CHAPTER 7 – Père & Fils
Alone upon the stairs of the cabin's porch sat Meg Scarlatina.
She was slouched forward, elbows upon her knees, eyes glassy, dimmed, and downcast, interrogating the ground for something to make sense of the world again.
Sitting there she had no choice but to confront what she now knew to be, most likely, true: Grimm were people.
Or at the very least some of them were, which put a rather horrific lens retroactively on her entire education, career, and purpose in life to which she'd dedicated more than a decade.
By blade, bullet, Dust, and every weapon of opportunity that presented itself had Meg killed hundreds upon hundreds of Grimm.
Her record was a sterling one. The total of her kill count most likely lay between fifteen hundred and two thousand of the beasts slain.
She did not know the true number because Meg Scarlatina did not become a Huntress for the vain glory of metaphorically standing atop a mountain of monsters.
She had become a Huntress to save people and make a positive difference in the world.
Meg gently pressed the balls of her wrists into her eyes.
There was no possibility statistically, based on her knowledge, all the Grimm she had slain were animus.
It was that same limited knowledge that couldn't tell her how many were upon that precipice.
Just because that was one unanswerable question among dozens of others, such as whether or not animus even were analogous to faunus or humans, did not stop them from sprouting in her mind.
What if they were going to be just as bestially destructive anyway, merely in another form?
The world already had too many monsters in the shape of men did it not?
To her, that train of thought was ultimately a justification. A deflection.
Something that only the guilty needed to salve their shriveled moral conscience.
'How many almost people did I murder?'
On and on the woman thought herself in circles that led her to worse conclusions of her personage, life efforts, and the world itself with each circuit.
When Meg attempted to derail one line of thinking to escape the pessimism and misery she only managed to land on another, deluded into believing she had escaped the cycle, to then jump the track again in one grand overarching circular mind trap of self-destruction.
She was no fool, she knew the machinations of her soul and how to best them.
Trepidatiously, Meg slipped her Scroll from her pocket then stopped, frozen at that crossroads of those lost in the wallowing fog of self-pity, both wanting and not wanting what she knew would aid her.
Logic won out to force from her an act of self-care, and Scarlatina slid her thumb across the screen to reveal the image set as the wallpaper on her Scroll.
Frozen in time was a faunus girl with rabbit ears just like her mother's, waist length hickory brown hair frozen mid jostle by laughter captured just as the picture was taken.
'She's got your eyes Will, down to that warmth when she's happy…'
It was a self-contained contagious spark of wholesomeness.
Warmth spread through her chest at seeing that image again after all the chaos of the previous day.
It grounded Meg, helped her narrow her focus to begin critically thinking about what this all meant for her… and her family.
Meg was now part of a clandestine group with knowledge that could quake the pillars of every society on the face of Remnant, and they barely comprehended what that information meant.
Her, her daughter, her family, her friends, all of them were at risk for her taking part in this.
This… would change everything for her. Meg's plans, goals, and the very way she perceived the world to be were in a state of flux.
She hated the uncertainty of it all with a passion.
So, taking a steadying breath in, she began trying to bring order to this chaos.
'What happens after this op?'
The long dormant thought of retirement resurfaced.
Being able to stay at home and be a mother to her daughter was such an appealing thought that it temporarily trounced the obligation she felt to keep fighting.
But only for a moment. She had no skills of value beyond being a Huntress, money was always factor, and although it agonized her to admit it, Meg didn't want to retire.
She wanted to spend time with her daughter, but that didn't mean she also wanted to stop living this lifestyle.
A familiar flavor of a particular guilt soured Scarlatina's expression.
Her marriage ended for multiple causes, chief among them irreconcilable differences in worldview with her ex-husband… but to say Meg's profession didn't play at least some role would facetious.
A lie.
Scarlatinas' hated nothing more than lies.
Even ones that make sleeping at night and getting out of bed in the morning easier.
"Not going down that route again," she audibly repeated a few times whilst massaging her temples.
Blinking away the pain from an annoying flicker of light, Meg chuckled hollowly, "The world's upside down right now mister sunrise, didn't you get the memo?"
She looked up from the ground for the first time in far too long.
Sunlight danced through the tree canopy, a caress of a comforting heat was being carried through the crisply humid air, emphasizing just how clean it felt to breathe.
The sunrise wreathed the horizon in orange and gold as the last vestiges of the inky black of night was overtaken by the pale blue of sky.
The pillaring, towering cloud formation of the retreating storm in the distance was illuminated in all its splendor like a mountainous temple to the Gods, hewn of gray and white marble that flowed like mist, hung low above the earth to tantalize mortals with a vision of heavens that would slip between their fingers if grasped.
