Ascendancy: Phase Two - The Land of Wolves

by Titanmaster 117

(Dark RWBY fic. Minor and major character deaths) Three months have passed since the fall of Atlas, and Remnant is slowly beginning to rebuild. But the Second Great War is not yet over. Dark forces have begun to align themselves together, and as enemies emerge from the darkness to do battle with them, the heroes of Remnant must ask themselves, "How far will you go to justify evil?"

2. Cull part 1: Peace (With a Dash of War)

Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Arc theme: Can't Trust Anyone by Jeff Williams
Theme: The Witch Queen from the Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Soundtrack

---

Three months have passed since the Surge, one of the key defining moments in the Second Great War.

After the Grimm of the Ascendant Court retreated from all kingdoms, leaving behind only remnants and ruins of both themselves and the cities that they had tried to conquer, the students of Beacon Academy reorganised most of the scattered armed forces in Vale under a new banner: the Beacon Militia, and set about turning it into the key hand of protection in the kingdom.

At this time, Beacon Academy and its armed forces stand as the centre of power within Vale, and few dare to stand up against it.

However, as they would soon learn, there are those willing to try...

Excerpt from Records of the Changing Guard, chapter 13: Prelude to the Great Hunt, written by Omega Fett

---

It was raining.

He, like the rest of the people that had been captured by this gang of Grimm not too long, kneeled down into the mud and wet earth below him as the water continued to pour down from the heavens above. It hadn't stopped raining for days, and according to the forecasts, it would hardly stop for the next month or so. That meant that the ground would forever stay muddy and the drains in the towns and city would always be blocked up and overflowing in the endless monsoon. The foul metallic odour of blood and muck flowing off of the captured wanderers around him had begun to dilute and fade in the air as the rain continued to pour down, sagging their clothes and leaving them heavy and clinging to their skin. He imagined that many of his fellow prisoners were coming down with hypothermia now, judging from the occasional sneezes and coughs that were coming from them, and the constant downpour wasn't helping with the aches from his old scars.

And yet, as if to spite him, it was still raining.

The electric shackles around him hissed in the rain as water droplets connected with bare currents of electricity and turned to steam in the air. The generator that he and the other captives were all chained to continued to hum with yellow light as the shackles continued to spark in contact with the water. It wasn't safe in the slightest to have a machine like this in the pouring rain, but he knew that safety was not the current concern of their captors.

The Grimm, former members of a grand army, now turned to pickpockets and mercenaries.

"Found another one! Another mankin!"

He spotted the Baron Grimm - the Dust Baron that was in charge of the pack - turn its head to the side as it finished checking the dust that it and the rest of its guns-for-hire would soon be transporting to Vale. The old town of Communo hadn't been completely devastated by the Ascendant Court's attacks in the first days of the Second Great War, and whilst its population were all deceased as of now, the buildings weren't all gone. That gave these Grimm plenty of places to store all the dust that the Dust Baron had most likely swindled from passer-by's and wanderers.

He mused at the mess that these Grimm had got themselves into. He imagined that they were all former Ascendant Court (the next evolution of the Grimm, who had been turned from a horde of monsters and animals into a massive military force with aspirations of turning mankind into their puppets and taking over all of Remnant in the name of a new Dark Empire), or Choir of Silver (a cult of Grimm heretics and scavengers formed around the worship of the Silver-Eyed Warriors, once ruled by the fanatical Techion known as Templar who wanted to lead a crusade against the world, and now led by the opportunistic bastard of a Grimm known as Hephaestus who wanted power merely for the sake of power itself), or maybe even both. Didn't really matter now, though. These guys were all scavengers now. Salvagers and privateers, fuelled by coin and promise for a glory not their own. It was almost sad, but then he remembered that these guys were Grimm, so therefore they didn't really deserve any sympathy.

It was all downhill for the leftover Grimm in Vale. Ever since the Ascendant Court pulled out most of its forces during the last day of the Surge (the event when the Grimm had brought mankind the closest it had ever been to extinction) the leftover pockets of Grimm that had been left behind in the rushed evacuation had been doing nothing but getting stomped. They had lost much of their dignity and had been reduced to hording as much dust and supply as they could in order to sell on the growing black market in Vale, thanks to the collapse of the SDC and the dust market as a whole. Now labelled as Dust Barons by Beacon Academy and its forces, these pockets of Grimm had been continuing their civil war with the Choir of Silver gangs and bandit clans that had formed over the last five months since their defeat in the Sleeping City, and had only been worsening the problems in Vale with each passing day.

These Grimm were but one of hundreds of scattered bands of wanderers roaming the wildlands of Vale, trying to make a place for themselves in this strange new world. They had been reported to be dealing with agents across the wildlands and even within the city of Vale itself, and had been robbing both their rivals and Valerian inner settlement to city shipping for flesh and dust to sell. They had become slavers and drug runners, and this was before they robbed an important Beacon Militia convoy of scavenged weapons belonging to a recovered Hephaestus Armory (gods above, he hated that name). They were a threat, and they needed to go.

He looked around at all of them. This particular band of Dust Barons were made up almost entirely of weedy one-eyed, featureless humanoid Disciples, the common grunts of both the Ascendant Court and Choir of Silver, with a giant red eye taking up most of the space on their inky black heads, and six vents in their necks as the rest of their bodies were obsidian black in colour and without features. However, they were all led by a single Baron Grimm; that type of Grimm in this new age of military actions and warfare were one of the most common subtypes one could find in the Grimm factions, and they looked like muscled up Disciples that were over a third of the size taller than their weedier counterparts as well as the average human and had a jet-black cape wrapped around their shoulders. They occupied a leadership role within both the Ascendant Court and the Choir of Silver, acting as battlefield commanders and squad leaders for their operations.

There were no other Grimm types present in the town. None that he could see at least. No Lashers or Juggernauts, no Pumas or Long-Shots, no Priests, Clerics, Lancers, Marauders, Live-Givers, Guardians, Spider-bots, Syrens, nothing. He knew that the Choir of Silver had a disproportionate amount of Disciples and Barons compared to the Ascendant Court, so maybe these guys were former Choir members.

The Disciple who had just yelled out to its boss marched into the town centre, barely lit by headlamps connected to the same generator powering the electric shackles of the prisoners (if they even so much as twitched wrong, then they would be fried by thousands of volts of electricity). The woman that it dragged by the arm behind it struggled feebly against its grip, as if she were too weak to fight back. She was covered in bedraggled robes and scraps of metal, just like the Disciples around her as they dressed in scavenged armour pieces and welded clubs and old rifles. With a forceful shove, the Disciple threw the cloaked woman onto the ground, next to the equally bedraggled boy in shackles, and cuffed her to an electric harness.

"Found mankin looking through back for scraps," the Disciple croaked out in a nasally cackle, "Good bounty to be found here. Very good," it tapped its scavenged Bia-class Pulse Rifle against its chest as it laughed, the smooth dark blue and grey gun making clanging sounds as it hit the thin metal covering the Grimm's chest, most likely also scavenged off the battlefield.

(From what he had been told by the resident weapons enthusiast, the Bai-class Pulse Rifle was but one of many weapons created by Hephaestus Armory (yep, still hated the name), a Mistralian/Mandarin armourer and weapon development company that worked before the Great War and supplied their products to the underground movements and Faunus Houses against Mistral and Mantle. Each of their products were named after a Mandarin deity (not the main trio of Azuma, the God of War and Justice, Ishtar, the God of Love, and Inanna, the Goddess of Peace, but its demigods and mythical figures), and each centred around a unique firing mechanism and model of gun. After Mistralian human authorities saw past the company's front as vehicle manufacturers and arrested the workers and staff, the weapon lines that Hephaestus Armory created were tossed into the wild, and became one of the legacy lines of weaponry that survived the First Great War and persisted into the modern era, much like the ever present and extremely popular ML line of guns. Atlas (before he had brought it crashing down to the ground) had attempted to replicate the weapons of Hephaestus Armory for its armed forces, but had always come up short, their energy weapons paling in effectiveness and cutting power compared to the originals that they were trying to imitate.

Hm. Remnant truly was a world of scavengers- of vultures picking at the bones of the old world, wasn't it? For all of Atlas' talk of being the kingdom of progress and innovation, all that they had ever done was look to the past and try to copy from what had come before, with middling results. They had done reasonably well with their early AK droids (though despite their ubiquity, the AK-130s had never quite stuck the landing compared to the AK-B1s, B2s, and BXs), and less so with their lines of weapons such as the M-11s and XR-REAVERs, which always came out short compared to the older weapons. Was it any wonder why people always turned away Atlas' armouries and clung to the blacksmiths and forges that continued to stock up and produce the guns of old? At least, for non-Hunter fighting personnel.)

The Baron looked down at the brown-cloaked woman, snorted loudly, and then turned to the Disciple, "She fight?" clearly they hadn't mastered the art of speaking another language yet.

The Disciple chuckled, "Hardly. Weak woman. So weak. Easily conquerable."

The woman in question quietly turned her head to the side and muttered something to herself, but was stopped as the electric harness around her blared with life-

{CRACKLE}

"AUGH!"

-And shocked her with a current of electricity that left smoke leaving her clothes and her body collapsing underneath her.

The Baron chuckled, "Would not do that if I you. Those shackles electric charge. Make bad move, you get fried, you get died."

"Now you tell me..." the woman muttered so quietly that only he could hear her words, "With so many grammar errors as well. Have you considered classes for the speech impaired?"

(He supressed the urge to chuckle.)

