Here we go.

Short chapter as I'm out today at a family do. I really should reconsider my update schedule since Sunday gets shafted so much, but that's just because it's Sunday. Everyone is at work during the week, Saturday is a day everyone spends going out shopping, etc, and Sunday just ends up as the day people keep planning family stuff for.


Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 81


They were pretty much stuck waiting for Coco's friend to wake up, and that time was spent backing away from Vale. Since their people had masqueraded as refugees, the city had begun firing on anyone who got close. They were fortunate there weren't any actual ones left, because they'd have been killed if they tried to get close.

"Did I do good?"

Jaune chuckled. As if there could be any real doubt. "You did great, Ruby. You got her back alive and no one was badly hurt. Well done." He watched the girl preen and then turned to Pyrrha. "How is Coco's friend?"

"Awake. Still shaken, but Coco is getting her to eat and will be escorting here after. The girl is understandably afraid."

"Of me?"

"Of everyone at this point. A near-death experience will do that to you. But I don't think you need to worry about her holding any loyalty to Salem after what happened. I'd just expect her to be very fragile for a few days."

"I'll try not to push her too hard, then."

The door to the cabin opened moments later, and Coco stepped inside holding the faunus with one arm around her waist and the other holding her hand, essentially guiding the woman into the cabin, and setting her down in the first available seat. It was a good idea since her eyes met his and she began to hyperventilate.

Is she terrified of me, or am I just one more thing added to an already bad day?

"It's okay, Velvet. He just wants to talk to you." Coco was quick to fuss over her, and Ruby slid a small wooden cup of ale over. Almost everyone was drinking watered down beer, given that saltwater wasn't safe, and funnily enough it seemed to calm the faunus down as she took a great gulp.

"I'm sorry to put more pressure on you today after what happened," said Jaune, "but I felt that if we got this out the way now, you could rest and not have to worry about anything. Is that okay?"

"T—That's fine."

He smiled for her. "That's good. I'm Jaune, and this is Ruby and Pyrrha. You already know Coco."

"We… We've met before…"

Had they? He supposed it was a possibility, though he didn't really remember all that well.

"I want you to know you're in no danger here, Velvet. Whatever they are saying about me in Vale isn't any truer than the crimes that lumped you with. I'd like to know what's happening in the city that has them executing seemingly innocent people."

It looked like she wanted to ask what he'd do with that information, and maybe in any other scenario she'd have been less willing to share, but, after nearly dying because her goddess told everyone she was a traitor, Velvet didn't have the passion. The poor woman looked lost and confused. It was Coco squeezing her hand which eventually got her talking.

"E—Everyone is hungry and afraid. The city walls were closed a few weeks ago, after news came back that the war in Mistral had been lost. The Church blamed it on treachery from the army. There were a lot of pointed fingers and just about every commander who went was executed. A lot of the professional soldiers were as well, because they tried to defend their commanders and argued that they hadn't had a choice but to retreat. We were told the goddess was angry, but she didn't come out of the palace-temple at the time. All we had were what the priests told us, but they looked terrified so we all knew she must have been furious."

"At first, the orders were to raise another army, but that only lasted about a week. They changed suddenly, with everyone told to harvest what they could and then retreat into the city and lock the gates. I heard that anyone even a minute late was locked outside and never allowed back in, even when the guards could see they'd just been a little slow coming back. No one knew why. The priests just told everyone it was a command from the goddess again, and that she'd changed her mind on the army."

"For a while, it was life as normal, but then there started to be refugees appearing at the gates talking about Grimm rampaging across Vale, and for a while we were all grateful. It felt like the goddess had foreseen the carnage and sealed us all up to protect us. Things made more sense and the church started to get more relaxed as well. People were happier, for a while, but then they wouldn't let the survivors in – her command again – and people wanted to know why. Again, the priests couldn't answer. It didn't get any better when food began to run low."

"How low?" asked Jaune. "You mentioned an early harvest. Was there not enough?"

"There never would have been. Um. My lord." Velvet hesitated at the respectful title, then continued. "The city needs trade to stay fed and we're before the regular harvests, and now if all the villages and towns have been abandoned then there probably won't be any food coming in. We could normally at least fish the waters, but no one is allowed out of the docks. The parts of it that are still within the city walls are being fished by the city guard. Honestly, it feels like they're the only ones trying to make things better."

