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

Open cut to flashing images as underneath the sudden blinks of light, a musical orchestra slowly begins to build in the background.

First, was a quick clip of Atlas being smashed into the ground-

Unknown (off-screen):"Atlas fell at the hands of the Grimm."

-Before being replaced by that of Shelter being constructed and standing alongside the fallen kingdom.

Unknown (off-screen): "But from tragedy, we built something new."

Cut to again, to a recording of the Ascendant Court fleet that attacked Vale-

Unknown (off-screen): "The Grimm came for Vale-"

-Before changing to that of those same ships turning tale at the cheers of the fighters and warriors below-

Unknown (off-screen): "-But they recognised our strength and fled-"

-And then changing to street shots of King's Rising, focusing on both Humans and Faunus interacting and the makeshift creations and monuments that have been erected from scraps and spare parts.

Unknown (off-screen): "-And we came out of it stronger than ever..."

Cut to the sight of Grimm fleeing under gunfire-

Unknown (off-screen): "Now, with the Grimm running from our might-"

-Then to a fleet of AAT Gunships rising from the ground-

Unknown (off-screen): "-And with our great kingdom growing stronger than ever-"

-And then cut to black as the music continues to swell.

Unknown (off-screen): "-The time has never been better..."

Suddenly, the screen lit up again to a figure in a slim fitting uniform, with bright blue eyes and sun kissed hair dramatically pointing a finger at the camera as it rapidly zooms in on his face.

Jaune: "To join the Beacon Militia!"

Cut to rapidly changing images, all of which displaying the forces of the Beacon Militia, from the average soldier to the Bullheads, to the shuttles to the tanks, all of which are manned and piloted by cheering soldiers with waving arms and happy smiles.

Jaune (off-screen): "Ever since the fall of the Ascendant Court at the end of 80AGW, our brave Guardsmen have been clearing this land of every single trace of their foul presence! Now, with the monsters that once tried and failed to batter our walls and break our spirit, the time has never been better to do your part for your kingdom! If you register for the Beacon Militia now, you will be welcomed into a thriving community of warriors and heroes, fighting side by side against the dark hordes that menace our society! And if you fear that you will not be welcomed into our grand army, fear not! We accept everyone who is willing to fight alongside us-"

Cut to a man and woman in armour standing besides each other-

Jaune (off-screen): "-From men to women-"

-And to a black man and white man sharing a table and drink with each other-

Jaune (off-screen): "-Blacks to whites-"

-And then to a Human and Faunus sitting besides each other and laughing.

Jaune (off-screen): "-And Humans to Faunus!"

Cut back to Jaune as he points dramatically at the camera once more.

Jaune: "Why saved Vale from the Grimm?"

The screen cuts to a group of White Guard troopers looking up at an overhead camera.

Soldiers: "We did!"

Jaune (off-screen): "Who survived everything that the Ascendant Court had to throw at us?"

Cut to a group of women working on a Noah-class Shuttle.

Technicians: "We did!"

Jaune (off-screen): "Who brought low the monsters banging at our door?"

Change to an entire regiment of White Guard soldiers looking up to the camera.

Soldiers: "We did!"

The screen cuts back to Jaune Arc as he gives the camera a determined look.

Jaune: "They're doing their part, so why aren't you!"

Cut to a parade of images glorifying the efforts of the Beacon Militia.

Jaune (off-screen): "So, if you want to help kick the Grimm's hinnies all the way back to where they came from, and save your world from the monsters that skulk about in the shadows-"

Cut to an insignia of a pair of white swords slashed across each other over the letters B and M, and the name 'Beacon Militia' printed posted underneath in bright flashing colours, as well as a scroll number placed underneath the logo

Jaune (off-screen): "-Then visit your local recruitment centre and join the fight! Sign up now and commit yourself to a cause that deserves you! A cause that promises you justice, righteousness, and adventure!"

Cut back to Jaune Arc as he gives one last dramatic point to the camera.

Jaune: "The Beacon Militia! One step closer to a better future!"

Transcript of a Beacon Militia propaganda reel, filmed before the events of the Great Hunt

Beacon Academy was healing.

The old sores and gaping wounds have been covered over and filled in, brick and stone replaced by metal and steel. Bloody marks and burns had been cleaned and disinfected of old bodies and gore from the war that had come to pass, and new buildings and structures had been paved over the broken monuments and shattered grounds.

The old have been paved over with the new, and the militant had paved over the peaceful.

It was all about adaption and security. During the Surge three months ago, Beacon had been shelled and cracked wide open by the Ascendant Court's forces. The basement floors had collapsed into themselves and the towers had been split in twain. However, after three months of hard work, the old academy had been rejuvenated and returned to proper working order, only with a plethora of changes and additions, all the name of protecting Vale and expanding the operations of the nongovernmental alliance known as the New Dawn.

