Chapter 1: First Contact.
City of Vale.
A day had passed and the citizens of the city seemed have to calm down. However, in the halls of the Vale Council, four council members gathered.
A single man stood beside a hologram with a remote.
"To the council members of Vale," he said as he turned on the hologram, showing a picture of the US Expeditionary Force. "It seems we're expecting another crisis. As you can see here, one of our spy drones caught a large group from what we believe is an unknown organization."
"Hmm..." One of the Council member stroked his beard and looked narrowly at the hologram. "We do not know who these people are, but it seems we need to contact the Atlesian military for assistance."
The man shook his head. "I'm sorry sir, we are having a problem due to the maintenance of the CCT Tower in Beacon."
"Hmpf, fine, then we must send a message to Headmaster Ozpin," said the other council member. "It is urgent that we find out who those people are. We must not risk another crisis since the CCT Towers are down."
Beacon Academy.
"Hmm...I see." Ozpin looked at the holographic video message starring the Vale Councilors.
"Since the CCT Tower is down, this is an urgent task. Send one of your best Hunters or Hunters-in-training to keep an eye on them. We do not wish to risk more civil unrest when these unknown armed men from the east set their eyes on our people, Dust knows what might happen."
The video recorder ended and the hologram screen disappeared.
"I understand..." Ozpin placed his mug on the table and began to walk away from his office to meet one of the best Teams in his academy.
"I think I should send out Summer Rose and her team for this mission."
Eastern Region of Vale Kingdom.
In the deep forested region, a group of ten marines from the US Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance strolled through the trees. They'd been doing a deep silent recon mission around the area.
One marine captain raised his hand to halt the group, then clenched his fist and kneeled down. He noticed sounds of sticks cracking and rustling leaves. The wind wasn't doing that. It sounded like some something alive. The marines stood still with their M16A2 Rifles or M4A1's pointing aimlessly at the trees and bushes.
"...Did you guys hear that?" whispered the lead marine, a Gunnery Sergeant.
"Just eerie sounds, Sergeant," whispered the other Marine. "I feel like some shit's stalking us, sir."
"Wait..." He paused.
There was some loud leaf rustling, and the Marines pointed their rifles towards the source of sound. The marines frowned in disbelief as a black wolf-like creature the same height as a man came out of the brush. It had red glowing eyes, sharp claws and a bone mask protecting its face. The Beowolf sniffed the air and growled menacingly at a group of Marines. It could sense the negative emotions emitted from the soldiers: Fear.
"What… the fuck... is that?!" swore an African-American US Marine in surprise and disbelief while pointing his M240 Light Machine gun towards the Beowolf.
"Stay calm, maybe it'll leave us alone," said the lead marine.
"Uh, sir, seems like it doesn't look friendly," said one of the marines, as the strange wolf began to growl. "By the sounds of it, that thing sees us as food."
The Beowolf roared, causing the marines to raise their rifles. The Grimm charged against the group with raised claws while one marine yelled out an order.
"Open fire!"
Immediately, a hail of lead hit the Beowolf. The corpse of the beast fell only eight steps away from the group. A couple of marines slowly walked towards the corpse, noticing a black smoke emitted from its dead body. The soldiers only stare in wonder, seeing that the dead creature began to dissolve.
*AWWWWOOOOO~!*
The marines were startled by the sounds of howling. Suddenly, sounds of heavy footsteps were heard, and the Gunnery Sergeant felt his instincts scream. He pulled out his AN/PRC-148.
"This is the Recon Delta Team to HQ, come in!" he said with a stern face. "Horde of unknown hostiles in sight, we're in three miles away, northwest, requesting reinforcements, ASAP, over!"
"HQ here, we're dispatching reinforcements to your location," responded the radio operator. "Stay in position, reinforcements will arrive in ETA 30 Minutes, out."
"Holy shit, there's too many of 'em!"
"Protect this position until the reinforcements arrive," the Sergeant said sternly as he inserted a fresh magazine into his M16A2. "We got to hold them off!"
Meanwhile, in the airspace above Vale.
A couple of F-16s soared through the skies. Both of the pilots in these jets were on a reconnaissance mission to find any possible civilization within the unknown territory. The sight of a tower standing near the cliffs caught the eye of one of the pilots.
"Hey, is that a tower right over there?" said the, contacting his wingman beside him.
"I see it, seems like there really are people living around this place," responded the other pilot. "Wait... over there is a city."
