Chapter Three
Brave
Yang snapped the arrow with ease, Rei nipping at her heels and whining at the presence of danger. She barely remembered stepping into the projectile's path to protect the wolf despite knowing the Grimm could phase through artillery fire and walk away fine. She bent down to pet the small cub, scratching under her chin and getting a lazy tongue lick in reply, an acknowledgment between the pair after she spent a decade protecting her from Hunters coming into her office and finding her resting on the couch or desk. While she commended their quick response, she expected the rumor mill from Ruby's tenure to be a little more robust in getting that information around.
Before Blake or Weiss could react to the threat, she disappeared in a shower of yellow petals streaking off into the treeline with a sonic boom echoing about the clearing. They heard a shout of surprise from a much younger female before Yang appeared back on the ship ramp, her initial petal trail still falling. She threw the young teen at their feet after stripping her of her wooden bow, of all things, and a hunting knife kept on her thigh, throwing them to Blake. Save for her volcanic eyes, she could've easily passed for the assassin's younger sister. The silver circlet on her brow reminded her of Pyrrha's gold one.
She wondered how she was doing after her death or if she was somewhere else. It wasn't too big of a logical leap to assume that she could've also been similarly resurrected.
The clothing she wore, however, stumped her when compared to the ancient weaponry she had on her. She expected her to wear old-fashioned gear like a badly woven tunic or something similar to that matter but she was dressed in a modern green parka that no pre-industrialized civilization could manufacture. The heavy-duty cargo pants tucked into boots also looked manufactured by machines rather than by hand, making her choice in weaponry incredibly unorthodox. Sure, some of her Hunters used bows, but they were mechanically enhanced and tricked out with modern accouterments, not basic wood bent into shape by the tension of braided rope.
"Okay." Yang intruded on the personal space of the girl doing her best to quash down her terror about her attack being intercepted, getting spotted, manhandled into their ship, and then stripped of her weapons faster than she could comprehend. She looked around at the other two women with her and found no pity directed her way on her situation, quickly finding the wolf she tried to shoot was the kindest of them, seemingly unaware of what it survived. "You tried to shoot my pet so start talking and I'm wondering why? Who would shoot such a cutie?"
"I have nothing to say to the allies of Titans who keep company with Hellhounds." She answered defiantly, getting a round of confused looks from her captors. Yang picked up the little Grimm by the scruff of her neck and dangled her in front of her face, Rei licking her nose and getting a recoil of disgust. The teen took a moment to compose herself before continuing, "I will not betray my mistress."
"Right." Yang drawled and set Rei on her lap. She froze with the creature in her lap, unable to shoo it off for fear of them hurting her in retaliation. "First off, this little thing is not a Hellhound or whatever but since you probably have something similar in this world, I forgive you. This one, however, is fairly docile unless threatened and enjoys a good head scratch more than anything." The teen dared move a shaking hand to Rei's head and scratch her ear, getting a cute noise of approval. "Not like you could hurt her with your weapons anyways." Yang wrote off and saw her bristle at the insult to her chosen weaponry. "As to your mistress, I have no idea who she is or really care. I don't know what a Titan is either but I can hear you capitalize the word so feel free to fill me in. The name's Yang by the way."
The girl furrowed her brows and assessed the situation, finding herself trapped in this metal contraption with an apparently docile creature that resembled a Hellhound and a woman who moved faster than she could blink. Presumably, her companions also had similar abilities so she quickly wrote off any chance of escape, forced to rely on diplomacy with people she accused of working with the enemy. "I am Zoë Nightshade. If thee want information, I want my freedom." Her eyes hardened into obsidian and she leveled her best glare at the woman she deemed their leader, retaining as much dignity as she could with the puppy in her lap while sitting on the floor.
Yang chuckled warmly, waving off her concerns. "You're only guilty of trying to hurt my cub and she seems to have forgiven you." Rei practically melted in her hold and she couldn't hold back the coo of delight that escaped her before she remembered she was still in potentially hostile territory and shoved it down with an embarrassed blush staining her cheeks. "Now… these Titans. They have creatures like this one under their control?"
Zoë paused for a moment to collect her answer and observe her audience, finding it strange they had never run into another of this pup's kind. "Not under their control per se, more of a mutual alliance. These monsters flock together against a common enemy more so than for a common goal."
