Chapter 6: Bird's Eye: Part 2

It took him a solid five minutes to stomach the horrible sweetness of this… girly… red drink. His friend remained mostly quiet, preferring instead to just watch the weathered old huntsman. A long, low rumble from far overhead penetrated the ambient buzz that usually filled the tavern. As if someone had planned this moment, she turned to look out the window. Qrow noticed this, and turned in the same direction.

"Darkness is spreading throughout Remnant, how appropriate then, that a thunderstorm interrupts your story. Energy concentrated into brilliant flashes of light… surrounded by danger and the unknown." She said, ever so delicately describing the last moments of Qrow's tale.

"You read too many books. Or you don't get out enough. Probably both… aaaand it's been raining for… six hours." Qrow turned away from the window, looking at his friend, "How long have you been here? And how did you not notice me walk in here soaking wet?"

She let a quiet laugh slip, "Oh, Qrow. Some day you'll realize that the world doesn't revolve around you. But in the meantime, I need to watch my own back, when I'm not already watching yours."

"Not likely. My world revolves around me, and to be honest, I don't care much about many other people's worlds. " he said in a way that made his friend cringe a bit, even though she understood completely. "So, should I continue?"

She nodded in the affirmative, then waved the bartender over. "Another one for him... I'll have what he's having." Qrow's mouth hung slightly ajar for a moment. She continued, "You're going to end up drinking mine anyway, I figured I'd make it easy on you." He knew it was probably true, shaking his head slowly, smiling. Thankful that he'd be spared another round of red death, he wondered what chemicals it would take to remove the taste of the last drink from his mouth.

Our ship flew high, over the docks at Beacon. I could see the last of the evacuating students being loaded onto the last transport ship below. Part of my job was to help with the evacuation, but it looked like that was under control, so I made the decision to scrap that part of the mission. Honestly, I was more interested in the flash of light, and how I could help Ozpin. That's when things started to make...a lot less sense. I had been looking out of a side window on the ship, so when I turned to the front of the ship, I noticed all of the other soldiers crowded around the cockpit.

So remember that Grimmzilla from before? It was perched on top of the tower. Just sitting there. Perfectly still. I thought it was strange, but I'm not an expert on the behavior patterns of giant Grimm. The pilot, apparently... was. He told us that he wasn't bringing us any closer than that, so we sat down a few hundred yards from the tower.

When the co-pilot lowered the gate, it was like stepping onto a battlefield. It actually caught me off guard. The docks, where all of the students had gathered looked completely serene in comparison to this. There were bodies all over the place. Most of them were dressed in their White Fang garbs, but there were Atlesian soldiers, as well as those robots scattered in pieces everywhere. Some students must've been caught up in the melee, because some of the bodies wore school uniforms.

The victorious faction seemed to be the Grimm. There were no active White Fang Units around as far as I could tell. Several large packs roamed at the base of the tower, which was still a good distance away. Smaller groups were closer to our ship, and Ironwood's men set to clearing them out. None of us were really sure how to handle the big one on top of the tower. It just sat there as a grim reminder…No pun intended… that we weren't welcome here any more. It was a tangible feeling, though I couldn't put a finger on why. I'd spent the better part of the last week in and around Beacon, but this was the first time I felt like I was in any real danger.

Once some of the smaller Grimm were cleared out, I threw out some fancy hand signals to communicate to the other men to follow me. I did my best to look like I had actually led soldiers into battle before. Must've been convincing. The four or five soldiers felt like I knew what I was doing... Or they assumed that if they didn't follow, I'd drag them with me… Both accurate assumptions. To my surprise, they were actually capable enough to take down the smaller ones on their own. I took care of anything bigger than an Ursa.

"So how many did you lose?"

Please... I'm a professional… … ... Only one or two.

"Out of five? You're a monster."

Overruled. I'm a huntsman. The Grimm are the monsters... Anyway… it didn't take long, maybe ten minutes at the most, to clear a path to the base of the tower. The doors were closed, but not locked, so we made our way inside. The interior was a mess... And it was dark. Whenever the CCTS was taken offline, it must have also taken out the power to the building. I don't know, I'm not an electrician. The first thing to catch my attention was an entire elevator shaft that was warped out of its normal shape, everything within the shaft charred. It was the only elevator that had access to the vault. Figures. I approached the opened elevator doors, and peered over the edge. There was a faint glow coming from the exit at the bottom. It looked like fire, or maybe just the torches, but from that distance I couldn't tell.

I thought for a moment about how I was going to get down there. Not because I wasn't capable of some kind of close-quarters landing strategy, but the soldiers I was with? No way.

"You mean you didn't just shove them down the shaft?"

I didn't get a chance to. As I stared down at the glowing room hundreds of feet below me, I felt moisture fall on the back of my neck. My instincts kicked in, but the over-sized griffon was just too close. Must've been hiding right above me in the elevator shaft. It's my own stupid fault for not being more thorough. The force of its lunge tipped me off balance and into the elevator shaft. So now I was falling, great. As quickly as someone of my skill could manage, I unsheathed my weapon, sword form, and dug it into the wall of the elevator shaft. I probably stopped my fall about halfway down. The griffon must have fallen further down, unable to spread its wings to fly in the cramped quarters.

I called for the soldiers to see if I could get some help. No one responded. So I called out again. Nothing. A few moments passed before I saw the head of another, larger griffon peer over the edge, where I'd been mere moments before. It let out a loud screech. The echo was chilling, but not as chilling as the dozens of pairs of red eyes that lit up in the shaft above me. Apparently, these pests had chosen the elevator shaft to nest, or rest, or something else that rhymes with that. Infest?