The Baron (thankfully) didn't hear her, though, and snorted loudly as its head turned its Disciple lieutenant.

"Extra meat is irrelevant though," the Baron began to chastise the Disciple, "Just another mouth to feed," it looked down to stare at him, "Not needed when we have big prize for ourselves."

The Disciples around him and the rest of the prisoners cackled in turn.

"Is shame, really," the Disciple brought its foot up and kicked him in the leg, "Would think someone your reputation be more fighting. But no, you soft. Weak. Easily beaten."

He said nothing.

"You say something?"

Still nothing.

The Baron snorted, "Whatever," and began to turn away, "Irrelevant. Sooner we find buyer for you and friends, better," it then turned its gaze to the Disciples around it, waved the red and black Artemis-class Hunting Rifle in its hands at them, and ordered, "Back to posts."

There were grumbles and sighs in an alien language, but they all relented and began to return to their positions within the ruined town, slinking away from the cover of the spotlight above them and disappearing into the darkness, with only the sounds of their feet stomping into the wet muddy ground beneath them indicating that they were still there. He imagined that they were retreating back into the hollowed homes that they had made their own (the ones that hadn't been filled to the brim with barrels and crates of dust anyways), poking their stolen Bia-class Pulse Rifles and Keres-class Flechette Launchers through the broken holes in the burnt wood and the shattered window panels. He imagined their eyes straining in the darkness, trying to see if they could spot anything in the inky blackness, unable to spot the figures that he knew would be approaching them.

Behind them, the generator crackled with electricity once more.

"No test me," the Baron said as it turned its head back to the shackled prisoners below, "You wrong move, you get zap, you die," before turning back to its crew and barking all sorts of orders to them.

Meanwhile, as a majority of the dozen prisoners continued to whimper and moan at their terrible predicament, he and her looked to each other, and their sapphire and olive (sometimes flickering blue) eyes met.

Jaune Arc looked at Melanie Malachite, Melanie Malachite looked at Jaune Arc, and both team leaders smiled.

"Hey."

"Hello."

Melanie eyed Jaune up and down and, as if she hadn't just been shocked by a dozen volts of electricity, sarcastically muttered, "Nice get up. Really buying the whole bandit raider look, by the way."

He spared a moment to look at himself. He was wearing a mismatch of robes and clothes, being torn jeans and a shirt over a rugged brown rain cloak. It wasn't much (and Coco Adel would probably have a fit if she saw him in this), but it sold the look of him being a wandering scavenger. That and the dyed black hair as well.

It had all been for the mission. He had been tasked, by the rest of Beacon's High Command, with posing as a lonely wanderer (with a cover story of being a former member of the Exodus Troop) and getting close to a supplier for this gang of Dust Barons. His job was to feed information from the suppliers back to Beacon and set up both them and the Dust Barons for an ambush by the Beacon Militia, where they would terminate both and arrest the survivors.

What they had not accounted for, of course, was for the head Baron to show up and, even with his disguise, make him out in the crowd.

So now he was here, shackled and chained to a faulty generator in the pouring rain, off to be ransomed to the highest bidder like some private collector's toy, and if he made one wrong move, he would be shocked first by a dozen volts to keep him in line, and then a hundred to kill him.

Wonderful.

At least he had found the hostages that had been taken by these Dust Barons. There was that silver lining at least. And with Melanie here now, that must've meant that the tracker that they must've found the tracker that he had left behind, which meant that they must have a plan in place to save the prisoners and himself.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Still though...

"Why did I have to be the one infiltrating the suppliers?" Jaune muttered to Melanie with an exasperated tone in his voice.

"Because you're the best at it," Melanie replied.

"Okay, let me rephrase that: why did I have to be the bait?"

"Again, because you're the best at it."

"Wow. Comforting."

"Hey, you've perfected the art of throwing yourself into one shitty mess after the other. Why stop now?"

"Don't make it sound like an art. It's not."

"It is when it comes to you."

"No it's not. I don't like being the bait."

"Hey, think of it as official Huntsman training."

"Can't really think of it like that when I'm always getting the crap beaten out of me."

"Well then, you should learn how to start dolling out the crap next time you get caught."

"Well that's the thing: how can I learn how to be a master Huntsman if I keep getting caught?"

"That's easy."

"What?"

"Stop getting caught."

"How do I do that then?"

"That's also easy."

"What?"

"Get better."

Jaune frowned at her, "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

Melanie grinned, "Yep."

"Do you have a plan on getting us out of here?"

"Oh of course I do. I have a great plan. An amazing plan, really. One of my best."

"Can you fill me in?"

"What, and let these fuckers know? Fat chance."

She made a good point. If she told him now, then the Grimm would find out and alert their allies around the shattered walls of the town. Jaune hated not knowing what his allies were planning, but he wouldn't complain about it if it meant completing the mission and getting these people around him out safely.

So for now, he bit his tongue on the subject, and asked, "What can I do, at least?"

"First, let me know what we're dealing with here. I didn't get a good look at the guards on the way in - too dark - but I'm sure that you did. Any surprises that we should be aware of? Hidden traps, reinforcements, the like?"

He paused, and looked around, narrowing his eyes and squinting to try and look through the darkness. He could hear the wet footsteps of Grimm passing through the rain and slamming against the mud. He felt his gaze go over the Baron as its commandeered gun tapped against the slapdash metal and torn cloth it wore across its skin. The Disciples were wearing the same haphazard gear as the head Baron, so that meant that they could've been working together for a long while, but that didn't say anything about their unit cohesion which, from what he had seen so far, was sloppy if anything.

"About thirty Disciples and one Baron, no more," Jaune whispered to Melanie, "All of them are here, the suppliers bugged out when I was compromised. No other reinforcements, but I think they boobytrapped the houses with all the dust in them. Not sure which ones they are, and not sure what the traps are."

"So are all the hostages here as well?"

"Yep. They didn't have enough men for a secondary base, and even then these guys have too many rivals to even consider it if they did. These Dust Barons aren't a popular group, apparently."

"What about unit strength and weapons?"

"Ten guys patrolling the perimeter walls, ten guys patrolling the insides and keeping watch through the buildings, and the rest running maintenance on their dust and gear. The head Baron stays with us prisoners to keep an eye on us," the two of them paused at the Baron Grimm passed by them, pointing its Hunting Rifle at them as a gesture of intimidation. Neither Jaune or Melanie felt threatened by it, and when the Baron passed them by to circle around the rest of the prisoners, Jaune continued on, "None of them are welding the weapons that they can grow with their own hands. I've seen a few ML-15As, but most of them are using stolen Hephaestus Armoury gear."

"Hate that name."

"Me too," Jaune gestured to the Grimm once more, "They're all midrange guns. Pulse Rifles, Flechette Launchers, the only long-range they have is the Hunting Rifle that the Baron is using."

"I'm surprised that you remembered the names."

"Ruby drilled them into my head."

Melanie tilted her head and looked to the side, "You hear that, Red Reaper?" she whispered, and Jaune realised that she had been wearing an earpiece this whole time, meaning that Ruby must've been listening in on his evaluation of the Dust Baron camp, "Alright," she whispered again before turning back to Jaune, "She's reading thermal spikes in certain buildings. That must be where the dust is being kept. Our job is to get these people-" she gestured her head to the shackled civilians behind her, "-Out of here before the chaos starts."

"Oh yeah?" instead of Jaune, it was one of the civilians in chains who said this. An elderly man with wrinkled and bruised skin and flaky white hair looked at them with dull eyes, "How do you plan on saving us when the great Hero of Remnant here-" without lowering his voice he gestured to Jaune, "-Couldn't save us when he had the chance?"

Jaune felt slightly irked by that.

Melanie's face suddenly turned serious as she tilted her head to the old man and whispered not just to him, but to all the captives, "Listen to me and do exactly what I say. In a few moments all hell is about to break loose. On my word, you're going to follow us and get to-"

"Old man say good question," the Baron Grimm hadn't heard her whispers evidently as it stopped in front of Melanie and stared down at her, lifting its Hunting Rifle up with one hand and pressing the segmented tip of the barrel against her forehead, "What is plan? Care explain?"

Melanie looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, "And why would I tell you that?"

"Because I have gun to forehead?"

"Yours or mine?"

"Yours."

"Soon it'll be yours instead."

Months ago, Jaune would've warned Melanie against egging her opponents on. But months of fighting alongside her had taught Jaune that this was all part of a larger strategy. The other prisoners didn't know this of course, and were all staring at Melanie with wide eyes and mouths agape.

"Relax," he whispered to them, "Melanie knows what she's doing."

At least, he hoped she did.

The Baron growled as it looked down at Melanie, "Not talk so much. Get fried if do. Thin patience."

"Clearly, otherwise you might've been paying attention in your speech classes."

The segmented barrel pressed harder into her forehead, "Big talk from little girl."

"Poor talk from a big Grimm."

Another growl, "Be silent."

"Or what? You'll shoot me?"

"No. Make you wish I shoot you."

"Big talk from a little Grimm."

{THWACK}

Melanie's head slammed into the ground and splattered mud all over herself as the left side of her head reddened and bruised. A trail of blood left her lips as her head began to smart with pain. The Baron flexed its Hunting Rifle as it retracted it from a batting position and back into its arms, and knelt down to stare at the fallen girl after having cracked her across the face with its stolen gun.

"Care to repeat?"

Melanie spat out a wad of blood onto the muddy ground, watched it mix into the rain, and gave the Baron a bloody smile, "Big talk... from... a little Grimm..."