Yang and her team didn't visibly frown at the collective term she used to group these 'monsters' together, keeping their reaction to familiar sign shorthand. Rarely were such visceral terms completely accurate, but they helped paint a picture from her and her company's perspective. 'Monsters' to them they might've been but as it occurred with Grimm, many were simply content to avoid civilizations and live in the wilds. With the way she danced around naming a common enemy, it wasn't hard to figure she and her ilk stood opposed to them.
They waited for the girl to compose herself and take a deep breath before continuing, "This may come as a shock to you, but the Greek pantheon is real. The gods, goddess, and their progeny roam the Earth but so do the monsters you people call myths: Hellhounds, Cyclops, Dracaena, Harpies, among others." She opened her eyes after unknowingly closing them to avoid seeing their reactions, knowing mortals often took affront to her revelations. Instead, she found similar blank faces with hints of amusement. "You don't look surprised."
"We've had our tangles with gods before," Yang admitted much to her consternation as she had to revise her assessment of the trio. "Our late leader even managed to kill two of them before her death so it's not exactly a groundbreaking revelation."
She sputtered a bit at her candidness. "But- but- gods and goddess are immortal. They can't die. She most likely made them fade for a long while until they could reform." She shook off her shock and gathered her thoughts. "But thou don't make any sense. You are far too strong to be mere clearsighted mortals but you are also much too old to be demigods without drawing the attention of interested parties." Her eyes narrowed and a heavy weight settled in her stomach. "Unless you're protected by a patron deity… but thy would still at least be aware of some of the Greek mythology."
"No. No patron deity that I'm aware of at least." Yang answered, keeping Neo and the two pseudo-deities in Ozpin and Salem out of the conversation for now. None of them fit within the "Greek" pantheon and operated within their spheres of influence without any loyalty to a group of similarly powered individuals. "These demigods you spoke of… Can I assume you're one?"
"Yes, but I will keep the knowledge of my parentage to myself for now." The edge to her voice prevented any follow-up questions along that line. It wasn't any of their business anyway if she wanted nothing to do with her parents or didn't want to reveal it for another reason. The Schnee name went extinct after Weiss' death and Winter's refusal to carry it after all, their taint disappearing into the annals of history. "Gods and goddesses can procreate with mortals to create demigods that frequently inherit their godly parent's abilities to a lesser degree. The speed you move at could make you a daughter of Nike, a lesser goddess in our pantheon, which might explain why you've never encountered monsters before. Children of more powerful deities give off a more potent scent for monsters to track while those from lesser don't."
"Nope. I knew both my parents and both died." Weiss and Blake both flinched imperceptibly, having left Yang behind to watch their parents grow old and die. They might have understood their deaths were part of the general occupational hazard that all Hunters lived with, but it didn't mean they couldn't feel bad. Yang brushed off their worries with a deft hand sign, returning to her conversation with Zoë.
"I wouldn't put it past some gods to fake their death to get out of raising their children. Most male gods and a certain female god are extremely… prolific in their activities." She couldn't keep the explicit disgust from her voice. "Though, if your parents raised you, they couldn't be gods. The Ancient Laws prevent them from raising their children to focus on their duties of ruling their domains."
"Laws or not, still seems like a dick move to have children and not raise them." Zoë nodded her head in agreement.
"Now that you're aware of the Greek world, demigod or not, your scent becomes much stronger and easier to pinpoint for any roaming monster packs. I can offer you spots in the Hunters of Artemis or we can escort you to Camp Half-blood in Long Island on the East Coast."
"This goddess of yours… what does she preside over?"
A genuine smile graced Zoë before she answered, "Lady Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, archery, wilderness, forests, the Moon, radiance, maidenhood, and childbirth." She grinned and immediately continued talking, predicting their next question. "Yes, the last two are contradictory but her domains were assigned to her at birth by the Fates. She runs the Hunters as a sanctuary for young girls and women spurred by the evils of this world and accepts mortals, demigods, and nymphs into her group."
"That's certainly a noble goal but what happens to the young boys and men wronged by the world?" Yang pointed out the obvious discrepancy in her words, awaiting an answer but already expecting one with how her goddess reigned over maidenhood and childbirth.
"Males have no place among the Hunt and must go to Camp Half-Blood. We keep a haven for females away from any males and rarely have to interact with them save for the occasional god that comes to barter for our services. Milady and her oldest Hunters may tolerate male presence here and there but many in our group have to deal with post-traumatic stress associated with the opposite sex."