Meanwhile, inside the city, it was a quiet day. The citizens of Vale walked around the streets, most of them calmed down after the civil unrest. Still, most of them were afraid, since the CCT was down, there are no communications to the outside and they simply still didn't know what was happening around the world.
Suddenly, they heard a deafening roar in the distance. People wondered about the sound, which was unlike any Bullhead's Engine or Airship they had heard of. Most of them looked up and saw two arrow-shaped flying objects unlike any other aircraft they had ever seen.
"Mommy, what are those flying things up there?" asked a kid while pointing. "Are those new Bullheads?"
"I... I'm not sure what it is sweetie," his worried mother replied. "Come Roman, daddy is waiting for us at home."
Meanwhile, in the F-16s.
"Well I'll be damned..." said a pilot in wonder while looking at the city.
"A surprise, isn't it..." responded the other pilot. "Looks like we've stumbled on a new nation and there are people down there, lots of 'em. I wonder what President Bush will think about this."
"I dunno, but I think we need to head back to HQ ASAP."
With that, the F-16 changed their flight course by ending their main objective.
Eastern Region of Vale Kingdom.
A horde of Beowolves tried to overrun the group of ten marines. It had been 25 minutes, yet not a single soldier fell to the horde due to the sheer fire power and deadly precision of the bullets. The Grimm bodies piled up and evaporated from existence, but the marines began to fall back, noticing the horde getting larger. Overly-large black bears with bony plates and spikes on their backs had joined the wolves.
"Ah shit, now they've got fucking bears with them?!" shouted one of the marines. "Where the hell are the reinforcements!"
"Frag out!" one marine yelled while throwing a grenade towards a nearby group of four Beowolves and a single Ursa.
After the grenade exploded, three Grimm were killed by the deadly shrapnel while the other two were left injured. The Ursa roared in rage when a small piece of shrapnel caught its eye and then continued to charge in once more. However, the Ursa's head was suddenly met by a buckshot of shells from another nearby Marine who held a Remington 870 pump action shotgun.
The firefight lasted for until they heard the sound of a mechanical humming overhead, The Gunnery Sergeant smirked. A single Boeing AH-64 Apache soared through the skies, leaving the Grimm stunned on the ground while looking up at the sky. The human war machine, however, wasn't alone. Ground reinforcements consisting of a couple of M3A2 Bradleys and thirty-five Marines arrived the scene. The Grimm numbers paid a heavy price as the Apache hailed down a mixture of 30mm Lead from its M230 Chain Gun and AGM -114 Hellfire missiles that ripped apart the incoming Grimm. The M3A2s began to burst 25mm rounds from its M242 Chain Gun and 7.62 mm from the M240C Machine Gunner, and the rest of the Grimm horde was neutralized within thirty seconds. The lead Marine searched around the area for hostiles, but nothing moved as the dead Grimm began to evaporate.
"Area secured!"
USA, Washington DC, White House.
President Bush was doing much paperwork to this day. It'd been a few months after the terrorist attack on September 11. Most of the experienced US military armed forces were stationed in the Middle East to fight the fanatical terrorists of Al-Qaeda in the search for Osama Bin-Laden.
Then this happened. Five new landmasses appeared out of nowhere in the earth's largest seas. He was still unsure about the world's current situation.
*Ring!* *Ring!*
Bush placed his pen on the desk and answered the phone.
"Yes?... Ah... I understand, yes, we'll meet at the Pentagon tomorrow afternoon and we'll discuss this. Thank you for the information." Bush put the phone back, folded both of his hands, and wondered in deep thought. "It seems that the entire world's gonna change... There really are people in there. Seems like we've stumbled upon new nations, and new nations means diplomacy, and diplomacy means trade relationships and politics, and those things are big business for us."
Kingdom of Vale, Beacon Academy.
On the landing platforms of Beacon, Team STRQ were on their way to their Bullhead. Summer Rose was told by Ozpin that their mission was to keep an eye on the mysterious group that had appeared in the Eastern region of Vale.
"So Summer, what do we gotta do if those guys aren't friendly?" Qrow asked while placing both of his hands behind his head.
"Ozpin told me that we should keep an eye on them but not engage them," Summer said.
"So, it's a reconnaissance mission?" Raven remarked while raising an eyebrow.
"Seems like it." Taiyang nodded. "We should be really careful with what we're dealing with, Summer."
"Don't worry," Summer smiled innocently to them. "I hope they're friendly."
Chapter Ends.