A/N: Hello, once more, my friends! I got a special treat for you today. No, not this chapter, although it is a part of it. No, I'll be uploading at least one chapter for all my stories very soon, barring the Beast because that's a somewhat big one, and also because I haven't really gotten all that far in it yet. I might even be uploading the first "chapter" for a couple of new stories, if I can get around to writing them. Had to put everything on pause while I waited out the Hurricane here in Tampa.
Anyway, enjoy this somewhat of a filler chapter.
RWBY is owned by Roosterteeth and the late, great Monty Oum
Scars
Chapter 3
"You're shittin' me!" Cardin interjected as he erupted into a belly laugh. "You. You did not say 'Hit it harder!'?"
Jaune sighed and rubbed at his head for a moment before whining, "Hey! It worked, okay!"
"Yeah, but-it's you!" Cardin returned, emphasizing all of him. "You're like… the Broly of Strategies, man! You've beaten some of the smartest people we know in chess. You beat Ozpin! The Ozpin! In Chess! Twice!"
"Yeah, yeah. My power is maximum." Jaune said as he sighed again and shook his head as he smirked at Cardin's humor.
"No, seriously, dude." Cardin said as he calmed down and wiped at his eyes. "You're, like, among the smartest people I know-and you said 'Hit it. Harder!'"
He then immediately erupted into peals of laughter. Jaune sighed as the laughter rang out over the camp. "Look," he said. "I was just excited to come up with something to take the thing down, okay! We were never told how to fight a Petra Gigas!"
"I know. I know." Cardin responded with a chuckle. "It's just, funny."
"Heh, yeah, I know, man." Jaune replied with a smirk, not too upset by the laughter. The rest of Team Rainbow had certainly joked about it over the years, too. The two bumped fists as Cardin finished chuckling about it all.
"So," he asked. "What happened then."
Cardin listened as Jaune went through everything. He didn't leave anything out. Ruby being hunted. The battle with the Nuckelavee. Haven. Argus.
Atlas.
He talked of waiting. So much waiting. At Haven. At Argus. At the Outpost in Solitas. And, his time in the Everafter. The years spent in the Everafter.
He talked of the close calls with Weiss and Qrow.
The loss of Penny. By his own hand.
He talked of Vacuo, and how they came so close to losing it all again only for a miracle to occur.
Cardin listened to it all. And, he knew. That the man next to him really was a hero, even as he let himself be made fun of over so simply a mistake.
And when Cardin told him about had happened to him over the years. Of his first mission and the loss of his teammates. Of everything that came afterwards. He didn't denounce him, didn't ridicule him.
He merely placed a hand on his shoulder as he said, "This time, we'll lose no one. We'll make certain of that, you and me."
Cardin merely nodded in return.
Afterwards, they talked of simpler times. Of their days at Beacon, before everything went bad, and laughed over the dumbest of things.
Sky being terrible at math. Nora's obsession with Ren's pancakes. Jaune, trying to woo Weiss over and over again. Ruby be a weapon's nerd. Dove and Blake's surprise book club.
Russell running from Yang after "accidentally" cut her hair with scissors.
Teammates. Their friends and family.
The people that they would do anything for.
Die for.
/ /
Throughout the day the men and women of the Remnant Alliance prepared themselves for the upcoming operation. As they did they watched on their scroll or watched off in the distance the various other ops that were going down.
They heard as another Monstra was sighted off of the rallying point at the island of Vytal. The Atlesian Armada had rapidly made it's way there to engage the colossal Grimm whale. It took hours, and the loss of three of their remaining battleships, before they finally took down the thing, and the hundreds of flying Grimm with it.
They listened in or heard as dozens of smaller battles took place across the Emerald and Forever Fall Forests around them as enemy patrols and random Grimm incursions met their own.
For now, their luck held, and it seemed like the enemy had yet to figure out what was about to go down.
/ /
Coco watched as Cardin Freaking Winchester walked up to stand next to Velvet as she looked out over the Inner Valean Bay. Since Vel didn't seem to be worried about she let it go as she continued to apply the cameo dye to her face.
She wasn't too happy with Cardin. He did bully her Bun-Bun for much of their second year. She, and Yatsu, were going to… talk to him, and his team, only for him to stop after the field trip to the Forever Fall forest.
After that, he gotten better. Owned up to a few things, like being racist or a bully. Especially, to her Bun-Bun.
She felt her hand clench tightly around Gianduja at that, almost painfully so. No one touched the Bunny while Coco was around. Well, her or Yatsuhashi.
Or Fox.
Coco knew that Velvet could take care of herself these days, but her need to protect her best friend sometimes made her just a bit overprotective at time.