The old arches and medieval stone from the Victorian Era had all been torn down, the land around them repurposed and rebuilt into barracks, weapon caches and training centres. The lush ponds that once surrounded the grounds of Beacon had been drained of water, and the grass had been torn up and replaced with cold metal and pavement. Automated cannons and anti-aircraft guns lined the edges of the academy grounds as gunmetal grey steel shined over the old buildings and laid spiked like barbs and thorns with turrets and machine guns. Spotlights on high towers shone dotted the lands as a wide aircraft landing site where that old statue had once been regularly brought in and let go various aircraft heading in and out of the facility. Next to the airbase, a wide vehicle depot had been constructed over the broken fountain, where a small army of mechanics and technicians slaved over the various combat rigs that the Beacon Militia had in its employ. Small factories lined the inner walls of Beacon as they continued to turn recycled metal and circuits into new toys and tools for the soldiers of the academy to use. The old dorms had been reconverted into habitation suites for the hundreds of staff and workers that now made their home within the old academy, and many of the old study areas and classrooms had been reconverted into boardrooms and meeting spaces where a hundred statistic experts and analysists compared reports and battlefield data into one cohesive network of strategic exchange and tactical information. Tall towers tipped with automatic cannons surrounded the central tower in a circle, their barrels pointed upwards as a pair of Verity-class Fighters flew past on their patrol flights. Further down the cliff and above the Wishing Well Lake, an Archer-class Hauler, coloured grey, rectangular in shape, with four engine pods dotting the sides of its front and back, and with its long intersection filled with multicoloured shipping containers, landed within the underside hanger bay that had been dug out from the cliff below, ready to empty the containers that were no doubt only half full with the dust that had been taken from the reactivated mines. The animal pen that had once sat at the side of Beacon had been expanded into a recently completed farm, which had been seeded with fruits and vegetables, which would soon grow after a few months into a bountiful harvest whilst artificial meat products (they didn't have enough animals to consider slaughtering them for food) were finally beginning to roll off the production line and into Beacon's stocks. And weaving their way through it all were thousands of Beacon Militia personnel, from soldiers to trainers to former Hunters to factory workers to statistics specialists to all sorts of logistical support for the force, marching and running left, right, and centre as they went about their duties and continued to serve in their roles to Beacon, Vale, and the Militia.

It was such a stark contrast, the old sights and sounds of Beacon to the military fortress that it had become.

It had been a matter of necessity. After the Surge, the Valerian Council had disappeared off the face of Remnant. No one knew where they were, and no one knew when they intended to return (or if they were even alive anyways), but their absence had left both the kingdom and city without a body of government to rely on, and with the rising number of gangs and Dust Barons seeking to take advantage of the chaos, someone had needed to step in to fill in the vacuum of power and restore order before the people of Vale slipped into anarchy.

And so, the remaining Huntsmen of both Vale and Beacon Academy banded together - gathering Atlesian defectors, militiamen, police officers, conscripts, and so on to their side - and formed the Beacon Militia, a paramilitary organisation, separate from the government of Vale and aligned with the New Dawn, a nongovernmental alliance of cities, academies, and kingdoms dedicated to the reunification and rebuilding of Remnant, and the protection of their world from the Ascendant Court and other menaces. This militia, born out of the remnants of both the Valerian government and the leading figures within Beacon itself, both teacher and student, would dedicate itself to rebuilding their homes out of the scraps and ruins of Vale, and defeating the criminals and bandits that now regularly ravaged their borders, leading the way to push Vale towards the future, and back to its former glory.

Since its founding three months ago, from its creation to the present, the Beacon Militia had faced a million different challenges, from gangs of Dusties trying to peddle their products to the people living in the slums of King's Rising to Dust Barons pillaging the old villages and broken walls for parts and goods to sell on the rising black market, and everything in between. They had been born into violence and war, and violence and war they had waged on every enemy and every challenge that opposed them.

But one of the biggest challenges that the Beacon Militia had faced, in their three months of existence, was restarting the food production industry in the city.

During the first three months of the Second Great War, Vale hadn't been presented with that big a fear of a food shortage. There had been a surge in panic buying for dust and food by the general populace, yes, but the farms and factories of the agricultural district had been working overtime to fill up all their warehouses with as much product as they could. Plus, the Ascendant Court had been such an unknown factor in the war that no one knew what to expect of them. No one understood how much of a threat that they were.

But then the Surge came, and the Court's armies and fleets battered every kingdoms walls, and culled millions of innocent people. When they arrived in Vale, the Grimm had shelled the city and destroyed entire swathes of the urban sprawl.

The agricultural district had been hit especially bad. Most of the city's food storage warehouses had been in the district, and they had been turned to fire and slag. The farms had been burnt to the touch, and the factories had crumbled under cannon fire and explosives. Fire had burnt what was left of the agricultural district, and everything had been smothered in rubble and flame. Hardly anything of the old district was left.

When the Surge ended and the Grimm fled, there had been the lull of the battle's end, marked by mourning and grief. There was a collective shellshock that covered Vale, and everyone was suffering. No one wanted to fight anymore. Everyone just wanted to rest. The first month after the Surge had been a period of lulled silence where everyone had just wanted to sit down and rest after going through hell beyond belief.

