Author's Notes

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Hey, that noise sounds familiar! That's right, it's the NEW FANFIC ALARM!

Welcome aboard, Rat's Nest, to 'Jacques Schnee's B- Parenting,' the enthralling new story featuring fluff, childhood friends to lovers, Checkmate, Faunus!Weiss - damn, we're ticking all them boxes!

Jacques Schnee can't change the fact that his newborn daughter has Faunus wings, but he can change the world at large and the way it views Faunus as second-class citizens. After Jacques allies with the Belladonna's White Fang and turns the SDC into a champion of equal rights (while making sure to market his newfound 'activism' for every drop of PR he can), the world is an entirely different place seventeen years later when Weiss Schnee and her childhood friend Blake Belladonna go to Beacon to train as huntresses.

Be sure to check it out if you're interested - it's gonna be a long story (285k words) with laughs, cries, fluffs, and other such things!

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 9 – Investment

In which Cardin Winchester bears witness to life blooming anew and death a long time coming.

Cardin whistled.

"Alright, LJ. See if you can find any holes for us to plug."

"TSSSTSSSTSSS!"

With those encouraging words to start them off, Cardin waited for his pet Grimm to return. Volta, Mata, Corl, Tuokana, and a human woman he didn't recognize stood at the ready with planks of wood, hammers, shovels, and even some clay cement, just in case.

Two nights ago, they'd all been partying hard like a bunch of jackanapes after the grand success of the final portion of the wall sealing them in. Drinks (non-alcoholic for Cardin, of course, given his age) were passed around, and there was merriment aplenty. Then, when everyone was happy as a clam Faunus, LJ had slipped through a narrow space between two of the walls and returned shortly thereafter with a dead pheasant. Needless to say, the celebrations had stopped, with much groaning.

The pheasant's neck and head made it through the hole with the Centinel, but the rest of the body hadn't made it through, stopped at the stomach which was too wide to enter. That had given Volta the bright idea of using homemade clay cement to simply patch the holes rather than tear the walls down and start from scratch. She'd been put in charge of the project and nominated queen for the day for her genius idea, because Cardin had truly not been looking forward to downing another batch of timbers with Arc's sword and starting from scratch.

Seriously, we've had three air drops, and no one thought to ask for another axe? I'm having a hard time believing that load of bull Faunus manure.

LJ's skittering proceeded for a few seconds on the other side of the wall, then ceased as the sounds of burrowing began. Cardin sighed in relief. LJ always took the easiest path, so if he was choosing to put the effort into a new hole, that meant he couldn't find any points to squeeze in. He could've crawled over the top, of course, but that would've required him to brave the spikes they'd affixed to the tops of the walls.

"That's one more section safe from Grimm," noted Mata.

"Grimm that can't burrow, that is," said Volta, crossing her finned arms. "Seriously, we're giving this little thing a grand tour of all our weak points."

"He won't tell," said Mata. LJ's mandibles poked through the dirt, and Mata gave his head a rub. "Will you, boy?"

Cardin whistled again, and LJ wound around his waist, accepting the delicious clump of moss Cardin had procured for him.

"Treat," he said, handing him the rock.

The Faunus who weren't supervisors or security set out to fill the hole with their shovels.

"Centinels aren't native to Mistral," Cardin stated factually. "Ursai can dig, but they'd never make a wide enough tunnel to actually travel in; it'd collapse far too easily. We ought to be more worried about Sphinx coming down from the mountains – unlikely, by the way."

"Suuuuuure," Volta drawled. "Not native to Mistral, because you picked him up in the Grimm castle."

"Not the Grimm castle, it was some mustache wanker's castle."

Volta, ever the bratty teen, was not convinced. "In the middle of the Grimmlands. Manned by Grimm."

"Grimmed by Grimm," added Mata.

Cardin chuckled and patted him on the back. "Good one."

Mata blushed and looked away.

"All done," said the human woman. "On to the next section?"

"Let's wait a bit," said Cardin. "I'm gonna go take LJ to the south and test the guard's reaction times."

Without Grimm attacks to occupy his time, Cardin had devoted much of it to training the White Fang when he wasn't erecting walls. He'd unlocked the aura of a handful of the most promising recruits (and Mata, because he couldn't say no to that kid), but not too many. Grimm were drawn to aura users like deer to salt licks, and until the walls were checked and doubled checked, OC had asked Cardin not to bring too much attention to Cardinville.