"So it's not a fully sexist organization but more of an asylum in a patriarchal world?" She concluded and waited for her response. She couldn't exactly condone the separation of genders in all aspects of life but she couldn't refute the work feminist organizations did within the reconstructing Vale after the invasion. The Hunters could ignore the problems plaguing the rest of the world with Ozpin, Ruby, and Qrow taking absolutely no shit and running everything on equalist propaganda whether it be humans, Faunus, male, or female.
"Exactly. While the larger Greek world sees us as man-hating, as do our younger recruits, age tempers the worst of them. Evil comes in both genders but we do what we can for the women we run into or are tasked in retrieving and helping. Besides, no male god has tried making an equivalent to milady's group so that either highlights the fallacy of gender equality or the lack of need for one."
"And you'd like us to join your group?"
"Yes." She admitted frankly. "We always need more Hunters and you're all women. I find no reason to not extend an invitation. Even if your parentage is secret to yourself, a fact many demigods go their whole lives without ever learning, we could use your skills and help train up that speed of yours. I assume your friends here have their own abilities."
"I can offer a meeting and nothing more. The decision on whether to join your Hunters in any capacity is made as a group, even if I speak for it and lead it." She gestured to the pair of Weiss and Blake, introducing them in turn. "Even if we don't join, I'd still like to meet your goddess and ask questions like 'why are you using bows and arrows instead of modern weaponry when you're not questioning this ship?' and other stuff like that."
"I've seen planes before." Zoë shrugged and settled Rei in her arms more comfortably, rising to a stand and checking out the modern 'plane'. "Of course, I was there when the Wright brothers first invented the plane over a century ago and this is much smoother, more streamlined I think the word is. I usually see them flying overhead and haven't had a chance to see inside one just yet." She expected them to immediately inquire about her age as most people did but found them simply looking amused at her again. "As to our weapons, it's a holdover from the times the Greeks ruled openly where such weapons were common. All demigods learn to use a sword or bow as the metal we use, Celestial Bronze or Lunar Silver, are scarce. We can't afford to manufacture bullets and have them get lost and arrows are much easier to find after they're shot."
"You wanna see it fly?" Yang got a barely sustained nod of enthusiasm that contrasted the suspected aged woman rather than the young girl she kept referring to in her mind. "Give me a general direction of your Hunter's base and we'll fly on over there. Blake, finally awake enough to take her for a spin?" She stepped over the controversial resurrection with their guest, still trying to wrap her head around it and keeping it on the down low with the greater public. She'd need to ask this Artemis goddess if such things were common in their realm or if she had to hunt down Neo and drown her in a vat of melted ice cream.
"I want to see if it's similar to riding milady's chariot across the skies." She gave her professional reasoning and absolutely none of them fell for it. "We're camped out about ten miles to the southeast in a large clearing. I can guide you once we're closer." She didn't question how they would land once they got there but seeing as they managed to land among trees with no runway, she suspected they could land it vertically. Truly mortal modern technology vastly eclipsed the ancient tech she was born into.
The white-haired woman, Weiss, she suspected was a daughter of Boreas or another in the North Wind subclass directed her to a series of straps attached to the ceiling she could cling onto. She took the little wolf from her and set her down on the ground without any restraints when they started moving, getting a chuckle from her. "She's been on this ship longer than I have and can probably run circles around us. I'm not worried about her losing her footing."
"And you're used to this?" Zoë yelped as the ship lifted off with a lurch and then transitioned into a smooth climb barely cresting over the trees. "I didn't think mortals had invented such technology like this yet."
"Yang is an incredible engineer and such technology is standard where we're from. I'm more surprised your 'Greek' world managed to survive so long when the rest of the world has evolved."
"There's a magical veil that was created by the goddess of magic, Hecate, to separate and protect both the outside mortal world and the Greek world from each other. It normalizes people's perspectives so instead of seeing Hellhounds or Cyclops, they see large dogs or burly men."
"She must be incredibly powerful then, to enshroud the entire world with an illusion." Weiss quietly repressed the surge of terror coursing through her
"Maybe. I can't begin to speculate on how powerful many of the gods and goddesses are. Some are powerful enough that to utter their names brings down a reaction on the world around you and while others are close to death with their lack of worshippers such as the rumored god of nature and the wild, Pan. Your friend Blake gives me a notion that the god of cats, Ailuros, is still alive with the cat ears on her head."
