"And because of this rule, men made the army's and women made the kingdoms."
Stark scouted the area by the light of his aura. A thin bubble-like shield surrounded him, casting a faint gold and silver light. The royal colours of The Queen of Mantle. In the darkness, he spotted the glowing eye of some Grimm. Stark immediately dropped low and brought down his shield. An Ursa of some kind he concluded. It was the right size and the only explanation on why it was alone. Stark calmly stalked towards it, watching the glowing eye to get a sense of how fast it was walking forward.
Grimm are attracted to fear, desperation, and sadness. This is something everyone knows about and what most people plan for. But what they don't consider is what other emotions the Grimm can feel. The higher ups only ever think about what brings the Grimm because that is all that concerns them. Why care about the intense feelings of happiness? Grimm only care for those who are afraid right? And it is mostly true unless you're talking about a Goliath.
Grimm can sense all sorts of emotions, but only attack when they sense fear because they equate it to weakness. But something as smart as a Goliath knows that happiness as almost the same as smugness. Goliath's skew everyone's predictions because they attack where people are happy. Places people are sure they're safe. And then suddenly, there are no safe places left. This means nearly nothing to anything smaller than a giant Nevermore and you're not defending a city against a wild attack. But if you're out alone in the woods, just because you're not afraid, doesn't mean the Grimm don't know you're there.
Unless your Stark Ironwood, this information would serve no other purpose but to scare you a little. However, Stark made Sergeant First-Class just before he turned twenty because he knew this. Because he was among a handful of people know a the silver-eyed troops. A person capable of feeling nothing.
As such the Ursa was a beast that relied on its eyesight and ability to sense emotion to know where its prey was at, normally long before its prey know of it. But when its opponent was smart enough to invade its sight and strong enough to not feel anything, it uttered a surprised growl when a spear tore through its jaw and slammed against the top of its skull. Stark pulled his spear out and re-erected his shield. A thin smile played across his lips as he made his way back to camp.
Stark found himself back at camp not too long after his run in with the Ursa. Tecaelis had partially dug into the steep cliffs that protruded from the otherwise flat landscape. With the rocks he had removed he built a makeshift wall just short of a meter tall. Enough to keep their campfire hidden. It was their first and only campfire. Once they're in the cliffs, they're in Mistral's domain and a warm fire is too much of a risk.
"Don't stop talking on my account," Stark said as he entered the unusually quiet campsite. Tecaelis was huddled around the fire fiddling with something that looked vaguely like a robotic leg. If that leg had been crushed once or twice. Lucas was lying on his back, smoking as he stared up at the sky. To took out his cigarette to answer him,
"Is this the part where we all talk about our lives before the enlistment. You expect us to be that buddy-buddy after two days of knowing each other?" Stark shrugged and took a seat by the fire.
"I don't see why a not, we are going to go through a lot of nights like this anyway, might as well pass the time somehow." Lucas cast a side glance and him and took another puff of his cigarette. Stark stared at him for a moment in silence. When no one else said anything, Stark stated,
"My father was a miner down in the pits. Was the lucky man to get picked by the foreman for a special task to oversee a special mining project. During that time the personal assistant of the Royal Treasurer found him and took a liking to the man. Got him one of those nice soft jobs moving boxes in an office building."
"My father was the Overseer on the northern scouting camp," Tecaelis said without so much as a pause from the end of Stark's story. "My mother was the daughter of one of those noble women in charge of the northern region." Tecaelis smiled as he gave his screwdriver another twist. "Heh, my father always told me my mother would get me out of the enlistment, maybe even set me up with taking the entrance exam for those hunters. But then some cousin of The Queen start asking for some land around the time The Queen needed to declare another colony mission. And you know how those Royal's are, the scouting regiments are always the first to go on those missions. They sent him and his men out to The Talons ten years ago and haven't heard from him since." Lucas snorted.
"You were going to try to be a hunter?" He asked. "The way I hear it is that the last man they let in their ranks was twenty years ago, and that was only because he was The Queen's grandchild or some em' like that."
"Then how about you?" Stark prodded. "What's your story?" Lucas rolled his eyes and sat up.
"Nothing special. My father was a whore, one of those livestock men The Royals keep around. My mother had him locked away for getting her pregnant and pretty much ignored me till it came time for me to enlist."
"No father," Stark said, "That has to be rough."
"Hardly," Lucas snorted. "I have more of a choice after enlistment than you fools do." Stark and Tecaelis glanced at each other. "Now if y'all's circle time over over, I'm gonna turn in for the night." Lucas dashed his cigarette and laid back down, turning his back to the fire. Apparently, that counted as 'turning in'. Tecaelis went back to focusing on the robotic appendage. With nothing else to say or no reason to say it, Stark frowned at them and walked away. At least he could pass the time by patrolling the area for more Grimm. The creatures were nothing if not persistent. Or rather, nothing if not numerous.