The Baron growled at Melanie as it stood back upwards, twisting its head from side to side before it looked out to the Disciples hidden away from the single spotlight above them, all of them looking through the darkness and scant light provided to them as they stared at their boss.

"Look here, brothers. An example for us all."

The Baron reached forwards and began to tap something into the holographic keyboard on the generator. The spotlight above began to flicker as power was redirected from secondary systems and into Melanie's harness.

"Let be lesson, mankin," the Baron went as it stepped away from the generator, which had now begun to whirl into violent life, "About the nature of disobedience."

The generator sparked an angry yellow glow, and the electrical current ran down the chain, connecting to Melanie's harness, delivering hundreds of volts into her body, and then-

{BTZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ}

-Shocking her.

Waves of burning yellow light crash against her and flood themselves over her skin and cloth (she had no reason to fight back. All she could do was drown). She did not scream, but she gritted her teeth against the flash-burns and blistering needles of heat as her clothes burnt and hissed with smoke and her skin blackened in places and let off the smell of cooking meat, and then...

She fell to the ground, as still as a corpse.

The Baron let out a vile laugh, as did the Grimm around it. They chortled and cackled with nasally voices as they watched the smoking body, still crackling with stray bursts of electricity as she began to sink into the mud and rainwater below.

The Baron knelt down and pulled the chain from off Melanie's harness, sparing just a moment to kick her body before it did. She didn't react at all. Not a single movement, not even a twitch. Her arms and hands glowed red with heat and sizzled in the water below.

"Lesson learned?"

It began to move its arm back down to her body, possibly planning on picking up the corpse and throwing it to the rest of the Disciples for entertainment, but was stopped when Melanie's burning hands fidgeted-

{GRAB}

"Wha-"

-And then grabbed its own.

"Oh yeah," Melanie pulled her mud soaked face upwards to give the Baron a toothy grin. Her eyes glowed a pulsating blue, "Lesson learned."

In a flash she jumped up, wrapping one red-hot hand around the Baron's neck and cooking the skin, whilst balling the other into a fist and-

{SQUELCH}

"AAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

-Throwing it into the Baron's large, single eye. The eye popped and sprayed burning red puss across her arm, but if Melanie even felt the pain or heat in the sudden adrenaline rush, she didn't say.

The Baron screamed as it flailed about, but Melanie quickly spun it around so that its front was facing its contemporaries, hid herself behind it, grabbed the Hunting Rifle that it was still holding in its hand, and-

{BAM BAM BAM}

-Send a trio of smoky red rounds into the chests of three Grimm.

{Hephaestus Armoury, back before it was shut down by the imperial government of Mistral in the year leading up to the First Great War, had a history of creating unique firing mechanisms for its guns. Each weapon was uniquely different from each other, and each one held its own type of ammunition special to each gun. None of them were similar to each other.

Keres-class Flechette Launchers, for instant, were large shotgun-like cannons with two prongs built around a circular magnetic coil, with a rectangular stock build behind it where handfuls of shrapnel would be loaded into the ammo compartment, shifted into the magnetic coil, and fired out in clouds of metal shards, tearing into their targets and ripping them to bloody chunks and pieces. Surprisingly, it had quite a lot of range to it, and could be readjusted to serve as not just a shotgun, but also a long ranged rifle as well.

Bai-class Pulse Rifles, meanwhile, fired trios of rounds in rapid bursts, and used lightning dust ammunition. Tiny shards of lightning dust would be placed into hollow bullet shells, before being supercharged by a generator built into the frame of the gun itself. The charging process then created a field of plasma around the bullet and fired them out from the two prongs that made up the barrel, sending out a spitting ball of fiery plasma at their opponents, whilst the bullet itself turned to melted slag under the heat and burnt through flesh and metal upon contact (interestingly, Atlesian scientists would spend years attempting to deconstruct the process and replicate it, but, like so many other technological discoveries of the Victorian Era, the secrets behind this technology would be lost to history and ruin). Unfortunately, the plasma rounds would always burn out at anything over midrange, and as such the slag of the casings would cool and solidify on any surface that they came into contact with, so these guns were only good for close quarters environments and in CQC engagements.

But the Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR) known as the Artemis-class Hunting Rifle, though?

They fired shells filled with superheated fire dust.

They set their targets on fire.)

As soon as the rounds made contact with the chests of the three Disciples, black blood and ichor splattering out from their backs as the bullets went through them, their bodies began to catch alight.

They screamed in pain as flame began to pour out of the vents in their mouths and their eyes began to shrivel and burst under the heat. They flailed about and fell to the floor in agony, clawing at their chests and heads and necks as the fires continued to burn them from the inside out, their cries of pain becoming more and more deranged and gravelled by the second. They were ugly and loud and they lit up the world around them like flares of angry light

Eventually, after a few long moments of writhing on the muddy floor and crying and spitting flame in constant agony, they finally fell still as their bodies began to crumple and hiss black smoke, the fires from their body beginning to fade away and turn to smoke and steam in the waters around them.

The rest of the Disciples, meanwhile, were scrambling to recover, and began to point their weapons at Melanie, but she just smiled in turn. As her hands continued to pulsate with light, she threw one of them back into the generator behind her, releasing all the energy that her semblance - Energy Manipulation - had absorbed for her-

{BTZZZZZZZZZZZZ}

{BWOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM}

-And short-circuited the machine, destroying it in a bright flash of light and disconnecting the chains from the prisoner harnesses.

Immediately the spotlight above went dark, and before the Grimm could decompress the triggers on their guns and fire wildly into the dark, Melanie spoke into her earpiece, "Now."

---

Ruby nodded, and gave the order.

"Fire."

---

"K-Kill them! Kill them a-"

{BANG}

{SQUELCH}

"-AUGH!"

Immediately, red bolts of light shot down from the faraway cliffs and hills around and above the ruined town, landing hits on every Grimm that they were pointed towards with terrifying accuracy.

Jaune felt Melanie tap his shoulder, and heard her yell out to not just him, but to all the former captives, "Come on! Follow me!" and through the rain and mud and fear, they all pulled themselves upwards and retreated behind one of the houses next to them, sheltering low underneath the splintered wooden frame.

---

"Sniper teams, identify thirteen non-combatants hiding behind the fifth house to the south. Weaver and Kingsman are with them. Watch your fire."

"So don't hit the civies along with the dust, right?"

Ruby sighed, "Yeah, pretty much."

"Copy that."

---

Around them, obsidian-coloured heads with Cyclops red eyes for faces popped like balloons under bright red flashes of light splattering the muddy wet ground with smoking black blood and burning red puss that began to dilute in the rain and fade away. Before the bodies of the town's perimeter guards had even hit the floor, a second volley of red rounds landed hits on another dozen Grimm Disciples, black blood and ichor spraying across the wet wood and broken stone and mud as their bodies began to smoke and waste away on the cold ground below.

"WHAT HELL?! WHERE SHOT COME FROM!?"

"CAN'T SEE! CAN'T SEE ANYTHING! TOO DARK!"

"COVER! FIND COVER!

"GET TO HOUSES! GET TO-"

{BANG}

{SPLATTER}

"-UGH!"

The rest of the Disciples began to scream and panic. What little unit cohesion broke down like wet paper as panicking figures in the darkness began to run into the closest buildings that they could find or slipped up in the mud and fell. The latter of the remaining Grimm were picked off by the overhead snipers, their skulls punctured and spilling smoking blood. The rest poked their guns out of their cubbyholes and began to spray triple bursts of blazing blue plasma-covered bullets and clouds of shrapnel up to the mountains and hills beyond.

---

"Tempo, move in."

"Got it."

---

And that's when the rest of the Beacon Militia force moved in.

As the roars of gunships and Rio-class shuttles began to fill the air, dozens of figures, cloaked in shadow and darkness, began to invade the town, running from cover to cover to secure and check the disintegrating Grimm corpses before moving on the houses. Red flashes of light filled the town as squads of black-armoured soldiers moved in from all sides, sweeping the scant dirt roads with night vision sensors and torches and shooting at anything that moved.

They were all members of the Beacon Militia and outfitted with the same armour that all of them wore, being an identical replica of the common armour variant of the House of the Golden Sun's average trooper. However, the Beacon Militia squads that had been assigned to this operation had modified their armour to be completely black and their helmets to have a green tint. In their hands they wielded a unique variant of the ML-15A, which had been modified to their specifications, which meant that they replaced the original elongated grip running along the bottom of the barrel with a squatter, rectangular grip, leaving the carbine's barrel more exposed, altered the sights to include modern holographic displays (nowadays, it was cheaper to modify the equipment that they had rather than build new models from the ground up), changed the bullet colouration and dust rounds within to fire red rounds instead of blue, and reconstructed the firing mechanisms within the weapon to include three alt-fire modes, being single shooter semi-automatic, fully automatic fire, and then finally a burst fire mode, in which you would pull down the trigger and it would release three bullets instead of just one. These modified weapons were designated as ML-15SEs, and they served as the signature weapons for the black armoured soldiers.

These were the Obsidian Guard, the most experienced soldiers of the Beacon Militia.

Through the darkness, Jaune could make out a pair of Grimm running out into the open, trying to cross towards another house, and firing blue rounds from their scavenged ML-15As into the darkness.

{BANG BANG BANG}

"AUGH!"