Fine, it wasn't called that – but a guy could dream, couldn't he? No, what they actually named it was Kuana Lunai. Liunara was destroyed, and some of the refugees that remembered its fall thought naming it New Liunara to be courting bad luck. The White Fang wanted to give it a name commemorating the Faunus' achievement in bringing this new town to life, but one that didn't give credit to their home organization or Sienna Khan. A combination of the Menagerian beach's name and the old town's abbreviated name was put forth in the last group meeting and received the most votes.

There were now more than four hundred souls permanently residing here, and more coming in every day. They'd built the wooden walls with a large swath of land empty to ensure there would be space for new arrivals, and half of it was already full.

That's not good, Cardin thought as he went through the forest to the other side of town for the guards' surprise. Not just because we're overcrowded. We can always expand the walls, but…where are these people coming from?

He knew where. Cardin had memorized the names of every fallen village while poring over a map in OC's command tent, as well as the detailed descriptions of the attacks as relayed by survivors. He supposed that the more important question was why. Why weren't huntsman and huntresses doing their jobs right? Why wasn't Haven sending reinforcements if villages were going down left and right? Why was Mistral losing towns in mind blowing numbers?

"Cardin!"

He turned around in alarm. The voice was Mata's, and he sounded distressed.

"What is it?" Cardin asked. "Is it Grimm?"

There hadn't been any attacks on Kuana Lunai, but that didn't mean there weren't going to be. Honestly, the fact that villages were dropping like flies and they hadn't even seen a Grimm anywhere near the town was somehow more alarming.

"No! It's Laura! She's gone into labor!"

"This early?" Cardin asked, the doubt in his voice laced with fear.

Mata nodded.

Cardin cursed out loud and followed behind Mata as he raced towards the village's main gate. Dr. Balanca's extended waistline, he'd realized slightly belatedly, was not because she'd been gorging herself on their communal supplies. That had led to no small amount of embarrassment on Cardin's part when she'd referencing being due in three months. He hadn't understood, and when she said she explained expecting, he'd accidentally let slip that he thought she was just fat.

Cardin cringed at that memory. Actually, he cringed at a lot of memories.

I was such a douche for such a long time.

"C'mon!" said Mata, waving an arm. "Let's go!"

It wasn't just a matter of Cardin missing an important moment in his friend's life or not witnessing the first birth in Kuana Lunai. Since he'd been the one playing nurse for the doctor all this time, he'd become the second-best medicine practitioner in the town. That didn't say much, as he was also the second medicine practitioner, period. As Dr. Balanca typically handled all of the sicknesses and injuries herself, there was no need for her to train anyone else. Building and farming were the jobs with far more urgent precedence.

Except she can't deliver her own baby. I'm gonna have to handle this one.

"YOU DID THIS TO ME!" raged Laura. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"

"Mine?" asked Mata.

"NO! HIS!"

Laura's unsteady finger pointed at Cardin.

"M-Me? You were already pregnant when I got here! How is this my fault?"

"IT JUST IS, YOU STUPID HUMAN!"

The rest of her screams were incomprehensible, so Cardin checked the…

Ewwww. Women were hot and all, especially ones whose parts were visible, but there was nothing sexy about this. This was all the wrong kinds of bodily fluids. Cardin could barely keep himself from heaving. He'd seen blood, but this wasn't just blood; this was…vagina blood.

Ughghrughghgh.

Laura was laid out on a tarp on the grass next to one of the campfires, as per her own request. When she was more lucid, she'd actually been able to advise him how to proceed. Now, however, she was raving in maddened pain.

"What's she supposed to do next?" asked Volta, panickily. The poor kid was just as flummoxed as Cardin, though she was letting it show.

"Good question." Cardin turned to the woman in labor. "Laura, what are you supposed to do next?"

"I'LL TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF!"

"P-Push?"

Cardin looked around for support and found that everyone was doing the same – except looking to him.

"Push! I-I guess."

"I'LL PUSH YOU – OFF A F $=&*!ING CLIFF!"

The baby survived, despite the bloody murder his mother had been shouting out.

Cardin really must've been stupid about the Faunus, because he'd been expecting a bird baby to come out squawking and got a wailing human instead.

"Here, wrap it in these," said OC. "I had a son. You need to clean it off, though, before you put it in swaddling clothes."

Cardin held the newborn out to him, which he accepted with a sigh.

"If you've got experience, why didn't you take over?" he asked.

