Author's Notes

This is a sequel to Living The Dream. Aside from the premise of Cardin being launched from a rocket locker by Jaune, it's mostly standalone (Cardin will just be doing his own thing), but there will be several tie-ins to Living The Dream. There's (mostly) nothing you won't be able to interpret from context clues if you choose to read this one solo, but you'd probably be missing some hidden jokes.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 1 – The Beginning of the Beginning

In which Cardin Winchester buckles up and buckles his pants.

"You'll need some time to cool off and think about the merits of my offer, so enjoy the flight. Ruby and Yang tell me that Patch is awfully nice this time of year."

"Safe travels!"

That sludge-based life form! That overgrown chimpanzee! Cardin was going to rip his skull right out of his head and use it to carve out his heart! Orange-haired attack dog or not, Jaune Arc was a dead man!

He didn't quite fit into the rocket locker, forcing him to hunch over slightly just to avoid having his cheeks pressed against the top. On top of that, his hands were bound by some kind of cord, and both of his legs were snapped like toothpicks.

Cheap-shotting little…she only got me because I was expecting that loser Arc to be a man and fight me one on one! If it were a fair and square fight, I'd have squeezed the orange juice out of her! I'm a huntsman, twice her size – I'd never lose to a girl in a real battle!

At least his mace was with him, still holstered on his belt. Cardin was going to need it if he was going to get out of here before the rocket locker got too high up. He could see the ground disappearing beneath him through the few air-slits, but they weren't exactly at eye-level for such a tall man like him, so his ability to judge his altitude was somewhat impaired.

First things first – he needed to free his hands. The Valkyrie witch had lashed them together nice and tight, Cardin would grant her that. Cardin bent his body to the side, hoping to get the rope up against one of The Executioner's sharp flanges.

Darn it, it won't reach.

Cardin had no idea how high they were in the air, but it had to be enough that the drop would kill him by now. His best bet, the safest option, was to ride this darn thing out, land in whatever Pumpkin Patch Jauney-boy had sent him, and catch a flight back to Beacon…

No way am I slinking back to my team of queers with my tail tucked between my legs like that. I'll cut myself free somehow, force this thing to land, and be back by tomorrow morning!

He couldn't reach the ropes tying him up to his mace, but if he slid his hips to the edge of the locker and shimmied upwards, his mace would rise a little bit on the belt loop. Repeating this procedure seven more times, he painstakingly slowly managed to inch the mace closer and closer to his arms. Once it was at the right height, he pinned it to the wall with his hips.

Cardin leaned his chest towards the mace, and this time he was able to press the cords against a razor-edged flange.

Bingpot!

By leaning backwards and forwards, he moved the rope in the same way. It sawed itself up against the mace – again, an exceedingly laborious task that yielded almost no results each time he did it, but what else was Cardin supposed to do? He was on his way to the middle of nowhere, and he had all the time in the world to make a U-turn.

The rope was tougher than it looked. Cardin wasn't timing it, so he had no idea how long it took him to saw it down, but it felt like a whole hour. His shoulders were aching by the time he got to the last few threads, but it was worth it. In just a few moments, he'd be free to bust open a panel to the engines, pinch the Dust input manifold to whatever fed into the locker's propulsion, and control his descent back to solid ground. He assumed that it would be roughly similar to the mechanism within Russel's rocket daggers, but if not, he could just play around until he got the hang of it.

The cord was probably less than a millimeter in diameter now. Just one more cut, and he'd be free.

Maybe I'll take a quick breather before landing. What's one more minute when it's already been so long?

Cardin rocked himself forward, hoping to tear the rope, but it held firm. Leaning forward uncomfortably, he tried seeing if going faster would do the trick. It didn't.

"Stupid thing…" he growled to himself.

Maybe doing it in reverse would work. Instead of leaning backwards and thrusting himself forwards, Cardin tried tilting his body forwards this time. His face pressed closer to the slits, and he caught a glimpse of the outside world.

It's all…water. I'm above the ocean.

Patch was where Arc was sending him, and Cardin vaguely recalled that the island just off the coast of Vale was supposed to have its name start with a P.

No! I'm almost there! If I land in Patch without freeing myself, the boys back home will think I rolled over and let Jauney-boy have his way with me! I need to step up my game.

Building up his strength, Cardin threw himself backwards as hard as he could.

The cord broke.

Unfortunately, so did the locker.