However, before they could even get halfway there, they were intercepted by another armoured soldier in black and a bit of blue on the elbows and kneepads and a dark blue visor, with a tail leaving the back of her crotch and a rainbow trail leaving her as she sped along. Said soldier then cut down one of the Disciples with a trio of blue rounds from her ML-15, and then pointed it at the other Grimm.

"End of the line, buddy," Jaune heard the soldier go, "Your choice on how it goes."

The Disciple, sensing the threat behind her words, wisely threw its gun to the ground and threw up its hands.

"Good choice."

"LZ's clear!" called out one of the Obsidian Guard as he and the rest of his squad secured the empty town square, "Thermals read no hostiles or unknowns around us! Tell the gunships that they're clear to land!"

"Yes sir!" said another Guardsman with an electronic communication's backpack slung across him. A few seconds later, a trio of Verity-class fighters swooped by overhead, and several grey-armoured AAT (Aerial Attack Transport) gunships sped over the hills and began to land in the town below, disgorging white armoured troopers armed with ML-15s from the side doors of their hulls. They were the White Guard, and they served as the backbone for the armed force. They served as frontline soldiers and primary combat personnel, and were the ones sent to secure hostile positions, defend structures, and perform vast military operations that did not require the quieter approach of the Obsidian Guard, who specialised in reconnaissance and black operations.

Judging from the scant sounds of gunfire on the other side of the large former settlement, the fighting wasn't quite over yet, but for all intents and purposes, the pack of Dust Barons that they had been tracking were wiped out, and Communo was theirs.

Suddenly, a pair of flashlights shone harshly over them, and Jaune, Melanie, and the rest of the former captives looked to the side to see a pair of Obsidian Guardsmen pointing their ML-15SEs at them.

"Hey, hands up! Now!"

Before any of them could respond, a rainbow dash filled their visions, and the same black and blue-armoured Faunus soldier from before was suddenly in front of the Guardsmen and forcing the two guns down.

"Hold fire, blue blue blue!" she yelled out to the two Obsidian Guardsmen before turning herself around to look down at the civilians below, "Go secure the prisoner back there," she told the Guardsmen without looking, and once they nodded and ran off to properly secure her captured prisoner, the Faunus soldiers knelt down to look at the crouching captives, and took off her helmet.

Neon Katt stared back at them, her short hair fluttering gently in the wind as she smiled at them.

"Hey there. How's it-"

{KA-BOOM}

The ground shuddered and a violent shockwave washed over the town. Clouds of smoke and ash began to flow through the air and intermingle with the air as the escaped civilians began to cry out and whimper. The old man from before shivered and cursed, and Melanie and Jaune quickly pushed themselves before the crowd.

Neon swore and spun herself around, pressing her hand against her earpiece and going, "What the hell was that?!" there was a pause, before she continued, "Any casualties?" another pause, before she ordered, "Collect our wounded, make sure the fire doesn't spread anywhere else, and secure the rest of the houses. Flush the remaining Grimm out of hiding, but don't kill them. Not if you have the chance to capture them," another pause, "Yes I know that I'm not the one who gives you orders, but-" she winced, "Look, see, Red Reaper just backed me up, and... uh huh... right. Good work."

She pulled her hand from her earpiece and sighed. Jaune looked at her, concern across his face, and asked, "What's going on?"

"One of the Grimm just detonated a dust storehouse," she frowned in turn, "Tried to blow up itself and a few Obsidian Guardsmen. Or maybe it tripped its own trap. I don't know. Luckily no one died, but the soldiers caught in the blast were wounded. We're pulling them out now and securing the rest of the houses."

"Anything that we can do?"

"We can wait here until the fighting's over," Melanie said to Jaune with a firm tone to get voice, gesturing to the shaking civilians behind them as they huddled together in fear and confusion, "These people look like they're going to need all the care we can give them."

"Agreed," Neon proclaimed as she stood upwards and thrust her helmet back on, "We can't have these guys running around like headless chicken whilst everybody's killing each other out here," she tilted her helmet to Jaune and asked, "Think you can keep them company for me?"

"Just, be quick about it would you please?"

"Being quick is my whole thing, Jaune," Neon smiled as she spin herself around, her tail swinging behind her, "And don't you worry; this fight will be over before you know it."

---

Neon had been right: the fight had ended before he even knew it.

It had only taken a few minutes after Neon had left for the White and Obsidian Guards to secure the rest of the town and capture the remaining Grimm. Squads of white-armoured Guardsmen patrolled the dirt streets and wade through the mud as their black-armoured fellows, after having secured the houses (or at least the ones that hadn't been blown to kingdom come by panicking Grimm), began to empty them of dust barrels and load them onto the Rio-class transports that had landed in the centre of Communo. Drums of dust were being rolled up the wide ramp and into the fat underside cargo pod attached to the elongated sibling to the Noah-class Attack Shuttle as their upwards folded wings - as well as their tall dorsal wings - continued to catch rain in the storm. The drums and barrels were zipped down and connected to clamps and magnets, stuck down to the bottom and piled atop one another as the shuttles' bellies continued to be filled with cargo.

It was quiet now. The sounds of gunfire had stopped what felt like forever ago. The heavy pitter-patters of rainfall almost seemed to block out every other gentle noise. The sounds of the drum barrels being rolled along the ground, the filtered sounds of radio static through the helmets of the soldiers around them, not the pained whines of the six Grimm that were kneeling down in the mud with their hands on their heads, none of them were heard.

Meanwhile, the AAT Gunships had formed a circle around the Rio shuttles, shining spotlights onto the broken houses around them as Guardsmen of both the White and Obsidian Guards shuffled to and thro the ships, carrying torches and weapon emplacements between them in order to fortify Communo against future threats. Beacon had had its eyes on this town ever since the Surge, and High Command had always wanted to retake the town and turn it back into the primary agricultural hub that it once was, especially now that the agricultural district in Vale, now known as the Farmlands, had been lost to the Grimm during the war and left to ruin and nature to reclaim. However, there had never been a good enough reason for them to allocate the resources to do so, what with there being more pressing matters to use them for, such as rebuilding Vale, policing its streets and walls, or even dealing with the multitude of other threats inhabiting Vale's wildlands. However, thanks to the activities of the gang of Dust Barons that they had just taken down, High Command finally had the excuse that they needed to do so.

Up in the air, four spotlights ran across the ground, and a pair of Noah-class Attack Transports began to lower themselves to the ground. At the same time, as the shuttles extended their wings upwards and lowered their landing gear, a flutter of rose petals zoomed into the centre of town and reformatted itself into a human being covered in armour. She was short and lean, and covered in modified Golden Sun armour that was fitted to fit the lithe form of her body. Her armour was covered in alternating shades of dark grey and black, with grey covering the left side of her chest plate, upper arms and cuisses, a red belt - covered in silver ammo magazines and clips - going over her pelvis, and red kneepads, elbow guards, and shoulder pieces. The right side of her chest plate was covered in extra red armour plating - with black outlining - to protect her from the force of a rifle butt recoiling into her, and a black belt-cape with a red outline hung around her waist with a black holster connected to the outside of her right thigh, a ML-17 held within its grasp. Long silver blades ran along the sides of her black-armoured lower arms, and red gauntlets with silver luminescent lines running along and between the groves and in wide and thick glowing circles around the rose emblems painted along the black armour pieces running along the hands and fingers. A black metallic backpack with glowing silver lines running along the sides and red patterns along the back panel of the pack, and two sheaths on the sides holding the swords Wither and Blossom within them. She wore a modified Golden Sun soldier helmet coloured in black with grey cheek pits and a red line running down the middle, which had the bottom half of the helmet front cut out and replaced with a breathing apparatus akin to a gasmask, a thin silver-coloured visor running across the eyes with red glassed rounded optical lenses feeding the user holographic information inserted over them. Grey hexagonal ear muffs were inserted into the sides of her head with red outlines, and a rangefinder on an antenna sat on the right side of her helmet. Black fabric leg guards covered her legs and the tip of her steel plated boots, and a silver metal rose emblem sat at the front of her red belt. In her hands she carried a foldable RGX Sable Sniper Rifle, with a barbed barrel that was tipped in blades resembling thorns, a row of red lights in its main body, an enlarged scope, and a triangular stock.

Ruby Rose quickly folded the sniper in her hands and inserted it into a slot in the middle of her backpack, and then looked around to the White and Obsidian Guardsmen around her, "Good job everyone! Cookies and milk are on me!" this got a chorus of chuckles from the Guardsmen, but it was when she looked to the side that she truly smiled under her helmet.

Jaune Arc, leading Melanie Malachite and the former captives towards one of the landed Noah shuttles, herding them through the ramp in its mouth and letting them board, promising them the safety and security that they deserved.

Ruby grinned as she approached them before waving and calling out, "Nice work down there, Jaune!"

She successfully caught Jaune's attention as he jumped in place, before turning his head to her and smiling in turn, "Hey Ruby. Nice work to you too."

"Thanks," she said as she folded her hands behind her back, her helmet tilting to the side as she went, "Thanks for being convincing bait as well."

His smile turned to a frown, "That's what Melanie- I don't want to be the bait. I don't like being the bait."

"Then why are you such convincing bait, then?"

"I can't help it! I don't know- I don't know what I'm doing wrong," he sulked, "Next time, you can be the bait- no, scratch that. Next time, you are being the bait. That's your new role."

Ruby tilted her helmet to the other side, "You know I can just pull rank on you on that matter, Captain Arc."

He sighed with a smile, "Yeah, sure thing Commander Rose."