She blinked as she felt a large hand rest on her arm and closed gently around it. She looked up to see Yatsu there, smiling at her gently. Then she looked down at the white-knuckled grip she had on her weapon. She release her grip and shook the felling aback into her fingers as she looked at Cardin again.
He eventually become a friend to Velvet after everything. But, she still didn't like him.
She sighed as she wiped at her face and grimaced.
She had forgotten how uncomfortable things could be in Vale this time of year. Yeah, Vacuo was a desert, but it was a dry heat. She adjusted, mostly. Vale, on the other hand, was currently humid as hell right now in the middle of summer.
Actually, uncomfortable didn't even begin to cover how she was feeling right now. Even with Aura she had had to change her outfit to one more… comfortable to the situation. But, still fashionable.
She was Coco Adel, after all.
"Oh, hey, Cardin!" She heard Velvet say in her adorable Menagerie accent. "How is it going?"
"Uh, ahem, it's, uh, it's going okay. You?" He returned nervously.
Okay. Coco did smile at that. She might not like Cardin, but his little crush on Velvet was cute. She didn't ship it. She might never ship it. But, she wasn't going to stop it from happening either, if it ever did.
Boy needed to grab a pair, though. Is all she was saying.
/ /
Cardin stood there, not sure what say, as the two watched the latest attack on Patch Island.
Once it became apparent that Vale was going to targeted by Salem and her forces once again, the Valean Council had ordered an immediate evacuation of the Kingdom's capital. Other than a few stubborn fools and those couldn't be so easily moved, like the terminally ill, the entire populace was moved to other, smaller cities and towns along the coast.
All, except for Patch.
Like so often in its history, the island of Patch was left on its own by Vale, forgotten. As such, it was now the only territory in the area left in the Alliance's hands.
And the Salemities wanted it.
And so, Cardin and Velvet watched as yet another assault force attacked the island's denizens. The fifth, so far.
And the largest as well.
Already they could see and hear as the island's denizens began to open up on the first waves of enemy aircraft and boats. Heavy AA fire and short-ranged missiles blew apart the incoming dropships or sunk the more lightly armored boats. The blisteringly hard fire rate seemed to almost stall the enemy's advance, for the moment.
Then the Grimm showed up.
Heavily armored crab Grimm rose from the surf around the beaches of the island while serpentine Hydras, mid-size Sea Feilongs and a small Leviathan attacked alongside the second and third waves of Salemities boats.
Before long, the defensive fire began to lessen as the islanders were forced to deal with the few Grimm already on the island. Just before the rest of the of Grimm and Salemites could beach themselves the two of them looked up, alongside several others, to see a line of Atlesian Manta fighters zoomed by overhead and fired onto the enemy boats and Grimm beyond.
The sudden appearance of the Atlesians panicked the enemy aircraft. They began to turn and flee after the opening salvo of missiles blew apart the attacking force of Sea Feilongs as well as several of the larger boats, sinking or blowing them up instantly. Several of the more inexperienced pilots even ran into each other as they tried to vacate the area.
The dropships exploded when they did so, killing several of the Grimm below with their burning, smoking hulks as they rained down upon them.
At that point, the manned AA guns on the enemy's side began to open up. They tagged one of the Mantas as the squadron of six banked for a second pass. It spun off from the formation as it smoked and burned before exploding over the Emerald Forest to Cardin and Velvet's left.
The remaining fighters fired on the Leviathan as they wheeled back around before they then veered off back over the forest.
A massive, simultaneous explosion tore the creature apart, severing its left arm as they did. It shrieked in pain, its towering form rising out of the smoke and fire.
One more of the Mantas was cut down as the Leviathan retaliated then by swinging its tail at them as they passed by.
Its tail struck one of the aircraft along the central axis. It spun out, trailing smoke, making its way towards the forest. Only to crash land in the bay beyond, next the Salemite-occupied docks.
Dozens of small arms opened up on the vessel, but it didn't explode even as it was riddled with projectiles.
The rest of the attacking force continued towards the island, though much reduced. The Leviathan continued on after them, trailing smoke and black ichor from its severed arm and injured side. The remainder of the Grimm among them, largely crab Grimm and a couple of Hydras, led the remainder of the boats in.
That's when two Valean Air Buses rose up from the forest on the island and turned their sides towards the boats and Grimm beyond. The hatches on their side opened up then to reveal heavy machine gunners and rocket jockeys. They opened fired on the flotilla below, sinking more of the boats and killing the last two Hydras.
The Leviathan returned fire then.
It powerful energy blast ripped opened the rear engine of the Air Bus on the right, shattering through its Hardlight Barrier without much effort. The Bus was shoved forwards from the explosion before spinning off into the forest beyond.
An explosion could then be heard in the distance.
The other Air Bus continued to fire on the boats and Grimm below for a moment longer before it turned to flee, trying to escape the Leviathan in case it tried to attack once more, going as fast as it could.