His head slammed into the metal at the back of the locker, and he heard something snap. At the same time, the pressure on the mace pushed it through the metal side of the locker and tore open a hole. Frigid wind began to violently snap at Cardin's waist.

"Arrgh!"

Cardin heart the rockets go out beneath his feet as the wind whipped into his aura. For a brief second, he felt motionless – the locker had reached the zenith of its flight – until he suddenly began to tumble down to Remnant.

"No no no no no!"

The petty fear of running back to Beacon in shame was nothing in comparison to the sheer terror of dying before he ever got a real chance to live. Cardin was only seventeen, and he was about to be crushed in a airship crash without the airship. The insides of the locker suddenly began to resemble a cold metal coffin as he looked about them.

"No!"

Cardin slammed his foot into the base of the locker, desperately hoping to jump start it. Whatever he'd done by accident had somehow cut off the Fire Dust flow that was powering the thrusters, so maybe if he violently disturbed the pipe or tube or intake manifold enough, it would open back up and turn back on.

It was impossible to tell how far he was from certain death. The locker was not only falling but violently thrashing him about as it rotated on all three axes. Inside, Cardin was being shaken like a snowglobe, but he still had his aura, which muted some of the hits. It was disorienting and made it more or less impossible to get a good look out the front, but as long as Cardin kept his head on straight, he could keep kicking downwards and praying for salvation.

Said head collided painfully with the door to the locker. There was loud creaking sound, and less than five seconds later, the door flew off.

Now, Cardin had a great view of the world beneath him, and he could see that he was still above the clouds, easily a few miles in the air. His hands gripped the edge of the door to hold himself in before he could fall right out, but the locker kept spinning like an out-of-control top. Cardin regretted having an open view to the disorienting view of the world as it turned and turned about.

Shutting his eyes to prevent the sensory overload from making him lose consciousness, he drew all of his aura towards his skull and slammed the back of his head into the locker.

There was a weak noise, something akin to the crackling of a dying fireplace.

Then, the noise grew in strength. Cardin's feet began to warm up, as did the floor of the locker against which they were pressed.

FWOOOOSH!

A metallic voice spoke out.

"[Destination reached: Island of Patch]"

Cardin sighed a breath of relief and opened his eyes to see the clear night sky. There was only one problem: the stars were on the bottom, and the ground was on the top.

He was upside down.

Now that Cardin's tin can was no longer thrashing about wildly, his dizziness had faded, and he could get a better read on the situation. Whatever he'd done to jumpstart the locker had backfired, because even though the thrusters were back on, he was now accelerating towards the island place.

The locker's controls are probably busted! Curse you, Arc! This whole mess is your fault!

There was nothing he could do. The ground was probably less than half a mile from him, and he was only speeding up.

Well, there was one thing he could do.

SLAM!

The Dust rockets turned off once more.

Guess I have a head-shaped off switch.

Without the thrust to keep him going straight, Cardin's locker began to twist and turn once more. Cardin held himself steady as best he could until hitting his cranium against the back of the locker once more.

On went the thrusters. This time, Cardin was at a forty-five degree angle above the horizontal. The spinning ceased, and his altitude began to increase once again.

"[Warning: Deviation from Plotted Course]"

"[Warning: Navigation System Failure]"

"[Warning: Critical Systems Error]"

Cardin mentally waved goodbye to the Isle of Paste or whatever it was called as the stretch of land grew smaller and smaller. His hands were the only thing preventing him from falling out of the rocket – the torn-off door was facing downwards, meaning that Cardin had to press against both the left and right wall of the locker at all times to prevent himself from slipping right out.

He maybe could try to right himself a few more times, smack his head around into the walls a bit more, but he didn't exactly trust the way he was turning the systems on and off to be consistent. After all, if he turned the thrusters off and then found that he couldn't turn them back on, he was toast.

Better I just ride this thing out until I run out of Dust. I'm not in danger at the moment, unless I let go. There's no telling where I land, but I'd rather have to take a few bus connections, maybe even a few cross-country flights, than risk another 'crash course' in geography.

There were just miles and miles of ocean.

Cardin hadn't travelled much – he was a native Valean, born and bred – but he'd always seen the maps. It looked like such a small distance on the pages, but now that he was traversing the high seas from above, it felt like there should be a unit of distance higher than miles. Kilo-miles or something.

His makeshift aircraft had levelled off a while ago when the air had gotten so thin that the Dust was having trouble combusting at that height. He, his locker, and his mace had flown for hours, and Cardin had needed to stay awake through the full of it. His stomach was growling, and his mouth was so parched he could probably cough up more dust than an SDC mine, but he stayed steady. The second he let go, he was dead.