Thousands of miles away over the sea in a dark corner of Vale, Michael Arc was strapped down to a table while dozens of women scientists ran about the lab double checking everything. Michael waited patiently like this was nothing new, because, in truth, it wasn't.
"Hello, Mr. Arc." A pleasant voice said. Michael looked up to see a woman with blonde hair, a clipboard, and a lab coat standing in front of him. "I am Dr. Ion and I am going to be running you through today's procedure." She motioned to an assistant standing nearby. The shy looking girl brought up a small brown case. Dr. Ion opened the case to reveal a couple dozen dull grey rings. "Are you aware of what these are Mr. Arc?" Michael nodded his head as best he could in the restraints.
"Those are the rings the hunters always wear are they?" Dr. Ion smiled.
"Yes exactly. And I'm sure you're aware of what they do, correct?"
"Uh, don't they make someone stronger?"
"In a sense. They increase the power of someone's aura as well as give them a finer control over it." She reached into the box and pulled out another ring, this one had a different design across its face. "These rings increase the speed at which one's aura regenerates. No one knows how these work, or even who created them, but we have recreated them countless times." Dr. Ion returned the ring to the case.
"We have discovered," Dr. Ion continued, "That aura tends to travel across the body in special ways. We are going to trace your aura pathways and implant these rings in special locations that we believe the aura is pooling or being released from."
"Okay…" Michael said slowly.
"The issue is how we are going to map the path your aura takes. The implant in the back of your neck plays a vital role." A small circular disk that was attached to the base of his neck was hooked into something her couldn't see. Some sort of wire or cord as far as he could tell. "You see, while we were talking we have been talking, we have poured thunder Dust down your spinal cord and up you brain stem. We are going activate this Dust to stimulate your entire nervous system, which will, in turn, give us a clear few of your body's systems. Then as the Dust continues your aura should activate." Michael nodded sullenly. It sounded… unpleasant. "And there is one more issue. Aura can be a fickle thing, it doesn't always present in the same ways twice, so we are going to have to do this test a few dozen times to determine the common places your aura always passes by." Michael visibly paled but before he could say anything the doctor spun on her heels and shouted something at the team of scientist.
There was a slight buzz in the back of his head. His right hand twitched. Suddenly every muscle in his body pulled tight. And then the screaming started.
Stark led them crouching through tall weeds and grass as they made their way through the entrance of the canyon. The Grimm grew more sparse as the approached and by now they haven't seen one for hours. Suddenly Stark froze in place and waited a moment. He motioned them to move left dropped to his stomach. They moved as silently as they could through the brush for a few meters. Stark went back to a crouching stance and they continued until they were hugging face of the cliff.
"Black, you're up." Stark motioned him forward. The sniper grunted something in return and crawled up to the corner and peeked around through his scope.
Around the cliff side was a stout wall stretching the gap between the two cliff faces. Three men in flat grey and black uniforms walked the walls. One of them operated a spotlight with some sort of cannon attached to it. The wall had the claw marks of several types of Grimm across it. Even a few decaying feathers of a Nevermore.
"How many can you take out without them noticing?" Stark asked. Lucas smirked.
"All of them." There was a faint glow from Lucas as his black aura flared up around him and then dimmed to something barely noticeable. He stared through his scope and waited. Nearly a full minute had passed by when Tecaelis opened his mouth to ask what he was waiting for. But he found he wasn't making any noise, he put a hand to his throat in brief panic. Then realised nothing was making noise, not them or the grass. Tecaelis bruised his hand slamming it against the cliff face just to trying and hear something.
Suddenly Lucas fired a shot, and then another, and then another. But his incredibly powerful gun didn't so much a make a pop. It was dead silent when it should have echoed across the cannon. One more shot later and the last man fell, but Lucas didn't move. He waited another thirty seconds and then fired three more shots. Lucas dropped his rifle and his aura and looked to Stark.
"Move up!" Stark said as he rushed into a standing position. Tecaelis summoned out two clouds of metal bits and joined them in the rush forward. Stark immediately threw up a shield, this one was bright gold. "Blind them!" He barked at Lucas. Lucas held up a hand and extremely bright white light burst forward. They ran for the wall and were about at the base when Lucas' light screen faded.
"Schnee, your turn!" Stark felt an odd sensation as the telekinetic power wrapped around him. With one hand Tecaelis was controlling a set of stairs he was walking up, with his other he was carrying the two of them up the wall.
Lucas had his sniper rifle away and his revolver out before he even landed when Tecaelis released him. He hit the ground running and darted down the steps into the main compound. Stark held out his arm to stop Tecaelis from chasing after him. They saw a series of bright flashes down below, but all the sound had disappeared again. After one particularly bright flash, the firing stopped and Lucas emerged, slowly reloading his revolver.
"All clear down there." He said. Then he looked up at Stark. "We stopping for lunch? They were cooking up some ribs down there."