"Well, I personally didn't pull him out of my wife!" said the hedgehog, angling his head away so the beardly spikes didn't bristle against the youngster's face. "I do know a little bit of what to do once they're out of the womb, though."

"D-Do we spank it?" asked Volta. Her eyes darted nervously to Cardin, looking for aid. It was times like this when he remembered that even though she ran more than half of the town when OC was busy, she was still just a kid who fell apart in a real crisis.

"It's already crying," said OC. "No need."

"O-Oh. Is that good?"

"It would be bad if it weren't."

"S-So it is good?" asked the young fish Faunus girl.

OC sighed. "Yes, Volta, it is good."

"Did she say what she wanted his name to be before she… you know?" asked Mata. He gestured to Dr. Balanca's passed out form, which was now being tended to by Cardin as best he could with his limited experience.

"No, but I've got several suggestions," said Cardin. "Starting alphabetically, we have Cardin, Carmen, Carlton–"

"N-Nuh…" said the new mother, weakly. "Nuuuh."

"Even knocked out cold, she still refuses to let you have the last word," joked OC.

Cardin finished toweling down the woman and ensuring she was clean, so he stood up and went to check out the ankle-biter. He considered waving a finger in its face, but given the babe's current mood, that was more likely to incur a nasty bite than a cute gurgle.

"Why's it not a bird?" he asked.

No one answered, and Cardin's head looked up.

"What? That can't be offensive or something – his mom's a bird."

OC shook his head. "It's not that. Just…you're spend so much time around us and fit in so well that it's easy to forget you aren't White Fang. Laura's old flame was a Faunus, which means that the child will not inherit either of its parent's traits."

Cardin checked out the baby again. "Huh. Neat, I guess?"

"Every Faunus knows this growing up," said Volta, explaining it with confusion, as though she couldn't understand why Cardin didn't already have this knowledge in his brain. "All the kids on our street showed no signs of inheritance of their parents' appearances. Even my siblings have different traits than me. My brother was a lemur, and my sister was a guppy."

"Aren't you a guppy?" asked Cardin.

She shook her head proudly. "I'm a coelacanth."

That's gibberish to me, but I'll assume it's somehow a distinct type of fish.

"Is it different for half-humans?" Cardin asked, now genuinely curious.

"I never actually saw a mixed-race family, but I heard that human-Faunus offspring take their Faunus parent's trait, guaranteed." Her young face contorted in disgust. "Babies – so gross…"

"Children are a curse and a blessing."

Cardin looked at Mata. "I want one."

Mata's eyes widened, but then a joking smirk crossed his face. "I keep telling you – I'm not ready!"

That drew a few chuckles. Cardin was about to step away when the kid's mouth opened up for another thunderous whine, and a long stretchy tongue shot out. It popped OC smack dab between the eyes, which was particularly fortunately in that it was OC's forehead that was hit and not Cardin's forehead.

"It's a frog," said Mata. "Mazel tov."

Cardin helped gently detached the outstretched tongue from the captain's face and handed him another cloth for the slime. "You said you have a kid, OC. What animal is your son based on?"

OC's smile dropped. This time, Cardin could tell he truly had upset the man.

What? Is this some topic that's off limits or something? He was the one who brought it up when he said he had a…

Oh.

"My apologies. I didn't mean to–"

"It's alright." The man cradled the newborn and gently rocked it back and forth. "I…my boy joined the White Fang. The real White Fang. I told him he was a fool for associating with terrorists, and we exchanged words that we couldn't take back."

OC's eyes closed, and he heaved out a forlorn sigh.

"He was shot to death by Atlesian specialists a week before his twentieth birthday."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." Cardin patted his shoulder.

"Don't be. They shot him because he was running away after attaching an IED to a school bus. His life was the thirteenth lost that day."

Damn. Me and my big mouth…

OC handed the baby to Volta, who took it immediately. She looked uncomfortable at having been given such a great responsibility, but Cardin could tell she would've accepted a bundle of hot coals OC had been the one handing it to her.

"I sometimes wonder what I did wrong. Was there something I said that turned him astray? Some instance when I preached equality or the need for action in his youth, some phrase he took out of context that if I'd never uttered wouldn't have made him do what he did?"

Cardin coughed. "I don't want to speak out of turn, but if you were anything like you are now when you raised him, it couldn't have been your fault. You're a good man, and you've only ever been a good influence on me. Before I met you, I was a real…well, you know. But now I'm…you know. S-Sorry. I'm not really good with words."