Ruby smiled under her helmet, but it was one with added tension to it. After the Grimm pulled out of Vale and Jaune was brought back from Jewel, Ozpin and the faculty had called all the first years and surviving Beacon students of other years, and had organised them alongside the rest of the Beacon Militia into the three Guards of Beacon, being the White, Obsidian, and Crimson. During the organisation, Ozpin had elevated most, if not all the team leaders of Beacon into positions of authority in the Beacon Militia ranks. Most of the second, third, and fourth year leaders were made into lieutenants and sergeants, and regular teammates were made into corporals and equals to the regular soldier in the Militia. The first year team leaders however - particularly those of the original High Command - were promoted from their regular standing as sergeants within a regular armed force into captains, mostly due to their shared experience against both the Ascendant Court and Choir of Silver, and the lessons in combat against the new Grimm ranks that they had learnt.

Ruby, however, had been made into a Commander of the Obsidian Guard. Not a captain like her peers, but above them. She had been given the highest position of authority amongst the first years of Beacon Academy, and a private link to Ozpin himself.

It made sense, in a way. She could look at the decision logically and see all the reasons behind it. She was one of the few Silver-Eyed Warriors that Ozpin knew of, if not the only one (the first years had made a collective decision not to tell him about May Zedong on the way back from Jewel). He needed her close, and as such placed her in a position of authority that would keep her on a direct line to him. Not only that, but the Obsidian Guard's duties revolved around dirty business and black operations, so it made sense for him to use her as a primary agent within the guard and as a hand of his own will through the force, putting her on missions and assignments that might potentially strike back against Salem.

Except Salem wasn't in charge of the Grimm. Not anymore. Jaune's reports from his experiences in Atlas (barring a few details) had explicitly claimed that the Daughter - the leader of the Ascendant Court - was no longer in command of the Grimm. Their Mother Eternal - as the Grimm called her - had been kicked out of office. That meant that whatever experience Ozpin had against Salem was useless in this scenario, because they were operating under different rulers with different agendas and ideals. That made things messy enough, but suffice to say that she didn't trust Ozpin one bit. There were too many secrets around the man, too many that had been exposed and of which he was still in denial about. She hadn't liked keeping secrets from her friends, and when they had been exposed she had felt the biggest weight being lifted off her shoulders.

She used to like Ozpin, but after everything that had happened to her... after the Emerald Forest and the Grimm Tidings, after Templar and the Choir of Silver, after Attis, after the lies and secrets... she didn't like him, and she didn't trust him.

However, she needed him. No matter his manipulations, he was still the only one (that she knew of) that could properly teach her how to use the power of her silver eyes. None of the Choir of Silver could be trusted, Attis was dead, so was Templar (Ruby hated the fact that she was glad that he was dead and in the ground), her mother was long gone, Qrow (she had an ugly suspicion that before he knew a lot more than he had let on as well) was killed during the Initiation Massacre, and May Zedong was... complicated, to say the least.

So yeah, for now Ozpin was the best bet that she had.

Now if only he would stop hiding himself away in his room and delegating teaching her to his subordinates.

"Oi, love birds!" Ruby was broken out of her thoughts by Melanie, the latter pointing a thumb to one of the homes nearby as the Noah shuttle now filled with civilians lifted up into the air and began to fly out to the distant city of Vale, "How about you two stop flirting for a moment and find some shelter? I'd rather not be standing here having a conversation while it's pissing down."

Remembering the fact that it was raining (blame the sealed armour that Ruby was wearing), Ruby nodded to Melanie, followed by Jaune, and the two of them followed her into the old house that she was talking about.

The air was damp and there was a hole in the roof of the wooden shack that let in a continuous stream of water, but it still provided enough shelter from the rain outside so long as they didn't stand under the previously mentioned hole in the ceiling of the one story home. The house itself was small and squat, with a single bedroom, bathroom with shower, and living room combined with a kitchen, all connected by a single thin corridor and tightly cramped together to make room for the dozens, if not hundreds, of other houses in the town.

The inside of the home was beautiful, in a way. The walls were painted in ornate shades of pink with yellow and golden laurels running through them. The floor was covered in a plush dark carpet that reminded her of an old home of hers-

(She refused to make anymore connections between her old life and her new one. It would only remind her of all the things that she had lost.)

-And the roof above them was patterned in ringed imprints of flowers and vines. The sofa that Melanie passed by in the living room, on her way to the connected kitchen space, looked like it might've one been a shade of purple, but now it was faded and wet and long past its prime.

It reminded her of the old stories of the Victorian Era- the supposed 'Golden Age' of Remnant. Look past the veneer of gold and progress, and underneath it was all just... rot. A rotting empire of decay and disrepair.

…Best not communicate these thoughts to Jaune or Melanie. They might worry, and for good reason.

At least, she thought it might be a good reason.

"Do you think that there's any- ah ha! There is!" Melanie went as she pulled open an old fridge underneath a counter and pulled three glass bottles out from under it, presenting the brown bottles to them as she let the two of them look over the red labels on their fronts, "Beer! Beer. You want beer?"

Ruby frowned under her helmet, "We're on duty."

"Mission's over. We'll bring some out for the others when we leave."

"How'd you know it's not even gone off?" Jaune asked beside her.

"I don't. All the more reason to taste test it to make sure, no?"

Ruby was hesitant, but next to her Jaune just sighed and went, "Okay. Just... just one sip."

Ruby's head turned to Jaune, "Seriously?"

"Ruby, I've spent the last three days in captivity to a group of Dust Barons who wanted to sell me off to the highest bidder. I think we're all due a drink... even if it isn't the healthiest."

She paused for a long time, "Are we even old enough to drink?"

"I don't think any of us are old enough to do the things we do."

She pouted under her helmet, but then sighed out, "Fine," and took off her helmet, exposing her pale skin and new hairstyle to the damp atmosphere beyond her armour. The right side of her head had been shaved clean of hair, leaving only black stubble as the rest of her hair atop her scalp and the other side of her head, which had been grown out longer underneath her helmet, had been pushed over the left side of her head and the robotic eyepatch over her hollow eye socket when her eye had been taken out in the Sleeping City and she had wormed the optic in. The skin around the left side of not just her head but her entire body was still red with acid burns from the Grimm Tidings, but it wasn't scabbed over anymore, thankfully. It didn't hurt (as much) anymore. Now it was just an angry reminder of the failures that had come before. The eyepatch underneath her swept over hair was pitch black with a red outline. A tattoo of a rose surrounded by tiny red and black Butterflies adorned the shaved side of her head amidst the black stubble, and a silver earing in the shape of an upside down cross hung from her earlobe.

As it turned out, an undercut hairdo suited her, though she wasn't sure why Jaune told her he felt weird about the Butterflies.

She liked them.

She held her hand out, and caught the beer in her hand as Melanie tossed it to her and Jaune. She supposed she was of the legal drinking age limit now - sixteen years old she was - which negated the worries about her illegally drinking in her mind. The two of them popped the caps off, looked to each other, shrugged, downed the contents of the beer bottles-

""TWAUGH!""

-And promptly spat it all out.

"Ugh! Taste- urgh!" Ruby said as she spat the wad of old beer in her mouth out onto the damp wooden floor beneath her, "Taste like... Taste like UGH! I don't know what pee tastes like, but I think- Eugh! I think this is close!"

"Yeah, this tastes like," Jaune cringed as he spat out a fowl wad of beer infused saliva, and gave a hard look to the glass in his hand, "Augh! This tastes like cynicism and despair! Gods above, why do people drink this-"

{GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG}

Jaune and Ruby paused, looked to the side, and saw Melanie downing the entire glass in her hands.

She paused, and stared at them. They stared back in silence.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

{GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG}

"Oh my god!"

"Are you serious?"

Melanie finished gulping down most of the beer in her hand, retched it from her lips, and-

{BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP}

-Let out the loudest belch that either of them had ever heard.

"...What?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"You are repulsive," Ruby shook her head, "Utterly repulsive."

"Hey, I haven't had any alcohol in, like, six months. Cut me some slack. It's not my fault you two are a bunch of prudish pissants."

"You sound like my sister."

"Five words no one ever wants to hear."

"Is this stuff even- is it even right? I mean, has it-" Jaune shook his head as he looked at his half full bottle with narrowed eyes, "I'm trying to find the right words, sorry. I think this stuff is messing with me- the alcohol's messing with me."

"It shouldn't be. It's gone flat," Melanie said with a disappointed tone in her voice as she looked over the , "I can tell. Doesn't taste right, this beer. No alcohol to it," she sighed, "Yeah, it's gone bad."

"...So we've just drunk expired beer?" Jaune asked.

"Yep," Melanie popped the P.

"...Yeah, I'm going to be sick."

Ruby's cheeks puffed up, "Me too... that might be why you feel weird."

"Yeah... maybe... I feel sick too. Sick and weird."

"Me too."

The two of them then threw their left hands up into the air in fists.

""Yay... sick buddies...""

"Ah, you'll be fine, you pair of babies," Melanie frowned at them as she swirled the last contents of the beer bottle in her hand, "Shame though. Alcohol's not right in this thing. Not strong. I was kind of hoping that we could have a right bacchanal in this place after a successful mission."

"Bacc- what? Ba-what?" Ruby raised an eyebrow as she and Jaune watched Melanie walk over to the damp sofa next to them and slumped down into it, "Where do you come up with these words?"

Melanie patted the armrest of the sofa, "C'mon, sit down. We can take a break, we're owed that much."

