Chapter time!
While the capital of Vale was in disarray, the people from rural areas of the kingdom of Vale were going about just as they had always had, the news of tragedies nothing more than distant events unrelated to them.
Of course, they felt pity for the people in the city and anger at the ones who dared to attack their kingdom, but they couldn't afford for those emotions to affect their everyday life.
When a single mistake by the village's guards could lead to its disappearance, due to a grimm attack, it was difficult to devote too much of their important time to the happenings of a city.
Free time was a rare commodity in a village, after all.
Thankfully, recently, the northern towns of Vale appeared to have gained quite a lot of that commodity, an unnatural amount of it in fact.
All of this, thanks to a single person, a simple traveller from the kingdom of Atlas, who was currently slowly making his way through to the capital, an Atlas specialist, Ebi Clover.
Although, helping the people of Remnant with their grimm problem might not have been his most immediate goal, it was something he simply had to do as he travelled to his destination.
What sort of hero would he have been, if he ignored all the people who needed his help along the way?
Besides, after journeying through the other world, and saving it from destruction, the idea of not saving others seemed abnormal to him. It was obvious, a hero should save others whenever they can, right?
It wasn't like it was actually difficult, or tiring, for him, either.
Dealing with most types of grimm was something he was capable of doing even before he had received the otherworldly equipment, now that he had it with him, he feared there was hardly anything in Remnant that could pose a challenge to him.
The only exceptions he could think of at the moment were also the reasons he was quietly trekking through the villages of Vale, hoping to not get noticed, the other heroes.
Those other heroes were also the reason he was currently standing at the crossroads and wondering which village he should go to next.
Usually it wouldn't have been an issue, the chance of finding another otherworldly hero in a random village was nearly zero, but when he was leaving the previous village he had helped, he heard rumours of another unnaturally powerful person helping poor towns to the south.
Obviously, it was another hero, his enemy.
He tightened his fists a little as he read the villages' names on the old wooden sign before him.
If he wanted to go directly south, towards the Vale's capital, then he should choose to visit the Gaedheal village, and if he wanted to increase his chances at avoiding other heroes, the village of Altenher to the west would have been the better choice.
The problem was, the sign pointing to Altenher was both mouldy and scratched all over, clearly implying that the town of Altenher was already nothing more than ruins.
Now, it wasn't actually a personal issue for him, if he wanted to he could travel to the capital of Vale on foot using nothing but forests, however, he didn't want his choice of a destroyed village to potentially cause harm to another town for his own safety.
It was remarkably easy for a village on Remnant to get completely destroyed in a single night, after all.
Then again, if he ever came to blows against another hero in the territory of Gaedheal, it would get destroyed all the same from the intensity of their fight, anyway. Arguably, it would have been even worse, in that scenario.
"I wouldn't choose Altenher, if I were you." A young female voice said from his right, startling him.
He immediately swung his head to his right to look at the person who sneaked up on him. Sure, he might have been lost in thought at that moment, but he should have still been able to notice anyone sneaking up on him.
There, in the middle of the road coming from the likely destroyed village, stood a young woman, looking as if she could be at most be eighteen years old, with dark sunglasses on her eyes, a beret on her head, and a confident smirk on her face.
"Who are you?" He couldn't help but ask the girl, as the moment he noticed her, all his instincts were telling him she was dangerous.
"A random helpful stranger." The girl raised one of her hands in a lazy mock salute. "Call me, Coco."
He eyed Coco cautiously. The feeling of danger he felt from her, together with the lazy confidence she seemed to exude from her very being, made it childishly easy for him to realise with just what sort of person he was dealing here.
A small, quiet chuckle escaped him.
Well, it certainly wasn't how he expected to meet his first other hero, in this war.
At least, she didn't seem to realise he was an otherworldly hero as well, just yet. If he was really lucky, it might stay like that long enough for him to avoid fighting her completely.
Thankfully, luck was something he had in spades.
"I guess that must mean that the Altenher has finally fallen to grimm then?" He asked somewhat curiously to avoid becoming too suspicious.