This was the guy who'd set Cardin straight, and he felt like he'd have been letting him down if he hadn't say something comforting now of all times.

"It's okay," said OC. "That…may have been just what I needed to hear."

"SKREEEEEEE!"

It was the screaming that woke Cardin up. He could sleep through Long John's noises, but some person was yelling at the top of their lungs like an unhinged maniac.

Dust's sake, he thought groggily, rubbing at his eyes. Is she giving birth a second time? Did we miss a twin and leave it up in there?

He opened his eyes and looked around, blinking.

The camp was on fire.

Crocea Mors was out in a second, as Cardin raced through the running throngs of people to confront the Grimm that did this. Sword and aura both raised, his head darted in every direction to make sense of the chaotic scene.

What's going on? his now-alert mind asked.

The walls were burning, but they still stood. If anything, that should have deterred the Grimm, as fire triggered their weak self-preservation instincts. Humans and Faunus of all ages were running about randomly, all out of their cots, but none of them seemed to know where they were going.

He wasn't going to find out what the issue was if he stood around. Jogging ahead in no particular direction, he took note of his surroundings and tried not to collide with any of the people. Bodies were lying all over the ground, but Cardin couldn't see any monsters in the burnt orange haze of smoke that surrounded him.

Where are the Grimm? All I see is people!

As he got to the blazing ruins of the original town of Liunara, he immediately felt something was wrong about the scene. Most people were moving as fast as they could to escape the confusion, but some were walking leisurely. Some were even standing still.

An infant's wails caught his ear.

N-No…!

Circling around, he scanned the ground until he saw them.

The baby lay facedown, still bundled in the same blanket OC had wrapped it up in. The unnamed infant continued to make more and more noise, meaning it was still alive – there was still time to save it from whatever calamity has descended upon them! Cardin raced as fast as his legs would take him towards it and quickly snatched it up and looked around for his mother.

It didn't take him long to find her.

He took all of three steps before he tripped over the corpse, dropping the kid as he tumbled down. He picked the baby right back up as soon as he could and checked it for injuries, but fortunately there still were none. The frog Faunus was crying its little heart out, but he wasn't cut or nothing. He was covered in his mother's blood but none of his own.

Cardin checked Laura for a pulse and found none. It wasn't surprising, given the massive blood loss from the slashes that covered her body. His heart wrenched, but there was no time to mourn.

I'm Kuana Lunai's huntsman – I need to stop this!

He couldn't do this alone. He needed to find backup, or at least someone in charge who had a better handle on the situation.

Any of them will know what to do. OC, Mata, Volta, Lau…damn it.

Cardin held the baby in one arm and kept his sword drawn in the other, ready for anything. Someone ran into him, but given the difference in their size, it was like a Nevermore flying into an Atlesian battleship. Cardin wasn't even rattled.

"C-Cardin!"

It was Corl, one of the builders that Cardin vaguely recognized.

"Where's OC? Did you see him?"

The Faunus man pointed, and Cardin started marching in that direction, but not before shoving the baby into the man's hands.

"Get the refugees to the main gate – we need to be prepared to flee. I'll take care of the Grimm!" he called out behind him.

"It's not Grimm!" shouted Corl, but Cardin was already running. Still, his last words echoed in Cardin's head.

Not Grimm? This seems like more than the work of a lightning strike or earthquake, but people are acting too crazy for this to be some natural disaster. It's an assault, and it's still happening, or things would've calmed down by now. We've being attacked, but if it's not the Grimm…

He got his answer a second later.

At the dead center of the village stood Raven Branwen, the back of her black and crimson armor illuminated by the fires. One of her feet was propped up on a head with quills interspersed throughout the hair. No body was nearby.

A stupider man than Cardin might have called her out and tried to duel her with Crocea Mors. A more cowardly man might have retreated and scoped out the situation from afar, trying to gather allies. A more emotional man might have given in to his rage and scream out as he charged Raven.

Cardin was stupid, cowardly, and emotional, but all in equally mixed amount. Right now, he needed all three.

Even as he tore the door off a barn, he knew this would probably be it. Raven was the chieftain for a reason, and she'd pick his bones clean. He didn't care. Laura had never even gotten to meet her own son before this…this…animal killed her. The insult he had once reserved for Faunus now applied to this Faunus-killer quite aptly.

