MARZ Rising

by FandomPariah

It's been thirty years since Ruby Rose saved Remnant from Salem and almost a decade since it was saved again. Salem is gone yet the Creatures of Grimm remain and now a new generation of Hunters are ready to begin their story... By enrolling at the Breaktide Academy of Menagerie where they'll be trained by legends including Team CFVY and Ruby Rose herself. Part 5 of the Spiral-Verse

67. Neo Vale

RWBY & All associated trademarks are property of Rooster Teeth (RIP Monty Oum)

I claim no ownership of anything except my own original characters.

I am making no money from this.

Chapter 67: Neo Vale

The office of Headmaster and former Hunter of great renown turned History Professor and storyteller supreme in the eyes of his many honorary nieces and nephews through the vast Arc family Lie Ren was, in contrast to the stern and imposing Professor Goodwitch who had presided over it before him a picture of tranquillity with wooden furniture in light tones, hand carved into gentle sweeping lines filling the open and spacious room.

Walls were lined with bookcases and filing cabinets, each with exotic potted plants resting atop them with the spaces between the furniture taken up by artwork which ranged from but lovingly made children's drawings to the various experimental styles of teenaged artists reaching out to find something that was truly their own save for the wall immediately behind his desk, which Ren had instead devoted to four important things, namely his licenses as a teacher and as a Huntsman which were displayed one above the other and set between twin photographs of Halo Academy of New Vale; the first taken on the day of the academies' opening on his own scroll and the other celebrating the day when, following the utter ruin of the city below in the wake of Salem's war and the casualties it had brought Ren and his wife Nora had dedicated part of the campus to an orphanage which now ran alongside it; those children raised within it being the artists behind the art lining the walls. On the Headmaster's desk, faced so he could see them whenever he was present were two photographs of a more personal nature; one showing Team JNPR as they had once been, the four of them dancing in sync before the horrors of war had taken first Pyrrha and then Jaune from them whilst the second was far less bittersweet and showed what was inarguably the happiest moment of his life, his wedding to Nora Ren, formerly Valkyrie.

That the office was currently tranquil could be considered a miracle, or perhaps a testament to Professor Lie Ren's fortitude and all-enduring calmness given that it was still early on a Saturday morning and he was already hard at work.

Ren had aged gracefully to say the least, looks that had been remarked often by those a safe distance from the earshot of Nora Valkyrie had only matured over the years to leave him with sharp yet delicate features that were only enhanced by the few lines which had set in on his forehead and around corners of eyes which were framed by reading glasses with a tortoiseshell pattern, those same features being offset by a sense of ruggedness given to him by the faintest trace of stubble gracing his jawline and the single scar running from his right cheekbone to temple which had been delivered by the talons of a Nevermore decades ago. His hair was, instead of its' once customary braid tied into a simple and practical bun at the back of his head which was held in place and decorated with a single lotus flower attached to a pin whilst the familiar streak of pink he had always worn was still present, set against black locks which now shimmered with the silvery grey liberally interspersed amongst them. Despite the hour and the fact that it was indeed the weekend the Headmaster had dressed himself in a way that suggested that he was ready for business whatever form it might take, sporting an outfit consisting of a warm, forest green suit whose jacket-sleeves bore tweed patches and a simple white button down shirt with a pink tie; the entire affair made more ornate by the twin capes like wing-casings at the hem of his jacket and the ornate harness, somewhere between waistcoat and harness between it and his shirt which housed his weapons.

A look which Nora Ren, formerly Valkyrie found very attractive; as was made apparent on her entry to the office which she accompanied by a playful wolf-whistle.

"Morning….I made pancakes, still not as good as yours but one day" she gave a soft and warm laugh as she sauntered into her husbands' workspace and closed the door behind her, crossing the space between them and behind him so that she could reach over the back of his chair and lean against his back whilst casually pressing a forkful of pancake which was liberally coated with syrup in to Ren's mouth; wasting no time in reaching around to salaciously lick away the syrup that had dripped onto his chin and use the contact as a precursor to trailing kisses along his jaw and nibbling his ear.

"I really, really don't like waking up without my man" Nora breathed into his ear and it took every ounce of willpower at Ren's disposal to maintain his composure in that moment.

Nora had retained everything he loved and found physically attractive about her; strength not being hindered in the slightest by the slight softness she had taken on over the years, stunningly bright eyes made all the more prominent by the scar running across the bridge of her nose and beneath them both where an enemies shield had carved into her face and the smirk that made his heart stutter still firmly in place. She had entered the room wearing a pair of cartoonish slippers and a vividly pink robe which Ren new several of the children who called the orphanage attached to the academy home owned identical copies of, with Nora often hosting slumber parties of a sort for the children and being a beloved figure in their lives; however now as she leaned against his back Ren realised quickly that Nora had unfastened the robe and sensations which threatened distraction made it abundantly clear that she wore nothing at all beneath it.

"I had hoped to be back before you woke up, I was going to check things are running smoothly in preparation for later and then make breakfast….But there's already so much to do"

"It's the same every time there's a tournament and now we're the ones hosting it" Nora sighed regretfully, understanding the situation enough to fasten her robe so that her husband could focus, albeit lightly as she leaned over him to begin studying the various emails and other notifications and exchanges that had conspired to keep him from their bed.

"Students from the other academies are already on the way?" she asked, eyes scanning various message headers "Shade? They're the nearest to us"

"Yes but I believe they're sending their contingent by train….there's also a warning from Shade that many Vaccuan students, from all academies will likely feel a need to make their own way here and that we should be prepared to deal with multiple stowaways or other attempts to enter the Kingdom and city without proper paperwork"

"The Sun Wukong approach" Nora laughed, helping herself to one of the stack of pancakes which she had no intention of wasting.

"I suspected as much and already reached out to Sun himself" Ren noted with a smile "He'll be making the trip from Patch in the next few hours and rendezvousing with Scarlet; the two of them will coordinate with Qrow as he checks for any signs of things that might be amiss"

"Looking for the Benefactor, still" Nora noted.

"Looking for anything that might serve as a clue, or a sign that whoever it was that operated smuggling operations for live Grimm and supplied gangs with battle-suits is still active somewhere" Ren raised his glasses, rubbing his eyes in a rare display of tiredness

"I wish I could do something as hands on as field work or even a virtual stakeout….Instead I've been coordinating with the other heads; the Atlas students are already in the air and will likely be the first to arrive and we have confirmation that the Breaktide and Haven students will be leaving shortly. I've had to parse the various transcripts and documents for each of the incoming students and decide what information warrants the attention of who-"

"A few rough and rowdy ones?" Nora asked playfully.

"About what we expect every year but on a different scale" Ren admitted "Vaccuan students with a different interpretation of the law and several outstanding cases; Mistrali students, or those from the Anima Diaspora who're more than willing to settle any dispute with ritual combat long before the tournament starts, kids from Vale who have feelings about coming home and Atlas and Mantle kids who have issues with one another on top of all the issues those kids have-"

"So all in all, it's a bunch of nervous, excited, hyped up and probably horny teenagers" Nora snorted "That's why we have the dance before the tournament"

"You are….Incorrigible" Ren murmured, unable to keep a smile from tugging at his lips at the sight of his wife finger-gunning him even as she continued to lean over his shoulder.

"You bet I am" she answered proudly "But it sounds like things are running smoothly?"

"Largely yes, just admin issues and last minute checks" Ren assured her "That and the usual amount of security and healthy paranoia that Qrow insists on"

"Good" Nora nodded with a small grin at the last part of the sentiment "The children are all excited….They know that there's a lot more Hunters coming at that means more cool stuff, so last nights' movie night ended up being Vytal Tournament special"

"Our matches?" Ren asked, swallowing a mix of welling emotions.

"Always" Nora's grin faltered a little before returning "Jaune and Pyrrha will have die hard fans as long as I have a say in it….In the meantime I've enlisted help to make sure that none of the kids do anything too dumb"

"The students?" Ren asked, knowing that having the students and the orphanage children interact on an at least semi-regular basis was something his wife actively encouraged so that the children had a collection of role models and figures akin to an extended family to look up to whilst the students themselves were instilled with an additional sense of responsibility to those they served so that they might never lose sight of what it truly meant to be a Hunter.

"Some of them" Nora nodded "I also hinted that Eagle and Carcharodon would be annoyed at them if they did anything to cause problems for the transfer students"

"Ah the classic trick" Ren smiled fondly, knowing just how many of the students adored Eagle Arc; Ren and Nora's honorary niece and Carcharodon Gore, the fierce and imposing Shark Faunus albeit for vastly different reasons.

"So….Incoming students are fine, kids are fine, city is fine, our people know that they're doing" Nora rattled the subjects off as though they were mere distractions "Our students?"