"Close." Coco grunted before shaking her head. "From what I gathered, it was bandits that did it, this time. A cruel bunch too, desecrating all the villagers graves, as well."
He nodded with a grunt.
It was easy to distinguish whether a village was destroyed by grimm or by bandits. If the cause was a grimm attack, things like graves or most uninhabited buildings would have been left untouched, leaving a village an eerie husk of a town full of empty building for decades to come.
Only other humans would bother with things like destroying the monuments or looting the valuables.
"A pity." He sighed. "It was a pretty village."
"I wouldn't know." Coco shrugged and shook her head lightly. "I've never seen it not destroyed."
He chuckled a little.
"Me neither."
Coco raised one of her eyebrows in confusion at him.
"Then how can you tell it was pretty?" She asked.
"It wouldn't have been invaded by the bandits if it wasn't." He shook his head. "There's no point in risking your life to rob a place that doesn't have any valuable resources in it. Most bandits might be cruel and dumb, but they are scarcely suicidal."
He saw Coco narrow her eyes at him, and he instantly became a little tense.
Did she finally realise who he was?
"That's some knowledgeable words you've just shared with me." Coco said. "Are you talking from experience here, mister bandit?"
It took nearly all his discipline to not show any of his relief at Coco's words. Dealing with her believing him to be some random robber was way easier than trying to deny the fact of being an otherworldly hero.
"I'm an Atlas specialist." He reached out for his ID and showed it to the cautious girl, before smiling with a practiced smile. "It was a good attempt though, if I was actually a bandit I would have likely thrown myself at you with my weapon, the moment you said those words."
Coco looked carefully at his document for a second or two, before leaning back.
"I guess my intuition has failed me this time." She scowled. "And I was so looking forward to a fight. Grimm are plentiful and all, but they simply can't compare to fighting against a thinking opponent."
He hummed in response.
"Considering that common bandits aren't really trained for combat, you wouldn't get too much fun out of them, anyway." He said. "If you want a real fight, go look for some professional huntsmen or those 'Other World' terrorists, general Ironwood keeps talking about."
Normally, he wasn't one to throw other people under the bus like that, but he really wanted to avoid any real fighting for now, and his old general gave him a perfect excuse to use in situations like these.
"They are actually the ones I'm aiming for." Coco said.
"The terrorists?" He asked.
"Yup." She nodded before looking at him with a smile. "You wouldn't happen to notice one of them on your way here, would you? I know you Atlas people are searching for them quite thoroughly."
He looked up at the sky, to make it look as if he was thinking about something, for a few seconds.
"No, I didn't." He finally answered. "Unless, of course, you are one of them yourself."
An amused hum came out of Coco's mouth as she looked at him with a barely noticeable smirk on her face.
"Now, now, soldier boy." Coco leaned forward towards him, and slightly lowered her sunglasses to reveal glowing red eyes, which looked as if they could look directly into his soul. "I don't think either of us actually wants the answer to this question to be spoken out loud, right?"
Seeing that the girl was clearly trying to intimidate him, he decided to use all the acting lessons he took as a Specialist back in the day, and started to act scared for his life.
"I-I suppose not, M-Miss." He stuttered. "I will just report to the higher ups about finding a random travelling huntress on my journey. There's no need for anyone to get hurt here, especially not me."
Coco stared at him intensely, looking for any falsehoods in his statement, for a few seconds, before, luckily for him, not finding absolutely anything wrong and turning around with a smile.
"Alright, I will leave you be then." Coco corrected her sunglasses while standing with her back turned towards him. "Fighting against a defenceless prey would have been a wasted opportunity, anyway."
With her words said, a pair of demonic bat like wings suddenly appeared from fire on Coco's back, and she immediately sprung into high-speed flight eastwards.
He flinched a little as the wind created from Coco's flight hit him, before letting out a tired huff of relief. Although, it was probably mostly thanks to his luck, he somehow had managed to avoid a confrontation today.
"Good riddance." He remarked out loud. "First general Ironwood comes back with an execution of the replacement personnel and now this? Some of the other heroes are really battle starved."