It wasn't Cardin 'grand strategic mind' that made him sneak up on Raven, calmly stepping toward her with the massive door under his armpit. It was his brain optimizing his near-zero chances of succeeding at his goal of tearing the head off this Brothers damned whore who'd taken everything from him. He didn't think he could win this, but he would do whatever simplistic thinking it took to hurt her as much as he could. Again, Cardin was a fighter, not a thinker.

Her back was still turned when he got about 10 feet away, and at that point he broke into a run. She heard him at the last moment, but Cardin was twice her size, and his weapon of choice was so broad that he couldn't possibly miss. She may have been skilled, but he was physically stronger than anyone, and he sent her flying in a shower of splintered wood and hatred.

The tribesmen quieted down as they realized that their leader had taken a hit, but Cardin wasn't even aware of it. Now that the element of surprise was gone, he'd already drawn Crocea Mors and was desperately trying to lop off a body part – head, legs, arms…hell, he'd even have taken a finger.

Obviously, it didn't work. Once Raven was aware of his presence, he couldn't touch her. He'd gotten her once, an obvious insult to the woman's pride, and now she was clearly in the game of humiliating him for it by highlighting the difference in their combat prowess. She didn't even raise her sword, simply sidestepping every attack and dancing past the slashes and swings from Jaune's sword.

Jaune's sword…

Cardin smiled. Perhaps his most memorable fight at Beacon had taught him something.

Cardin threw the sword over Raven's head. Her eyes followed Crocea Mors – just like Cardin's had when Jaune Arc tried the same damn trick with the same damn sword.

He truly had learned something that day. When you were fighting an opponent who was superior in every way with a weapon you barely knew how to use, you could afford to throw it away as a distraction. Cardin didn't need a sword as much as he needed to score another hit.

His foot caught Raven Branwen in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. His smile grew wide, even as she caught his boot before falling down and snapped his leg. The pain hurt, certainly, but it was nothing compared the orgasmic pleasure of having twice landed actual blows on the Branwen queen herself.

"My old man always taught me to never raise my hands against a woman," Cardin managed to say despite his lip splitting after Raven had thrown him on his butt. "He said kicks are more effective."

"You'll die, just like every other Faunus in this village."

"Is this what your raids always were, you soulless Grimm-witch?" Cardin spat. "I always thought you just raided abandoned homes or robbed folks, not butchered them."

"We take hostages," explained Raven, her tone calm as she flicked her sword across Cardin's aura. "Though not here. Because you thought you could defy me and challenge my strength, ever Faunus dies." She flashed him a toothy smile. "You'll enjoy that, won't you?"

It was pointless to try and grab her foot, but he tried anyways. She simply stepped on his hand, grinding his fingers as she twisted her heel into them.

"GRAAAAH!"

"You managed to actually touch me. Probably the furthest you've ever gotten with a woman."

Her katana pierced his shoulder. Cardin's aura was still up, but he knew he wouldn't last long if he didn't conserve it and accept the flesh wound to protect critical organs.

Conserve it for what? I can't beat her…

He tried to grab some dirt to throw in her eyes, but she stabbed through his hand next. At least it had all been on the same side so far, and the non-dominant one at that, so he could still hold his sword. Maybe he'd swing at the last moment and try to nick an artery on her wrist when she cut out his throat.

It didn't take long, though Cardin dragged it out as best he could. The tribesmen had gathered around to watch the spectacle, and that meant the people of Kuana Lunai had a brief respite from the slaughter. Cardin desperately hoped that Mata had made it out, or at least the baby. His brain told him that the bandits would go after the best fighter first to weaken resistance, but his heart dared to hope.

And it will continue to do so, until Raven cuts it out and eats it like a kabob on her sword.

Cardin's last act of defiance was to pool up as much blood in his mouth as he could and spit it all on her boots, but she simply wiped them on the grass and kicked him with such force that it made his body roll away from her. His aura was on the verge of breaking, and he could tell she was going to finish this. He closed his eyes as she raised her katana above her head and waited for death to come.

There was a whoosh as the blade lowered.

Then, he heard it stop.

Cardin opened his eyes.

Propping himself up with his good arm, he sat up to see the last person he'd expected to be between him and Raven. Vernal, her curved weapons on both wrists, was standing with her back to Cardin. Both of her arms were outstretched.

Raven wasn't having it. "Out of my way."

"He…He rode with us," Vernal said.