"Are largely fine" Ren assured her "Some are currently off-site, either stayed away after last nights' celebrations or are away for personal reasons….There was something of a spat between Teams TRQS and SHMR"

"Tiger and Snapdragon are still bickering?" Nora huffed "I'll have them duke it out in class"

"Either that or have someone mediate between the two teams, maybe Stygian?" Ren mused "Other than that everything is in order"

"Well then" Nora declared, voice more commanding "Wanna tell me why I'm still losing my Saturday morning in bed with you?"

With that she turned Ren's chair enough that she could slip from behind him and onto his lap in a single fluid motion which saw her cast aside her robe entirely, grabbing his tie and pulling him into a slow, searing kiss completely secure in the knowledge that the door to the office was locked and that almost every single person who might interrupt them was currently preoccupied.

Ren quickly decided that there was no good reason at all for not enjoying a Saturday morning like this and allowed Nora to take charge from there on out.

---

The air was bright and fresh as Team MARZ collectively stepped out into it, though that freshness was somewhat tainted by the heat-haze caused by the wing-mounted thrusters of several waiting transport craft and the grit and dust that those idling craft kicked into the air around them in a dull haze. Sounds were rendered just as dulled and indistinct as sight by the thrum of engines, a low and rumbling bass note which underscored the buzz of dozens of conversations taking place in a short proximity as departing students took the time to say any final, lingering goodbyes that they had been unable to manage the night before when the thrill of victory had been so fresh and the reality of their pending departure might not have fully occurred to them; teams who were often friendly with one another shook hand, bumped fists and hugged whilst couples whose ability to date would soon be severely limited stood apart in an effort to make use of what little privacy they could find whilst promising one another that they would find ways to make things work or else, in more than one case saying tearful last goodbyes and in a few instances parents, siblings and other relatives and guardians had arrived at the campus to wish their children good luck in what was to come; the transports currently perched and waiting upon the landing pads within the campus grounds would only be taking the students as far as the cross-Kingdom airship terminals across the city and towards the coast where they would embark on their journey proper however the limited time between the two flights had meant that such meetings would be impractical there.

Team MARZ strode through the crowds, as polite and considerate of their surroundings as possible whilst remaining focused and intent.

"This is it, this is actually it, we're actually doing this!" it was Regalia who spoke, her voice strained somewhat with huffs of exertion as she pulled Clunker along by its' handlebars. The Racoon Faunus had thoughtfully offered for her teammates to attach all of their various cases and items of luggage to the jetbike so that it could more easily be retrieved upon their eventual arrival to Neo Vale which, combined with the fact that the vehicle was hovering low to the ground and with its' monumental Dust engine, scavenged from something similar to the transport it was about to be stowed within running on minimal power as was dictated by various rules and procedures rendered the task of manoeuvring Clunker's bulk difficult though this seemed to have no bearing at all on Regalia's mood; the goggles gifted to her by a child of Clan Aiktishaf with their purple lenses were lowered to keep dust from her eyes however the adjoining collapsible mask had not been activated which left the grin which spread from ear to ear plain to see whilst her grey-brown furred tail stood erect and bushy whilst swishing from side to side faintly behind her.

"Of course we're doing this, we're Team MARZ! I'm awesome, you're awesome, we're all awesome….We made it" Astra's signature bravado had become something that they had steadily grown into, each new victory allowing it to feel less of an act and more deserved and yet in that moment as they kept pace with their partner in a swaggering saunter, toying absently with their many earrings and the fixture around their formerly broken antler which was no longer strictly needed but had not been removed the confidence could truly be said to feel as though it belonged and yet, at their final words it faltered in the briefest amount as the truth of the situation and their achievement pressed on them to leave them with a wide smile and a warmth in their chest which saw them reach out to take Clunker's handlebars and help Regalia.

"Yeah, you did great Astra….But is it weird that right now the thing I'm looking forward to the most is finding a quiet corner of the airship and trying to sleep?" Athena-Jade's voice chimed in, drawing attention to both herself and Zirconia as the walked close by, hand-in-hand and leaning against one another; the Bear Faunus positively glowing with happiness and her chest puffed out with obvious pride whilst her partners' face was uncovered despite how the shawl she often wore might have helped against the dust in the air and she wore a soft and contented smile that was only offset slightly by how tired the two of them both looked.

"Not weird at all" Astra rolled sea-green eyes "Especially considering you two were making out all night and fu-"

"We did no such thing" Zirconia interjected, words quiet but stern "We came back to the dormitory and saw that you and Regalia had left food for us and were both asleep….We tried to sleep but couldn't"

"I can't believe you two managed to sleep" Athena added "But we wouldn't do….that while you guys are in the room, come on Astra be fair"

"I get it, I get it" Astra laughed, good naturedly waving the issue aside and tactfully choosing not to reiterate the fact that they had been woken by the sound of giggling and rustling sheets in the early hours of the morning to two of them sharing a moment that had been adorable and far from indecent yet still undoubtedly private; responding by clearing their throat loudly to alert their friends to the fact that they were awake and simply choosing to start their day early, enjoying their last few hours in Menagerie as much as possible.

Before the conversation could continue and before they could reach the transport they had mentally claimed for themselves the four of them were halted by a piercing whistle followed by a familiar gruff voice calling out to them.

"HEY!" each of Team MARZ turned to see Team WULF hurrying after them as quickly as possible without breaking into a run, which had evidently been deemed an unacceptable loss of face and image.

"Hey" Astra breathed out slowly as the two teams came face to face, uncertain of what to say even despite the reconciliation between themselves and Wolfram the night before; emotions tripping over one another until Wolfram stepped closer still and slung and arm around Astra to pull them into a lose hug, platonic and yet still carrying a certain weight which the Deer Faunus forced themselves to ignore even as they returned the gesture and listened to what Wolfram had to say.

"I know we've said everything that needs to be said" he managed a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh "And if I start talking about how I wish things could be different I'm gonna look an idiot and like I'm just sore about losing….We just didn't want you guys to leave without some kind off send off though"

"All four of you?" Astra murmured, eyes darting to the rest of Team WULF and specifically Diabla who had been something of an antagonist towards Team MARZ in general and Athena specifically for sometime and whilst the Deer Faunus had initially thought their comment quiet enough to go unheard they were proven wrong when Diabla herself shifted her weight, fists balling almost subconsciously before she spoke.

"Yeah all four of us" she grumbled before squaring her shoulders and preparing herself for what came next as she turned to face Athena-Jade, whom she noticed was being flanked protectively by her partner and girlfriend

"I was a dick to you….I like to think I've grown a little-"

"You have" Athena-Jade nodded, long since having moved beyond the animosity between the two of them, though not forgetting it and being more than gracious enough to accept the reality of the progress her former bully had made.

"And, look sorry just doesn't come easy to me and it feel hollow….I'd like to think saving your ass last year counts for something?" the rhetorical question was delivered with an awkward shrug and halting attempt at a smile before she pushed onwards "But you're good Slate, really good and if I can't be there myself then I'm gonna have to cheer you on instead….And look, I know I've got no right to ask you for anything and I know you're trying make your own mark and all that….But you know where I come from, you know what Atlas means to me; so promise me that you'll make Atlas proud?"

"I can do that" Athena-Jade beamed, stepping around Zirconia and giving her girlfriends' hand a reassuring squeeze with one hand whilst holding the other out in a fist which Diabla stared at for a moment before unfurling one of her gauntlets around her own fist and bumping it gently against the shorter girls' knuckles in a gesture that, anticlimactic as it might have outwardly appeared in the circumstances made a great deal of difference to the two of them as it felt as though it marked the ending of what had come before and marked the possible beginning of a proper friendship.

"Well aint that a turn up for the books" Ursinia noted with a smile as she and Laser followed the breaking of ranks and intermingling of the two teams in order to close the distance with Regalia; the nomad pulling them both into a tight hug.

"I'm gonna miss you guys" she admitted, voice wavering a fraction "I'm used to moving on from places and people but I am really gonna miss you two….You're the best, I remember when we first came to the academy and you did so much for me-"

"And look at you now honey" Ursinia beamed proudly "We'll keep the home fires burning, now you go on and get 'em….I'm proud of you darlin'"

"We're both proud of you" Laser added, wriggling within the confines of the group hug until he was free enough to wrap an arm tentatively around Regalia's waist; voice dropping to a low and self conscious mumble as he added "Probably should have said something sooner but uh….I've always thought you were really cool and….fuck it, I missed my shot didn't I?"

"Kinda yeah" Regalia managed to answer after blinking behind her goggles for several seconds, cheeks flushing with surprise as she processed exactly what her friend was implying before she released Ursinia and focused all of her attention on giving Laser a hug that involved him being lifted from the ground and held until his bones felt as though they might creak under the pressure.