(...)
Usually entering the Land of Darkness, also often called the Grimmlands by most people, with only four people in a single bullhead, would result in that assortment of people's quick and painful deaths.
For most people, it didn't matter how powerful or experienced they were, once the uncountable grimm would start to swarm them, all they could end up doing was praying for swift deaths.
It wasn't the case, however, for General James Ironwood and Specialist Winter Schnee, who, despite being currently inside a constantly bombarded bulllhead, merely sat patiently in their seats, awaiting their landing.
Both of them were under the belief that no grimm on Remnant could harm them in any way, and their belief wasn't actually wrong.
So what if some grimm here were older than the current kingdoms of Remnant?
No creature born on Remnant could match their otherworldly abilities in the first place, no matter how much time it had to grow in strength. At most, they could only treat them as a light warm up before real battles against other heroes.
Of course, the fact that both of them would be safe, didn't mean much to their pilots, who currently were very much afraid of dying.
"S-Sir, the grimm's attacks might start causing some structural damages to our bullhead soon." One of the pilots said with a shaky tone. "If this continues, we might not make it farther than the quarter of the way to the continent's centre."
General Ironwood nodded his head in understanding, no matter how powerful and determined they were, the craft they were using to travel still had its limits. The limits which its pilots would know best.
He slowly stood up from his seat, and was about to order his man to land where they were, but before he could say anything he heard Winter speak up.
"Don't fear, soldiers." Winter said in a somewhat lofty tone, before snapping her fingers. "I will take care of any challenges we might encounter on our way there."
Just as the sound of Winter's finger snapping stopped echoing through the aircraft, six rather large magic circles appeared all over their bullhead, one from each cardinal direction, one at the top of the craft, and one at its bottom.
Soon, an ungodly powerful blizzard started being emitted out of those magic circles, pushing every grimm close enough to them away while making a safe bubble of space just around their aircraft at the same time.
General Ironwood raised one of his eyebrows in curiosity.
"The power you got from the other world is the ability to control the weather?" He asked, unimpressed with Winter's powers considering that such abilities were very much within Remnant people's capabilities, especially if one considered the Four Maidens.
"Among other things." Winter replied smoothly with a smile.
He grunted in response before turning his head away to look out the bullhead's window.
Although, their passage should be rather safe now, they still had multiple hours to go, so he shouldn't be getting impatient, just yet.
"What is our estimated time to target?" He still decided to ask the pilots for time anyway, the protective blizzard, they had around them, could change a lot when it came to estimating their journey time.
"Less than three hours, sir." One of the pilots answered. "At least, if nothing unexpected happens along the way, that is."
"It won't." Winter assured.
He nodded his head in acknowledgement, putting the trust in his Specialist.
Expectedly, just as Winter had said, for the next three hours, their journey to the centre of the Land of Darkness and Salem's castle went without a hitch. It wasn't until they arrived close to their target that they began to slow down, and it was only to make sure they wouldn't miss the castle from behind the blizzard that was protecting them.
"The target is in sight, sir!" One of the pilots called out as they hovered their bullhead just a couple hundred meters away from the castle. "Shall we prepare to land, or are we going for the drop, sir?"
He turned to Winter, and they stared at each other for a few seconds trying to come to a decision, before nodding their heads together as one.
"Drop us." He said while standing up.
"Aye, sir!" The pilot nodded before increasing the speed of the bullhead, and flipping the switch to open the aircraft's back door.
Both him and Winter calmly stood up as they noticed the bullhead's doors slowly lowering down, their expressions remaining serene. Jumping out of a speeding bullhead was something ordinary huntsmen were capable of doing, let alone other worldly heroes like them.
"You still remember your landing strategy, Specialist?" He grunted out while approaching the opening doors.
"Don't need to." Winter smiled.
The very next moment, the aircraft's doors opened completely, and they were immediately swept away by the violent currents of wind, bolstered by the blizzard Winter had made a few hours prior.
Feeling the familiar sense of weightlessness, he instantly began to reorientate himself in such a way that when he inevitably hit the ground, his prosthetics would absorb the majority of the damage.