Cardin unsteadily lifted himself to his feet. The broken leg Raven had given to him was too damaged to put any weight on, so he just sort of lightly leaned on it. Vernal glanced over her shoulder at him quickly, then turned back to face Raven.

"However brief, he was a Branwen. That means he's–"

Crocea Mors went through her back but hit something solid at the front of her stomach. Cardin assumed that meant she'd pushed all her aura to the front to protect herself in case Raven tried to go through her and get to him, but that meant she'd left her back weak. Of course, she'd never expected stupid lovestruck Cardin to turn on his savior.

The aura didn't last long; after two second of solid pushing with all of Cardin's might, Crocea Mors punctured through the inside of her aura and poked out the front of the young woman, right above where her belly button would have been.

"Cardin…"

He pulled out, and she flopped down to the floor.

"W-Why…?"

"I think that…" Cardin gestured to Vernal with his sword. "…is the deepest I've ever been in a woman."

Raven had said 'furthest he'd gotten with a woman,' but it still sorta worked. The eyes of the bandit queen in question burned with a new fury.

"You fool! She was an–"

Her voice clipped as Vernal looked up to her chieftain weakly.

"Lemme guess," said Cardin, putting on as smug a face as he could manage. "An investment."

Raven's gritted teeth were all the answer he needed. Cardin went on.

"Yours, I presume. That means you spent a whole lotta time training her, feeding her, building her up…all for nothing. Idiot didn't even raise her when her back was to an opponent."

Cardin prodded her with his foot, and her eyes rolled his way to look at him with rage. Good; that meant she was still alive. He calmly pointed with one finger, the other four holding Crocea Mors.

"LJ, don't get a taste for it, but…treat."

The Grimm around his waist uncurled and crawled down his leg.

For all the people you killed, today and before.

For Laura.

Those cuts that covered her body weren't Grimm. Looking back, I recognize them as your wrist weapons.

Raven raised a sword, but Cardin waggled his finger.

"Ah ah ah. The weak die – this is her own fault for being so weak. Oh, and yours. You see, I recall that when someone in the tribes makes an investment in another that doesn't pay off, that person owes a backlog of…what was it?" Cardin stroked his chin. "Everything their investment took from the tribe. And I'd assume Vernal has been with you for a while."

"I am the tribe."

"And yet your prodigy fell like a sack of potatoes. If someone like me can kill your prized pupil, well, I'd imagine that paints a poor picture of your training regime."

Raven's eyes narrowed. "You want her place?"

"No." Cardin stabbed Crocea Mors in the ground to balance off of it as he stood up to his full height. "I killed her, so I claim everything you owe for wasting time on someone so weak."

He looked left, then right.

"And I claim this debt in the form of this village. Kuana Lunai is mine, and you all need to get lost."

A katana's point tickled his throat. "I could kill you and take it right back."

"You can't challenge someone who's just coming down from a challenge," he said, quoting the elder tribeswomen Noona's words from the foraging party. "You would be piggybacking off how tired I am from using up all my might to gut Vernal and cut through her frontal aura. That's not strength – not real strength. Only the strong survive."

Raven didn't repeat his words, and Cardin knew he'd just scored another point.

Cardin hadn't planned this out – he'd just impulsively tried to avenge Laura by killing Vernal – but it worked out so well that he wondered if the Brother Gods were smiling upon him.

The sword flicked upwards and cut his chin. "I am the chieftain. I make the rules. I can kill who I want."

If you truly believe that, you wouldn't be negotiating with me. You want me to back down in fear so you pretend this was a flawless win for you. Well, I won't let you come out on top so easily. No more backing down, no more running away.

"You stabbed her in the back!" Raven roared when Cardin didn't budge.

Cardin nodded knowingly. "You're right. That was pretty unfair of me, wasn't it?"

"She was slated to rule when I grew too old."

"Oh, come on, Raven. The weak die, and only the strong…the strong…" Cardin smirked. "…you gotta say it with me, chief."

The tribal warriors who'd gathered round were beginning to mumble.

"Only the strong survive," she eventually gritted out.

The murderous woman raised her sword, and for a second, Cardin was truly worried that his final gambit had failed. Then, she brought it down to his right, opening a red vortex. Cardin flinched but didn't back down.

"Take what you've got and move out," Raven ordered. "We're done here."

Cardin let out the breath he'd been holding as the men and women filed into the portal.