Meg was enraptured by this sight that stole her away from all doubt, fear, and worry.
She suddenly gasped in a lungful of the morning air, forgetting to breath in her trance.
By their nature, the smog choked skies above Vale City couldn't bequeath views of such clarity.
Meg almost never took missions or operations that wouldn't see her home in short order, in effort to return to her daughter at earliest possibility, and she had not realized how long it had been since she last witnessed such a sight of natural beauty.
'If Velvet could see this-'
Meg clumsily fumbled with the device in her hands for moment, remembering that there was, in fact, a camera in her Scroll.
She took a picture at as wide of an angle as she could.
The low tiny low-quality lens couldn't capture a quarter of the spectacle before her… but it was enough to share with her daughter.
She would have to content herself with that, as Meg's reprieve ended there.
As they had not called for help and approached alone there was only one conclusion.
The operation would continue.
Their objective was still at large somewhere in a sea of leaves.
That forest, so beautiful seconds ago, now felt immense, impossible, and eldritch in the face of finding one Beowulve hidden in its depths.
/\/\/\
His mind was adrift from both boredom and exhaustion.
Qrow Branwen stared at the stranger lying on his friend's couch, resisting the sudden urge rising from the depths of his mind to poke the side of the man's face.
The capture team was arrayed about Taiyang's living room once again to consolidate information and decide on the next course of action.
Anne was giving Meg and Port a summary of where the two had searched. Qrow had taken this opportunity to let his mind wander while Greene clinically outlined everything.
This was a mistake, as without focus his naturally chaotic whims acted up, hence his present dilemma.
Meanwhile, Taiyang tamped down on a towel to soak up the water from the laundry basket he'd forgotten next to the fireplace, his features scrunched up in annoyance with himself.
The hum of the dryer in the space beneath the stairs compounded the fog in Qrow's mind, his eyelids drooping at its droning hum.
While thirty hours was not the longest he'd stayed awake on an operation, and it would be some time more before he felt unfit for duty, the man was nonetheless exhausted.
'No. No, stay awake man. What was I thinking about again?'
Looking down at his hand, his eyebrows twitched upwards in remembrance, shifting his gaze back to the 'guest.'
The man's skin was no longer sickly pale as it was when they had arrived the previous night, regaining the pinkish tan of a healthy man's complexion from his rest.
Despite the ludicrousness of his ruminations at the moment, Qrow was still noting every perceptible detail, some more consciously than others.
'Skin tone is ethnicity from Eastern Sanus or somewhere up in Solitas... if that means anything when dealing with animus.'
Qrow flexed his fingers one by one and narrowed his eyes contemplatively, before ultimately deciding against the urge.
'This isn't worth losing a digit for. Not when he's got those chompers.'
He discretely returned his attention to his teammates to avoid them noticing their leader was mentally absent in this discussion.
Everyone was staring at him, some misfortunately timed question he had not heard clearly directed at him.
'SHIT,' Qrow shook his head to exaggerate his tiredness, "Sorry, little out of it, run that by me again?"
Anne, leaning against the edge of the mantlepiece, said, "Pete and Meg are up to speed. Peter brought up a good point. What happens if the bear wakes up?"
"The bea-?" Branwen started quizzically before realizing Anne had gestured to the couch, "Shit, that is a good question. We were supposed to have them back at Beacon by now…"
He rubbed the stubble on his chin, "What can we expect from the guy once he's conscious, Grimm Science Man?"
Port elected to ignore Qrow's creative new cognomen for him, "We're currently making history, which is a nice way of saying I haven't the foggiest notion. There's no way to gauge his personality… and he may or may not even be able to speak, if he's functionally an animal that only just became a person."
Branwen shook his head, "We knew to expect that from protocol for this scenario. I'm not talking about personality, I'm talking capabilities, specifically the violent ones."
Taiyang suddenly cut in, "I'm going to take the girls into town for breakfast today. Also errands! Which are going to take the exact amount of time for this to be dealt with. And afterward you'll call me when it is safe to come back to my house that will still be standing and belongings that will not be broken. Sound good?"
There was ice in his tone again, suppressed but still very present, and the final statement was pronounced with a latent aggression that made it absolutely clear this was not a request.
Qrow swallowed nervously, "Will do."
As Taiyang walked over to the space beneath the stairs to deal with laundry, Qrow switched his focus back to Port, "Just give me your best guess. What do we need to be ready for if he wakes up pissed?"
"Expect enhanced strength. Superhumanly so. It is either Aura or some other unknown enhancement, but if it is Aura, we cannot rule out the possibility of a Semblance. Be prepared for both potentially."