Of course, with all the exhaustive improvement to his body, he could easily land on any part of his body, even his very much non-metal head, and survive without any issues.
It didn't mean that he would allow himself to slack off during his landing strategy, however.
The earth around him shattered as his body hit the ground in mere seconds after he had jumped out of the bullhead. The only thing that prevented his fall from creating a proper crater was the low altitude he was dropped from.
"I hit the ground." He quickly reported to his pilots, with a communicator he had built into one of his arms, before issuing an order. "Find a quiet place to hide nearby, and don't come out unless ordered."
"Yes, sir!" The pilots replied on radio before flying the bullhead away from the castle.
After nodding his head in commendation for his men quick response, he started to look around in search for Winter, who should have fell to the ground right with him.
To his surprise, he didn't find her anywhere on the ground. Instead, the moment he decided to glance upwards, he noticed his Specialist slowly levitating towards the ground with a small blizzard hurricane keeping her in the air.
"I see, you aren't in a hurry." He remarked with a shake of his head.
"Why would I be?" Winter asked back, before very gently touching the ground. "For all the importance of the mission, and our war, there's no immediate time limit for any of them. I would even dare to say, that we've got plenty of time to relax."
"A human should never have a chance to fully relax." He grunted, and turned towards the imposing castle ahead of them. "It makes us lazy and complacent, a perfect target for demons to conquer."
As he began walking towards the Salem's castle, he felt a curious and piercing gaze, originating from Winter, directly on his back.
He decided to ignore it.
"If you say so." The magic wielding otherworldly hero hummed to herself in response.
"Quit lagging behind and get moving." He said loudly, for Winter to hear. "We've got a Queen of Grimm to kill and our world to save. If you want to needlessly plot my demise, do it after we have dealt with that."
Winter giggled to herself a little before hurrying to catch up to him.
"I'm coming." She said in a falsely cheery tone.
He only grunted in response as both of them began approaching the Salem's castle.
For the main base of an evil queen, with an entire world as her enemy, the castle before them was unusually scarcely protected.
There were no armies of grimm to halt their advance or any unbelievably old monsters blocking their path, the whole path to the castle felt almost unnaturally eerie for how abandoned it seemed.
Was Salem so confident in her power that she didn't bother with making any defences for her castle?
Or was it some sort of trap?
A confident smile appeared on his face as they reached the front doors of the castle, no matter what Salem was planning for them, it didn't matter.
He opened the doors with a heavy kick, that broke them out of their hinges.
Compared to all the demon lords and maddened super soldiers he had fought on the United Human Worlds of the Milky Way Galaxy, some grimm controlling witch was a far cry from being threatening.
"Who are you to dare invade me!?" A loud regal voice echoed through the castle as its queen took notice of them. "Some foolish hero? A lost huntsman? Or maybe another one of Ozma's pawns?"
He was far from impressed by the echoing voice of Remnant's sworn enemy, as he calmly moved forward towards the stairs he saw at the end of the main hallway.
"What a curious way to use magic. Incredibly wasteful, but, oh-so fascinating." Winter, however, unlike him, seemed at least a little interested in the method the Queen of all Grimm used in order to project her voice across the entire castle.
An expression of subtle curiosity appeared on his face, as he heard Winter speak.
"You know the machinations of magic?" He couldn't help but ask, knowing very well that having access to magical abilities and actually understanding it were two vastly different things.
If they weren't, people like Qrow, and Raven, Branwen would have been a lot more formidable individuals with the access to Ozpin's magic.
"I did spend a decade, or so, in a world where magic far more impressive than this was common place." Winter huffed, lightly. "Not mastering the complete process behind it, would have been a waste of both my time and capabilities."
He hummed in agreement as they finally reached the higher floor to see a vast room full of windows with a giant table in the middle, and an unbelievably pale woman with veins of darkness sitting at the end of it in boredom.
"It looks like we are here." He said.
"Yes, you are." Salem said as she stood up. "And you will meet your doom here, fools."
