Chapter 5: Rebuilding Days - The Change of Society.
Earth, Location: Vale. Beacon Academy.
"This world is much larger than we've thought." Ozpin said in amusement while looking at his Scroll and swiping over maps of Earth's regions. "A larger world means there will be a lot things for the new Huntsmen generation to discover."
As he swiped the map of Central Asia from the screen, news articles popped up, added yesterday, when the CCT Towers' maintenance problems were fixed. These articles were stories from the past few months, before and after the Grimm wars. Ozpin carefully scanned the titles.
"The Four Kingdoms join the United Nations."
"Incredible! Over one hundred countries around the new world!"
"How the United Nations defeated the Grimm's onslaught, a story from a Russian soldier."
"The Governments from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Britain announced to the public of their respective nations to have trained their own first Huntsmen!"
Several other sub-articles showed events in the Kingdom of Vale.
"The first restaurant of the American fast food chain known as "McDonalds" opened in the city of Vale."
"Vale Councilors agree to cooperate with the US Military by enabling to re-arm weapons and sending training drills to the once former Vale Militia into the newly formed Vale's Self Defense Force."
"First American and Canadian immigrants entered Vale Port, rise of a new era."
"Hmm..." Ozpin narrowed his eyes at the articles, then glanced out the window, taking a single sip of coffee.
Meanwhile, in England.
"And so I present to Your Majesty, and to the royal family of the British Kingdom," Ironwood announced," The Atlesian Frigate."
As the servants of the Buckingham Palace opened the doors to the balcony, Queen Elizabeth and those of her family who followed behind her were awed by the scene of a flying bird-like ship descending from the cloudy skies, floating near the outskirts of London. Due to this, Great Britain and Atlas made it's first time on the agreement of terms for peaceful relations and trade.
"I had...seen such things on the television since past few months ago." Queen Elizabeth stared at the ship. "This is my first time seeing it for real."
"How do you like it, Your Majesty?"
"All I can say is that it's marvelous," she praised. "I've heard much about the Kingdom of Atlas' incredible ingenuity."
"It's all thanks to the Schnee Dust Company." Ironwood lightly chuckled. Hearing footsteps coming their way, the Atlesian General turned to a man in his mid-30s. He wore a luxurious white tuxedo suit, had a pale complexion and white hair, and had piercing blue eyes that looked directly at the general and the royal family.
"How was the tour of London, Mr. Schnee?"
"The city was grand, all the people here are quite cheerful about our visit." Mr. Schnee said in a polite manner while walking into the balcony with a cane held in his left hand. "I'd say that they're at most gentle."
"Daddy~!"
Mr. Schnee suddenly jumped a bit in surprise to a familiar squeaky voice. He turned around, revealing a little 4-year-old girl who immediately tackled and held on tight to her father's right leg.
"Ah! Winter, don't jump in so suddenly."
"Daddy~ can we go visit that giant Ferris wheel in the city, please?" Then she began to show off her cute pouting face, which Mr. Schnee almost got his heart nearly melted.
"You promised me that we were gonna ride there!"
"Later sweetie." He spoke softly and patted her head. "We are guests here to meet with the Royal Family. I need you to play along with the Servant Thomas until I'm done, alright?"
"Okay daddy..."
Meanwhile... in Japan.
"Whoa~! Look at her cat ears! They're real!"
"Are they the Hunters? Really?!"
"So cute~! I want to take a picture!"
"Awesome, look at that guy! He has a huge sword!" yelled one of the Japanese in an excited tone. "He's like Cloud from Final Fantasy 7!"
In the districts of Akihabara, a single team of Hunters from Vacuo took a tour through the city of Tokyo. They were the first tourists from Vacuo to come into a place known as Japan after the Government agrees the terms to open borders generally to their new visitors. Upon arriving, a tourist guide had led them across the city streets, showing them historical sights on their way while explaining the history and cultures of Japan. Now they stood with Otakus and anime fans surrounding them, all asking to get photographs or autographs from the Vacuan Hunters.
"Umm... why do they see us... as celebrities?" asked a female huntress who was a black-haired cat faunus. "I thought people here knew about the Faunus?"