Meg sighed, "That's basically saying be prepared for anythin' but all right then."
Port shrugged apologetically before continuing, "They are often described as shapeshifters, if that helps narrow the potentialities for you."
Anne, after drinking deeply from her field canteen, asked, "Lest we forget the reason these things are so important. They can control Grimm. What can we expect from that?"
"Patch's black beasts don't leave the depths of the woods as they're too weak and uncoordinated…" Port's mustache twitched as he thought through the problem. "If he can command them at this distance, which is no guarantee, it would take time for any Grimm he did enthrall to reach here. More than enough for us to withdraw and call for reinforcements to apprehend him later."
"Any way of telling if he's summoned any Grimm before they're knocking at the front door?" Anne said, walking towards the kitchen to top off her canteen.
Peter sighed, "Not that I can think of. I would say the basic plan should be loosely thus: De-escalation would be the preferred outcome if he awakes violent. Should he summon Grimm retreat to get reinforcements. Worst case we kill him if need be… I'm not advancing my field of study by letting an incursion occur on Patch."
Qrow's eyes were closed in contemplation before he nodded to himself, stood up, and addressed the team, "Okay. Here's the new gameplan. Until bear guts wakes up, we have two people watching him. Port, Anne, you two have the edge expertise wise to track down that Beowulve. Gear up and head out. Meg, you and I are on guard duty."
He pulled his Scroll from his pocket, "I'm calling Oz to get Oobleck over here so we have an extra set of hands to get this job done. Once Bart's here to tag out with me I'll join the search party. Understood?"
"Yes," resounded from everyone present, save Taiyang, who was actively ignoring the proceedings.
Anne returned from the kitchen with her canteen and began gathering her equipment in the foyer.
Port went the opposite direction to the kitchen table to pack his journal and gear into his bag.
Meg stood up and attached her falchions to either hip, paused for a moment, then sat back down resignedly.
Qrow watched this all unfold approvingly as he waited through the dial tone on his Scroll.
"Oz? Tell Bart to get his doctorate having ass on a Bullhead bound for Patch. Here's the situation."
/\/\/\
Two hours into their search, Peter Port and Anne Greene had found nothing as to the whereabouts of their target despite splitting up to cover more ground.
Remaining in contact via their earpieces, they mutually settled upon doubling back to points of interest to inspect for leads.
Anne had resolved to return to the cliffside clearing where she had lost the Beowulve.
Roughly fifty yards across and sixty yards long, details once obscured on the treeless expanse were now visible.
Loathe as she was to admit it, even she could not rapidly identify minute details of disturbances in the grass while running with her eyes adjusting to the twilight of early morn after wearing nightvision.
Although that didn't stop her from trying… and failing.
Anne had no choice during the chase but to follow the trail through the dew resting on the grass that was the closest to the size and gait of the biped wolf Grimm.
It had led to the cliff face.
In the heat of the moment, she'd justified to herself the most obvious conclusion couldn't be true.
The idea that something so rare and potentially world changing as an animus could… fall off a cliff to its death?
There was a tragic, almost comedic tinge to the thought, one she would have appreciated if it weren't so horrific even for one hardened as she to the extremes of the Huntsman profession.
Greene winced.
A stark reminder of those very extremes lay at the edge of the cliff, nary six feet from the drop, on the far side of the clearing from her.
She had avoided looking at it, yet it still burned its presence psychically into her perception.
Anne knew it was there.
The tombstone of Summer Rose.
Greene's grip on her weapon tightened enough the leather of her gloves audibly creaked.
She finished looking over every track and path in the field that could conceivably be the Beowulve they sought, until but one remained, and it was the last one she wanted it to be.
Approaching the grave, Anne braced herself for a bleak truth, only to find something that had her uncontrollably heave a sigh of relief.
There was a large depression in the grass to the left of Summer's grave.
Perfectly sized to fit a certain Grimm.
What's more, she knelt and found there were shallow gouges in the rock face leading over the edge of the cliff.
'Claw marks.'
Anne spared a glance at the grave beside her with a single raised eyebrow, knowing what she was thinking not to be true or even possible, but she gave voice to it nonetheless.
"Even from beyond the grave you can't help but help, huh?"
She laughed, but there was no mirth to it.
'Can't help but help.'
If there was ever a sentence to epitomize Summer Rose, that was at the very least an excellent beginning draft.
Greene, for all her skill and stoicism, was still human.
She was drawn into a melancholic reminiscence that few of the dead could elicit from her.
Her inner poet seeped between the seams of her shell of professionalism, with the whispering wind, rustling treetops, and open sky as her audience:
"Oh, how cold our world when one sees the wound in it where that woman should be."