Salem casually extended her arm forward and hurled a magical ball of black lightning towards them.
"Scatter!" He shouted, before rushing to the side.
Despite the fact the ball of lightning wasn't moving particularly fast, it was barely any faster than an average running person, it was zapping anything that came relatively close to it with a strike of black lightning.
Although, he had utmost confidence of surviving the lightning attack without any damages, he still decided to dodge the attack completely.
There was no reason to reveal just how durable he could be to Winter, yet.
He quickly reached for one of his leg prosthetic to pull out a weapon hidden inside of it.
It was a gun, which while from outside looking rather simple, was actually more advanced than all of modern Remnant's technology combined. It was also of higher calibre than most of Remnant's heavy sniper riffles.
"Don't think I will let you use this thing!" Salem screamed upon noticing him getting a weapon before tossing a giant wall of dark fire towards him. "All of your childish technology is nothing compared to the vastness of my ancient magic!"
He slowly shook his head with some pity in his eyes as he watched the fire sluggishly fly towards him.
It looked like it was up to him to shatter the old witch's preconception of what real strength was.
With a swift and practised movement, he quickly pointed his gun forward, aimed it directly at the center of the floating flames, and pulled the trigger of his weapon.
The moment a melting-hot bullet came out of his weapon, a deafeningly loud blast echoed through the entire room, sending the surrounding air backwards and shattering all the windows adorning the walls.
The wall of fire, Salem sent at him, could do nothing else but be instantly extinguished when met with his projectile, as it flew directly through it and towards the Queen of Grimm.
"Ugh!" Salem spat as the projectile flew directly through her, as if she wasn't even there.
"This is the power of human ingenuity, you witch." James said loudly while straightening himself. "All of your fancy magic can't compare to the real miracles' humanity is capable of accomplishing through the use of our knowledge."
He heard Winter hum something from the side as she watched him with curiosity.
Instead of being scared for her life because of the two of them, however, Salem merely started cackling loudly, as if either mad or greatly amused.
Paying it no mind, James quickly aimed his gun at the pale woman before him, and pulled the trigger again. There was no mercy in his heart for hollow evil monsters like grimm, or the people who controlled them.
As projectile after projectile kept piercing through her, and destroying the floor behind her, the Queen of Grimm has never stopped laughing at the situation.
"What's so funny?" He asked coldly, while stopping his barrage for a second.
Salem's cackling subsided a little as she took a breath to properly stand up and answer the question. Despite the amount of bullets that she had just taken, her body looked as unharmed as ever.
"The fact you think some fast flying blocks of melting metal would be enough to kill a person like me, amuses me." Salem shook her head, before pointing at the scenery behind her. "If the pools of grimm weren't deadly enough to overcome the curse of immortality given to me by gods, do you really think that any weapon built by humanity would have been enough to do so, instead."
At the very mention of immortality, Winter's gaze began crackling with interest. Magically granted immortality must have really been something of interest for the few magically inclined people of the world.
He, however, was far from impressed by it.
"Is that all?" He asked while putting his gun away.
"Huh?" Salem turned to look directly towards him with confusion on her face, at his complete lack of reaction.
With a single flick of a hidden switch in his prosthetic, a small vortex-like portal to hell appeared right next to him, and he immediately reached inside of it with one of his hands.
Storing weaponry in a separated room in hell wasn't exactly a common practice even back in the Milky Way Galaxy, but for super soldiers like him, it was certainly available, and he was glad to make use of it.
"If immortality is the only reason you've stayed alive until now, then killing you won't be an issue." He grabbed a demonic looking sword that mixed advanced technology with occult rituals from his storage. "I've already dealt with immortal beings before, and if you truly are unkillable, then I would simply have to send you directly to hell myself."
The confident and amused expression on Salem's face quickly changed into one that was far more scared, as she began to back away.
"No, no, no!" Salem murmured as she frantically swung her hands around, throwing all of the most chaotic spells she knew. "I won't let you do that! Not before I take my revenge on those evil gods!"
A loud and disappointed sigh was heard from their side, as Winter finally got tired of observing their battle without interfering herself.