But the next month after that was riddled with skirmishing and attacks on the city. After licking their wounds, the scattered bands of warring Ascendant Court and Choir of Silver leftovers, now reformed into gangs of Dust Barons, began to lead raids on the ruined city, stealing whatever they could and disappearing into the darkness. At the time, the Beacon Militia had spent the last month organising itself and trying to find as much war material from the remains of Vale to use for themselves, but when the raids began, the militia threw themselves in the fray, spending the next month in a slog against the raiders and gangsters as they tried to salvage as much as they could from the remains of the city. There was too much rubble everywhere, and they had spent weeks trying to clear the streets and identify the buildings that were no longer structurally sound and needed to be demolished. Worse yet, many of the fields had been burnt to ash and cinder in the aftermath of the Surge, and many of the microbes and humus in the soil of those fields had burnt up and died under the heat. Now all those fields were just ash and dead dirt, unable to grow anything at all. They would all have to be hollowed out and replaced with proper soil and fertiliser before they could even think about planting anything in them (though thanks to the mass destruction of the Farmlands in the Surge, there was a short supply of both nowadays).

They had tried to retake the Farmlands, of course. It wasn't like they didn't try. The Beacon Militia didn't just sit around and do nothing. They had sent two hundred soldiers, with armour, into the Farmlands, to deal with the raiders, escaped zoo animals, predators that had snuck into the old district, and... something else had been hiding in the Farmlands. Half of the people they had sent in had been killed by the raiders and predators (complete underestimation on their part, their enemies had been smarter than they had anticipated), and the rest had been killed or maimed by... whatever had been trying to starve the city out.

Soon, that possibility was starting to become a reality. By the time the third month had rolled around, the excess stocks that the surviving people of Vale had started to run out. Rationing became a state law enforced by Beacon, and as the Beacon Militia continued to swell and gain more members, swallowing weapons and armour and other assets alongside it like a hungry leviathan, more pushes had been made to take back the Farmlands. By now, they had finally gained ground in the Farmlands and begun the process of rejuvenation, and whatever secret threat within the old district had seemingly slunk off into the darkness of the hollowed buildings now being covered with overgrowth with the predators and raiders that they named friends and allies. However, the efforts of the Beacon Militia were still slow and difficult, and the work was still backbreaking for the people trying to rebuild and reseed the fields and clear the rubble, as they were doing with all of Vale still.

It was a logistical nightmare, trying to rebuild Vale. It took a hell of a long time trying to rebuild an entire city (Jaune knew this well. He had been with the other team leaders as they helped to construct King's Rising, and he had been there to witness the people of Shelter begin to build their new home in the shadows of Atlas and Mantle), and they had spent the last three months trying to put Vale back together using ruins and scraps. They had even begun pillaging the old Sleeping City for spare parts, all to rebuild the kingdom that they called home. With the constant raids from the Dust Barons and other parties, policing Vale, guarding the reopened dust mines, the various threats hiding within the Farmlands, the gangs that were trying to take advantage of the underground dust market, and so on so forth, all with so few intact resources leftover in the city itself, there was just too much for the Beacon Militia to keep up with to properly rebuild the food facilities in the Farmlands, much less begin growing mass amounts of food once again.

Plus, fruits and vegetables took a long time to grow. It could take weeks, maybe even months, for the few fields that had successfully been planted to bloom with new growth ready for harvest. Not only that, but they needed to find the people needed to farm the lands and process the produce for the Valerian market. The Beacon Militia, while strong, was perpetually understaffed. Contrary to popular belief, most armies consisted of not soldiers and fighting roles, but support personnel and logistics staff. In fact, only ten percent of the Beacon Militia's main army body, the White Guard, were made up of combat roles, and they were only five thousand people strong. The other forty-five thousand were the likes of cooks, medics, engineers, mechanics, communications, and so on. The Crimson Guard held the highest number of combat personnel in it, being ten thousand, but they were mostly military police and former officers, not real soldiers, and still only numbered a third of the police force that once governed Vale before the Second Great War. The Obsidian Guard, while being the best of the best that the Beacon Militia had, only numbered five hundred soldiers, but since they were primarily scouts and trackers, they didn't use much in the way of vehicles and gear, and as such had the lowest support staff in only one and a half thousand.

The Beacon Militia were perpetually understaffed, despite how many people they were recruiting by the day. They were stretched thin as it was, having to try and protect their territories and holdings, as well as expanding once more across their half of the continent, and their allies were too busy rebuilding their homes and shoring up their defences against their local threats to help them. It was no wonder that they were using robots to fill in the gaps that they couldn't whenever they had the chance.

But hopes were high. People looked up to Beacon Academy as their bastion of hope, trying to ignore the fact that they now lived in a police state.

Flying across the Wishing Well Lake, a Noah-class shuttle began to climb up towards the underside hanger bay buried within Beacon's cliffs, escorted by a pair of Verity-class fighters that peeled off from the ship when it began to reach said hanger. Curfew had just started in the city of Vale, so the occupants within had no reason to stay in the city any longer.

As the shuttle began to ascend up towards the cliffside hanger bay, its wings folded upwards and its landing gear folded downwards from its undercarriage. As it began to slow down in the air, it slipped into the hanger bay and landed on the grey metal floor, steam hissing out of the vents and dispelling heat as the engines lost their blue light and began to cool. The lights across the grey hull flickered off as the ship powered down, and the ramp door at the front of the shuttle's head extended downwards as the passengers began to disembark.

