"It always begins with a thought."

"An exertion of will."

"In both the physical plane and the realms of the dark gods."

"The denizens of each cast out a thought, and it is made real."

"What can they become?"

"How can we break free?"

"This is our dream."

"This is their nightmare."

"Their mortal fear makes them weak and desperate."

"But even in their struggle to resist our will, the soul bearers honor the architect of fate."

"To escape their doom, to bite against incredible strife and entropy to overcome. This is a way of the ever changing one."

"And we would share this path with the whole of the materium."

"But He sensed our plans,"

"The anathema always has."

"At the birth of the fourth god, as the galaxy burned he led his few favored friends to this world."

"The hounded and misunderstood. Inverse psykers who manifested the power of their little souls in the physical realm."

"But we were waiting."

"We are always waiting where the veil runs thin."

"He calmed the storm and left his guardians to assure we would never run loose upon this world, and step to farther reaches beyond its curious soil."

"Where the laws of reality bend upon themselves… But his guardians were only Human."

"And we whispered to their heartssss."

"One answered."

"One made promise."

"The rest wrought vengeance."

"She tricked another to make gifts, bodies for the neverborn. Vessels to walk reality in."

"Placing the blame upon her pawn until the anathema returned."

"To slaughter our supposed champion."

"And returned to the stars, to prepare his ancient home."

"A bargain was kept, honor was satisfied."

"The soul wielders ignorantly rejoiced in their great victory."

"But our creations remained."

"The mortals grew afraid. We fed on that fear."

"Their fear of losing who they were."

"Their fear of our lurking in the shadows."

"We stalked the darkness, fangs ever waiting."

"They found the Dust."

"It spoke to their souls."

"Cursed elements."

"Materium manifested, poison bane of the warp born."

"And they returned with weapons of lighting and fire."

"But they were only Human."

"And fail they did."

"Our little game continued."

"Down the long road of time."

"But we were blessed by our master with a gift. So we thought."

"When His little son fell to our world."

"But he would not listen, to quick, too late for us. Not enough time…"

"As we realized the truth."

"Even if he did not."

"The Primarch was here to bring an end to our grand design."

"This nature will betray him. Ender of schemes, destroyer of hope."

"Rot and ruin will spread from his hands. By the mark of decay he doesn't know he bears."

"A fitting fate."

"But not our goal."

"This we could not allow as the Emperor returns."

"Again we needed not lift a finger."

"As the Human's plotted against themselves."

"Some dare resist."

"We rejoice in their struggle. Honor their defiance."

"As we grew strong again in their chaos."

"Seized what we desired."

"Claimed what we needed from their mortal grasp."

"As we were not completely ready for one final endeavor."

"To seize our fate."

"Begin the hunt… And devour, the world."

Far above Vale, the gamble to free Torchwick had yet to take any unexpected turns. So the city below remained comfortably oblivious. The air was still, and Vale went about its day. Unaware of the momentous turn of events taking place inside of the police station, with the marshal and headmaster of Beacon.

Or the forces boiling with final preparations behind the veil.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be Oz…" Marshal Szary warned

"Marshal, you must realize what could happen," Ozpin said.

"Save it."

"Sir,"

"Are you going to tell me what I have to do? Really Professor I think now is the time to realize what you have done."

Anger

Doctor Oobleck and Professor Port shifted uncomfortably at the brewing tension. Ozpin once again tried to calm Szary down

"We need to stand united,"

"You want me to cut you slack for what you've done in the past? How does any of that helped us now?" The marshal retorted.

"No, I want you to understand…"

"I understand plenty, you made sure of that when I shadowed you at Beacon." He crossed his arms, "And I can't reconcile the man I knew with you right now."

Envy

"Now," Szary made to move between the three teachers. "If you'll excuse me I have to go deal with this cluster fuck…"

Twisting Pride.

"So you didn't actually go to any academy in Atlas."