Air Buses were notoriously slow.
The last of the boats, only five, and the remaining Grimm then landed at the island's docks. With binoculars, one could see the familiar flames of a Green-haired Huntsman or his counterpart's blunderbuss-axe as the two fought side by side alongside whatever other islanders were around.
Elsewhere Patch was undoubtedly being defended by the Sun Dragon himself, Taiyang Xaio Long.
As for the Leviathan, before it could get much further it was inundated by a hail of missiles as two Atlesian Colossi rose from the sea beyond Patch, where they had been lying in wait all along. It fell, a heavy, shrill groan coming from it as it did.
Over loudspeakers one could discern the voices of two older women as they bickered and berated each other over who actually killed the Grimm.
Cardin smiled at that. Now, for the counterattack he thought.
/ /
After defending Patch, and scaring the Salemites at the Vale dockyards, the two Colossi turned to march towards Beacon itself. Within moments of being spotted further colossal Grimm rose from the waters around Beacon Cliff, where they had been lying in wait themselves, to arrest their approach, exactly as expected.
The Colossi engaged the Grimm, acting for all the world as if they doing everything they could to press onwards. Which, they were.
They fought hard, but, eventually, after the two ran out of missiles and one lost its Hardlight Shield, the two were forced to fall back to Patch where they prevented any further assaults for the day.
By then, the Fifth Assault on Patch had ended. The island remained in Alliance hands, but there was so much damage to the buildings and dockyards there, it made it impossible for the Alliance to mount their own attack from there.
Throughout it all, Cardin and Velvet watched. As did several other notable Huntsmen and Huntresses such as Team Rainbow and the likes of Winter and Qrow. All watching and waiting for the real attack that night.
/ /
After watching the last of the Salemities boats retreat back to Vale Cardin turned to leave, he hadn't been able to say anything to Velvet after his initial greeting. Too damned nervous to say anything.
But, what could he even say?
"Cardin," she called as he turned to go. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder at her but said nothing.
She was beautiful, he thought. Her days in the Vacuan sun had bronzed her pale skin, revealing a patch of freckles about her nose. It was cute. She, was cute.
He blinked at that before he replied with, "Yes?"
She rubbed at her arm for a moment as she tried to think of something to say before she asked, "What part of the operation are you a part of?"
He was silent for a moment himself before he answered with, "Beacon. You?"
"The Wall, along with the armored division led by Mr. Belladonna." She replied, quietly. He nodded in silence. He swallowed for a moment before looking over at Coco.
The woman looked back at him over her glasses before she nodded at Velvet and turned to finish checking her mechashift handbag-chaingun. Cardin swallowed again, nervously before he took in a deep breath and walked over to Velvet again. She watched him as he approached but said nothing to it.
He stood there before her in silence for a moment before he finally said, "Hey, Vel?"
"Yeah?" She asked, looking up at him with those big, brown eyes of her in an almost expectant manner.
He swallowed again, glancing over at Jaune as he saw him come up. He gave him a thumbs up before turning to talk with Coco and Yatsu. He looked back at Velvet and said, "Uh, so, after this is all over, do you wanna go do," he waved his hands in a vague sort of way, "Something?"
Velvet looked at him for a moment in slight confusion then snorted as she asked, "Something? Is that best thing you could come up with, after all these years?"
He let out an explosive breath of air as he laughed at that response. Then he chuckled some more in an easier manner as he sighed with relief. "Yeah, sorry." He returned. "Just a bit nervous, and all. You know?"
She chuckled in turn before she stepped in close to him and placed a hand on his cheek. He froze at that and looked down into her brown eyes as she smiled up at him and rubbed his cheek for a moment.
"Sure. I'd like that." She said after what seemed like forever.
"Oh," he said in response then watched her leave in a stunned silence as she gave him a smirk after patting him on the cheek a couple of times. She sashayed away with Coco and the rest of her team at her side.
He didn't see her grasped at her ears tightly in nervousness and embarrassment once she got out of sight, or when she eventually stop and clutch at Coco, squeeing with joy.
He merely stood there in silence, still looking at where she had gone, stunned by what had happened. Jaune and Russell walked up to him and grinned. He blinked before pointing at the two aggressively as he said, "Not. A word."
Then he laughed alongside them as they clasped him on the shoulder in congratulation. He smiled.
Now, all they had to do was make it through the coming fight.
A/N: So, I hoped you enjoyed this. The chapter was actually supposed to be a lot longer, but I decided to shorten it. Now, whether I make the next chapter a two-parter or not depends on how I feel. Also, the reason for why the POV is switching around now is because the next part takes place across multiple characters.
Alright, enough behind-the-scenes, Essiter out.