"We're all mortal Zoë. I knew Yang and Blake's parents and they knew mine." She didn't take offense to her trying to fit them into her worldview. They were anomalies beyond just their miraculous resurrection with their Auras and technology that most likely blew past anything this world could put out.
"Mortals don't have powers like Yang does. I assume you and Blake have your own abilities," She guessed and got a confirmation nod from Weiss. "It means you're all legacies then, daughters of demigods, and have inherited your abilities from your parents instead of directly from your godly ones. Though it is odd three legacies have managed to hide together. No wonder you've managed to hide so long without getting noticed. Legacies are much more difficult to pinpoint and find. How did you all manage to find each other?"
"Went to the same military Academy when we were younger. Lost our leader on a mission and then were honorably discharged. Stuck together after that." She saw Yang listening in near the cockpit door to the bullshit story she wove. Part of her felt bad for lying to her with how much information she offered without hesitation. Unlike Ozpin and Salem, these gods were sustained by the beliefs of their followers and have specific domains they ruled over, and save for Ruby's now extinct bloodline.
"You were military?" She started, unable to see the typical trappings of a military soldier on the small albino woman. The usual run-of-the-mill soldiers always wore their hair cropped tightly to their scalps and had big sticks up their rear ends. They also always wore their fatigues everywhere but she hadn't figured out if it was a regulation or if they just liked to wear their uniforms. None of them kept their hair short and they didn't share similar clothing. "You don't look like military."
"Well, our leader didn't like uniforms and didn't exactly care what her people wore as long as they could do their jobs." She waved off her concerns. After the first incident with the White Fang, she cared for her eyesight just enough to keep it perfect for combat, and after she met with Salem, Rei saw in an entirely different spectrum, making her clothing irrelevant to the point Yang had to dress her properly.
"The military's really changed since the times of tunics and swords," Zoë muttered to herself, reminiscing of the times her lady took her to the Battle of Waterloo and they observed men slaughter each other using incredibly inaccurate muskets while wearing flippantly bright uniforms and marching in even and straight lines. The stupidity of males never ceased to amaze her.
A blast shook the craft and Weiss slammed into her in a controlled fall to pin her against the cargo netting wall. Yang yelled something into the fuselage at them but they couldn't hear anything against the roar of the engines and adjustment thrusters as Blake aggressively rolled them over the treeline into a stable hover a few hundred meters away. After she shook the webs of trauma from her head, the huntress heard a call from the cockpit, "Zoë, get your ass in here before your goddess blasts us from the sky!"
Weiss helped her through the vertical doors and the small living chamber stacked with bunk beds into a roomy cockpit with Yang strapped tightly into her seat with a ring of yellow snowflakes slowly spinning around her wrists. She'd never seen such ephemeral constructs before and wasted a couple of seconds marveling at the designs and the low hum of energy vibrating around them. Blake handed her a little box with a button on the side with a mesh face, miming her to press it and moving it to her mouth. She might've lived through the Industrial Revolution and rarely interacted with modern technology, getting called a 'boomer' by younger campers and hunters for some reason, but she could figure it out.
She stepped up to the window and saw her hunter camp sprawled across a clearing next to a crystal clear river. Her many sisters dotted between their tents, all with their bows nocked and pointed at their metal craft. Lady Artemis stood near the front, a visible scowl painted on her face and hand outstretched with a ball of light glowing between her fingers. A lance of light sang through the air and slammed into the ship before she could bring the microphone and request a ceasefire. She recoiled and winced to brace for the incoming shock, cracking an eye open after a second to witness the extraordinary sight of the same yellow snowflakes around Yang's wrist creating a shield that almost effortlessly absorbed Lady Artemis's attack, a bead of sweat trailing down Yang's temple.
"Lady Artemis," She stated into the box and her voice projected from the craft and stopped her goddess from sending another blast. "This is your lieutenant, Zoë Nightshade. This is not a mortal craft and is carrying three prospective recruits." She remarked and sent a prayer to her lady to confirm her words on the chance she believed it was a trick from her brother or Hermes. Much to her relief, her sisters lowered their weapons and stared in amazement as Blake maneuvered into a small space between the trees with little difficulty, a half dozen screens giving her a view around them.
