roman." Bart accused, "I think you're the one who did it too."

"He was going to get out of prison Bart!" Roman said fiercely, voice raising as he kept speaking, "Twenty-five years in confinement then he leaves prison and gets to live a free life while our teammates' bodies are buried in a mass tomb that he caused."

"Breaking into prison and killing him is not the right or legal thing to do, Roman!"

"Screw the legal way! You and I both know he would have never faced prosecution to begin with if I hadn't done things the dirty way, he would have gotten away with everything. I didn't allow him to get away with it twenty-five years ago and I sure as hell wasn't going to let him live free now." Roman took a large puff from his cigar, "You know he deserved worse than death for what he did."

"Maybe." Bart sighed, "I may have wanted him to suffer for his crimes, but it is not for us to decide." The two sat in silence after that for a few minutes, sitting and watching the memorial, remembering better times, simpler times. When they were a part of a team, working together for a greater good, hoping for a better future, before their team was broken forever.

"You know it's not too late for you, Roman. Come with me to Beacon, Ozpin can guarantee your safety, even from Ironwood and the Vale Police."

Roman laughed, not a laugh filled with joy, but a bitter and resigned one, "I don't doubt that he could, but I'm in a poker game of sorts right now that I can't afford to lose or fold on." Roman stood up and threw away the butt of his cigar, "I'm sorry Bart, it's too late for me to escape this life."

Roman walked away from the monument, lighting another cigar as he left. Bart stood up and called out, "I'll see you next year. We may view things differently, but if you need help getting out of that life, just let me know."

Roman did not turn around or stop walking but inclined his head enough for Bart to see that he acknowledged his offer. Bart sat back down to look at the monument to pay respects to the fallen and living that he could not save.


I have missed writing and putting some ideas on paper, or digital paper as it were. I cannot guarantee any consistent updates or new stories on a regular basis at all, but I am going to try and put some stuff out this year. I hope you enjoyed the story!