Anne Greene would never know how many minutes she spent on that cliffside, but her mission found that quiet she was lost in and pulled her back to reality.
A crackle of heavy breathing through her earpiece heralded a message that would, once again, utterly change the trajectory of the operation on Patch.
/\/\/\
Peter Port had elected to return to the site of the animus' transformation the previous night.
Upon returning to the shack and its' overgrown, weed choked clearing, he immediately set to work.
There were abundant Beowulve prints in the rain softened dirt both within and without the dilapidated shack.
A specific specimen's claws were slightly longer and was, based on the depth of the depressions the paw prints made, notably larger and heavier than average.
Alpha class Grimm were typically heavier with their extensive bone armor and the additional compensatory muscle mass.
'Beowulve's are not exceptions to this rule…'
Withdrawing a tape-measure from one of the many pockets lining the inside of his burgundy jacket, he measured the width between the prints whilst the creature was standing and walking.
From this he defined a profile of the wolfman's cadence between steps to cross reference with other notable details of its tracks.
All of this was completed in the space of a minute once he had found the proper tracks to analyze, whilst he was slowed for thoroughness' sake no less.
Satisfied that what he had gathered was enough to begin the hunt proper, Port looked up from where he was knelt in an instinctive twitch reflex to regain awareness of his surroundings, so drawn into his labor was he a moment before.
He held the grip of his blunderbuss white knuckled save for an index finger safely rested against the side of the trigger well.
There, in the hole between the wall's support studs torn not a full day previous, his eyes met another's.
An exquisite shade of blue green like two pools of the tropical waters off the coasts of Menagerie were these eyes, and they were afflicted by a terrible terror.
The subtle tremor of the pupils as they fixated upon him brought Port's focus to acknowledge the diminutive form of their owner.
It was the face of a boy, surely no younger than little Ruby, his chestnut tan skin pulled tight on his sharp features with the grit of his teeth behind his lips.
That face was framed by straight black hair to his cheekbones. As one's eye followed the follicles upward were there two lupine ears, the shape of a wolf's, with the narrow pointedness of a jackal's.
The only other visible feature was the child's hand vice gripping the corner he had leant about, tipped with claws the length of an additional finger segment.
Port had seconds to comprehend this sight for he had dropped his tape-measure in startlement, the device mechanically spooling the extended tape rule back into its housing as it was designed to.
The tape-measure's outer casing soundlessly nestled in the wet soil before the tape seated home with a small, quiet, *SNAP*.
It might as well of been a shell fired from Atlas' largest artillery piece in the silence it interrupted.
With a gasp that revealed the barest glimpse of his elongated canines the boy disappeared from the hole in the wall as Port lunged towards it.
Peter held the hole's edge to swing himself about the corner, his weight bowing the decayed wall outward as he did so.
It held, but only by the slimmest of margins if the agitated groan emitted by the half rotten wood comprising that entire side of the structure was any indication.
As fate would have it, that sound is the only reason Port would not lose sight of his quarry, as the boy reflexively looking back slowed his pace ever so briefly.
There wasn't any doubt that this was the Beowulve, now an animus, as atop all other circumstantial evidence the boy had a furred tail of some kind and was running through the woods completely naked.
The absurdity of it all nearly stunned Port in place but it was overpowered by something that eclipsed even his need to see the mission succeed.
The boy was not of his blood, but he needn't be, for the Professor was not a man that required reasons to save a child in danger.
Peter Port pursued the animus boy into the woods fueled by a father's ingrained terrors of a child in peril.
/\/\/\
"A boy! It's a child! The objective is no longer a Beowulve, repeat it is no longer a Beowulve!" Port's voice exclaimed through Anne's earpiece between breaths of exertion.
Anne stood up, walking back towards the eastern edge of the clearing, "It transformed?"
"I returned to the shack and he was there, *huff-huff*, lad bolted west southwest soon as he saw me!" Port replied after a moment.
For a moment Greene paused in skepticism the second of the two animus just happened to undergo their ghastly metamorphosis the same day… yet, that really was the only explanation as to what was happening, wasn't it?
She voiced her reservedness, "Shouldn't he be unconscious right now? Why's he up and about?"
"I do not know nor do I care! A terrified boy is presently sprinting through the woods buck naked and scared out of his wits because for all we know he was just born! We must help!"
Anne squinted ever so slightly in cautious hesitance but began sprinting through the woods regardless, "Any details on his trajectory so I can intercept?"
"He's curved southward," Peter reported, "The boy's near managed to shake me a few times- he's trying for denser brush to disappear into! Hurry!"