"But heh who knows" she shrugged as she set the dazed, gasping and yet thoroughly happy Vaccuan down "I'm not promising anything, I don't think I can promise anything but y'know the line….I'll be back"

"And we'll all be waiting for you" Laser grinned, awkwardness forgotten "Just you wait and see how much scrap metal I can find and sell without having your conscious to hold me back"

The comment reduced the trio to a bout of good natured bickering which Astra and Wolfram watched with fond smiles for several seconds, eyes darting from that interaction to the admitted lingering awkwardness between Diabla and Athena-Jade and Zirconia until finally their eyes met, sea green boring into steely grey only for Wolfram to look away and downwards as he shuffled uncomfortably.

"So this is it then?"

"Yeah, looks like it" Astra looped an arm around his shoulder "Cheer me on in the tournament?"

"Of course" Wolfram's features scrunched at the mere suggestion that he might do otherwise "It'll be like match-day times a hundred here every day of the tournament….But I still just don't know how to do a goodbye like this"

"Don't call it a goodbye" Astra beamed, arm slipping free of their ex boyfriend as they took a single step in the direction of the waiting transport "We'll be back before the end of the school year….It's just a 'see you guys later' kinda thing"

"Right" Wolfram laughed "Well, I'll see you guys later"

"Got it" Astra nodded before turning and focusing on their destination once again "Okay Team MARZ, it's time to go and do our thing!"

With that and with all the confidence that they hoped they might carry with them into the arena bubbling through their body to bring a giddy smile to their features Astra set off once again, taking Clunker by the handlebars as the test of their team fell into place beside them, with Wolfram's voice calling out once more, raised so that it might be heard when Astra's feet reached the ramp of the Bull-Head.

"And Astra….Be careful out there yeah? Come back in once piece!"

"I mean if they all fight as well as you then I can't promise anything!" Astra called back, turning and offering a wink as they finally entered the transport; maintaining a winning smile until the moment the hatches closed and obscured the sight of the crowded landing area from view and from there, as the transport began to rise into the morning sky the Deer Faunus turned to their team-mates and instinctively gave each of them high-fives as their previous conversations began anew, the four Faunus brimming with a sense of achievement that had lingered from the previous evenings' celebrations despite the exhaustion and headaches they had paid for it with.

And despite their joking reply to Wolfram's parting comment Astra was filled with confidence, after all Team MARZ were everything they could ever have hoped for.

---

Chairman Damascus Nero noted idly, yet pointedly to himself that for all the trouble involved in ensuring that Aefen Cruor did not have more information regarding his secretive operations that necessity dictated was causing him it might have been better to simply take her calls whilst at his penthouse apartment, or else invest in a secondary secure location somewhere away from the Chamber however neither of those options were truly palatable to him, dismissed almost as soon as they entered his mind for the fact that they would keep him from what was truly important.

As it was then an area of the Chamber had been partitioned off in a way that both Nero and Albion, with all of the resources available to them had disparaged as crude whilst many others would have lauded; creating an entirely enclosed and separated area within their base of operations within which Nero could take on his persona and disguise of 'the Benefactor' whilst at the same time coordinating and observing everything that Albion Herringbone and soon enough the operatives that they had placed in the field were learning as the next phase of their plans, tense, delicate and in a small part of Nero's mind exciting as it was got underway. Albion himself was present only a short distance away in the Chamber itself, with the camera he would be using for the communication with the scorned scientist turned manipulative cult leader positioned in such a way to though the intention of the ruse was to cement the idea that the two of them operated independently and that Nero kept all of those reporting to him as distant as he did Aefen herself.

Truthfully Nero hated the lies and sense of grubbiness which came with many of the actions taken in service of his plans yet he forced himself to endure; a small twitch of dark, quartz-coloured eyes at the sound of his secondary, untraceable scroll going undetected as the shadow and distortion that he projected over himself took effect.

"Doctor" he said simply, words transformed into something more imposing with their digital distortion and shifting pitch to accompany the shadowy form that was all both Aefen and Albion would be able to see as the three way video call began.

"High-Speaker, or simply Aefen" she responded stiffly, what little of her features could be seen curling into something that was not quite a sneer beneath the mask she wore as part of her own alter ego at the mention of the life she had once enjoyed and been forced to abandon; Nero privately noted that the entire charade between them was something he expected of the most childish brand of Hunters and their ilk and was almost certain that Albion not only agreed, but that his old friend would say as much soon enough.

"Aefen then" Albion interjected, barely containing a scoff and even beneath his projection Nero chose not to look too closely at the dark-skinned and white-haired man's image on the screen lest he lose his composure "I could respect you more as a scientist"

"Enough" Nero kept his voice firm, feeling the need for at least some illusion of impartiality between his underlings and frankly having no desire to listen to whatever theatrics or misplaced notions of grandeur Aefen would doubtless counter the barbed comment with; instead her pale and thin-lipped features were set in a hard scowl whilst Albion remained faintly bemused.

"Aefen, have you any news?" Nero enquired, his character of the Benefactor managing to seem aloof and cool even with the inhuman modulation of his voice "Perhaps you have considered our conversation from yesterday and come to some more….enlightened conclusions regarding our goals; or do you have something more practical to offer?"

"I thought" Aefen answered, twirling her skull-headed cane lazily as she sat in a chair that might once have been comfortable within her own lair; lit by the shadows cast by flickering flames even with the sun high in the sky outside as part of her own attempts to seem larger than life

"And I have some ideas towards your ultimate ambitions-"

"Do tell" Nero didn't even have to look at Albion to know that his words had been accompanied by a roll of icy blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses.

"You talk as if you intend to disable or remove the existing power structure, we can agree on that much" Aefen's voice was measured as though she were forcefully keeping herself from becoming more animated "But you seem to want no part in assuming control in what comes after….Either you're an anarchist-"

"Do I strike you as someone without a hierarchy or a clear end goal?" Nero questioned.

"Then you're naive" Aefen sneered "You want to use whatever degree of influence you can enforce on the Creatures of Grimm in order to bring down the Hunters….what comes after that will be chaos, the Hunters will not go quietly into the night. People here on Menagerie could tell you this, there are settlements they rule as little Empires and the Council accepts it because they have no choice; the Hunters are on the Council and they have effective control of travel across the island"

"I am well aware of what occurs on Menagerie Aefen" Nero assured her bluntly, vindicated despite his own limited respect for the masked woman's opinions as he found her mirroring his own distaste for how things currently stood "But I will not replace them just to be become them….If I had that little faith in what we, the people of Remnant might accomplish then I would have no reason to begin everything that I have started; the bright new day will be beginning of a freer Remnant"

"I almost admire your optimism" Aefen gave a low chuckle "It will make working alongside you entertaining"

"And entertaining you and your loyal congregation is of course the most important thing" Albion matched Aefen's earlier sneer; his words dripping with contempt and a desire to be done with the conversation as soon as possible. Nero chose to let the comment slide and seeing the featureless face of the Benefactor remain impassive Aefen chose to follow suit and take the rare opportunity to have the high ground by simply sniffing and looking away from the scientist whom she had been effectively contracted to work alongside.

"There is one other matter" she noted "I have some theories on the best method of introducing the Grimm matter your people retrieve into your test subject that I would like to propose; I might suggest that if you have the means to contain, transport and store Grimm tissue that you introduce the new material at the moment of termination. This Geist variant consumes other Grimm matter and uses that to restructure itself, be interested to see the results of Grimm tissue which no longer has a fixed form-"

"Then I will leave you and my assistant to speak further on the matter, I trust you will cooperate" Nero interrupted.

"You won't be joining us?" Aefen enquired "I expected that you would want to hear?"
"I certainly do, however the test results will have to suffice" Nero answered calmly, despite the anticipation that his next words left coursing through him "Time is limited after all, my field agents such as they will be in position shortly"

With that Nero ended the call and deactivated his projection, remaining partitioned away from Albion as his old friend endured Aefen Cruor's company a while longer as he had other matters to attend to; Carmesi was indeed preparing to make use of the limited opportunity afforded by the pending arrival of the students from each of the Hunter academies and the upheaval it would cause on local security and the distractions it would give to those Hunters within their shadowy cabal who would no doubt have watched things more closely however the matter of retrieving the Creatures of Grimm itself was not what had captured the Chairman's attention.

Capturing such small and relatively harmless monsters would be nothing to such a skilled Hunter and was something that Carmesi could easily have done alone however Nero had insisted that the Komodo Dragon Faunus reach out to various members of the many street gangs whom he had funded and supplied more advanced weapons, including the now feared battle-suits capable of fending off even experienced Hunters through various iterations of his Benefactor identity. Allowing the members of various criminal factions to interact with one another would determine which of them could be trusted to act cohesively with one another despite previous animosity and violence and the act of Grimm retrieval itself, more challenging for those without experience would be a test of discipline and ability however even this was secondary to a single goal that Nero had remained largely secretive about for the simple fact that it had left him feeling uncomfortable in a way that rose above even the usual dirtiness of what his plans required.