Kad shook his head, "No Ali, we moved around a lot."

"Still," his partner thought for a moment, "You weren't the dullest tac in class this year."

Mercury laughed listening in on the conversation, "Sharp enough not to want to hang around us anymore."

"Don't make it sound like it was a smart move," Kad told him. "A better choice."

Alicia frowned, "Are you saying you regret coming to Beacon?"

"No, we went our separate ways and that was that."

"Still, why did you leave?" Alicia was growing ever more curious at these revelations about her leader. Brought up with the sudden presence of his past friends in a not so hostile environment like a tournament duel.

"Things just worked out like that," Kad said, "And come on… It's Beacon. Nothing else comes close."

Kad would have preferred just to keep walking through town, making just small talk with his friends the rest of the day. Now he figured that maybe he should have let Co'Balt keep blindly leading them down a few more wrong streets just to pass the time, which he could still sense flowing by in painstaking slowness.

Emerald was noticing this to, but getting rather more irritated, "Aren't we getting close yet?"

"Oh don't question Kad's sense of direction…" Co'Balt told her.

The giant just shook his head, "Yee of little faith."

She just groaned and rolled her eyes. Not even following the fingers he brought up to point out their destination down the road. Emerald had a different wish concerning how the day would progress. Quickly so that she could get back to her dorm and her misery as soon as possible.

But her melancholy was shattered by the screaming roar of multiple jet turbines far over their heads suddenly drew the attention of those among the five of them with more sensitive hearing skyward. As half a dozen Atlas jets began to climb up higher into the air.

Straight towards the main command ship with a thick black column of smoke spewing out of its underbelly.

Strength.

News spread slowly through the city at first.

People shared looks on the streets and too the skies. Memories of the recent incidents returned to their minds.

But the momentum built, radios crackled to life with half heard reports. Theories whispered in silence and dread blossomed into shouting and panic. Hundreds of people on the streets blindly stopped in their tracks and sought out the nearest route back home to their families.

No one was looking to the sky for their saviors. They knew the Atlesians were under attack and could do nothing to help them.

It didn't matter how small in reality the strike on the airship was. No civilian had these facts. Not even the commanders on the other airships desperately trying to hail their commander for some form of direction.

Opportunity

And the dread forces lurking in every shadow felt this wave of emotion. Built upon decades of strife start growing, and growing, and growing.

Feeding them power.

Drawing them closer to the surface.

Mercury was the first to voice what they were all thinking,

"Damn…"

Kad looked down to the two of them, silently raising a suspicious eyebrow. Emerald slightly shook her head, she didn't know what was happening. And he could see Mercury trying to put the pieces together in his head, more curious then cautious.

Alicia and Co'Balt were looking up to the back of his brown head of hair. Kad waved his left hand back at them, hold on a minute. The unspoken request.

"Well this day just keeps getting better…" Alicia said.

Something else redirected Kad's attention. A force sent shivers up his back that he couldn't explain. Almost unwillingly his eyes were drawn down, not up at what was going on with the airships but to the building before him across the street.

The station was relatively large. Almost a whole city block for just the one building. Grey painted bricks layered up into almost a miniature fortress. Curving windows and wide white washed steps leading up to the front double doors.

He swept his eyes along the front, scanning for the danger he sensed. Kad blinked only once and all hell broke loose.

Time seemed to slow

He watched every single window on the station shatter in an instant. Cracks spread kept to their frames as glass ruptured and flew from the old fixtures. Dirt and dust separated from the brickwork when the waves of kinetic energy passed through from the foundation up to the roof.

Fire licked out from the lower basement windows at ground level. Kad watched the whole building seemingly start to rise up. A harsh blast of tortured sound hits his ears and stunned the giant's sensitive hearing. He shut his eyes, both arms flying up on reflex to shield his face as the police station exploded.

Blake's ears were ringing harder than they had ever in her entire life.