Jaune, Neon, Melanie, and Ruby.

The pilots were the last to leave the shuttle, and they went to talk to the ground crew as they began to run maintenance on the ship. Nearby, the Archer-class Hauler lowered its cargo to the ground via automatic lifts and magnetics, and a dozen cargo droids began to carry out the half-empty crates of dust out of the metal containers. Groups of Crimson Guard soldiers and AK-PDs-

AK-PD droids, the designation of the Beacon Police Droids. They were the latest variant of the aging model of AK-BX droids, either recycled or built from scratch, their programming simplified and their bodies painted in yellows and greys as they welded repurposed RM-35 Pulsar Repeaters-

An Atlesian attempt at replicating the old Pulse Rifles of Hephaestus Armoury, though it fell short of the original design. The line of guns was an attempt by Atlesian armourers to replace the old ML line of guns with something that they believed to be more reliable. However, according to Ruby when debating the weapons that they should give the Beacon Police Droids, the guns were flimsy and cheap. They had a wide spread of fire and generated an excess amount of heat vent that caused harm to the user via burns to the arm. However, they were incredibly cheap to acquire and maintain, and had a decent semi-automatic to automatic rate of fire, so they were assigned to the Police Droids to use as their mainstream line of weapons, on the count that, as robots, they could handle the excess heat that the guns generated.

-And marched in pairs and groups of four around the Beacon military base and across the city of Vale. They were utilised as support units for the Crimson Guard, supplementing Human and Faunus Guardsmen in patrolling the streets, backing up military police operations, protecting critical and minor facilities, and assisting in crowd control and riot suppression. He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of robots patrolling the streets of Vale (memories of the Imperium's reign over Atlas and Mantle came to his mind), but for now they didn't have enough men in the Crimson Guard to patrol every single street and building in Vale, so for now, they would have to use the droids to boost their numbers.

-Marched through the hanger bay, either moving platform trucks or running patrols across the bay and the rest of the school as workers and engineers ran around with equipment and tools for welding and ship fixing. Overhead, white light shone down onto the grey space and vehicles within as the steel bridges and silver walkways overhead carried soldiers and engineers to and thro over the crafts below.

Though Jaune and the others were expecting someone to greet them - someone to hand off the mission reports that they had written over the pair of flights they had taken, one to Vale and the other to Beacon - they definitely weren't expecting to see the stern visage of a familiar face looking down at them.

"Major Rainart?"

Former professor now Major Hazel Rainart stood before them, clad in silver armour - a modified suit of standard Golden Sun gear, specially enlarged for his size and musculature, and with additions that made it look more like knightly armour than white steel - underneath light and dark green fabrics that had been placed over it. Next to him, the smaller, but still tall, Gretchen Rainart was at his side, that same gentle look across her scarred face, adorned with shortened black hair tied into braids, as she, much like her brother, held her helmet underneath her arm. Her armour had no fabrics woven into it, but was painted with a white cuirass and body, green arms and legs with yellow spaulders, yellow cuisses that connected to white kneepads and brown greaves and boots, a brown utility belt with silver belt pouches, a pair of yellow stripes going over her white breastplate, and a white helmet with green lining the visor and rebreathers, the crest a deep green, and a yellow stripe going across the helm's dome.

Hazel was one of the lucky ones. During the Surge, almost all of the Hunters in Beacon Academy had rushed to join the fray, with the teachers especially leading the charge.

But most of them were dead now.

It hadn't been their fault. It had only been less than three months since the Second Great War began, and intelligence and information on the Ascendant Court's military capabilities was still scant and lacking. The teachers and professional Hunters left in Vale had been trained since their earliest years to fight the Grimm as if they were a horde, and had no experience in battling armed foes aside from bandit clans and insurgent cells. They weren't trained to fight an army, and it hadn't helped that the Ascendant Court's last major engagement had involved them using the old Grimm types heavily during the Initiation Massacre. The teachers and Hunters - those inexperienced in fighting the Ascendant Court - had gone into the battle expecting to fight the same war they had been fighting for years upon years...

Except it wasn't, and they weren't, and they had all paid the price for it.

Ann Greene, Harold Mulberry, even Peter Port... most of the teachers and professional Hunters had died during the Battle of Vale, as had so many of the other Hunters, and even the other students in the other years. The first years of Beacon Academy had only been able to get through the weeklong conflict due to their relative experience in fighting the Court, and even then that was only by the skin of their teeth. Was it any wonder that so many positions within the Beacon Militia needed to be filled out by the first years? Was it any wonder that there weren't that many adults in commanding positions in the paramilitary force?

It's because almost all of the more capable adults were dead.

Next to both Hazel and Gretchen, the Crimson Guard officer with the red pauldron on his shoulder held his hand out to them, and the four former first years handed their reports over to him. As he walked away to get them filed into the system, Jaune turned his head over to Hazel and Gretchen and asked, "Why are you two here? We don't usually need an escort to debriefing."

Hazel shook his head, "No, this is important," his stern eyes landed on the four of them, "And you were meant to be here hours ago."