Zirconia had noted that, with Team MARZ travelling to Neo Vale and the inquisitive, headstrong and often reckless nature of her team-mates despite the sincere desire to do good and save lives there was a very real chance that they would find themselves crossing paths with those in Nero's employ before the time was right and Zirconia had been given proper opportunity to explain matters to them.

With that in mind Nero had recruited a very specifically chosen individual to use as his cat's paw and serve as a distraction from the larger picture.

---

Team MARZ had arrived at Port Alistair's Cross-Kingdom airship terminal and boarded their flight along with the other students leaving the island Kingdom of Menagerie without incident and a sense of almost euphoric excitement had passed over the four of them as the gargantuan vessel had raised slowly into the sky, the coastline of Menagerie steadily receding into the distance behind it as it departed. Once they had checked and ensured that their belongings were secure the four teens had ascended from the underbelly of the airships' cargo and vehicle hold into areas more brightly lit and more pleasantly designed in order to appeal to the sensibilities of the customers which only served to leave Regalia Russet utterly awestruck and giddy, the Racoon Faunus quickly revealing to her friends that she had in fact never been aboard an airship before; having never left the island and thus never travelling aboard an aircraft larger than the small transports favoured by Breaktide Academy.

Something which Astra, Athena-Jade and Zirconia all quickly realised was something that they should have deduced themselves.

Regalia had, as could be expected given that breakfast had been a rushed and brief affair been hungry and the four of them had made their way to the small restaurant the airship hosted, which Astra had warned their partner beforehand would be something entirely undeserving of the title and would offer nothing more than what the Deer Faunus had uncharitably termed 'airline slop' despite this however Regalia had pressed on, only to be left surprised and frankly galled at the new experience of finding a food she did not agree with. From there Team MARZ had enjoyed a few brief conversations with other travelling students, all of whom were just as eager for what lay ahead and offered friendly waves and smiles to the many children aboard the flight, along with a few older individuals who could not help but stop and stare at the sight of so many Hunters, often pointing in abject fascination at their attire and the collapsed weapons they were permitted to carry. Their true destination however had been the observation deck situated towards what could be described as the airships' prow; with Regalia having never flown aboard an airship before and also having never been further from Menagerie than Team MARZ's brief trip out to sea during their First Year which had culminated in a battle aboard a Grimm infested ruin of a ship her friends had agreed that it was only right that the former nomad should properly experience Cross-Kingdom flight in all its' glory and upon reaching the near-panoramic viewport which displayed vast and open ocean which stretched out until it met the equally blue sky in all directions Regalia had quickly rushed over and pressed her face against the glass in a state of total awe.

That had been several hours ago and Regalia showed no signs of her amazement wearing off any time soon.

Around her Team MARZ were lounging comfortably, with Athena-Jade having found her opportunity to rest as she leaned with her back against the surface of the viewport and allowed her self to drift steadily until her head lolled and she began to lean sleepily against Zirconia's shoulder and forearm, not asleep yet only awake in the most generous definition of the word whilst her partner and team-leader sat beside her; the two of them in the midst of an uncommonly animated discussion as they exchanged ideas about what to do first upon returning to the city they both called home, only to be reminded once again how different their experiences of Neo Vale truly were.

"But it's the best restaurant in the city-"

"Yeah, if you can afford to pay a mortgage for just the starter" Astra countered, distressed in a way that was clearly part of an overwrought act they were putting on "I bet they have a dress code as well-"

"It is normally a black tie establishment" Zirconia mumbled, mismatched eyes darting away as she conceded the point "But they are willing to make exceptions for Hunters who-"

"On paper maybe, but do you think they've ever had someone with a Mohawk actually inside the building, someone who wasn't there to fix the plumbing?" Astra countered, gesturing at their hair "Seriously I'm not going to….How did you pronounce it again?"

"Shinkai-tsutsuika" Zirconia replied instantly, her easy pronunciation of the words coloured with a slight exasperation which was only encouraged further as Astra waved their hands wildly in response.

"See! I feel like my bank account is overdrawn just from hearing you say that!"

"But you can't seriously mean to tell me that the first place you want to eat when you get to Neo Vale is a cafe somewhere in one of the Hive-Towers?" the Grasshopper Faunus was incredulous at that and Astra countered with an easy retort that left her floundering.

"I thought you weren't always the super-rich girl Hops, a little class solidarity maybe?"

"Firstly, only Athena calls me that" she eventually managed a huff that was less dignified than she would have liked "Secondly that was a low blow"

"Okay fine….But I'm still not budging on this" Astra sighed "It's not the food anyway, it's the place my Mum works at; she knows I'm coming back to the city but I still wanted to surprise her….You guys have only met my folks on video calls and it's not the same"

"That's….Yes that's something different entirely" Zirconia admitted with a nod "And I am certainly going to visit home and spend some time with my guardian"

"And if you're looking for somewhere stupidly pricey to take AJ on a date, forget the restaurants and go to the Beacon Academy Museum….Team RWBY's old dorm actually managed to survive everything the old academy went through and it's an exhibit now, they've even got the old bunk beds-"

"I don't wanna go to a museum and see a bed my parents might have had sex on" Athena mumbled sleepily as she physically cringed away from the uncomfortable thought and nuzzled deeper into Zirconia, face pressing past her arm and into her chest which left left Zirconia herself visibly flustered. Astra turned their focus toward their own partner and tried to engage Regalia in the conversation as she had been watching the surroundings pass by for some time now.

"Hey, you wanna come meet my folks in person?….My Dad can probably tell you how to go about making Clunker street legal in the city-"

"If the police can't catch me then it's already legal enough" she answered, the response so blunt that it felt almost automated until she seemed to register her own words and break her gaze away from the vastness of the ocean below.

Only for it to be snapped back toward the viewport a moment later at the sound of shrieking.

"Seriously? This shit again?" Astra demanded with a wink that displayed a confidence they did not quite feel as they turned toward Zirconia and the two of them were forcefully reminded of their shared flight in the opposite direction only a few short months ago. Around them a sense of unease that was not yet a full blown panic began to ripple out through the loosely gathered crowds of passengers, the descent into scrambling and screaming chaos held at bay only by the fact the Creature of Grimm responsible for the sound was not yet in view and that the shriek itself had sounded distant; bolstered by the fact that so many of the passengers were now aware of the presence of so many student Hunters in their midst and clearly felt that this gave them a measure of protection in addition to the airships' own shielding despite the fact that they were collectively hunkering in a mass of several hundred tons of Atlesian steel, over a mile above the surface of the ocean and kept aloft by volatile combinations of both natural and synthetically produced eco-friendly Dust. Feeling the eyes on them several of the students in the observation deck rose to their feet in an effort to at least give the illusion of readiness and keep order in place for a few moments longer; Astra being amongst them.

"Regalia, use your Semblance….I wanna know what the hell that was and where it is" they demanded, voice becoming something firm and commanding as they puffed out their chest, rolled their shoulders back and deployed the shields of Buckshot Ares in an entirely superficial display which nonetheless garnered the appropriate level of confident calmness from the children in the crowd. In response Athena-Jade and Zirconia made similar displays albeit without drawing their own weapons whilst Regalia lowered her goggles and prepared to use her Semblance, focusing on a single and almost impossible to misinterpret thought so that her psyche might give her exactly wha she needed yet before she could do so her concentration was broken by the crackling static and mildly distorted feedback of the airships' loudspeakers being engaged; a single voice issuing from dozens of points at the same time and speaking with a sense of relaxed ease that stood in stark contrast to the sense of urgency those gathered around Team MARZ clearly seemed to think would be more appropriate.

"This is your Captain speaking; I'm certain that most of you heard that slight disruption just a moment ago but rest assured that the situation is entirely under control" there was a single beat of silence where the passengers were ready to object before the Captain, unseen but clearly thinking better of such a vague platitude offered further explanation

"A migrating flock of aerial Grimm, the Hunter beside me assures me that they're a flock of admittedly particularly large Nevermore seem to have split their attention between a nearby offshore Dust mining rig and ourselves….The rig is adequately protected and able to defend itself and both they and New Vale's border defences are aware of the situation; in fact if those of you in the observation deck turn to your left-"

"Oh, something like this happened to my brother when Team FADE flew to Atlas in their second year" Athena-Jade noted, dismissing the last words of the announcement as she turned in the direction stated just in time to see a small contingent of unmanned aircraft streaking through the air and performing a series of wide turning arcs and bring themselves around to intercept any incoming monsters.