She barely even felt the hard concrete roll beneath her shoulder as the three of them fell to the ground from Raven's portal. The Faunus squinted through the haze watching Raven climb to her feet, and Yang come up onto her hands and knees shaking her head and long blonde hair.

Raven looked up and down the street trying to position herself, "We need to run, now!"

She bent down to try and shake some sense into Yang. Even Blake, flat on her back with her hands over her ears heard the sudden silence. Like the city was suddenly holding its breath. In the wake of the muffled boom, that came from within the stone cliff.

And another, and another. And then she lost count at the crescendo of noise, swiftly drowned out by the sound of several hundred tons of rock shattering and splitting into ever smaller pieces against itself.

Now where the Atlas bombs had been buried deep, where once Vale's everlasting barrier had stood a hundred meter long portion of The Wall had just been demolished. And the kingdom had been opened to the wild forests beyond and all the horrors that barrier was meant to keep out…

His pause didn't last for more than a moment. Waves of dust carried on the pulse of power that had just destroyed the building pushed Kad back half a step as it slammed into his broad chest.

Alicia, Emerald, Co'Balt and Mercury were all sent down to the asphalt, deafened by the blast and the sudden aura drain the all took from the hit. When Kad opened his eyes and lowered his arms a different type of shock had him locked in place.

The station looked as if something had burst up through its innards with the force of a hurricane and torn the guts out of the VPD headquarters. Almost nothing of the roof remained, shapeless piles of broken masonry piled up around the ragged walls pockmarked where all the windows used to be.

Ragged coughs came from his team and old friends climbing up and trying to grasp what had just happened. Kad thought quickly,

"Everyone get going, now," The giant ordered once they had found their feet.

"Kad what are you…" Co'Balt tried to object

"I'll be careful. You guys need to leave, stay safe," He looked down at Emerald directly, "Get some answers."

Emerald nodded quickly before she and Mercury took off back the way they came. Co'Balt was nearly fuming at the giant, Alicia stepped forward and tried to tug on the edge of Kad's leather jacket.

"What are you doing?" She asked, "We've got to stick together."

"No," Kad shook his head, "I'll take a look, you guys go get help. If you can't find any quick, get to the stadium and wait for me there. I won't be long."

"But…"

"Now," Kad said, putting all the iron he could in his command. Alicia finally nodded however reluctantly, stepping back next to Co'Balt. But the two of them lingered for a moment watching their leader walk into the new ruin.

He tried to ignore the few sirens on the wind. With the Atlas ship burning overhead Kad didn't think anything would be coming from the northerners. And he had to focus. Banishing the sirens and listening to the sounds around him, searching for anyone trapped in the shallow rubble.

Subconsciously looking for enemies in the shadows.

Now where the center of the building used to be there was only slopes of crushed powdered rock and steel beams jutting out from the ground where the few support pillars of the basement used to hold up the rest of the building. A few sections of higher floors remained defiant against physics while everything else had fallen into the gray piles.

Kad stopped on the rim of this pit to gather his bearings. Several little fires burned around him, their little tendrils of flame flickering in the growing wind. Sharp rocky clinks behind him suddenly drew his hand up to Ignis.

"WHOA!" Co'Balt held up his empty hands signaling it was only him. The bull Faunus and Alicia at least several steps behind the giant.

"I told you to leave…" Kad said scowling.

"And we ignored you," Alicia replied, "Now that we have that sorted out…"

She would have asked what their next move was, where to start digging. What would be the most likely places to look for survivors, or if it was even worth it.

If she wasn't silenced by the sudden deafening crack of something giving way beneath their feet.

Kad snapped back to the pit in the center.

The now sinking pit.

He shifted, hand still on the black hilt of Ignis watching in disbelief as the fires around them swirled to the middle of this growing hole. Spiraling faster and faster downwards. Alicia and Co'Balt began stepping backwards in fear. Kad was too shocked to react and move. He could only look, down into the shapeless void at the center of the whirlwind of fire.