"Throwing magic around like that is only going to collapse this building." Winter said as two massive magic circles appeared on the room's floor and ceiling. "Here, let me prevent that."
Then, in a span of less than a single second, all the walls of the building were instantly encased in a thick layer of magical ice strong enough to outlast any spells thrown at it by Salem.
"I trust, you will be enough to take care of her yourself now, general?" Winter asked before lazily clapping her hands twice to make a chair out of ice for her to seat on.
He grunted in response as he lunged himself at the Queen of Grimm, killing her shouldn't be any problem for him.
However, just because he had a way to kill her, and was easily capable of surviving her magic, didn't mean killing Salem was going to be effortless. He still had to land a hit on her, after all.
Fire, lightning, and other wild magical projectiles flew around him as he carefully approached the mad witch.
All animals would struggle their hardest when fighting for their life, and humans were no exception, especially not the ones who had managed to live for millennials. From experience, he could tell that those types of people were the worst about dying.
A small smile appeared on his face as he finally came within sword striking range of Salem's.
Thankfully, Salem didn't have anywhere near the similar amount of resources those paranoid demon controlled humans had at their disposal. Though with only a single planet as her limit, it likely wouldn't have mattered even if she had that.
"No!" Salem shouted in fear as the demonic sword's blade was rapidly closing in on her face.
The Queen of Grimm quickly tried to move her arms forward to use her magic and push her attacker away, but before she could move any further than a couple centimetres, she suddenly found all her free limbs encased in ice.
"W-Wha-?" She began to ask when the demonic sword pierced through her head.
"I'm sorry for interpose, but I didn't want to waste more of my precocious time on someone not even related to our war." Winter said lightly while standing up. "I assume that ominous looking sword of yours, will be enough to kill her."
"Send her to hell." James corrected as his sword began burning with a deeply red flame.
In a span of less than ten seconds, the sword's flame spread from its blade onto Salem, engulfing her completely, and violently absorbing her very being into hell itself.
After a few seconds, Salem, the ultimate evil of Remnant and the Queen of Grimm, disappeared in a flurry of flames, taking both her body and soul away directly to afterlife. In the end, not even ashes remained of her on Remnant.
"Mission accomplished." James Ironwood said. "Now we can finally get back to truly important matters."
He let out a huff of relief, defeating Salem and securing safety for all the inhabitants of Remnant was one of his lifetime goals back before he had been chosen to help the United Human Worlds. Accomplishing it so easily now, and comparing it to some of the more difficult foes he had faced back there, really put into perspective just how inconsequential their entire world really was.
"I agree." Winter said in a wistful tone.
The air turned colder as a blizzard began to form inside the frozen room.
"Don't you think you are jumping the gun a little bit here, Specialist?" He turned towards winter.
Winter smiled hollowly.
"Considering the world I fight for?" Multiple magic circles appeared around Winter in a defensive pattern. "I don't think so, sir."
He carefully reached for his gun, feeling unimaginable pity by doing so.
Killing Winter, though unfortunately unavoidable, if he wanted to save the galaxy that taught him so much, wasn't something he truly wanted to do, especially not when it was still so early into the war.
If the challenge Winter posed him was genuine, however?
The grip on his gun tightened.
He would be a fool to not treat it seriously.
And cut!
So Salem's been sent to hell by Ironwood's sword and a battle is brewing.
I can't wait to write about it. Also time for Winter's world introduction!
Anyway that's it for now.
See ya!
[World Name: Terravia]
[Inspiration: Fairy Tail/Black Clover]
[Hero: Winter Schnee]
[Description: Terravia is a world full of magic. There's hardly any people who aren't versed in at least one form of magic, and the majority of the everyday devices are magical in nature as well. For an average person, living in a well off country, it could truly be a blissful world. However, the common access to magic also means that the evils of humanity, and other races living in the Terravia, are greatly magnified. Even common criminals and thieves could be considered a great danger if versed in particularly dangerous magic, and it is all without mentioning any ancient evils and dark wizards residing in this world.]