"Are those robots?" Astra demanded, never having seen this aspect of their home Kingdoms' defences up close.

"The Kingdoms are awesome" Regalia gushed, face once again pressed against the viewport as she took in the sight of something that exceeded her imagination; she knew that such machines existed of course, Clan Aiktishaf had a stable of almost ancient automata but these flying machines were of a different ilk entirely.

"Drones, remotely piloted" Athena-Jade corrected "Atlas had something similar, the Baba-Jaeger program….These look different"

"They're not based on the Atlesian designs" Zirconia noted, the pride that crept into her voice confirming what her next words would be before she formed them "These are manufactured by Cosmo-Gild Industries….One of the subsidiaries of the Clara Die Novum Conglomerate….It's honestly rather encouraging for Hunters to not be the one leading the fight against the Grimm for a change"

If anyone felt that particular observation was in any way strange or questionable it went unremarked on and instead, only moments later Astra's expression became a smile more genuine than the confident smirk they had been forcing themselves to wear as the danger seemed to pass without further incident and a more welcome thought occurred to them.

"If New Vale can get air support to us that fast, even if it was already on the way because they were tracking those Grimm then we must have already entered the Kingdoms' airspace" they beamed wider still "Guys, we're almost in Neo Vale!"

---

Carmesi Hueso's day was not going as smoothly as he would have liked and he laid blame for that entirely at the feet of the assortment of scum whose presence he was forced to endure.

He had, at the best of Chairman Nero gathered the various gang members from disparate and nominally opposing factions and in doing so laid bare the truth that each of them were in fact working for the same unknown individual under a number of guises, a calculated risk deemed worthy and one that would have to be taken eventually. From there he had taken advantage of the expected lapse in the overworked security of the Capital City of Vale to drive, unchallenged and seemingly unimportant with a convoy of several unmarked trucks registered to a shell company out to the autumnal and reddish-brown expanse of altered nature that was Forever Fall.

An act which Carmesi considered to be an utter perversion on its' face.

Whilst he had never attended Beacon or its' successor, Halo Academy he had spoken to Hunters who had over his former career and was well aware that the place was often used as an early training and field exercise area for New Vale's student Hunters; that he had been tasked with bringing criminals here with such outwardly similar goals in mind needled at parts of his sense of upright and moral decency which he had long thought abandoned yet still he persisted, the ends justified the means and he did not believe himself arrogant enough to put his own disgust above the lives Nero's plan would save and uplift. With that in mind he and his collection of miscreant underlings, each of them sworn to secrecy with the threat of a violet death had made their way out into the woodlands whose seeming separation from the passing of the seasons did nothing to prevent the frost from coating perpetually discoloured leaves or the ambient chill in the air and taken with them a device which Carmesi understood to be a compacted and somewhat streamlined, possibly earlier iteration of the Grimm containment unit which he had used to subdue Gestalt-Prime and began searching for a suitably small, yet viably active specimen to capture and deliver to Nero and Albion for experimentation.

Naturally the Creatures of Grimm were easy to find, with the largest concern being that other monsters had found their group as well.

The target Carmesi had chosen for the retrieval operation had been a nest of Rapier Wasps whose droning, menacing buzz had reverberated in his companions diaphragms from some distance away; the insectoid horrors ranging in length from that of a finger to that of an entire arm though trending towards the smaller and less threatening end of that spectrum to create an adversary that was noisome and numerous but overall a relatively mild threat which offered the requisite Grimm biomass with little chance of complication, even for such untrained and undisciplined helpers.

The arrival of a pack of Beowolves, no doubt drawn by the latent panic of the gang members had changed things.

"PROTECT THE CONTAINMENT UNIT! IF IT'S DAMAGED THEN I HAVE NO REASON TO KEEP ANY OF YOU BASTARDS SAFE FROM THE GRIMM!" Carmesi roared the order out even as he continued to cut through the monsters that threatened to streak passed him, Vindication and Retribution drawn and tearing limbs and bodies asunder whilst his sharply cut suit jacket, out of place in his current surroundings whipped around him dramatically before he unleashed his Semblance with a wordless snarl and sent coalescing and solidified Aura surging outwards to form a mass of crimson spikes and blades which eviscerated pouncing monsters before they could reach him. Of the pack of dozens that had come pouring from the treeline to attack from multiple angles with an Alpha at their head there were now less than a dozen remaining and those Grimm were reduced to instinctive behaviour after one of the gang members, the very same whom Nero had instructed him to pay close attention to blew the skull of the Alpha open with a well placed blast from a shotgun that he had been given prior to the start of this escapade and of the remaining Beowolves more than half had diverted their attention wholly to Carmesi himself. The sound of gunfire, both rapid firing machines and the booming report of more explosive weapons filled the air, punctuated by yells that varied from panicked screaming to fierce battle cries as the gang members gathered around the containment unit in a loose circle with Beowolves on one side of them and the nest of Rapier Wasps on the other yet Carmesi felt what limited optimism he allowed himself be dashed further with each fleeting look back at the rabble he had been forced to cooperate with.

"WORK TOGETHER OR YOU WILL ALL DIE! I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF!" his bellowed command took on a ragged, almost berserk quality as he was left stunned to incoherence by the displays of conniving, opportunistic treachery that rose from the lack of organisation and cooperation.

"We could use a hand here!" it was the one Nero had given him orders to watch who retorted, hood pulled low and face covered with a soft fabric mask in an effort to hide as much of his skin as possible from the attention of nearest Rapier Wasp, one of the larger of the droning airborne monsters which he eventually managed to obliterate with a shotgun blast at almost point blank range, a display of natural skill transforming his stagger at the recoil into a ferocious swing with the butt of the weapon into a the muzzle of a Beowolf.

The rest of the assorted gang members were not so adept however and this was compounded by the fact that many of them, having never experienced the Creatures of Grimm first hand before and likely comparing them to something as mundane as a police dog had chosen to use the opportunity to settle old, petty rivalries which had resulted in pools of blood that now soaked into the frosted earth in several places where a young man or woman had been tripped or shoved aside or in more than one case shot in the back, hand or shoulder by a rival who would no doubt claim to have been aiming for the Grimm when questioned.

Carmesi would happily watch them all die, however at least one of them had been deemed useful enough to keep alive and so it was the hooded young man with the shotgun whom the rogue Hunter made some effort to preserve amidst his own battle.

"GET THE DAMN CONTAINMENT UNIT CLOSER TO THE NEST AND ACTIVATE IT! TAKE OUT AS MANY OF THE RAPIER WASPS AS POSSIBLE IN ONE HIT AND GET WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR!" he yelled, furious at their inability to see such an obvious solution before hurling Vindication through the air and watching as the forward-curved machete unfurled into its' spinning triple-bladed form and ripped through the Grimm in a devastating arc around Nero's latest asset before racing back to his hand, the Komodo Dragon Faunus uncaring that it ripped into the face of a young man in its' flight and promptly jamming the weapon into the neck of a Beowolf as it lunged it him before following up with a single fluid, spinning motion which saw Retribution in its' broad onyx-toothed cleaver of a sword form rip another Grimm apart at the waist as it reared back.

Leaving four of the Beowolves in the immediate vicinity.

Gritting sharp teeth Carmesi rushed forward, forgoing the use of his Semblance to conserve his Aura and instead twirling his blades as he let out a wordless roar of challenge, hair flying wildly around him as he delivered a flying front kick to the ribs of the nearest Grimm, crushing bone with an audible crunch and relieving the beast of its' head as a violent swing of his larger weapon tore through its' neck and spine. The three Beowolves that remained had taken the opportunity to spread out and begin skulking around him in a loose circle, the intent to surround him and attack from behind obvious and easy to counteract; Carmesi threw his machete down into the hard earth with enough force to leave it standing upright in the frozen soil before taking Retribution in both hands, the motion spurring the Grimm into action and commencing a flurry of violence which saw the first of the trio to pounce at him bisected from hip to shoulder and the second blow to fading chunks of bone and midnight black flesh as Carmesi's shifted his weapon into its' shotgun form.

The final Beowolf however managed to plant a monstrous paw between his shoulder blades and smash him to the ground with a jarring impact.

"Damn it!" Carmesi struggled to rise with the weight of the thing still on him, its' hot, rancid breath at his neck and scalp as jaws brushed faintly against the sides of his skull in spite of his scrabbling only to be pulled back an instant later with a pained, howling yelp as the deafening report of a shotgun coincided with bony armour and soft tissue being ripped from the flank and forelimb of the monster which sent it wheeling around to face its' new attacker, in turn allowing Carmesi to roll onto his back and take in a painful gulp of cold air before casting his crimson eyes around and taking stock of the situation.