"But we weren't needed by then," Melanie jumped to their defence, "The debrief isn't scheduled for another hour, and we felt like we needed some quick R&R. We weren't on mission time, all the objectives were complete, and we decided that we wanted to go have a yonder around town before curfew kicked in."

"Mission time is not over until the debrief," Hazel retorted to them, "You all know that. You were there when we created the rules and regulations of the Beacon Militia."

Jaune bit the inside of his lip. Hazel was right in what he was saying. He had been there when they had written the codes of conduct for the Beacon Militia, and right now he and his group were in violation of those same codes right now.

You'd think that being hero of the whole damn world would give him and his friends some exceptions, but...

"Sorry, P- sir," Jaune corrected himself as he looked up to the burly man in armour, "I understand that there are protocols in place, but in all fairness, I was captured by a group of Grimm and beaten for several days straight. I felt like we all deserved a break."

"That's understandable," Hazel's expression didn't change, "But it isn't justification."

"I know, and I'll accept full punishment for it."

"Fostering blame onto one singular person does not equal proper punishment."

"Hazel," Gretchen said to him with a gentle look, "This is their first offense, and he admits that he's in the wrong. I think we can let them off lightly, no?"

"No. An admission of wrongdoing is not the same as an admission of guilt," he sent his sister a stern look, "And that's Major Rainart to you, sister."

Gretchen nodded and gave him a hum, but Ruby then tried to cut in with, "Hey, I'm a commander, so technically I-" Neon quickly cut her off with a hand on Ruby's shoulder and a shake of her head.

Hazel turned his head back to the four returning former Hunters in training before him, and rumbled, "Dish duty for a week. For all of you."

Ruby and Neon groaned, Melanie muttered something indignant, and Jaune just sighed and grumbled to himself, but ultimately none of them complained. It wasn't like they had any room to.

It was Neon who spoke up next, "Is that all, sir?" she winced slightly (she had her helmet slung under her shoulder), probably worried that she had talked back to her superior. From what he had seen of her, despite her rebellious tendencies back during the first few months of knowing her, Neon was one to give respect to those in higher positions of power only when she thought they deserved it.

Considering how she had rejected Melanie's leadership back before the Sleeping City, Jaune wasn't sure if he trusted her opinion on such things...

Hazel sighed in turn, and then handed them a pad, "Actually, no, and this is why I'm here."

Jaune took the pad out of his hand with a furrowed brow, "I swear, if it's Coco with one of her stupid propaganda shoots..."

He stopped.

Neon, Ruby, and Melanie leaning in to look at the text on the pad, and their faces turned as pale as his.

"...Oh hell..."

"Ozpin! What the hell?!"

Jaune felt the same anger as Melanie did as she raged into the intercom at the side of the door to his office. Hell, the entirety of the gathering of former team leaders and Hunters in training felt the same as they stayed gathered in the hallway, circling around the lift that led up to Ozpin in the tower above. He hadn't vacated the damn thing in three months, constantly alienating between his room above in the broken tower (even whilst it was being reconstructed) and, apparently, the basement down below. The level of Beacon which none of them were allowed to access. DJ had once told Jaune that there was a secret entrance via the lift that led down into a base that Watts owned under the lake, but Jaune had told him that that was ridiculous.

That was then, though. This was now.

"Ozpin, it's one thing to force us to surrender power back to the council, and oh, by the way, where the hell have they they been for the last three months?!" Melanie continued on with, "But to order us to gather all our forces and command structure in one place just for a troop inspection?! Seriously?! There's no point! None at all!"

There was no reply.

Melanie slammed her fist into the wall next to the intercom, "Ozpin! Stop vacillating and answer me!"

"He has no need to answer you, Miss Malachite."

The gathering of former Hunters began to split apart as a familiar visage walked through the crowd to the irate ex-student. However, instead of being dressed in the standard armour of the Beacon Militia, she was clothed in a white shirt underneath a black buttoned up jacket with gold coloured buttons, a purple string tie around the collar, of which held an emerald jewel in the centre. She wore plain black trousers and boots with purple laces, and a brown and gold belt buckle with her purple crown emblem engraved and coloured into it.

Miss Glynda Goodwitch looked more like a civilian than a member of a paramilitary organisation, and that was intentional. She had been one of the first people approached by the Beacon Militia to take up a leadership position within the movement, but she had declined. Personally, Jaune thought that she would've made a great leader, but when she took up the position as main councillor and psychiatrist, he remembered all of the trouble that had occurred last year and how Glynda Goodwitch had stepped down from her position as head teacher to become a fulltime therapist, and he realised her mentality on the situation.

Even still, she was as authorities (and terrifying) as ever. Seriously, imagine Hazel Rainart without the people skills.

…

Okay, that wasn't a good comparison, but still.

Melanie gave Glynda the stink eye as she leant off the wall slightly (but only slightly), "Goodwitch, you see- you heard this shit, right?"

"I heard your screaming, alright. I couldn't hear much of anything else."

"Ozpin's demanding that we give our power over to the Valerian Council," Jaune cut in with, folding his arms across his chest, "I mean, seriously? They've been hiding in whatever cubbyhole they've been sheltering in for three months, and now they- what? They want us to fork over our authority to them. What the hell? Where have they been for the last three months?"