"Oh?"

"The church is being useless!" Velvet was ranting, and Jaune let her. "Oh, they come down and try to tell us things will be okay and that she has a plan, but if you ask them what that plan is then they go silent. I—I know they can't speak for the goddess, but they're meant to pass her word on, and they've not been doing that. They just deflect and tell everyone that she has a plan." Velvet bit her lip, and gripped her elbows, shaking. "B—But a—after what happened, m—maybe I don't blame them so much for not understanding now. I didn't understand why she said I was guilty."

Jaune exchanged looks with those around the table. It was Pyrrha who asked, "Would you say her decrees have become inconsistent, then?"

"That's probably the best way to put it, lady Chosen." Old habits remained, and Velvet didn't seem to notice her little slip-up. "We all thought it was strange when it was build an army one moment and then hide behind the walls, but we thought it made sense when the Grimm attacked. But we've never had so many executions before. Sometimes we would if there was a murderer or something, but she's been executing soldiers for coming back alive, and when the people behind the fires were rounded up I… I…" A tear ran down her cheek. "I didn't question it. They were shouting how they were innocent, but I thought… I thought they couldn't be innocent, because the goddess had found them guilty, so of course they must have done it." A choked sob sounded in her throat. "But now… oh goddess, why?" she cried. "They were faunus. They were all faunus!"

Coco was quick to hold onto Velvet when she began sobbing, just as Jaune leant back in his wooden seat and let out a shaky breath. He could see how tis was probably his fault, even if he couldn't say he deserved the blame. It was just a consequence of them defending themselves at Menagerie. Salem was losing confidence, losing her calm, and in her efforts to strike out at people, she was taking the one similarity between all his followers in Menagerie and her own people here.

The fact they were faunus.

His army wasn't even fully faunus at this point, and it never had been, but that didn't matter. Most were, so the survivors would have fled back to Vale telling of armies of faunus rising up against the church. By the time Salem got the news, the army was probably all faunus, and all monstrous, blasphemous creatures.

"What about the fire itself," asked Ruby. "What happened there? Was it a riot? Arson?"

"I—I don't know." Velvet stammered. "No, wait, I do know. But… I don't know who caused it. The fire was at one of the storage warehouses. I think the people were trying to get food. It's being rationed, but the rations are… they're poor. Tiny. I'm almost certain some people tried to break in and steal more. Maybe some torches fell, or they tripped over and set grain alight. By the time I knew what was going on, there was a huge fire and lots of panic, then the guards were running around, and I hid inside. They caught the ones behind it quickly. Too quickly, in hindsight. I… I should have realised it was too fast."

"You couldn't have been expected to know," said Ruby, kindly. "Is that all, Jaune? Was there anything else we needed to know?"

"Only what the overall mood is within the city. How do people feel about this?"

"No one is happy. Everyone is on edge. They're not telling us what is going on or why we can't look after other people or why we can't go outside. The Grimm show up, murder people and then leave, and all we're told is that the goddess protected us – but she obviously didn't protect them, and the church gets quiet when we ask. But the Chosen, those that remain, they get angry. They're the worst. They're nothing like Lady Coco and Lady Pyrrha ever were, or like any of the older Chosen were. They were always so kind and thoughtful and polite; but these lot are entitled, quick-to-anger and dangerous."

"Salem must be filling the ranks with any she can," said Pyrrha. "The older Chosen often taught humility, but now they're gone I guess the arrogant initiates have been rapidly elevated. And without anyone to tell them off, they've become arrogant. I think that's all we need. Coco, why don't you take Velvet and find a room for her, then make sure she eats and sleeps. I'm sure we can finish up here without you."

/-/

Their meeting was unusually short given the severity of the news they'd received. Salem was losing her grip on the city, and her back-and-forth decisions were only making it worse. The people were losing faith in the church, who couldn't get clear answers or instruction from their goddess, and the heavy-handed new Chosen were making matters worse.

"Then what?" asked Blake. "Do we strike now? Is that the plan? What about the Grimm?"