His salvation, damnable as the notion was had come in the form of the hooded gang member who, seeing their shotgun was empty and that the wounded Grimm was advancing upon him simply cast the weapon aside and lowered both his food and the fabric mask he wore to reveal that he was in fact an avian Faunus of some sort with feathers of a dirty, oil-stained grey colour in place of hair and a thin mouth with chapped and blistered lips which peeled back into a fierce smile that displayed yellowed teeth yet failed to reach his eyes that were the grey-green of something left to fester. The Beowolf leapt and the Avian Faunus reared back and spat an impossible mouthful of something which sizzled and steamed in the air as it flew forward, a faintly glowing and oily sludge which spattered across the face and chest of the Grimm, leaving it falling to the ground in a thrashing tangle of limbs as it screamed in agony; bone coloured armour being reduced to a burning, bubbling slurry as it was melted by what Carmesi realised with abject shock was a Semblance; not content to leave his victory to the result of a single blow however the young man in attire that marked him out as something perhaps a cut above those around him in terms of design and practicality rushed forward to rip Vindication from the ground and roughly thrust the weapon into the belly of the Grimm until it faded away in a series of violent, uncoordinated and wild stabbing attacks that spoke of a level of experience in stabbing cornered and outnumbered rivals in back-alleys.

"Give me that!" Carmesi spat coldly as he dragged himself to his feet and forcefully reclaimed his weapon; deciding that he would give it a thorough clean and service in short order; the Avian Faunus gave a snort which did nothing to break the tension as the two men glared at one another.

"You're welcome" he sneered, his voice throaty and burbling as though phlegm were perpetually lodged in his throat "We caught your bugs for you as well….fucking weirdo"

The lack of droning and other sounds of violence suddenly registered in Carmesi's mind, the lack of do-or-die urgency allowing him to take a deep breath, ignore the urge to backhand the whelp in front of him and look around to see that the compacted Grimm containment unit had indeed been activated and, judging by the damage inflicted on the nearby trees managed to trap a sizeable portion of the Rapier Wasp nest. Scattered around the clearing, either tending to wounded allies and members of their own faction, eyeing the containment unit with suspicious trepidation or else glaring at one another with fingers twitching against weapons as the betrayals that so many of them had so causally engaged in begged for their own brand of what was mockingly called justice.

Carmesi paid them little mind, as long as they did not interfere with the greater plans and as long as their internal struggle did lead to the containment unit being damaged then frankly he would rather that each and every one of the remaining criminals here fail upon one another until none remained; it would at the very least remove the possibility of them discussing what they had seen and experienced with others.

Instead he turned his focus to the Avian Faunus who had, much to his displeasure come to his aid.

"You…." he trailed off "Semblance? You were a student Hunter once?"

"Do I look like one?" the young man, no older than his early twenties retorted "We're not friends like that, don't ask too many questions"

"I can respect that" Carmesi grunted "A name then….If the Benefactor chooses to deal with anyone who was here for this again it will be you"

The acid-spitting Faunus gave a more genuine and no less intensely smug grin at that.

"The Benefactor knows who I am, he paid some legal fees and got me out of North Vale correctional; said he was looking with people who knew how to get in and out of places, torch evidence and had fought a Hunter before and I cover all the bases….Even if the kid who got me locked up was lying about having a license" he held out a hand which Carmesi did not accept before simply shrugging as he spoke again.

"Call me Petrol"

---

"How the heck is it so cold? The jackets aren't helping…..The goggles! They do nothing!" Regalia's horrified, yelping cry of discomfort and following rambling and pop culture reference were accompanied by breath misting out in front of her, something she had seen in movies but had never experienced in her own life before now.

"This isn't cold at all honestly" Athena-Jade answered, resulting in Regalia staring at her in such open disbelief and disgust that the Bear Faunus paused and took a moment to check if she had something between her teeth before realising that the former nomad could simply not fathom the idea of anything colder than a place where the was actual frost on the ground and one could see their own breath.

The four of them had arrived in Neo Vale only a short while ago and were in fact still within the grounds of its' Cross-Kingdom airship terminal, having provided all relevant documentation to those who required it only to be forced to wait and in turn hold up their fellow transfer students as Clunker was slowly and carefully unloaded from the airship by handlers; Regalia's plan to save time for them all by having the entire teams' luggage affixed to her jetbike turned on its' head by the delay and the Racoon Faunus herself reduced to watching in openly nervous agitation as strangers who had certainly never seen anything that even remotely resembled the scratch-built vehicle attempted to direct it down a ramp and onto the frosty ground. Eventually however Team MARZ had been reunited with their belongings and Regalia's hands had closed around the handlebars of her bike, only for her to yelp at the unexpected cold to which Athena-Jade had chuckled and noted that she had a similar yet opposite experience upon her arrival in Menagerie; from there the four of them had begun making their way through the massive airship terminal in search of the local connecting flights that would take them to their ultimate destination, the ongoing chatter between their team-mates distracting Astra somewhat though they hardly begrudged their friends that and readily joined in the conversation.

"I mean it's a little cold for the time of year but honestly it's not that bad….Hasn't even really started snowing yet"

"Snow?" Regalia's jaw hung open "Like, snow….Actual snow?….Astra I don't think you understand how not ready I am for that!"

"I thought you wanted to see all of Remnant?" the Deer Faunus laughed in response.

"I might be the first person from Clan Aiktishaf to ever see snow" Regalia let the words leave her slowly, the realisation of that truth knocking the wind from her and leaving her stunned though Astra, in their distraction took it to mean that she was simply more affected by the weather which was inhospitable in ways which were different to what she had grown accustomed to.

"Take a hoodie out of my suitcase if you're that cold and….Shit, you probably don't have any anti-freeze for Clunker, I'll ask my Dad to bring some from work-"

"Snow?" Regalia simply mouthed the word out slowly, eyes wide and her entire demeanour visibly torn between giddy excitement and numb horror whilst Athena-Jade, catching sight of this merely snorted and bit back her laughter.

"As someone from Atlas, trust me it gets old" Zirconia gently and playfully nudged her girlfriend and partner, mismatched eyes rolling in a way that suggested Athena should let Regalia have her moment of awe before casting her eyes around their surroundings which Athena-Jade caught sight of answered with a quizzical look.

"Looking for something?"

"The way out….I can't see any of our classmates"

"They took the short route, cutting through the main building and getting their luggage there….We had to double back and it's gonna be a bit of a walk" Astra lamented, pausing for a moment before continuing as they saw the lost expressions on their friends' faces "Local flights are across the road, basically a separate transport hub that's only kinda connected to the terminal"

"That makes sense" Athena-Jade nodded, knowing of similar arrangements in Atlesian cities whilst it was Regalia who asked a question whose answer could have been guessed at and left Zirconia shuffling with some amount of sudden self-consciousness.

"I thought you were from here as well, how come you didn't know that?" the Grasshopper Faunus coughed to clear her throat and shifted on mechanical limbs which whirred faintly before admitting.

"I genuinely cannot remember the last time I had to use public transportation….I-my guardian had drivers"

"Drivers, plural" Astra noted with an arched eyebrow and a look of enjoyment on their face "Damn AJ, it's not often you meet someone who thinks you're slumming it-"

"Oh shut up you pest" the Bear Faunus gave him the finger, blackened claw sliding from her fingertip as she did so only for the entire conversation to be brought to a halt as the sound of a roaring engine, low and guttural filled the cold air in the open space of the airship terminals' exterior.

"Looks like we've got a driver too" Regalia noted, pointing in the direction of the continuing reverberating growl and confirming what Astra had already begun to suspect, the suspicion turning into a bubbling feeling of happiness as the familiar form of a vintage, yet heavily modified black muscle car of Vaccuan design came peeling around several parked vehicles and loosely arranged cargo containers at a speed that was in clear violation of several protocols before skidding to a halt mere feet away from Team MARZ, its' drivers' side window facing the teens and lowering so that a voice from within could be heard.

"Get in losers!"

"Hey, fuck you Fluffy" Astra laughed, bounding forward to lean through the window and exchange a brief hug, made awkward by the position and their brothers' seatbelt only for the blonde, tattooed and muscular Lion Faunus with pronounced canine teeth to laugh and pointedly flick the tip of one of the many spikes of hair which formed Astra's Mohawk.

"Fuck me? That's the thanks I get for coming to pick you up so you can spend your first night back in town doing something better than listening to the same boring old orientation speeches-"

"I've never heard Halo Academies' orientation speech" Regalia pointed out, suddenly anxious at the idea of missing something important.

"Trust me it's the same at all the academies" Felix assured her "You won't need most of it, anything you do need you can ask for anyway….The only par that's different is the rule that's in place because of Halo being based on one of the cities' anti-gravity platforms"

"What rule?" the Racoon Faunus asked, eagerness seeping into every syllable.