Her two peers looked at each other, before giving a reluctant shrug and planting themselves down on the same sofa that Melanie was seated on, with Ruby on the other side and Jaune firmly between the both of them. Ruby reached to the side and placed her bear bottle onto a small wooden table that looked like it was halfway to rotting entirely. Jaune and Melanie just swirled the contents of the bottles in their hands.

"...Bacchanal."

Ruby and Jaune looked to Melanie, "Huh?" Ruby hummed in confusion.

Melanie turned her head towards them with a side tilt, "Bacchanal. That's how you say it."

"Bacc... han... al?"

"Bacchanal."

"Bacchanal?"

Melanie nodded, "Bacchanal..."

"Who says that? Who even says that anymore?"

"I did, and I do, and so do a ton of other people I would imagine."

"Well I've never heard of it."

"That's because you're not listening hard enough."

"What does... what does it mean?" Jaune asked as he tried to wash the bitter taste of flat beer out of his mouth, "Is it like... hang on," he swallowed down a wad of spit, cringed slightly, and then asked Melanie, "Is it like a party or something?"

"A wild and/or drunken celebration."

"How do you know all of these things? Words. Things. How do you know so much stuff?"

Melanie barked out a laugh, "Blame Miltia. Blame my sister. She was always so much smarter than me. Always my better. I was forever trying to keep up with her."

Her smile turned melancholic.

"At least, while she was still alive..."

Her head tilted downwards, and next to her, Ruby could see Jaune doing the same. His lips turned downwards into a sad frown, and Ruby's did the same. It had been over six months since Miltia's death in the Emerald Forest and neither of them had moved on from it. Ruby doubted that they ever would. Melanie had been mourning her death ever since, and had never been given the chance to receive real closure on her sister's demise. Miltia's body had been ravaged by the Grimm, only to be pulled apart by the Brother of Darkness and her head to be used as part of the demented Grimm's gory necklace, as if it were a trophy. There was nothing of Miltia's corpse left to collect for a funeral proceeding, and Miltia had never been given an individual funeral either. She had been forced to share the same proceeding as the thousands of other people who had died during the Initiation Massacre, after the authorities had deemed it to be too resource and manpower consuming to host individual funerals for all the people, especially now in a time of war. Where was the closure in that for anyone?

(Ruby could understand the sentiment. Her father, Taiyang Xiao Long, had been pushed into the same proceeding as all the others how had died during the Patch Massacre two years ago, and Uncle Qrow had been involved in the same proceeding as Miltia after the Initiation Massacre. Where was her closure for them? Where was it?

Though she believed that Melanie and her family in Vale (whoever they were, Melanie didn't really talk about them) may have had a small funeral for Miltia in their own time, but Ruby wasn't sure. Melanie had been cooped up in a room of her own during the week after the Initiation Massacre, only coming out when Jaune had returned to Beacon fresh out of his coma. Where has she found the time to have a funeral, or had she just not gone?)

Jaune had taken it especially hard, more so than even Melanie, her sister. Miltia had been his first partner, and had been the one to unlock his aura. She had died right in front of his eyes after sprouting that 'King of Kings' stuff that Ruby still didn't understand to this day. She had died, and he had never been able to let go. Maybe he had refused to. Maybe he was still clinging to the pain as if it made him stronger than it actually did.

All it did was make him weak. So very weak...

Melanie pulled her glass bottle up and presented it to Jaune, "To Miltia."

He nodded sadly, and lifted his up to, "To Miltia..."

Ruby felt something coil inside of her at the memento. Something new and ugly and cold...

Their glasses clinked together, and they downed the last of their drink.

Big mistake for Jaune. He cringed and forced himself to swallow the flat beer in his mouth in one gulp, "Bwah, I'd forgotten that this thing tasted like crap and evil! Why do people drink this?!"

Melanie snickered as she swallowed down the last of the beer and let the empty bottle drop onto the soft floor beneath them, "You're still young and naive. You'll soon grow up and understand the need for liquid cynicism and bitterness at everything and everything that is this drink."

"I hate it. I hate this drink, and I hate the idea of growing into this drink. It's like coffee, nothing but bitterness and tastelessness and evil."

"Aw, and I thought that you were going to retire and become a barista one day?"

"Yeah well, jury's still out on that."

Melanie laughed at his words, and much to Ruby's confusion, that familiar coil in her stomach only tightened.

Someone tapped on the damp doorframe to the living room/kitchen. Ruby, Melanie, and Jaune looked to the side to see Neon Katt standing in the doorframe, her short orange hair (she had cut her hair short sometime after they had picked up Jaune from Jewel, since she couldn't fit her original pigtails in her helmet. It looked surprisingly good on her, actually) and two dyed cyan blue stripes going down it standing out like a sore thumb against not just the faded wood and paint around her, but also her black and blue armour as she held her helmet underneath her shoulder and stood in the middle of the doorless frame.

"Hey," Neon said, "We- oh!" her eyes widened as she looked over the empty beer bottles around the three leaders on the sofa, "Is that beer? Could I get some of-"

"It's bad."

"It's bad."

"It's flat... and bad."

"Aw, dammit," Neon leant herself against the doorframe with a pout, "I was hoping that we could all have a right bacchanal in here with those."

Ruby looked at the Faunus woman with a furrowed brow, "What? Even you- stop smirking Melanie. I can hear you smirking. I can feel you smirking."

"Stop giving me reasons to smirk, then."

"You know I'm your superior, right?"

"Start acting like it, then."

Ruby knew that she meant it in jest, but still... that hurt a lot more than she would like to admit.

"What are our casualties?" and there was Jaune, taking command of the situation as always, "Did we lose anyone?"

Neon looked to him with... something in her eyes (Ruby wasn't entirely sure she liked it) as she said, "No one. None at all. Two of our own are injured from the explosion earlier, but from the sounds of it they'll pull through after a few weeks. Their armour protected them from the blast, if only left them more rattled than any of us would've liked."

"What about the civilians?"

"Safe and on their way to Vale. You were there just now when the shuttle took them off to the city, remember?"

"Ah, right. I remember now. Thanks."

"What about our prisoners?" Melanie asked with, "And the dust. How much did we bag?"

Neon didn't turn her head towards Melanie as she spoke, "Twenty-seven barrels in total, according to the estimates, though the Guardsmen think there might be more. As for prisoners, out of the thirty or so Grimm that were in Communo, only six of them are left," Neon's smile suddenly gave way to a frown, "We'll have to be better next time."

Melanie raised an eyebrow, "'Better next time'? Everything went perfectly on this end. Dust secured, prisoners captured, Dust Barons wiped out, and captives saved. What else is there to get better?"

This time, Neon did turn to look at Melanie, "The fact that we only spared six Grimm out of the thirty that were in the town. We didn't even give them the chance to surrender before popping them in the head. I don't like that."

"And I don't like these Dust Barons trafficking stolen dust, guns, and people in and out of Vale," Melanie retorted, "Besides, they're Grimm. They never gave us the option to surrender, why should we? And lest I forget, you poured three rounds into a Grimm without any hesitation before you decided to show off your supposed 'Mercy' to its friends. What the hell do you think that says about you, hypocrite?"

Neon narrowed her eyes, "I know that Melanie, and I'm aware of my own failings more than anyone else, but things are different now and you know it. The Grimm aren't mindless anymore, and from what Ruby told us about Attis in the Sleeping City-"

Ruby shivered at the memory. She remembered a Grimm Techion throwing its body out in front of her, protecting her from a deadly blow. She remembered watching the life fade from his eyes as his former master cruelly mocked his death. She remembered cleaving Templar's head from his shoulders and watching his blood and Black Ether pour out of his neck like a fountain, her body painted in blacks and reds as she looked down at the head on the floor and enjoyed the sight of the life leaving his eyes-

She shook her head. She didn't want to remember. Never again.

She never wanted to remember her first kill ever again.

"-The Grimm are capable of more thought and freedom of expression than they used to have. We need to show them that-"

"That what? We're soft?" whatever smile was on Melanie's face before had faded away, and was now replaced with a grimace and glare, "That we'll be lenient to them, no matter what crimes that they commit, just because it's 'Merciful'? That's bullshit and you know it."

"You know damn well that's not what I-"

"Alright," Jaune said as he stood up and got in between the line of sight for the two, holding his hands out to the both of them and going, "Enough. Neon is right, Melanie," Melanie went to open her mouth but Jaune stopped her with a firm voice, "Things are different now, Melanie. The Grimm are different. I don't like it either, but we can't become like our enemies. We need to be better than them."

Neon nodded her head, and Melanie just sighed.

"That being said," Jaune turned his head to Neon, "I understand your empathy, but you need to remember that we are at war, with enemies that want to tear us to pieces and bury us six feet under. We can't always afford to show mercy to our enemies when they won't give any to us at all."

"I know that, Jaune. I know that," Neon sighed as she balled her free hand into a clenched fist of frustration, "I just don't like it, is all."

"I know," Jaune nodded, "But we're all just going to have to deal with it. Having morals is a good thing, but just be sure not to let them get in the way of doing what you need to do."

Neon nodded, "Sure thing, Jaune," she pointed her thumb to the door exiting the house, "The shuttle with the Grimm prisoners inside just took off to Vale. Ours is ready to head there as well," a smirk overtook her face, "Unless you want to make a quick detour."

Jaune looked to Melanie and Ruby, and they both nodded to him. They knew what she meant by a detour.

He looked back to Neon and smiled, "Sure thing. We can write our reports on the way back and submit them digitally. No need to hand them in in person."