"Don't you know that Faunus don't exist outside the Kingdoms?" Her teammate said.
"And they hadn't seen a Faunus before." Her other teammate added.
'Oh wait, Faunus didn't exist in this world until the Kingdoms arrived!' Her eyes suddenly widened in realization.
Their guide stopped and waited for her surprise to pass. "And as you can see, since the War against the Grimm, the news has shown you fighting alongside with the UN Forces. That explains why Hunters like you are famous around the world. Even in Japan."
"...Ohhh..." The Hunter team said in unison.
United States, California, Union City.
In the eastern parts of Union City, construction workers and machines stood near the city's outskirts, building up a wall starting from the city of San Jose to Vallejo at the San Pablo bay. The thick walls were made of cement that stood twenty-five meters high, reinforced by electrical fences in the outer fields that made it difficult for the Grimm to breach. They even installed machine gun nests, sniper towers, and anti-air guns on top of the walls. The governments did this due to the Grimm presence in the US deserts, which mostly consisted of subterranean creepers. Meanwhile, in the eastern states, more than a hundred people who were part of the Anti-War faction began to walk into the streets to protest in the streets of Washington D.C with signs with slurs written on against the military, they were begging the governments to stop military funding. They still hadn't figured out the real threat of the Grimm, some who are insane enough to describe that these monsters are completely hoaxed and believing that the media was playing around. However, the supposed 'Pro-War' faction quickly turned the Anti-War Faction down and began to lose more support. Even PETA protested against Grimm extermination, poor bastards.
"Stop killing the Grimm!" yelled a PETA protester. "They are innocent beings!"
"Heh, idiots. I've heard those monsters wouldn't give a fuck whoever they are," muttered a bystander to his fellow buddy while walking past the group. "They're still gonna kill us all."
"Yeah, they're far worse than those Libtards protesting in Washington DC," his friend agrees. "Who gave those bigots the dumbest idea to let those monsters in, thinking it was the best idea?"
Meanwhile, in the California Ranger Militia HQ, Summer walked around and passed some tents, a gleeful expression plastered on her face as she glanced at the Cold War-era weapons such as the M24 or M21 Rifles carried by the Ranger Militias. Not to mention that there were very few Hunters around in the HQ.
An hour later, Summer stood alongside Taiyang, Raven and other Hunters, who hailed from Vale or Vacuo inside a building in the middle of a camp. They were met by a man from the USMC wearing a desert camouflage uniform or DCU for short and a large map hanged on the wall behind him indicating the locations and red marked areas of the US deserts.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the United States. If some of you have already visited this place before the war, welcome back," he announced with a rough yet hard-toned voice. He placed both hands on his hips and looked at the map.
"Now all of you wondered why you people dedicate to volunteered yourselves to help us to erase the Grimm problem, and this is our plan."
The Hunters though the plan was going to be simple, just kill the Grimm and defend the city. However, the military had other plans. They would send troops out to scout the area and expeditionary forces to destroy the locations where the Grimm had spawned from. Indeed, they wanted these dark bastards to be exterminated for good, according to the officials from their latest meeting in the Pentagon. The CIA had revealed more information to the military officials, discovered by the newest MQ-9 Reaper, a surveillance Drone prototype.
The Grimm weren't wiped out from the harsh desert conditions, and instead were driven into the underground. The expeditionary forces' primary objective was to go deep into the infested areas inhabited mostly by subterranean Grimm and destroy the hidden hives to prevent the monsters from raising their numbers. They also had sub-missions that consisted of re-establishing contact with any surviving towns, rescuing local survivors who were possibly lost family members who waiting for their saviors, securing the supply lines which were connected from the eastern United States, or recapturing lost resource facilities such as the oil wells abandoned during the Invasion. It would not be easy.
New information released from the CIA and the Defense Department revealed that most survivors had turned to banditry or had formed into anarchistic factions that lived within these areas and razed the desert wasteland where people once lived.. Luckily, some of the towns were secured by armed militiamen waiting for the help of the US Military.