"Are you going somewhere with that?"

No. I do these things just to aggravate you. Moving...along… I anticipated that I might have to ditch my weapon and drop down to get away from these things. I was right. All of them started to climb down the walls of the enclosure. I didn't think the Grimm learned very quickly, but I guess watching their comrade just fall to its death does that for you. I quickly tried to pry my sword free from the metal walls, but in the limited space available, I couldn't get enough leverage. The griffons were getting closer, so I let go of the hilt and tried to wall jump my way down. The warped frame made it a little easier to do, but it wasn't fast. Even still, the Grimm weren't as fast as crafty old Qrow. Redact that, I'm not old.

Then, my powers of observation kicked in. I cursed the poor timing of their activation, wishing it'd been two minutes sooner. The large griffon that came after me first wasn't lying dead below me. It had apparently survived the fall, crawled out the vault door, and was now blocking my exit. I could tell it had seen better days. The thing was not putting any weight on the right claw, its wings were all crooked, and some of it's claws were clearly broken. That's the good news. Here's the bad news. It was easily twice the size of the ones descending upon me. It screeched loudly, no more than five feet from my face. The saliva flew in my face. I think I even got some in my mouth. Still tasted better than your red death cocktails.

"I'll give you a red death…"

The way things looked for me, you almost wouldn't have to. I was like a fish in a barrel, cornered in that elevator. It lunged forward, head down, body stiff as a board. I think it tried to crush me against the back wall. I jumped straight up, out of the way. It was a great move, you should've seen it. I saw the griffon smash into the wall below me, then recoil in some combination of pain and anger. I landed just as it swiped at me with its left claw. I was able to parry it with my arm, but it took a lot out of me to block with no weapon. And the weight of a small griffon falling fifty feet onto my head took the rest out of me. Apparently it's true that young Grimm are stupid.

So here I am, on death's doorstep, not out of the fight, but pinned under a small griffon, with a very large one lining up a strike with it's beak. I saw it take one step back, ready to charge, quickly went over my options, and did the only thing I could. My left arm was free, so I reached into my pocket for my flask, and pitched it as hard as I could at it's face.

"Aren't griffons armored around their heads?"

Yeeeeeep. It was a heat of the moment thing. The griffon screeched again, as if to try to explain how stupid I was. But I'm not stupid. Stupid means not finishing your opponent when you had a chance. I was just about free from under the nearly dead Grimm lying on top of me when the big one reared back to its hind legs, intent on finishing me with those front claws. Then, it happened.

I'm enough of a man to admit that I have my shortcomings. I don't like to ask for help, so I usually don't. And in this case… well... I still didn't. but when the monster screeched again… still on its hind legs, it was a different tone. It wasn't saying "Hey, I beat you and you're gonna be dead soon", it was more like "Hey, I'm a big stupid horse bird cat thing that doesn't pay attention to its surroundings." It happened fast. Like 'I barely even saw it' fast. But my foe now had a rapier sticking through its mouth, and a young Schnee clutching to it's neck feathers. She used her signature glyphs to inflict a dozen more stab wounds on the beast, before quickly helping me lift the crippled griffon off of me. She activated her glyphs again to get us clear of the elevator doors in a hurry.

"You know, this means you owe me…like… big time.", Weiss said.

"Whatever you say..." I stopped myself. She's not the Ice Queen. What do I call her…? Ice Princess? Nah, that's really convoluted. Then it hit me. "...Wice."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. You called her Wice? Like, W-I-C-E. That sounds exactly the same as her name."

"I know. It's just so perfect. She'll never even know how clever I'm being. But I'll know." Qrow said, clearly proud of himself. "Wice… Nice." He smiled silently for a moment, admiring his creativity. Then he heard a glass hit the bar counter.

"Sorry, I need to forget that one." His friend insisted, before starting into the second drink she'd ordered for him earlier. "If I remember… 'Wice'... in the morning, you've failed me as an enabler." She finished the second drink. "Two more barkeep, Thank you." Then turned back to Qrow, "Where were we…?"

She blinked, several times. "Did you actually just call me Weiss? I didn't think you had it in you to be civilized." the heiress said, still visibly surprised.

I smiled and shrugged, but not for the reasons she probably assumed. "I'd take some time to thank you, but there's more of those things coming."

"Right!" She responded. Clearly she liked my new nickname for her. Wice ran to the elevator door, and planted her rapier in the ground, creating a wall of ice large enough to cover the entrance. "That should hold them until we can talk about some… things…" I thought I was going to have to give her 'the talk' until she reached behind her back to her weapon holster, and things got really serious. "Here… I found this down here... I don't know what it means, but I think… I think… I…" She put her head down and her hands out, clearly trying to hide her anguish as she handed me Oz's cane.

The snarky smile I had from before vanished in an instant. "Where did you get this?" I thought about the weight of what I'd just asked, and instead put a hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. We're safe down here now. Everything's gonna be alright."

She looked up, still clearly distressed. "Nothing is alright!" she cried, "Wherever we are, this place, is a nightmare!" I met her eyes as she finished her thought. For no more than a second, we shared a gaze, before she turned her head and just looked down the long hallway.

I looked past her, and learned exactly why I didn't feel welcome there any more. Past the younger Schnee, past all of the side corridors and pillars… I saw her. Resting silently, but not peacefully. A single arrow piercing her chest.

"Checkmate"