Yang, however, didn't drop the snowflake shield after they exited the cockpit and released the rear ramp. Her lady walked up to the border and tapped it, arching an eyebrow at the magical barrier and then punching it with a considerable amount of force that shook the trees and flattened the grass. She made a noise of discontent and gestured to the line of glyphs on Yang's wrists. "Impressive magic. Daughter of Hecate?"
"Nope." Yang popped the last syllable while the goddess patiently waited for a further response, tapping her foot and drumming her fingers along the quiver on her leg. She eventually resorted to snorting quietly and took it upon herself to steer the conversation, conveniently running into Yang's follow-up comment. "Are all goddesses as attractive as you or are you just special?"
Zoë's eye twitched and she couldn't hold back a facepalm at the casual flirt thrown at her mistress, a second facepalm joining right after as Weiss left a large red mark on her forehead, groaning audibly. She thought that maybe she was condemning her friend for her remark but found her cursing herself for not making it first. It wasn't her fault her lady had to flash from elsewhere into the camp in her adult form after a meeting on Olympus after all, responding to prayer from her sisters.
"It is customary to bow when meeting a god or goddess and addressing them by their full name." Blake detached her ribbons and let them dangle down, ready to incapacitate the Lieutenant to hold her hostage if the situation went awry. This wasn't the time to chastise her leader and she resolved to punish her away from the public eye. The imperceptible smirk turning up the goddess's lip released the tension and she stowed them away without anyone the wiser. "But I can forgive such impudence the first time." She clapped her hands once to chase away the awkward pause and continued, "I am Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon." She gestured to the group of females gathered behind her, "And these are my Hunters, a group of girls I lead against the forces that threaten them. Zoë tells me you wish to join."
"That entirely depends on what your group offers to mine."
"It's usually the other way around." She rebuked them without any real aggression. "My girls get partial immortality where only injury can kill them. My blessing makes you stronger, faster, and more accurate with weaponry due to my domain of archery, on top of freezing your physical age the moment you take your oath."
"You offer immortality yet your group numbers in the low thirties and most of them look to be in their teens, physically at least." None of them looked older than 18, most of them 16, and a few of them as young as 12. "I'm surprised you don't have a legion of 500 girls running about in silver."
"Not many are willing to turn back on the company of men and accept eternal maidenhood, even for partial immortality. Some take the oath and then break it where I'm forced to release them from my service."
"That's funny. You make a distinction between the company of men and eternal maidenhood." She and Zoë shared knowing smirks as if they alone knew the reasoning behind the distinct separation, none of the other females aware of the connection they shared over that short distance. "You may have noticed that we're quite a bit older than the teens you have frolicking around you. If one of your prerequisites is maidenhood then you're a few years too late."
"No, no prerequisites like that. Some of my girls have run into… less savory aspects of mankind before they joined with me." She gently danced around the delicate topic and they all nodded in shared understanding. "The vow of eternal maidenhood starts at the vow, not before it. The separate caveat of leaving men behind helps enforce the first."
"Right…" Yang drawled and signed a short message over to her teammates, getting double nods of approval. "My team and I offer military and war experience, an aircraft for fast and mobile movement across the planet, and an independent squad able to take missions with high danger ratings. I'd like to retain that same operating capacity, even if it costs us your partial immortality."
"That's not what I was expecting." She rubbed her chin in thought. "The Hunt has never had an official alliance with anyone other than Olympus itself and absorbs those females that want to work with us. I'm not entirely on board with having you work with us as a separate entity and more directly under my command."
"How about a spar then?" Yang grinned victoriously, successfully walking the goddess into the trap she laid for her. They knew nothing of this world save for the tidbits of information Zoë and seeing the strength of one of their vaunted gods in combat would give them insight. Beyond that, tying themselves to a group, even sacrificing their independence for a short time, would keep them from attracting attention in the mortal world with their lack of identities and miraculous resurrections. And if it turned out this Greek world was a threat to them, they could do that much easier within them than learning a pantheon of them was after them in the blind wilderness. "You know nothing of my team's abilities and I'm willing to stand as their representative."
"I am a goddess, child." She scoffed at the notion of fighting a young mortal and Yang's grin grew into a terrifying smile Weiss and Blake often saw on Ruby's visage just before she descended onto a battlefield. "I have abilities beyond your understanding and four millennia of experience to back them up."
"Then you have nothing to lose." Yang retorted and Artemis's silver eyes sharpened at the challenge.
She had her right where she wanted.