Hurry Anne did, narrowly avoiding clipping her shoulders and weapon on the flora that whipped past at speeds that would send her sprawling on the forest floor were she to impact them.
Her haste was rewarded.
Weaving between the trees was in fact a naked faunus, or animus in this case, boy tilting full force with Peter's portly form not far behind him.
Upon seeing Anne oncoming he made to strafe eastward horizontally between the two but abruptly stopped.
He knew Anne was too close to outrun and turning back would make Peter much the same.
To his wary surprise, the woman stopped some ten feet short of approaching him, as did the man behind him.
The boy was drenched in sweat, lupine ears atop his head pinned down, fur along the spine of his tail standing on end, eyes manic and fangs visible as he heaved air in and out from exertion.
Port tossed his weapon off to the side to hold his hands out, open palms forward and downturned, a body language of pure placation, "It's okay lad, we're friendly. I'm sorry for scaring you."
Anne followed suit, placing her weapon on the ground and keeping her hands visibly away from her sides.
"Can… can you understand me?" Peter asked the child.
The boy stiffened then composed his posture at hearing the words, angling his head upward with a sneer, slowly backing towards the closest tree.
"Vous ne me prendrez jamais vivant, bâtards de Mistrali."
There were certain meanings and intents carried on words that transcended linguistic barriers.
It ached Peter's heart raw to hear from the mouth of a child hatred enough to do so.
Anne glanced to Peter in shock and he much the same to her.
It was this momentary lapse that the boy seized upon to scramble up the trunk behind him, claws sinking with ease into the bark of the ancient oak.
By the time the pair below realized what was about to happen the boy had already climbed out of reach and they could only watch as he clambered further into the canopy above.
/\/\/\
Meg sat in the same chair she had become quite acquainted with over the course of the operation, staring once again at the unconscious enigma in the shape of a faunus with multiple traits.
Albeit this time it was in boredom rather than existential horror and she was fully prepared for combat should it come to that.
Behind her in the foyer paced Qrow, liaising with Port and Anne before switching to orchestrating potential outcomes with Ozpin, then flipping back again.
He'd been wholly preoccupied with managing the operation after Taiyang had taken Ruby and Yang on their mandatory family fun day.
The girls knew something was… off about the timing and had a basic understanding of what exactly the goings on were in their household at the moment.
Parental experience told Meg that the girls would most likely be returning with some 'gifts' which were surely not bribes for their silence.
"It's what- Fine, he. How did he get up a Gods damned tree?! Where are you right now?"
Meg looked over her shoulder to Branwen, before turning her earpiece back on, having left it off at Qrow's behest to focus on guarding the slumbering bear.
She was missing key information to understand the current situation, thus she inquired, "Can I get an update on what's going on out there?"
Qrow grunted, "The Beowulve was an animus alright. The thing transformed like bear guts did and is now a kid who's hiding up a fucking oak tree."
Scarlatina's heart stilled for a moment.
"We-"
"Yes, we're going to help," Qrow cut Meg off as she stood up from her chair, "I'm going out there to handle it myself once Bart gets here. He's twenty, maybe thirty minutes out. The kid isn't going anywhere. Chill. If I remember correctly you're supposed to be guarding someone."
"If I remember correctly so are you," she sniped while sitting back down.
Qrow flicked his middle finger up at her as he started another call, "Bart! Here's the clusterfuck you're landing in, you see-"
Meg permitted herself a single snicker to savor the banter before passing a scanning glance over the couch to look towards the kitchen, contemplating what could be scrounged up as a quick snack-
Meg blinked and looked down again.
'Postcard.'
The mind is a peculiar system. Information it aggregates together and then draws from can be seemingly random due to the machinations of the subconscious' logic.
That word was the first to jump to mind when she saw them, piercingly intense as they were those two gates to the soul, blue green like the tropical waters on a postcard.
These were the open eyes of an awakened bear.
French to English Translations
(These are in the order that they appear.)
- Vous ne me prendrez jamais vivant, bâtards de Mistrali. (You will never take me alive, Mistrali bastards.)
12/29/2022 Post Chapter Blurb
A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I'd make a joke about that surprising reveal at the end, but honestly, I intentionally foreshadowed this with the subtly of dropping a boat anchor in previous chapters.
Translate the chapter title from French to English. Like I said, not subtle.
At least, this is what I perceive to be unsubtle. Please let me know if any of you didn't see this coming. This is the first written work I've shared with an audience and I'm interested in knowing if this caught anyone off guard so I can gauge how subtle/unsubtle this actually was. I want to know so I can plan and organize my stories around how much the average reader notices and extrapolates.
Criticism is expected and anticipated as always.