"Don't fall off" Felix laughed, the sound being transformed into an undignified squawk of outrage as Astra reached into the Killer-Bee and ruffled their older brothers' hair in a flagrant display of disregard for the pecking order of siblings.

"Stop teasing her, it's her first time this far from home and she's already dealing with it"

"Alright alright" Felix laughed "But seriously, come on. It's a weekend and pretty much everyone is at the house with no missions right now; we managed to time things really well so come and hang….Unless you think you're too cool now?"

"I mean I didn't wanna bring it up" Astra affected a taunting tone and swaggering posture that far outshone even their usual attempts at bravado, which Felix answered with a roll of his eyes.

"Is it wise for us to wander away from the other transfer students?" Zirconia chimed in, rasping voice concerned "We're expected at Halo"

"I have the Professors contact details and I literally spoke to the guy handling getting you guys onto your connecting flight two minutes ago, it's cool" Felix assured her, punctuating the point by reaching into the door compartment of his car and holding up what appeared to be four copies of the Halo Academy student handbook "Seriously, already got it covered"

"I'm in" Astra beamed, pausing before turning to Regalia "But I'm gonna ride with my partner, make sure she doesn't get lost"

"I can't wait to see more of the city" Regalia's eyes took on an almost glazed look of wonder as she stared out beyond the confines of the airship terminal at the incomprehensible maze of neon, steel and glass that surrounded her like some web woven by things that defied all comprehension; the skyline dotted with floating islands that had been made by hand and each put Hammerfall Outpost to shame. To the Racoon Faunus even driving through what lay beyond the terminal to reach Team FADE's home away from their ship was an opportunity she could not bring herself to pass up.

"I'll come if Athena-Jade is" Zirconia answered after a moment of consideration, pink and orange eyes turning to her partner who responded by allowing a strong and calloused hand to find its' way to Zirconia's hip and pull her a little closer even as she spoke to Felix.

"Is my brother there?"

"Yeah, so's Diamond" Athena had no need for a verbal response to that, instead she simply just nodded and stepped closer to Felix's car, opening the rear door and holding it for Zirconia to climb inside before following her whilst Astra moved to the back of the car and lifted open the trunk so that they could begin transferring luggage to ensure that Clunker would remain balanced with their own additional weight placed on it.

In a matter of moments Team MARZ were speeding out into the city; for all that they had waited to see Halo Academy the four of them found that they could stand to wait a few more hours and that it would be worth it.

"Let's go see if my bike is legal here!" was the exuberant yell that echoed out after them.

---

"Beginning the introduction process in three, two, one, now!" such measured, toneless and entirely mundane seeming words had been what preceded Gestalt-Prime being cast into a new world of pain and confusion that rivalled anything they had been forced to endure thus far.

The sentient Alpha Grimm had been adrift and stranded within the shattered and tumultuous labyrinth of screaming, animal psyches and incoherent rage that formed the segment of the broken collective consciousness of the Creatures of Grimm that they had, prior to their utter ruination held sway over, their thoughts and the sense of self that had formed and coalesced to raise Gestalt-Prime above the feral and discordant chorus of the manifest darkness and oblivion which had spawned them had been slowly eroded and steadily worn away in a process that had only been exacerbated by Gestalt-Prime's own efforts to free themselves from it yet the hybrid Grimm had persisted nevertheless; the wild and unhinged recklessness that permeated the makeup of the Grimm worked in the Alpha's favour as it allowed them to swim against the mental tide in a desperate, albeit blinded and incoherent frenzy as they sought out the one thing that might serve to anchor them and allow them a chance to master themselves once again.

Their physical body.

Gestalt-Prime had been lurking around the periphery of their own self, distant as it was in the web of interlocked thoughts that formed the Hive-Mind; a mental equivalent of feeling around the indistinct edges of their mangled body when the distant and incoherent words had stirred them moments before the first wave of agony had struck, crashing over them in an incomprehensible wave which, through the sheer scale of its' effects managed to jolt Gestalt-Prime back to themselves entirely and drag them the remainder of the way from their comatose, fugue state.

It felt like and ice, it was thunder and knives and death and change all at once.

And with it came clarity.

As Gestalt-Prime's mind and ruined body began to synchronise and adjust one another's presence again the hybrid Alpha found words to describe the sensations which overcame them yet these unbidden words offered only confusion as the abomination found themselves thinking in terms of regeneration and healing and growth despite the suffering being inflicted upon them.

The feeling coursing through what remained of their body was closest to that which followed the most notable instances of consumption where Gestalt-Prime had taken something of such size or power and importance into themselves that its' presence had changed them, for instance the machine which had granted them wings which had since been torn away yet the sensation had been turned inside out and upon itself in a way which forced Gestalt-Prime to search for more intelligible answers. The singular eye of the hybrid Alpha came flickering into life, a bloody crimson glow which roved around surrounding unlike anything it had witnessed before and frantically struggled to make sense of them; the immediate realisation that they had been submerged caused less reaction than it might have as Gestalt-Prime felt no indication that they were being drowned and the sensation of floating within the vast cylindrical tank which held them was the least disquieting part of their current ordeal, more important to the Grimm were the various machines and contraptions worked around and through them in a dizzying array with one of the various sections including a mass of spindly armatures fitting with obscenely large syringes whose points could best be described as armour piercing and their contents sending a chill of the closest thing to fear a Creature of Grimm could truly experience through Gestalt-Prime as they realised with a start that the swirling and pitch black vapours they saw were in fact the faded remains of a fellow Grimm which had been captured and harnessed beyond the beasts' destruction.

"Again!" at that single word Gestalt-Prime's world was reduced once more to all-consuming agony which robbed the Grimm of their vision and would have left them thrashing had they still possessed enough of their limbs to do so effectively, what they gave instead was a feeble, pulsating shudder of a fleshy mass they no longer recognised as their own self before forcing their senses to cooperate with them so that they might see beyond the fluids and prison they had been trapped within and find the quarry that dared attack them in such a way. Their lone eye roved and flickered until finally the garbled and disjointed images it fed to their mind began to take shape, as strange and alien to them as that shape might be; Gestalt-Prime saw a room lined with the things their prey built which were not weapons or transportation, things like that which provided them with their false Hive-Mind that they called the CCT yet plainly of a different function and intent however more importantly the Grimm saw their prey in the form of two human males who studied Gestalt-Prime in turn with a sense of intensity which lacked any of the proper terror or urgency, one pale and clad in black whilst the other was darker skinned, with white hair and a creamy, almost bone coloured suit beneath a more pristine white lab-coat. Finally and with an effort that almost shattered them entirely Gestalt-Prime managed to locate one of their limbs which had either survived their failed assault on Port Alistair or else had regrown in the interim and send the limb hurtling outwards.

It was severed before it reached the surface of the tank which contained them, a flat plane of hard-light shearing it away with a hiss that left the fluid that held them heated and bubbling.

"Convulsions, it's going into shock and lashing out on instinct" the white-clad man noted with the first hint of concern that Gestalt-Prime had heard thus far "Preparing hard-light shielding as a precaution"

"Good" the black-clad man murmured, still entirely unfazed and continuing to stare at Gestalt-Prime even as hexagonal panels of solidified and cyan-hued light formed an additional barrier between them "Again, everything this time….All of the Grimm tissue that Carmesi harvested, one insertion"

Gestalt-Prime tried to thrash and tear themselves free upon hearing that, some deep primal dread intermingling with vague memories of the arena on Menagerie where they had been meant to fight to their end, their struggles were for nought however as what little of their mass they could still direct was entirely to bloodied and feeble to break the containment unit, much less contend with the shielding beyond it and their half-thought, half-instinct attempt to ensnare the mechanisms around themselves and begin to merge with them were halted pre-emptively as more planes of hard-light lanced and seared through the fluids to cut away any tendril which might draw to close to a mechanical component until finally, at the request of the black-clad man Gestalt-Prime was cast into a mind-shattering void of pain that was darkness and blinding light and deafening silence all at once as more than a dozen of the syringes filled with raw, vaporised Grimm essence freed form anything which would have made it what it should have been were stabbed into their pulverised hide in the same instant.

Gestalt-Prime was unmade and remade in the same instant and what formed in the wake of the agony was not truly the same Grimm that had existed in the moments before.

It had been apotheosis, once again yet this time a forced and grotesque thing far removed from the glorious ascension that they had experienced before.

Gestalt-Prime was now roughly a dozen feet in either height or length, depending on how one considered their orientation and possessed a body that was some ghastly approximation and combination of larva or pupa, crustacean and root system.