Neon sniggered, "Copy that. I'll let the pilot know."

She spun around and left the house, and Jaune made a move to follow her, along with a reluctant, still sulking Melanie.

Ruby was the last of the group to leave the house, sitting on the sofa as conflicted as ever, Melanie and Neon's brief argument rattling around in her brain.

She was a Silver-Eyed Warrior. She was born to fight and kill the Grimm. The Grimm were monsters and deserved no mercy.

But at the same time, Attis had been a Grimm and he had saved her. He had been loyal to her. He had worshipped her as a goddess and eventually sacrificed his life for hers.

And those in the Choir of Silver, those who had sided with her during the Battle of the Sleeping City... did they deserve as little mercy, if any at all, than those who had sided with Templar?

Did any of the Grimm deserve mercy?

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

What would Jaune do?

What would Jaune want?

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

"Why not just take what you want? Why not just do what you think is right?"

Ruby didn't know what was right in this situation.

"Then decide it for yourself. You are a goddess after all. This should be easy for you."

…

This was not a trail of thought that she wanted to chase right now.

She shook her head of the intrusive thoughts and memories of previous conversations (with less than morally upstanding characters), steeled herself, and marched out of the house.

Catching up with the group as they went to board an AAT Gunships, Ruby then quickly asked, "Should we really be taking a detour on the way back? Wouldn't Headmaster Ozpin get mad at us? He's the one who sent us out on this mission after all."

Not that she feared him after everything that had happened to them. At least, not really... okay, maybe a little bit, but still.

Melanie, for her part, threw out a laugh, "Screw him. We've done our part for the day. We're owed this."

She had a point.

"Besides, it's not like he'd come out of his office just to scold us."

"He doesn't come out of his office at all nowadays."

"Exactly."

---

Like a wounded animal, Beacon was healing.

The great beast of a kingdom had been bloodied and broken over the first three months of the war, bashed and cracked open like a clamshell and gutted of its insides like a hollowed corpse. Buildings had been shattered, homes had been flattened, and millions of lives had been lost.

But it was healing. Its walls, its buildings, and its people. They were all healing.

In the months since the Surge - that period of time where the Ascendant Court's armies and fleets had attacked every single kingdom and major settlement across the planet for a single week, culling millions and occupying Atlas and Mantle before they were both destroyed and the Grimm were sent fleeing with their tails between their legs - the people of Vale had been sifting through the remains of their once proud home and picking up the pieces to build something new from the old. Vale was still in ruins after so long, yes - there were still toppled buildings leaning against each other and crashed Atlesian warships that were being hollowed out and picked apart to serve as new homes - but its community was united, and its populace were finally beginning to flourish in their new home.

The old districts that once served as the main sectors of Vale had been rebranded just before the Surge, and then destroyed and rebuilt all together. Boundaries and borders had been changed and moved, and new zones within the city had been created in the spaces of the old.

The upper district of the city - the district that had once belonged to the rich and famous elites of Vale, such as the politicians and businessmen and entrepreneurs - had been renamed as the Hollow Spires, in reference to all the skyrises and hotels that once stood tall and proud over the rest of the city - now cracked, toppled, or leant against each other - as well as the hollow promises of safety and security against the monsters in the darkness that they had proclaimed but never delivered.

The agricultural district had been flattened and ravaged by the Ascendant Court during their attack on the kingdom, and though there were continuous efforts to rebuild the area, no one but the bravest fools wished to go in there. Not with the escaped and very dangerous animals from Vale's zoo, or the ones that had slunk in from the wildlands during the chaos (as well as the other predators that skulked away in the darkness and seemed to kill almost everything that they came into contact with). The Farmlands had become an unearthly mixture of an urban sprawl and untamed wildland, filled with vines and overgrowth and a hundred new burrows where predators big and small made their new homes and feasting grounds for prey. Despite that though, many scouting teams and an army of workers and farmers had been sent into the lands to try and recover whatever still edible food from the undestroyed stocks they could from the old factories and farms, and then build and re-establish new farms to grow the much needed food that they needed for the people of Vale. However, with the wide spread of damage and devastation across the old district - with rubble and ash smothering all the old farms and burying everything - as well as the previously mentioned animals, both predator and prey, that had slinked into the old city, these efforts would no doubt take a long time to bear fruit (both literally and figuratively).

With the Farmlands no longer able to produce as much food as the city needed, many within the old commercial district had taken themselves up to the task in its place. Thieves' Quarter was now the biggest producer of food within the city, with its many restaurants and such turned into round-the-clock producers and manufacturers for the entire city, at least for the time being until proper farms and factories for food production could be built and put into use.

Speaking of factories, the old industrial district had been heavily damaged during the siege three months ago, almost turned entirely to slag as Atlas' warships crashed down onto the city. However, the crashed Aequitas warships in the old industrial district had been hollowed out and turned into new factories and manufacturing plants, filed to the brim with automatic processing lines and workers pushing out new product after new product for the people of Vale to make use of. However, much of the district had been abandoned and left to rot with the lowered population of Vale in the wake of the Surge, as well as the fears of what may now be hiding in the dark places of the old factories and warehouses. In the district that had now become known as the Hallowed Forges, criminal elements and gangs had begun to shift through the smelted remains and make their own homes in the burnt-out factories and commercial warehouses, and a vast web of violence and criminal intrigue began to spread itself through the old district as the crime families of Vale, both new and old, began to compete with each other over space and place.

The same could also be said for Tyrant's Landing, that being the former airport in which Atlas had made their base following the Initiation Massacre. When General Ironwood pulled his few remaining loyalists in Vale out and headed back to Solitas, they had been in such a hurry that they had left a tonnage of gear, weapons, and equipment behind. Beacon Militia forces and the remaining authorities of Vale had been quick to move in and secure as much as they could, but by the time they had arrived much of the leftover weaponry had been taken by scavengers and looters. Now the old airport was cleared out and abandoned, a hollow ghost town next to the abandoned former Transcontinental Train Network station that people once called the Hardlight Highway. No one lived there. No one at all.

But the same could not be said for Homeland's Sink, the former residential district of Vale. It's homes and apartments had been shelled and split open, but people still lived there.

Or at least in its outskirts.

Because in the middle of Homeland's Sink, threatening to consume the entire district and even becoming a district of its own, was the city within a city.

King's Rising.

King's Rising was home for the homeless and refuge for the refugee. In the first three months of the Second Great War and immediately following the Initiation Massacre, millions of people had, either by choice or circumstance, migrated into the city in a massive exodus away from the outer and inner settlements and stray villages. These people had washed into the city in swarms and droves, and had found themselves without a place to call home. Apartments were booked to capacity with great speed, good Samaritans had their homes filled to the brim with refugees, and the streets became flooded with the homeless and the wounded.

But then Vale's people came together to build a new place for the newcomers to call home. Shacks and sheds and tents were put together in the middle of Vale's low income areas. A web of shanty towns came into existence throughout the residential district, and with the help of Beacon's first years, they eventually merged together into one singular state.

Now King's Rising served as not only a slum city for Vale's homeless population, but also as the primary hub for Vale's cultural market and entertainment. Makeshift theatres had been built into the emptied houses and buildings alongside foreign-themed restaurants - serving foods from various kingdoms across the world - and Valerian based pubs that served drinks until the sun went down. Shacks and tents lined the sides of the roads alongside small vegetable patches and flowerbeds, giving life and colour to the ramshackle homes alongside the rainbow LED lights and headlamps that ran across the walls, shining light and life down onto the wounded people below. Smells and scents of this and that and all sorts filled the air as the tarps above, connected to the individual rooftops on either side of the streets kept the water out and filtered them down into the makeshift drains that had been placed between the gaps in the covers, funnelling the rainwater down into purifiers and recyclers to make it drinkable and useable. Sounds of people talking merrily and thinking of joyous times to come as they broke down the old parts of the old Vale to build the new, all the while their children, both Human and Faunus, intermingled and wove themselves together into packs and crowds as they played and laughed and made it seem like the world wasn't going to end at all.

King's Rising was a world of scrap metal and spare parts, but it was also a world of second chances and using the old to build the new. It was a place of rebirth and reconstruction, of making a new home in the rubble and ruins.

And it was a place that Neon Katt would be performing in.

The stage underneath her was damp and made of wood layered over thin metal, but it was hardly impractical or unusable. It was just another clever innovation made by the people living in King's Rising. Four crouching legs from a pair of MRWs (Mobile Recon Walkers) held the stage just above the people, high enough for Neon to be able to look down at them all, but not high enough to feel like she was completely disconnected from them. Behind her, a pair of helpers had just finished setting up the speakers for her show (she would've done it herself, but they were very polite about it, so she felt like it might've been rude to turn them down), and now she was sitting on a small wooden stall, tuning a recently repaired guitar in her hands and strumming a few strings as she spared a look to the growing crowd of people before her...

And to the three people at the forefront, Melanie, Ruby, and Jaune.

Melanie looked at Neon with a look of disinterest, and for good reason. Melanie and Neon had never got along, and they had never spoken since their argument the night before the Sleeping City incident (Neon would admit that the argument between them was more her fault than Melanie's). Tensions between them were as high as ever, and Neon had no idea how to approach her to at least try to talk about it, especially now that it was clear that Melanie had no interest in reciprocating any chance of her trying to make it up to her former team leader anyways. So Neon didn't know why she was here, but she imagined that it was only because Ruby and Jaune had decided to come down here to watch her perform, and she always went with them wherever she went.