"The Grimm will always be a problem," said Weiss. "Salem is struggling to make good decisions at this very moment. The last thing we want is to give her more time to calm down. If she panics and brings the Grimm, she will have to reveal her hand and that will be her loss. We should place the onus of decision making on her shoulders since she has proven so bad at it."

"Weiss makes a good point," said Taiyang. "Sometimes it's better to just be the proactive one. Waiting is giving her time to muster up reinforcements or a plan, while it doesn't benefit us any. Raven and her lot are prepared to fight with us, as are a fair number of the refugees. We have as big an army as we'll ever have."

"Not big enough to storm the walls and claim them," said a faunus.

"No, but we do have magic," Jaune replied. "And we have that in abundance now, thanks to the majority of the experienced Chosen having given their lives in Mistral. We could bring down a wall."

"Don't." Pyrrha interrupted, stood and rolled out a crude map of the city on the table before them all. Everyone leaned in. "We all know the Grimm will be her next step whether or not we win. It's simply going to happen at some point. If we bring down a wall then they'll have an easy way into the city, and no shortage of innocent people to slaughter. We may win the war, but Vale will be torn to the ground."

"We don't have the numbers to fight a walled city," said Blake. "I trust you have a suggestion."

"I do. Here, at the docks. Vale has its own port, which is sectioned inside the city, with a heavy wall erected around the entire shipyard area." The map showed a large area cut into the northern side of the city, where ground had been dug away to let the ocean swell in. "Here and here, the walls extend through the water, which is deep enough to let ships come and go. I suggest we bring down these walls and use our navy to our advantage. And if she does summon the Grimm, they shall have to wade through deep water to get into the city. It won't stop them, but it will slow them down."

"Can we make that work?" Jaune asked the faunus and Neptune. They knew the ships better than he. "I'm sure we can bring those walls down, but how viable is an invasion from the water?"

The faunus looked between themselves before one answered. "It's doable. It'd be a slow landing because of the limited space and how many ships we have. We'd need to land the first ones, and they'd need to gain us some ground and hold it on the docks. The rest would pretty much need to crash into the other ships and use them as a bridge to get across. By the end of it, we'd pretty much be blocking all the water up, but that might not be a bad thing if it slows the Grimm down."

"We should expect their best when we land," said Weiss. "Their remaining Chosen who, ironically, shouldn't be that much of a challenge. Pyrrha, Coco and I will be the strongest Chosen in Vale at the time. Still, the ones in the first ships will need to be our best." Weiss looked his way. "I think you should be among them."

"I'm not against the idea."

"What if that brings Salem down?" asked Ruby.

They had no answers, and all suddenly looked much more unsure. They were planning an invasion on Vale, but no one had really factored Salem herself into it. She might be going mad and reacting poorly, but she was still a very dangerous person.

Not a god as she had everyone believe, but an immortal human with near-godly power.

Close enough to one to matter.

And no one knew how to deal with her, which meant it was his responsibility to keep their morale up and not let them lose hope now. Jaune sighed, closed his eyes, and said, "I will handle her if she shows. Focus on everyone else and leave Salem to me."

"Can you take her?"

Jaune wasn't sure who asked that, but he smiled confidently and met everyone's gazes head on. Ozma was silent in his head, silent and accepting, and they both knew what they had to say, even if it was no guarantee.

"There's a reason she fears the Dark Lord. Leave this so-called goddess to me. Inform the ship's captains. Tomorrow, past dawn, we sail closer to the city. Ensure that our finest are on the first few ships, and that the refugees and those who can't fight are moved to the ones furthest back."

"Sir!"

"Yes sir."

They stood and saluted. There was an excitement to them, an anticipation. The waiting had been painful, and it had allowed fear to creep in. Even if the battle ahead was not guaranteed, they wanted to see it happen so they could get it over with and know if they would be returning to their families on Menagerie alive or not.

For good or ill, they would attack Vale – and either save its people or damn them.

Jaune could not tell which.


Very short; I know. It's my sister's birthday (I legit forgot with my work event, and ordered a present and it didn't get delivered because our courier, evri, has to be the worst delivery company imaginable. Seriously, they're awful. I went out yesterday to buy another as they're saying they couldn't find me, or I wasn't in (their excuses keep changing, lol) even though I was in all day yesterday. Anyway, off to hers today.


Next Chapter: 15th October

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