Raven bent over, snatched up Long John by this middle, and threw him off of Vernal's remains, or what was left of them. "I need the body. At least most of it. Vernal was an anchor."

Cardin whistled, and LJ came crawling back to him. "All yours."

She stepped into the portal, leaving him alone with the White Fang and the refugees, but the portal didn't go away. Cardin waited for a tense second, and then she came back out with something in her hands.

"For your victory."

She dropped his mace and his backpack.

"Don't ever let me lay eyes on you again," said Raven. "I won't hesitate to challenge you, and you won't have tribal laws to hide behind…Cardin Branwen."

Raven and her tribe had decimated the village. All of the crops were burned, all of the animals were slaughtered or stolen, and every building except a single lucky house had been leveled or damaged so severely that it was no longer livable. She hadn't raided Kuana Lunai; she'd razed it.

They'd still been in the midst of unpacking the most recent supply drop, meaning that it was all in nice tidy crates ripe for the pilfering. One of the possible reasons she'd retreated so easily was because she already gotten everything she needed.

By the time dawn broke, Volta had finally gotten herself under control and done an inventory on what they still had. Stolen goods may have been the least of their worries, but without the medical supplies, Cardin couldn't properly treat the wounded. He did his best, but his best was just a crude impersonation of Dr. Balanca's lessons that he'd picked up from watching. Mata had led a mixed White Fang and civilian patrol with the able-bodied to watch out for Grimm or other attacks since the defenders on the wall had been the first to fall.

Two hundred had been slain in the initial attack, and another hundred and fifty didn't make it through the night. Cardin had managed to treat about eighteen before his nerves gave out and he broke down, then another six before his body shut down and he went unconscious from lingering effects of the physical trauma of the beating Raven had dished out to him. When he awoke, only three of his patients were still alive, and some of the fires were still burning.

In the end, the only survivors were only twenty-seven refugees, twelve White Fang members, one infant frog Faunus, and one human huntsman.

If I ever do go back to Beacon, I'm gonna slaughter Raven and every one of her demonfolk. I'll tell the headmaster, he'll call up a fleet of bullheads, and we'll rain down artillery from the sky until there's nothing left of them. They'll all die screaming and wailing in agony like swine.

The Branwens had facilitated what was essentially the fall of civilized northern Mistral. Kuana Lunai had been the last standing settlement or outpost in the jungles, and it had taken the refugees from all the other fallen locations. Now that it had been reduced to rubble once more, there was no hope of rebuilding it. There was nothing left but the wilderness.

No one left to raid. I guess I could be satisfied knowing that Raven's tribe is going to slowly starve to death instead. As long as they suffer.

The knowledge that he'd once been a part of them made him sick to his stomach.

"Menagerie?" asked Cardin. "Are you sure?"

Volta nodded. "Of the surviving refugees, more than three quarters are Faunus. We can take them to our island and give them a home."

"What about Argus?" Cardin asked. "It's closer."

She shook her head. "Mistral-owned, Atlas-run. They won't take kindly to refugees with no capital, especially with so many Faunus among their numbers. They'll be better off in Menagerie. White Fang HQ's already got some airships on the way. Besides, this continent…it's forsaken. I don't know if it's foolish to be superstitious, but there's definitely something wrong with Anima."

"You're not wrong," said Cardin. "When I get to Mistral City, I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

Mata's discomfort was apparent. "It's not that we want to say goodbye, Cardin. We'd like for you to come with us–"

"It's okay. I know the White Fang back at home base won't look kindly on my species, and someone needs to take the human refugees to safety in Argus."

An unpleasant silence fell between the three of them, broken only by the cries of the baby. Mata rocked it back and forth, desperately trying to calm the little thing, but it was no use.

"Sounds like he wants his mother," choked Cardin.

The huntsman started to tear up, and that made Mata tear up, and pretty soon both of them were bawling alongside the newborn.

"I'm gonna miss you, man." Mata handed the baby to Volta and wrapped Cardin up in a wide embrace. "You got my scroll number, right? Promise me you'll keep in touch."

Cardin nodded. He'd memorized the number in addition to putting it into his scroll, in case the device somehow disappeared.

After all, he knew how easy it was to lose h̶i̶m̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ ̶his things in the hellish forests of Mistral.

tl;dr * * I might kill my ex, feed her to a Grimm * *

Next Chapter: Trains, Eyes, and Soup

In which Cardin Winchester is brutally scorched to death by boiling liquid and forced to infiltrate a maximum security training facility.