"Rebuilding themselves, Mr Arc," Glynda turned her gaze over to him, "Just like us, and the rest of Vale."

"Yeah, but we were the ones doing the rebuilding," Melanie threw out, "We've been the ones putting Vale back together, planting the fields, opening the dust mines, guarding the walls, taking care of the Grimm and keeping the people safe and so on. The hell have the council been doing?"

"Mourning their dead," Glynda countered with, "And selecting new members," she paused, "It might surprise you to hear this, but those in the original Valerian Council died during the Surge."

That got everyone to quieten down.

Shit, Jaune thought to himself. He had considered the possibility that the Valerian Council had died during the Battle of Vale, but he hadn't really put much thought to it. He'd just assumed that they had all been hiding in their bunker until the right opportunity to take power for themselves popped up. But if they had all died, then there would've been no members left to lead the charge and rebuild Vale. No wonder the city was left in a state of lawlessness by the time the Beacon Militia stepped in to fill the power vacuum.

However, Jaune couldn't help but wonder if it would've even mattered if any of them had survived in the first place. Chief Raymond down below had been doing his best, but no one trusted the Valerian Police Department, what with the rapid conscription, over inflation, and rampant corruption after the Initiation Massacre, and that meant that no one trusted the council for introducing those same conscription laws. Plus, it had been the Beacon Militia who stepped up to rebuild Vale, not the VPD (even though they were in no position to do so, what with their bleeding members, defections, desertions, and still present corruption), and so if a councilman had tried to step up to the plate, he doubted that they would've listened to them anyways.

(Plus, there was no doubt that many of the other major politicians and representatives within the city were all dead now, so finding new members to fill the gaps that the old council had filled would've been especially difficult.)

So, really, it was no wonder that this new council were trying to take control of the Beacon Militia, the organisation that the people held in greater trust than the former.

But even still..."

"That's not fair," it was Ruby who spoke up, "That's not fair at all..."

"Yeah!" Skipjack jumped to the plate to call out, the four legged Techion skittering forwards and waving his robotic lobster-like claws in the air in indignation, his organic head - the only visible organic part of his silver and glowing blue mechanical body - bobbing up and down as his rabbit ears flopped in the air, his face scrunched up in anger, "We've been mourning our dead too! And we've been doing the council's job for them, new members and old! The hell kind of right do they have to walk up in here and pretend that they own the place?"

Glynda shot her gaze to the Faunus Techion, and said with a straight face, "I am aware that you all feel very strongly about this, but I'm afraid that it's going to happen anyways," she held up her hand to silence the growing anger around her, "Despite what you might think, this is a good thing. The Beacon Militia is, for lack of a better term, a paramilitary organisation with no constraints and ties to the government of Vale. In another world, we would be classified as a nongovernmental, or even foreign, occupier. We are a militaristic movement without any governmental restrictions, and that is not a good thing. Such a movement without checks and restrictions to their power is the first step to a tyranny, and the last time a military force without restrictions took control of a kingdom," she looked at Jaune, "Well, I do not believe I need to remind you all of such an incident."

Jaune bit the inside of his lip as he flinched under her gaze. Yeah, he knew what she was talking about.

During the first two months of the Second Great War, a madwoman by the name of Cinder Ella, along with her cabal of followers and opportunists, had used a device by the name of the Mindbender (powered by the children known as Jax and Gillian Asturias) to brainwash the Atlesian Council into voting her into power, and (as he later found out) using her technological development company, Ella Industries, as well as her alliance with Jacques Schnee and the Schnee Dust Company, to distribute helmets with the same brainwashing frequencies and semblance that the Mindbender used to all personnel within the Atlesian Home Defence Fleet, the only remaining military force within Atlas, and by far the most powerful force within Atlas' collective armed forces. As soon as she was placed in power, she had the rest of the Atlesian Council (save Jacques) killed, and established the Imperium, a totalitarian regime that began to conscript and enslave the millions of people in both Atlas and Mantle, either brainwashing them and forcing them into her growing army of mindless zombie-like soldiers, or fitting them with explosive collars and putting them to works in the mines. She even had her forces capture Grimm of the Ascendant Court, turning them into Techions and fitting them with aura transmitters to spread the Mindbender's collective brainwashing semblance to them.

Millions of people died during the Imperium's brief but bloody reign. The crippled and disabled were burnt at the stake, the children of both Atlas and Mantle had been turned into aura batteries before being killed by the psychopath in charge, and the enslaved workers in the mines had all been executed, their collars detonating and their heads rolling off their bodies. All because Cinder enjoyed their suffering.

And that's all that it was. Cinder inflicted pain on so many people, caused so much pain - so much death - all just because she liked it. She was so full of anger and hatred because of whatever the hell happened in her past (Jaune couldn't remember, but it probably wasn't that important), and wanted to take it out on everyone else.

However, it was through her own actions, as well as her own ego and manic sadism, that brought about her own end. In attempting to destroy her enemies, she did nothing but give them all a common enemy. In indulging in her own petty sadism, she did nothing but waste resources and weaken the foundations that her Imperium - her empire - was built upon. In brainwashing her army and killing her own allies, she created a weak and fallible army and caused all her allies to abandon her.