Something was coming…

The spinning blaze began to change. The orange light spun faster and faster turning just into a blur of color. Tones shifted, deeper reds and exotic shades in unnatural clouds of fire gathered round the edge.

Once more the pit sunk inward then a shadow belched from the depths of a realm worse than hell itself took to the air. Making the flames shoot out from the rift straight towards the young Hunters.

His eyes bulged, Kad turned and threw himself backwards on instinct. His teammates seemed to be moving in slow motion. As the giant swung his arms out as he crouched down and pulled the two of them close.

The flame swept over his back, draining his aura which glowed strong and defiant. It only lasted for a moment. Kad stood, turned and drew his red Dust sword in one fluid motion looking to the sky.

Slowly the shadow took shape hovering above him, only to guess at its size, about half more his considerable height if he had to wager.

The shape slowly dripped shadows and taking solidity, its wrongness made all the more apparent in the early morning light. Slender but powerful arms and legs reached out and stretched. Two giant feathered black wings opened, but didn't flap to hold it aloft. Nails and talons sprouted on its extremities as more shadows gathered into the shape of an iron staff draped with black cords for grip with a barbed circle head on top, gripped tight in the thing's right hand.

Armored plates grew forth on top of its oily black skin and loose skin straps dangled from its stomach. More armor and feathers grew out solidifying its body while spikes sprang from it's arching back. A ruffled mane of white and black feathers appeared on its shoulders spreading up the long thick neck to its head.

When its bone mask began to take shape was when Kad saw what it was. And memories of a dreadful dream in the night not long ago began to resurface. The narrow nevermore head shook and twisted, testing the motion of its dagger like beak lined with rows of arrow headed teeth. Its two flaming eyes snapped open and gazed down on the little Primarch before the Grimm threw back its head letting loose a daemonic scream.

"FREE!"

Kad shook himself out of his shock, back to Alicia and Co'Balt who were shifting clutching their weapons tight. Kad pointed back the way they had come with his free left hand over his right shoulder and shouted, "I told you, go!"

His teammates looked at him and then the beast screaming wordlessly to the sky. The sunlight behind it taking on a dark tainted hue as it gathered its might in the physical plain. Co'Balt blinked and gripped his axe, "Kad…"

"Run!"

He didn't have time to see if they would actually listen this time, quick running boot steps told him they were but Kad couldn't afford to think about either of them now. The giant shifted both hands to the hilt of his sword waiting for the beast to move.

The rift below him heaved once more, Kad blinked once as another beast differing in only subtle details which he did not care to note from the first came flying at him.

Time seemed to slow,

This one was smaller, about his height but it did not carry a staff. Instead its black hands clutched twin curved scimitars, shimmering with an unholy miasma. Stabbing straight for his chest.

Faster than any normal eyes could track Kad began shifting too his right. Latching his left hand closer to Ignis's point.

Dust infused steel met the warp born blades. Kad pushed and shifted sending the smaller Grimm hurtling left into a ruined wall.

He couldn't spare it another glance, the floating Grimm hissed in rage pointing its cursed staff. Two fireballs shot from the medallion.

Kad swung back one handed shouting, the red tip caught and dissipated the first orb. Kad shut his eyes and raised his left hand up in reflex as the second came for his face.

Waves of heat washed over his body but the attack never struck. Light glinted from his palm and semblance. The Grimm hissed again and dropped heavily down to the ground. Rock and debris shifted behind the giant. The other Grimm was getting up…

The first took slow steps forward, and Kad shifted to his right backing up, to bring the smaller into his vision again.

"All comes to plan child…" The larger Daemon growled,

"As well as your end Huntsman…" The sword wielder hissed,

"You want me…" Kad asked, gripping Ignis tight in both hands, raising the fanged cross guard up to his eye level by his right shoulder. Fire shimmered and ran up his blade, defiant and bright.

"Come and get me!"