"In total we estimated they got around twenty-thousand people out. Mostly children. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than anyone else did. By the time I got to Vale, even pushing my ships as hard as they would go, the Kingdom was a graveyard. Mountain Glenn at least had had a few buildings left standing as nests for the Grimm. In Vale proper it was hard to see if there were even a single brick stacked atop another," said Ironwood, as he took in a deep breath.
"Glynda and Beacon's staff gave as much as they could. It was obvious they'd tried to shelter people in the underground bunkers beneath the school. But those were known to the Grimm, and worse, they hadn't been inspected or maintained for decades. The walls were simply not as strong as they might have been, and in the end, we found no survivors, and merely scattered a few Grimm, before being forced to retreat lest we ourselves be overwhelmed," he let out a sigh at that memory, and wanting so much to have a weapon capable of killing them all, and not.
"The fallout of the Fall of Vale was months in the making. The Councils of Mistral and Atlas accused the White Fang of abandoning that city to die for petty reasons. After all, the Grimm Ward was powerful, was she not? Could she not have held that kingdom for a few more hours at least? I tried to silence the loudest voices, and when they tried to remove me for doing so, I removed them instead, by force of arms," he smiled at the memory of a toad of a woman, telling him no one else would stand for him 'seizing power' like this. Her death was listed as a legitimate execution of a traitor, and not a soul mourned her.
"Menagerie ignored it, of course. Petty? It was the death of a generation, and while they could fix some of those affected, most will never see a child with their own blood. Worse, when they tried to 'return' the human children to the Kingdoms, we rejected them. Too much risk of agents mixed in, too indebted to the Fang for their lives. Atlas couldn't risk it, Mistral wouldn't, and Vauco lacked the resources," he sounded, for a moment, ashamed of what he'd said, but the General shook his head and straightened up now.
"You would be surprised how quickly the world slowly came to stabilize after that. The loss of a Kingdom, of a significant percent of the total human population, and in six months, it would be hard to tell. The Network was modified so we could use it if even one major tower was up, and we went on with our lives. As you once told me, people can adapt to anything, and it seemed they'd done it here," he actually sounded prideful about that, despite the horror of what had happened.
"Then Mistral fell. Lionheart…he betrayed us all. The Grimm came, and this time there was no doubt that it was her hand guiding them. Her 'generals' led the forces of Grimm towards Mistral's borders, and the huntsmen and huntresses fell by the hundreds as Lionheart sent them out on suicide missions back to back, eventually whittling them down, and allowing the Kingdom's own capital to come under siege," the pride leaked from his voice, and his eyes turned blank for a moment as he spoke of that time.
"Salem had come to him in secret, had offered him something. I don't know what it was, but her allies betrayed him the moment they had the Relic of Knowledge, taking it, and its one question, to Salem herself. We only found out about most of the events afterwards from a few survivors. As it was, we didn't get much beyond his shock when they killed him, and the sheer pandemonium that followed," that got another long sigh out of him.
"In total, it took only seven months from the Fall of Vale for the Fall of Mistral. Every outlying settlement was devastated, but never obviously, and with Lionheart keeping the lid on things, we didn't even know anything was wrong until the end, and neither Vauco nor Atlas could offer much in aid. I heard that Menagerie tried to, but by the time they'd gotten assembled, it was doubtful there was anyone left, Faunus or human, to save on that whole continent," he leaned back in his chair at that, and Ozma looked at him across the desk, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm shocked that Raven didn't fight back hard enough to be noticed. Independent as she was, you'd think her village being in danger would have motivated her to seek aid," he said, voicing his opinion, and strangely, Ironwood's first response was a dark chuckle, as he leaned forward in his chair, the thing creaking heavily beneath him.
"She failed to make any sort of noise because, by the time this all happened, over a year after your death, she'd been dead herself for several months," he said, smiling to himself. He'd never liked Qrow or Ozpin's other allies, but Raven? Qrow at least tried to behave like a civilized person. Raven was a bandit and barbarian, and when it looked obvious that Ozma would question him, Ironwood answered him without being asked.
"During their tussle at the dockyards in Vale, Null was able to fight Raven. His descriptions of the battle were…uninformative, but one thing we learned was that he was able to injure her gravely at one point, putting a bullet through one of her legs. Apparently, after being driven off by the illusion maker, she returned to her mudhut village, to try and recover from the battle," he was chuckling again, picturing her stumbling into a primitive gathering…though he was aware they lived less so than what he saw in his mind, it was still a gratification he allowed himself.
"We found out from one of her people who tried to contact Qrow later that she never did get the wound treated. She trusted her Aura to heal the thing, never realizing how easily something like that would get infected. By the time she was bad enough to seek aid, it was too late, and she died. With Qrow dead as well, Mistral decided to 'deal' with the bandits, and that was why he came looking, to confirm what had happened to Qrow. Regardless, it was the end of the Bandit Clan Branwen," and the world was all the better for it, being the unspoken next statement.