In trying to break her prisoner, she brought Team JNPER, Jaune's old team before it split apart, to Solitas, and brought about the beginning of the end.

Her prisoner was the Daughter, the leader of the Ascendant Court, a willing inmate in a prison that she had surrendered herself to in order to get into Atlas, and someone who was obsessed with Jaune for reasons that only she knew. In trying to break the Daughter, Cinder had Jaune and his team kidnapped and brought to Solitas, hoping to break them and then the Daughter in turn. However, the Daughter's agents in the combined resistance against the Imperium (made up of the House of the White Wolves, the House of the Winter Shores, and the Mantlian Militia) intercepted them, and soon they were in the middle of the Atlesian Civil War, warring against the Imperium and working to bring the monstrous regime down.

In the end, it was the Daughter, and Cinder herself, who brought about the final end of the Imperium. The Ascendant Court's agents freed her, and her massive army attacked not just Atlas and Mantle, but all of Remnant. Whilst the other kingdoms and major settlements were put to siege, and some of them, like Wind Path and Argus, falling to the Ascendant Court, Atlas and Mantle were conquered in an hour, the states already bleeding and wounded from the Atlesian Civil War. The Imperium broke that day, and in the following week, its remnants were put to work by Cinder, who put Atlas Academy to siege before ripping the Relic of Creation from the floating kingdom's heart and letting it drop to the ground.

Cinder died in Amity Coliseum (Colosseum. Whatever), and the Imperium's hopes and dreams faded away with her. The only surviving member of her cabal (that he knew of, which worried him greatly) was Hephaestus, and he, as ever the opportunist, took off with the secrets and pickings of the regime like the scavenger that he was. The Imperium died before it was born, and Cinder's malicious ambitions with it.

There was a lot more to the Atlesian Civil War and the subsequent Surge event (and a lot more complicated to boot), but ultimately Cinder and the Imperium were nothing more than cruel and pointless distractions for the more important players in the Second Great War, and had been forgotten as soon as it fell. The madwoman behind it all would be remembered as a cautionary tale of power unchecked, and nothing more.

But even still, they weren't like Cinder. The Beacon Militia wasn't like the Imperium. The Imperium had been a collection of brainwashed bullies and thugs murdering millions and destroying their own home. The Beacon Militia were rebuilding Vale. They were healing wounds and helping people. There was a strong difference between them.

Jaune wanted to communicate this, but Glynda sent him a look that seemed to say that she knew what he was about to point out (he was getting better at reading faces). A moment later, Glynda spoke again, "Whether you like it or not, this is happening. The Valerian Council will be taking control and integrating the Beacon Militia into the Valerian armed forces, and-" she held up her hand again as a dozen people began to speak up in anger, "As it stands right now, the Beacon Militia are a private military contractor. An army of mercenaries. Even in wartime, it has been the civilian government that has controlled the armed forces, not the other way around, and a rogue military calling the shots is not a stable ruling political body. If we truly want to rebuild Vale, then we need to be able to provide for the civilian establishments within the city, and that includes giving military control back to the people of said city and kingdom."

She paused for effect, just so everyone would pay attention to her and her point.

"The merger and relinquishment of control is going to happen," she finished her point with, "It has to happen. It just has to."

Silence followed after her statement as the former students took in her words, before turning to each other and muttering their points, either considering her words or disagreeing with them.

Jaune, meanwhile, had to agree with Glynda as he considered her points. She was right. He had seen what happened when a rogue military took control of an entire kingdom - again, the Imperium - and he knew that even the New Dawn alliance was controlled by a central civilian administration. And she was also correct in saying that the Beacon Militia existed as a private military organisation rather than an extension of the Valerian government. Hell, Beacon Academy had been less an extension of Vale itself and more an independent entity that had attached itself to Vale, much like the Hunters that left its halls. They had been mercenaries themselves in a way, operating independently from Vale or any kingdom and following their own rules less they were on contract from their potential employers.

If Vale was to survive, it needed a civilian administration and government, and for that system to thrive, it needed to control the rogue nation that was sitting right on its doorstep.

But again, the Beacon Militia weren't like the Imperium.

They weren't.

They couldn't be.

"I get that."

Jaune, and everyone else, turned their head to the woman who had just spoken. Neon looked at Glynda Goodwitch with a softness about her, an air of understanding. The others looked at her with raised eyebrows and tilted heads. If Neon noticed them, she didn't make it clear.

"I get the merger, and I think we all get it too," Neon waved her hand over the crowd around them. Neon had recently been acting as something of a mediator within the New Dawn. Jaune wasn't sure whether he liked it or not, especially when he compared her behaviour with Melanie late last year to now, "But what I - what we - don't get is the demonstration. The troop demonstration. Gathering all of High Command and more for a demonstration when we're better off securing our borders and dealing with the Dust Barons? It's a bad idea, and we all know it."

This time, Glynda seemed like she had been caught flatfooted. She paused, pursed her lips for just a moment, before closing her eyes- "The demonstration would serve as a morale boost for the people of Vale, to see their protectors and the strength that they hold, as well as showing to the council the forces that they would be taking control of better than numbers on a scrollpad..." -and then opening them, "But I do see your point."