Half an hour passed and Summer led Team STRQ to meet up with the Rangers, minus Qrow, who was currently on Treasure Island preparing documents for the new students. The Rangers consisted of men and women who graduated from their military training, some even before the Grimm War had started. There were also veterans from the past Middle Eastern conflicts and the short-lived War on Terror.
"Sir, why do we have horses with us?" asked a Ranger to his officer.
"Budget cuts, Jimmy." The officer smirked sarcastically. "The reason why the governments don't wanna pay an expensive price for wasting oil and new gadgets. At least we still had some Cold War-era stuff, pretty cheap you know."
"Make sense." Then Ranger looked over to the armored vehicles, a line of M51 Super Shermans, each Super Sherman Variants had seventy-five millimeter guns and the other was the one-hundred and five millimeter guns. "At least Israel gave us some, we might gotta' modernize these vehicles."
'Cold War?' Summer thought curiously as she raised an eyebrow.
"Hey Rave? what's a Cold War?"
"I... don't know what that is." Raven answered.
"Maybe it referred to their latest war during the winter seasons I think?" Taiyang added in confusion.
San Fransisco, Treasure Island.
The Treasure Island School was abandoned decades ago. Some people believed that it was due to something supernatural that happened there; most believed it was due to economic problems. Nowadays, the government decided to reconstruct it as the first new combat school, though it would be some time before it was complete.
In the meantime, Oobleck, better known for his new title as "Doctor" Oobleck, was currently reading the world history of Earth, ranging from the pre-historic times to the current era. He admitted that their History was much more fascinating than he ever learned from Beacon Academy. The Grimm never existed on Earth, and mankind grew and prospered to build civilizations and form their own communities. Thus rose powerful kingdoms and empires, which waged wars for centuries, those events around the world had changed everything.
"What are you reading, Oobleck?"
Oobleck heard a female voice behind him. He turned around and saw a female cat Faunus with black hair, Caucasian skin, wearing a leather jacket with jeans, leather boots, and a sword strapped on her back. The cat-Faunus just stared at him curiously before giving him a smirk.
"Ah greetings Mina, you suddenly caught me by surprise."
Mina then suddenly snatched the book from his hand in a blink of an eye and read a few sentences from the page he was on. Her eyebrow rose in confusion.
"What's this?" she asked. "Is this Earth's world history book? ...I'm surprised they waged a Second World War."
"Ah yes, the Second World War. I was currently reading in a middle of that historical event. Perhaps I could read it entirely if you wouldn't interrupt me." He gave out a light chuckle. "And as for the Second World War, it was far more brutal than the Great War between the Four Kingdoms. It is fascinating, though it was far more depressing indeed and depicts people fighting for their very survival."
"Have you learned some of America's history?"
"Well I did learn all I could about this land. It was discovered by the Europeans in the near end of the 15th Century." He stood up with pride as he gave out an answer. "There are other things I have learned, about the American Revolution, the US Civil War and their involvements in the First and Second World Wars."
"Heh, as I expected from a bookworm," said an unknown half-drunken voice.
Oobleck and Mina suddenly turned to see a shaggy looking man holding a Heineken Beer Bottle.
"Oh jeez, Qrow," Mina groaned in irritation. "Are you drinking alcohol again?!"
"So what?" Qrow smirked at her in a challenging look. "Is it your problem?"
"I...ugh, never mind."
Meanwhile, in the Atlantic...
On the coasts of the Atlantic, a single ocean liner strolled across the foggy sea with the ocean winds blew softly in the air. Most of the passengers were Faunus immigrants who sailed out to find a new home outside the four kingdoms.
"Mommy, when do we see our new home?" asked a blonde-haired rabbit Faunus girl to her guardian, holding her hand tightly.
"Just be patient sweetie, we're almost there," her mother replied with a bright smile.
As they looked back to the horizon, the fog cleared itself, revealing a large city filled with tall skyscrapers and a green statue of a lady wearing a crown and holding a torch in the air.
"Wow, mommy they look so big!" The girl jumped in awe.
"Of course they do," her mother spoke softly, smile brightening even more.
The city they saw was called New York.
Chapter Ends.
Next Event: the Cries of the Faunus - On the Way to Equality
Coming soon: The Atlesian Crisis - The Rogue Commander