This one's for you, ReDestrobo, ya Cardin fanatic. I hope you like it.

Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Theme: To My Parents by Anna Clendening

"Mum, I can handle it."

Cardin tried his best not to quail under the scrutinising gaze of his mother, Governor Napolea Winchester, as she looked over him despite her being shorter than him, an air of dismissiveness to her as she rolled her head to the side. Outside their expensive manor, the people of Communo - the town that the Winchester family, formerly House Winchester under the old Valerian nobility, now governed after a long political battle with the rest Vale's council - went about their day as if everything was perfectly normal, completely unaware of what was happening within the estate's lavish walls.

"Oh, can you now?" Napolea asked him with a raised eyebrow as near the entrance to her office, her two assistants (practically indentured servants, considering the debts that they owed the Winchester family. Gambling was a hell of an addiction), Ray Bradford and Paul Winston, stood to the side like a pair of lemons, looking awkwardly between each other as they tried not to directly look at the scene before them. Napolea continued, "And how are you going to 'Handle' Beacon Academy on your own, hm? How are you going to 'Handle' the Grimm, and criminals, and the degenerates that knock on our doors and walls every other day?"

"That last one-"

"Isn't your concern? Oh, on the contrary, it is nothing but your concern," Napolea interrupted him with, pointing a bony finger (she was a woman obsessed with her weight and health, as well as her own supposed beauty, so much so that she would rather run herself thin and anorexic than even consider putting on any weight. She looked like he could blow her over with but a puff of air, and yet she made it constantly made it clear as to who held the power over the two of them, "Out there, the decrepit and the unworthy try to gain entry into our fine town. If even one single Techion, or heavens forbid one more Faunus than we already have, breaks in and tries to steal a place for himself in here, then that will invite even more to our home like a flood to wash away everything that is great about us and our family."

"We already employ a Faunus..." Cardin muttered. At the same time, the maid of their estate, Siel Natalia, nervously walking in, a tray with a glass and bottle of wine balanced on it in her hands as she placed the tray on Napolea's desk.

"Don't change the subject, boy," Napolea picked up the empty wine glass and gestured for Siel to fill it with the red drink, "You're my son, not my advisor, and you will refrain from speaking to me as such ever again. Got it?"

Cardin frowned, "Right..."

Napolea grimaced, "Remember this, O son of mine; the only reason that I am putting you into Beacon Academy is for you to build up the political connections we need to make just not our town, but our family, great again," Siel began to fill up his mother's empty wine glass with drink, "You are a politician, not a warrior, and the last thing we need is for you to be obsessed with warriors like your father now, do we?"

Cardin nodded. He hated his father. His father would rather fight and look to Vale's future as a military power for both Humans and Faunus rather than further the prosperity of his own family.

His mother hated him, and as such he had to as well. It was his duty as her son.

"Venta would rather care about the fools who would follow him into his Valerian military projects than to his own people and family name," Napolea scoffed, glaring at Cardin if he didn't nod in agreement with everything that she said, "And meanwhile, Communo serves as one of Vale's primary food suppliers and farming communities. We send all of our produce to Vale and take none of it for ourselves," Napolea growled, "And yet we still live in wooden houses and huts like commoners," she seemed to forget that the Winchesters, the rulers of the town, were themselves based in a lavish, expensive manor, one of which took much of the produce that their town made to be sold to other old money families, and forcing the rest of the town to rely on exports from Vale proper, "With you in Beacon, and eventually on the Valerian council itself, we will turn this fragile little town into a hub for Vale, a place for everyone in the world to see how the Winchester family rose to prominence once more."

Cardin just nodded along to her words in silence. He'd heard this speech a hundred times before, of course, but it was always better to let her rant than to interrupt her. Safer as well.

Next to them, Siel finished filling Napolea's glass, but when she stepped away, she accidently spilt a pair of droplets of red wine onto Napolea's white and gold dress.

{SLAP}

"You stupid animal!" Napolea swore as she retracted her hand from Siel's reddening cheek, the Bear Faunus keeping a tight grip on the wine bottle in her hands as the bony woman grabbed one of her extra ears and began to twist it, "Can you do nothing right!?"

"I-I'm sorry, I won't-" Siel let out a cry of pain as Napolea twisted her ear hard enough to make it bleed.

With a dismissive flick of her hand, Napolea released Siel's ear and flung her head back, almost toppling the Faunus maid to the ground as she held the wine bottle close to her chest.

"Leave the bottle and get a rag to clean up the mess that you made."

With a quiet sniffle of pain from her bleeding ear, Siel placed the bottle of wine on Napolea's desk and hurried out of the room. Cardin knew she wouldn't bother getting a plaster or band-aid for her bloody ear. She'd been reprimanded by his mother enough to know that it was wrong and a waste of time to do so.

"Useless animal," Napolea muttered to herself.

Cardin said nothing. He just stared at the empty doorframe in silence, an empty expression about him.

"Cardin."

He looked to her, and saw that she was looking at him expectantly, seemingly not even bothered by the stain on her dress anymore.