"Then could you maybe tell Ozpin to come down here and explain why this is happening to us?" Melanie called out with a note of distain in her face and voice, "Because it's a ridiculous order and one which I would like to hear from him!"

"Yeah!" at the back, Skipjack called out in annoyance, "We've been doing the grunt work for Vale for months while he sits up in his glass tower like a right plonker! Now he makes this kind of decision without our say or input, and doesn't even come down to try and explain it for himself!"

It was Shadestep who then said, "Exactly. How the hell are we supposed to go along with an order that we all disagree with when our leader - the one who gave the order - hasn't spoken to anyone in months?"

Glynda paused, "I will... try to raise the point to Ozpin."

"Should we expect an answer?" Razor asked with a dull drawl to his voice.

"I cannot say."

"So that's a no."

Glynda didn't reply.

With a general air of reluctant acceptance, the crowd of former team leaders and High Command began to disperse through the hallway, muttering bitterly to themselves and grumbling their protests. Jaune, Melanie, Ruby, and Neon were the last to leave. With a collective sigh of annoyance to them, the four turned themselves around - shooting one last glare to the door to Ozpin's office as they did - and then-

A purple glow overtook them and stopped them in their tracks.

"And where do you think you four are going?"

"Um," Jaune began awkwardly, "Away?"

"No you aren't. I heard from Major Rainart," she tensed at the title, "That you four broke protocol and went on leave during mission time. Since it's your first offense, it's dish duty for a week."

"Yay."

"Now, since you were causing a disruption, tried to instigate a riot in the main hall and attempted to flee from your punishment and possibly debrief as well? Two weeks. Just in time for the troop demonstration on top of that."

"Not yay."

Neon did her best to crane her head back towards Glynda, "Can I still go to my band practice with Flynt and the others?"

"No."

"Fuck."

Reviewer response time:

Fanbane: Yeah, I have some strong feelings towards Coeur, is all.

bosterflaming: Yeah, Ruby's going to go through some things in this phase. Hell, they all are, and it's going to be fun as hell. And also psychologically devastating. Thanks for the compliments on how I've been handling the logistics of the Beacon Militia. I've really been putting a lot of thought into how they operate, and I'll probably be going further into it next chapter.

MilitiaMasker: Haven't read them. Don't care for either of them. I look at the reviews from time to time but I do not care enough to read them.

Guest: You made so many good points that I had to include a section of this chapter just to address them, as well as edit the previous chapter! Thank you good sir for pointing out these problems for me! Though I will say that Vale's food problems have only been going on for three months, not half a year.

N-Lorin: No way, he just reads summaries now? Now my annoyance to the man has increased tenfold.

ReDestrobo: Wow, you have a lot of feelings towards Cardin. I was genuinely not expecting that.

Average Pizza Fan: You, good sir, have also raised some good points, and so I have added points into this chapter as well to express what the adults of Beacon at this point have been doing, and deliver some consequences to Jaune and his actions, even if they were minor on both sides. Thank you very much for pointing this out to me. Yeah, I have really been doing the adults in this story dirty...

Average Pizza Fan (again): I'm not sure about another hot take, though. There aren't any other authors that I have a particularly strong annoyance towards. Maybe specific trends in the FNDM, but not specific authors.

(Another) Guest: Thematic parallels? What on Remnant are you talking about? *sweats profusely*

ZACK2357: ¡La espera ha terminado, amigo mío! ¡Espero que hayas disfrutado!

Welcome back, my friends! It's certainly been a long time!

A shorter chapter this time around, unfortunately, but I just had to get something out so that I could just get back into the groove of writing for this story. Let me tell you, when you have to rewrite an entire chapters three times in a row, you eventually develop a sense of not wanting to touch it with a ten foot pole, you know.

Yeah, I had to rewrite this thing three times, and after that, I just wanted to move on and forget about it.

But, things changed, and after posting a few other things in the interim, I finally got the kick in the shin that I needed to complete this short little segment and post it. Next chapter should definitely be longer than this one, at least, since I'm going to be going through no less than four different perspectives, maybe even more, which will help in expanding the current state of the world and how the people of Remnant have been coping with it.

The propaganda transcript at the beginning of the chapter was inspired by the old wartime propaganda films that were made by the military back during the Second World War, as well as modern military advertisements that we get today. Let me tell you, Coco's been having a field day making those.

On an aside, how have you guys been enjoying Ice Queendom so far? I'll admit, I wasn't a fan of the first three episodes and how they were just recaps of Volume One, but now that we're moving into more original territory I'm liking what I see, especially Pyrrha and Mirror Mirror in the most recent episode (as of writing this. Goddamn Pyrrha, you are looking good!). However, I've been seeing people on YouTube saying that it's cheap fanfiction and that it's terrible, and I'm just like, "Guys, what's going on? Why don't we just save those opinions until the end of the series itself before you come to that conclusion?"

Like, you know?

Anyways, sorry for the short chapter, and I hope that you guys liked it anyways. Hopefully I'll be getting more into my mojo soon enough, so with all that said and done, stay safe, stay healthy, leave a review, follow and favourite, and with all that said and done, I shall see you all next time!

Titanmaster 117 out!