"After the Fall of yet another Kingdom, we knew Vauco or Atlas would be the next target. We tried to involve Menagerie in a group defense sort of thing, with the obvious signs of organization from the Grimm, but they rejected working with Atlas out of hand, regardless of the cries that we'd been undergoing reforms. I can't blame them, especially when the 'diplomatic professional' called them animals to their faces, and told them to 'fall into line'," he said the two phrases with all the bile he could still muster.
"It was only when the forces of Grimm were spotted in the outlying regions that we knew Vauco was the next to fall. We tried to stop it, of course. Atlas sent aid, and Menagerie offered to evacuate the Faunus, but Vauco was different from any of the other Kingdoms. They refused to leave, and when the tide came, they put up a one hell of a fight," he wanted to be less happy than he was, but he was still proud of his species for that last stand, of the gaps they made in the army of monsters, before being overrun in the end.
"It took weeks of hard fighting to take them out. In that time, Salem's 'Generals', including that bastard Watts, were killed, leading forces that seemed insurmountable right up until the moment someone smashed them. Those fights were played on repeat to boost the moral of the whole world, to try and give everyone hope, but even without humans to drive them, the forces of Grimm came on like a tide, and washed away the third Kingdom, their relic claimed by some abomination who tore it from the hand of its wielder," he shuddered a little, remembering the fight. Whole swathes of destruction torn through the army, and all for nothing as they failed to keep them back.
"What of Team RWBY? If Ruby Rose lives, we can still…" began the old soul, only to stare right into Ironwood's eyes, and realize that he'd misspoken.
"After all of this, you think she'd listen to you? After you had us abandon her, even did whatever it was that kept Qrow away from her, and yes he knew that was you, you think she'd help us now?" he asked, and Ozma looked back.
"I made a choice, a wrong one, I'll admit now. Amber was the more important weapon, the more useful one, but my intention was that Chivalric Arms would not harm her, not when they thought we might trade Amber for her. If Qrow had gone in, in his mental state, there's no telling what might have happened," he explained, admitting to what he'd done without facing it directly.
"It was certainly the wrong choice. Regardless, it matters little now. Qrow is dead. Raven is dead. Team RWBY was dead before all of that though. They lasted exactly three months after your death," he said, casually, like it was just a bit of the weather, and Ozpin was brought up short by the admission, his mind rolling it over and over again, as his last possible weapon had left him behind long ago.
"How?" was all he said, as he took in the enormity of that statement, of how much it changed things, to have no possible way of winning now.
"Honestly? I told Vauco's headmaster that they had forces after them, that special care should be taken with them, and they should never be left alone. But you know Vauco, it values personal strength, and part of their evaluation for even entering the Academy is a five day survival in the desert outside the city walls," he said, closing his eyes for a moment, as if trying to recall all the details.
"Back then, I got the report, and it…pleased Null to hear it. It was the first, and only time when he was in my employ that he allowed himself to feel it. And before you ask, I don't know who got to them. Their camp was raided and they were…made examples of. Their bodies left there in various states of mutilation, showing they tried to fight back, for all that it mattered in the end," Ironwood sighed again, he was doing that a lot in this conversation.
"Vauco tried to investigate, obviously. These were prime Huntress material, and one of them was the daughter of the Schnee family. But they were alone out there, and while the White Fang was ultimately blamed, we both know there are at least two other groups who didn't shed a tear when those girls blood was spilled on the sand," he said simply, not accusatory this time, as he had failed them as much as Ozpin, but still.
And thus they sat in silence for a while, as Ozma absorbed all of that. There was no need to say that Vauco and Atlas had fallen, after all, that was the first thing Ironwood had said, and Ozma was not one to force him to relieve the details of his beloved home being overrun by monsters. He could imagine it, imagine them running rampant in the streets, forcing the people of Atlas to retreat or die, and even then, the first would inevitably lead to the second.
"At least the world is safe from Salem's designs. My death, and the destruction of the Fall Maiden's power, ensured that much at least," he said, and Ironwood sucked in a breath through his nose, before sighing it back out, and then rubbing the bridge of it.
"Please tell me you weren't always this stupid Ozpin…if I thought for a minute you were, I'd have to rethink supporting you for all those years," he said, as the old soul looked at him across the desk in confusion, making him sigh yet again, as he leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him.
"Ozpin, you turned the greatest weapon in the world against the human race, handing it on a silver platter to the faunus. You told it all the little secrets and plans, and showed it no one in the world would ever be on its side," he explained, and Ozma sat there, still confused by what he was talking about, making him finally place his hands on his face and pull a bit, as if trying to wipe something off them.
"Okay, another track. The Vaults, the perfectly secure holding places, distortions in space you called them. You said they could only be opened with a Maiden's power, correct?" he asked, and Ozma nodded, blankly, still not seeing where this was going.
"That power, you made it, you made the Vaults…there are some semantics around it, but they still boil down to you created both to help with your plans, correct?" he asked, and Ozma nodded again, stopping for just a moment, when his mind started to make the connections.
"No…no… .nononono," he didn't shout, he whispered, the word repeating over and over again, as he held his hands in his head, and then just started shaking them, trying to clear his mind of the images it was treacherously providing him.