"...Fucking animal," he said after a while, an octave quieter than before, "Can't believe she did that to you."

Napolea nodded, "That's better," and then took a long sip of her wine, a trail of it leaking from her cheek and onto the top of her dress, leaving another stain. She had no reaction to it. Cardin as about to point out the fresh stain, as well as the fact that wine wasn't healthy for her as well as anything else she refused to eat or drink, but relented.

He knew he'd get slapped for it as well.

"...I can handle Beacon on my own," Cardin eventually said after a long pause, "I'm strong. I'm strong enough to-"

Napolea laughed. It was an ugly, rattling thing and it made Cardin shiver.

"You? Strong? Strong enough to handle Beacon Academy, and the life of a Hunter, all on your own?" Napolea cackled before giving him a deadpan stare, "Don't be stupid, boy. I've seen those 'Training sessions' you've been having with your instructors. You haven't been able to keep up with them for the past five years!"

She turned away from him, as if to have him off, her point made.

"I've already had to bribe a deluge of people to wave off the results of your physical exams to get you into that academy. You wouldn't last a minute without my connections, so perish the thought."

Cardin gritted his teeth. He was trying. He was seriously trying. He'd been trying to train and become a Hunter since he was six years old, even if his mother hated the idea. He couldn't understand why he wasn't improving, why he had just plateaued in skill like he had, why he couldn't just get better-

He couldn't. It didn't matter how hard he tried, but he just. Couldn't. Get. Stronger.

It vexed him to no end. But still...

"Let me prove myself," Cardin asked, earning his mother's attention once more, "Let me get into Beacon with my own strength and skill. Let me prove that I can be more than just a politician, more than-" more than just your son, "Let me prove that I can be a warrior, like the Winchesters of old-"

"No."

Cardin hissed in protest, but his mother responded by grabbing him by the chin, her bony, skeletal fingers dragging across his throat like daggers.

"Here is what is going to happen, boy. You are going to get into Beacon Academy with the advantages that I have given you, you are going to build the bridges that I- we need to gain prominence in Valerian politics once again, and you are going to become a councilman afterward, and bring Communo and the Winchester family up as one of the strongest families in this blasted kingdom once more.

The fingers around his chin tightened.

"Is that clear...?"

"...Yeah. Clear."

They tightened again.

"I-I mean... yes, Mother."

Napolea sniffed with a narrowed glare, "...Good," and she let go of Cardin's chin, not looking at him as she refilled her glass of wine and downed the whole thing. At the same time, Siel came back into the room with a cloth and began to wipe the stain at the bottom of her mistress' skirt, pampering her lady as if she were a queen.

Cardin was sure that, if she had her way, Napolea soon might be.

"...How do I build those bridges?" Cardin muttered to himself, hoping that his mother wouldn't hear.

She did.

"The only thing that Hunters respect is strength, boy, and you're always going on about it, aren't you? Use it. If they don't respect your name, then make them respect your strength."

And then she looked away, sparing him no more words or consideration.

Cardin hid how much he bristled at her words, and then turned to walk out of the room, only to pause as he realised that his mother hadn't-

"You're dismissed."

Right. Thank the Gods.

Cardin walked out of the room and into the rest of the manor, his hands shaking at his sides.

Right. Show them his strength.

He could do that.

He could do that...

He couldn't do it.

He couldn't show his strength.

He didn't have any left to show.

The wide hold of the gutted Grimm Tidings was dark and filled with the smell of death. Dozens of bodies in various states of disrepair surrounded him like a graveyard of the dead and soon-to-be-dead. The echoes of battle outside continued to rage and roar.

His father was dead. His flagship, the Winchester, was surely down and destroyed.

And he was soon to be dead as well, wasn't he?

They were all going to die, weren't they? In a dark metal room, in the middle of a dead ship in the middle of a malevolent horde of monsters in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by those that they would be joining in death.

Everything was falling apart, and so was he.

His body moved. His mind was rushed with adrenaline and filled with the fresh fear of death and realisation that everything that he had wanted to do and be and work for was all worthless and impossible now. Nothing was clear to him. No one had listened to him before. They had all listened to the Arc boy.

His mind focused on what he had been saying before. The Arc boy became the target of his angry panic.

His mouth began to move of its own accord, his thoughts too riddled with terror to understand what he was saying. Everything in him was boiling and bubbling. He didn't want to die. He didn't. He was scared and angry and he needed something or someone to take it out on and the Arc boy was perfect.

People tried to get in his way. In his eyes, they were just shapes, blurs. He swatted them away. They tried to tackle him. He barged through them. His body was smeared with his blood.

The blurred body beneath him stared up. The mace in his hand felt heavy, yet he still raised it up over his head. His mouth was still moving, screaming, crying. Why was his vision becoming so blurry? Were tears leaking out of his eyes? He wobbled in place.

He made to throw the mace down, even as the red blur next to the blond one picked up a gun from the ground and raised it to his head and pulled the trigger as a bright light flashed off and-