Ruby, meanwhile, looked at her with an expression of neutrality. It made sense. Ruby and Neon had never conversed with each other and had never shared any sort of interaction. Neon didn't know how to feel about Ruby, but she did know that she was special because of her eyes- er, eye. However, that was just it. Ruby existed, had a special eye, and liked sniper rifles, and Neon didn't really have much else to say about her.

And then, there was Jaune...

Jaune Arc, the Hero of Remnant, and her personal hero.

To say that she had a hero crush was an understatement. Neon didn't have a hero crush on the boy, she had a genuine crush. He had been the one to save not just her, but everyone sheltering away in the Grimm Tidings during the Initiation Massacre, after all. And after giving them the means to fight back against the Choir of Silver, and then after saving them all from the Ascendant Court during the Surge, crashing Atlas into the Grimm's dreadnaught and driving the monsters back into their dark hiding places, that affection had only swelled and grown into something past a crush and, cultivated over the last three months since their reunion in Jewel, more into... love? Neon wasn't quite sure, but it sure felt like that.

He was the biggest name in Vale, hiding underneath the cloak and robes that he had worn into Communo so that he wasn't noticed by any of the people around him. She was a little sad to see that. She wanted to jump down and reveal his face to the world. She wanted to remind them all of the hero, of the king, of the god that walked amongst them and watch them fall and grovel at that which saved them. She wanted them all to fall to their knees like she would and see the man that would bring about the salvation of all, just as she knew that he would as her fingers ran across his body and her lips pressed themselves against his, marking him with her own scent like a predator does their prey animal, marking him as her own.

But he did not think himself a king, or a god. Maybe a hero now, but not a king or god. So, she would not treat him as such, until the time was right and he was willing to accept this role.

For he was her hero, and if he allowed it, he would be her king, and her god.

She was that in love (or was it love? It had to be, because what else would she be feeling now if not love?)

But then, her mind wandered, and she thought back to Communo. She thought back to her unloading three rounds into a single Grimm and calling for the other to surrender. She thought back to six out of thirty being spared. She thought back to deadly weapons (walking war crimes in of themselves) burning their victims from the inside out and murdering many without ever giving them the chance to surrender...

She wasn't stupid. She knew war, and she knew that bad things happened when fighting in such a conflict. Sometimes a Hunter needed to do what needed to be done. Sometimes a Hunter needed to bend their morals in order to achieve a victory.

She knew that particular little life lesson, because (she had done it before) she had seen what happened to those who did not do what needed to be done. Good Hunters fought for what was right. Good Hunters did what they had to do in order to accomplish their mission and save the day.

Good Hunters followed orders.

It just made sense, because if they didn't, then everything would fall apart and be left to ruin (unless the orders that they were given were wrong).

So, like a good Hunter, she would follow her orders, and do what she had to do. She knew this to be a fact and accepted this. If she hadn't known this then she wouldn't be training to become a Huntress now, would she?

But, that didn't mean that she had to like it...

…

Well, she supposed that it didn't matter for now. The sooner she accepted that fact, the better.

She had a performance to give.

She began to strum a tune with the guitar. A soft melody that seemed to quiet down the entire world around her as many others stopped in place to listen to her. She had been learning how to play the guitar for the last two months (no need to explain why, of course), and this was going to be the first time she demonstrated her new skills with it. So far, they all seemed to like it a lot more than she had expected. Even a pair of Crimson Guard troopers, in their red and white uniforms and helmets and so on, had stopped for a few moments to listen.

She licked her lips, took in a deep breath, and looked down to the growing audience below.

So many people, so many souls new and old and innocent, once thrown into chaos and uncertainty, now living in peace (with a dash of war) and relative comfort.

Many of them were reinvigorated and renewed.

Many of them even believed that, now, the war was over.

Neon knew this to not be the truth, but perhaps today, it could be the start of the journey to that end.

Someday, this war was going to end.

Maybe this would be her way of reaching that end.

She set her eyes on one person, and sapphire eyes met sea green.

Neon smiled... and then she sang.

---

I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

---

In Beacon Academy, Ciel Soleli looked over her assigned guard in Weiss Schnee, not letting the woman see the clock arms spinning across her palms.

---

And I fear no evil because I'm blind to it all

---

In another part of Beacon, Coco Adel continued to prep for the propaganda shoot, eagerly directing workers left and right as they put the set together.

---

And my mind and my gun they comfort me

---

Yang Xiao Long cracked her neck as the next batch of training robots popped out of the ground, ignoring the annoying pleas of Rancor and Omega to take it easy.

---

Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come

---

In the darkness of Vale's underbelly, Perry and Deery stood before the Acolyte of the Ascended recruiter, their old White Wolf uniforms still clinging to their bodies.

---

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life

---

Neon continued to tap her foot against the wood beneath her, strumming the guitar in her hand as she nodded her head to her own melody.

---

And I will dwell on this earth forevermore

---

In the Hollow Spires, a group of politicians converged with each other after a long time's separation.

---

Said, I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul

---

The little drone known as Eri buzzed with delight as she spun around the Forge, Skipjack and Mei Dei cheering her own as she placed the finishing touch onto one of their Titan Fighter prototypes.

---

But I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong

---

In the middle of the Farmlands, a woman of steel and fibre, not flesh and bone, hid herself away from the predators with a smile, eager to meet the people that she would soon know as friend and foe.

---

Well, I came upon a man at the top of a hill

---

In another part of Vale, Hephaestus watched his new Techion partner give a speech about doctrine and religious decree to Azul Primus to his followers, and silently scoffed at the notion.

---

Called himself the savior of the human race

---

Blake Belladonna looked over her weapon, before opening the door and spotting Razor Azure giving her a cocky grin.

---

Said he come to save the world from destruction and pain

---

In the tower above Beacon, Ozpin stayed secluded in his office, until the buzzing of an intercom finally knocked him out of his stupor.

---

But I said, "How can you save the world from itself?"

---

Ruby felt her eye twitch as the memory of a Chained Grimm flooded her mind.

---

'Cause I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

---

Nora and Ren walked hand in hand through Beacon's gardens, humming to themselves and the love that they shared.

---

And I fear no evil because I'm blind

---

Melanie Malachite felt her hand twitch as a blue flame washed over her eyes.

---

Oh, and I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul

---

In another corner of the world, a girl sat in a wheelchair and looked over the gardens that she surrounded herself with, her chameleon skin blushing in the blithe sun above.

---

But I know when I die my soul is damned

---

And Jaune Arc watched on, oblivious to the darkness that was about to fall over them all...

---

Reviewer response time:

Dethcat: Thank you! It's certainly been one hell of an achievement, and I'm eager to see where this phase takes us all as well!

your daddy: Got rid of the themes in the AN. Sorry Dad.

bosterflaming: Oh hoh hoh, don't worry my loyal friend. Our heroes and villains are going to go through hell and back, and they are indeed going to learn that the phrase 'For the greater good' is one hell of a powerful term...

ZACK2357: Oh gracias. ¡Realmente espero que haya valido la pena para ti!

---

And here we are, the first true chapter to the next phase of Ascendancy!

Sorry that this chapter seems a little more introductory than some of you probably expected, but considering the fact that this is technically a new story, I felt like it would be a good idea for some of the exposition in this chapter to help newcomers to this universe to the world itself, as well as recap those story beats to those that have already read Phase One of this narrative and know what's going on.

So, to all of those that are starting this story from here, welcome to Ascendancy. Please, if you do want to properly understand what's happening in this story, go read the first Phase of this story which you can find on my profile page. It'll be really important in getting you up to speed on just what the hell is going on here.

And for all you returning characters, allow me to introduce you to the new factions and gear:

The Beacon Militia's armour is, just like with the Golden Sun's gear, visually based off the phase two Clone Trooper armour from Star Wars, with the White Guard being the plain looking Clone Trooper armour without any customisations, the Obsidian Guard are based off the Elite Squad Troopers from the Bad Batch, with their modified weapons and all, and the Crimson Guard is based off the Shock Troopers and Coruscant Guard. The ships, vehicles, and guns that they used are also based off the Grand Army of the Republic's arsenal. The ML line of weapons are akin to the DC line. The MRWs are similar to the AT-RT, the AAT Gunship to the LAAT/I, the Noah-class shuttle to the Nu-class, and the Rio-class shuttle to the Roh-class. None of them would be completely identical to the ones in Star Wars, of course, but they are what I visualise them as looking like in my head.

(Speaking of which, Ruby's new outfit would be based on a mixture of elements from the Bad Batch, particularly between Echo, Tech, and Crosshair, as well as my own elements. Try to see if you can find them all!)

Meanwhile, the weapons that were made by Hephaestus Armoury (I wonder why Jaune and Melanie hate that name) are mostly inspired by the Banished Weapons from Halo: Infinite. The Pulse Rifle was inspired by the Pulse Carbine, and the Hunting Rifle by the Stalker Rifle. The Flechette Launcher, however, was actually my own design, as I wanted to try and make something a bit more original, which I want to try and start doing with my worldbuilding in the future, though I will be finding inspiration and pulling in references to other works as I have done before for all of you to enjoy.

On a completely unrelated note, have you guys been keeping up with the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial drama? Wow, that was some high quality television if I've ever seen it before! Much better than any actually programs that was on the telly at the time, no?

As always, feel free to leave a review and follow and favourite. We're going to be in for one hell of a ride in the future, so I hope that we can all be here to see it! But, until then...

Titanmaster 117 out!