The Grimm's body began at the upper surface of the tank where it had affixed itself with a mass of writhing, flatworm-like tendrils covered with hooks, barbs and sucking mouthpieces to anchor itself in place and this grotesque, pulsating mass trailed and tangled its' way downwards to a single point at the furthest end of the Alpha's main bulk which existed as a segmented and loosely crescent shaped mass of raw and bloated obsidian flesh with a single layer of flat bands of chitin armour extend across what might once have been denoted as its' back though now there was no spine in place to make such a distinction. The hybrid Alpha's new body lacked any of the usual exoskeletal structure and jagged points common to the Creatures of Grimm and instead sufficed with a series of limbs with steadily increased in complexity as they travelled along its' length towards its' skull, starting from elongated tendrils and progressing through segmented limbs which kicked listlessly at the fluid around them until finally forming a quartet of many-jointed appendages that might one day grow to be arms however were currently more akin to the forelimbs of a mantis, arranged in an X formation and with Gestalt-Prime's head at the centre.

The skull of the hybrid Alpha had not so much changed as it had reverted, it was now a flattened thing without a neck or proper head upon which to exist; located at the lowermost portion of Gestalt-Prime's body as though they were perpetually inverted and the roots which held them in place and staring over their own back were what remained of their legs and tail though even now its' shape was still unmistakably lupine and cyclopean, its' lower jaw broken apart and arranged around the flattened fangs and snout in grisly decoration.

"That was….Unexpected" the white-clad man noted, needing several moments to process what he had witnessed and still reeling with a naked, untrained fear which saw Gestalt-Prime lash out in an effort to test the reach and abilities of this new, lesser and wretched form by sending their contorted arms lunging out yet they were once again denied by hard-light, the searing light this time being used as a blunt object instead of a heated scalpel and being used to keep the Alpha's limbs and bay, steadily forcing them back and being joined by more and more until the threat became undeniable, Gestalt-Prime forced to concede in some lingering rational part of themselves that they could not act without facing destruction and it was here that the black-clad man, pale and tall strode closer still to the tank and spoke directly to the hybrid Alpha.

"I am Chairman Damascus Nero and I know that you can hear me" the human regarded the Grimm intensely "But what I want to know is if you can understand….I want to know if I am conversing with a thinking being, or I am wasting my time talking to an animal. If you are the former, then I believe we can come to an arrangement!"

In their current predicament Gestalt-Prime was unable to answer.

Author's Notes:

Okay first of all, welcome to the back half of Vol.04.
Secondly, this story has hit 100k views on FF Net so….Holy shit.
Also, I know it looks like I haven't taken a break but I actually didn't write anything for MARZ Rising for two weeks.
Admittedly I did use that time to plan the second half of the volume and also to write my first story for the Parahumans fandom which clocked in at well over 30k words and was over double the usual length of one of my chapters….But still, it counts as a break.

But anyway, let's summarise shall we?:
Our first look at Halo Academy and it's already clear that it's a different vibe to Breaktide just from the different Headmasters' offices; I'll have to go back to FADE: Legacy to refresh myself on what the academy looks like….Although it's mentioned in the epilogue to FADE that Ren and Nora turned a part of the campus into a care home/orphanage for kids.
The Team JNPR dance is eternal.
We're all still Ren-sexual aren't we.
We're entering a whole new phase of the story, so I decided to balance that with something familiar, in this case Nora's love of pancakes and "Booping" Ren.
And things are now in full swing in Neo Vale, Qrow is keeping an eye open for anything weird, Sun is keeping an eye out for kids doing exactly what he did and students are inbound.
The kids living on the campus are exposed to Hunters from a young age and mingle with the students to some extent….I'm sure Nero would have opinions about that.
Eagle Arc and Carcharodon Gore, that is a definitely effective two-pronged attack.
Teams TRQS and SHMR, Tiger, Snapdragon and Stygian….These scene mostly served as a welcome back and a chance to sprinkle in a few names, because we do need new secondary characters and well, Astra did make an acquaintance before heading back to Menagerie.
Let cougar Nora get railed in Ren's office on a Saturday morning; she's earned it.
Some last minute goodbyes for everybody here.
AJ and Zirconia did not fuck while there were two other people asleep in the room.
Of come on, Team WULF had to get their goodbye here.
AJ and Diabla's thing is officially settled.
Regalia did actually make friends with Ursinia and Laser before she was even really friends with any of Team MARZ and that means a lot.
Laser having a mild thing for her that he never acted on was just something I threw out there….The two of them were always going to have some kind of chemistry considering that in my early plans for this story they were actually the same character.
It's not a goodbye it's a see you later.
The first time we've actually had Nero, Albion and Aefen all in the same call….So naturally Nero is trying to misdirect and limit the information Aefen has.
So more posturing from Aefen as she tries to figure out Nero's goal and almost gets it but not quite.
Whilst Albion has no time for bullshit.
So the plan to bring Gestalt-Prime back also had other pieces of other plans attached to it, including the plan to get someone specifically suited to serving as a distraction for Astra when Team MARZ inevitably get involved; who guessed where this was going?
Even Regalia can't deal with airline food.
The realisation that Regalia has actually never flown on a full size airship or left Menagerie before slightly changed the flow of this scene, for the better in my opinion.
Of course Astra and Zirconia have big differences of opinion about where the best spots are in Neo Vale….Shinkai-tsutsuika = Deep sea squid.
Astra wins by virtue of the fact that they're going to see their Mum.
Beacon is an academy, team RWBY's bunks and dorm survived everything….However….Yeah, that's an awkward one for AJ "Oh that's the bed my parents did stuff on, oh that's the bed Aunt Ruby and Aunt Penny made out and snuggled on, oh that's the bed Aunt Blake and Aunt Yang-"
"If the police can't catch me then it's already legal enough" is she wrong?
Did you really think that I was gonna do the same thing on the flights to and from Menagerie?
Astra understands the importance of a well presented image.
This whole sequence really is a callback to the flight to Atlas in FADE, right down to the unmanned drones.
So, Nero's company has access to drones capable of gunning down Grimm in the air; I was gonna re-use the name of a subsidiary company that the conglomerate bought out back in Vol.02-ish but I couldn't find that offhand comment from Zirconia, so instead I made Cosmo-Gild Industries; which is a name that will definitely crop up again.
Carmesi taking people to Forever Fall to harvest Rapier Wasps is definitely a twisted mirror of the collecting sap and watching out for Rapier Wasps in canon
Right from the get go, Nero's new asset is someone who can hold their own in a fight since they took out an Alpha….Having his face covered until the end was obviously a deliberate choice.
People breaking the truce….These gang members should read Parahumans, the truce is there for a reason.
Carmesi was nowhere near on top form here, he's more capable than this and we all know it, he just had to babysit some idiots.
And there's the big reveal, we've seen that Semblance before….I even went back and reused some of the same descriptors from Chapter one; although I actually never said what colour Petrol's eyes were….Which is a travesty in a RWBY fic.
So, Zirconia mentioned that Nero would probably need a distraction to pre-empt Team MARZ getting involved in whatever his plans are, because she knows Astra well enough to guess what they'll do and in response Nero managed to get Petrol out of prison and recruit him.
Regalia having no idea how to handle the cold is a reversal of AJ having no idea how to handle the heat and is also partly inspired by that one scene in Cool Runnings.
Regalia has definitely never seen snow before.
Zirconia has absolutely got no idea about the different public transport routes or layouts of things like transport hubs and monorail stations in the city.
They're not gonna be a massive part of Second Year, but come on I had to have a little cameo from someone in Team FADE.
Basically having Felix show up was done so I can have Team MARZ's arrival at Halo Academy and their introduction to new characters next chapter.
Ah the last of Gestalt-Prime dream-space/Hive-Mind scenes; now they'll finally have other people/thinking beings to interact with.
They were already trying to get back to their body, having their body remade and reformatted on the cellular level was definitely enough to act as a homing beacon.
Well, Aefen's plan worked….Gestalt-Prime reshaped themselves, but they didn't really take on anything from the Rapier Wasps that they were fed since they were vaporised first.
Nero and Albion were definitely prepared, they knew exactly how to stop Gestalt-Prime merging with their surroundings.
This Grimm ends up with yet another new body, although this one is clearly lesser….It was actually based on Koh the Face Stealer and Glados.
And the first thing Nero tries to do is talk about business opportunities….Gotta admire the balls really; the line was inspired at least a little by Lex Luthor's "There's always a deal to be made?" when told about the approach of Apokolips.

Thank you to Lurkweed and OrcPaladinArthur for their review on the last chapter.
We've got kooky canon characters right off the bat, although Team MARZ haven't met Nora...Yet
Yeah, that fight was a fun one to write, especially when became obvious that the new special moves wouldn't be enough for either party to win.
Nero has a good sense of what his employees can and can't be trusted with.
Don't worry, new B team and tertiary characters pending.

As always thank you to everyone that reads this, with a special thanks to those of you that follow, favourite and review.