The sunrise came and went, and Cardin was still above the ocean.

A worrisome thought had struck him – what if the locker didn't make it back to land and instead crashed into the ocean itself? Cardin would have no way to paddle himself out to the mainland if he was caught hundreds of miles in the watery middle of nowhere.

It was an unpleasant thought, but there was nothing he could do about it now. The best Cardin could do was silently hope that he crossed Strait of North Sanus and touched down in Vacuo. The tribes there were supposed to be hospitable or something to guests, so he'd probably be able to bum the dough for a flight home off one of 'em.

If he was lucky, he might fly all the way to a civilized society, like Atlas or Mistral. There, he could access a bank, dip into the family fortunes, and buy a ticket without having to rely on some backwater nobodies.

Well, if I'm truly lucky, I'll loop around the globe and go back to Vale, but I doubt there's enough juice in the tank to make that kinda trip.

Wait, what if…what if he landed in Menagerie?

It'd probably better to just drown, Cardin thought to himself.

"Ten thousand, four hundred, and thirty…thirty…four Ursa, and one more will hurtcha! Ten thousand, four hundred, and thirty five Ursa, and one more will hurtcha! Ten thousand, four…"

He'd had to lower his aura and intentionally stab his thumb onto the jagged edge of the locker, the part that The Executioner had cut into when things first when wrong, in order to stay awake. The pain was unpleasant, to say the least, but he needed to stay alive so that he could paddle his way back to Vale and shove the locker up Jaune Arc's tight little butt.

Dove and the others had thought Cardin was…

So. Um.

Was he? Was Cardin…actually…

Time was a resource Cardin had too much of, and he needed something to keep himself awake, so he'd gotten down to thinking about things. The guys on Team Cardinal had called Cardin a fruit, but he couldn't really figure out why he'd behaved the way he had towards Jaune.

Arc's stupid face really riled him up, and he didn't like the feeling that dip made him feel whenever he saw him. Cardin's interactions with the guy pretty much consisted of reading some rambling newspaper that said he was a superhero before realizing it was written by an animal student, having detention forced onto him because of Arc's meddling, kicking him around before losing by mistake, and then the rest.

It had been nice to have Arc around – but not like that! When he had Arc under his control, Cardin didn't have to do homework, clean his dorm room, or pay for any of the free stuff Jaune had brought him.

When Jaune was his…Cardin had felt like a king.

But didn't every guy want to be powerful? It wasn't gay to want to be a rich prick who could order a fleet of butlers and maids to do his bidding. Take Jacques Schnee – he was a real gentleman-looking fella who lived like a king, and he had a wife. Cardin was just trying to get something like that.

Yeah, there's nothing more to say. I'm no fruit. I'm into girls. Case closed.

With that issue firmly resolved, Cardin devoted his brainpower to trying to calculate how many hours went into thirty-six thousand Ursai.

He probably would have died if it weren't for the sight of red soil, rich with gleaming purple crystals throughout. Sleep was about to overtake him, and the endless repetition of the waves rhythmically flowing back and forth was like a lullaby.

Hope filled his body, but it was quickly overridden by its inverse – despair.

Cardin recognized the rock formations he was staring at from the tubby professor's overhead projector. Those images that Professor Fatso had shown were the kind of thing that a huntsman never wished to see. Teach had said they only needed to know of it so that they could properly avoid it.

His grip on the locker hadn't faltered once, but now Cardin genuinely considered dropping down from great height if only to spare himself the doom that awaited below. Even a master huntsman like him wouldn't be able to carve a path out of the barren Grimmlands.

The lockers were designed by nerds, so they did their job properly. When the Fire Dust levels got low, the robot voice told Cardin it was beginning its automatic emergency descent procedures. Cardin was fortunate enough to have passed over the large herds of Grimm, and his landing path was going to take him into a Grimm-free stretch of several parallel ravines.

I'm tired as sin, but I can climb down into one of those ravines to rest up and catch my strength. From there, I can, I dunno, mine one of those crystals or something. Maybe if I can get enough Dust out of a big one, I can refill the locker, rig it to be controlled by my scroll, and fly back to safety. I might actually survive this!

When the locker got about five hundred feet from the ground, it righted itself and became perpendicular to the ground. Cardin wanted to release his grip on the sides of the locker, as his arms felt wobblier than gelatin, but he knew that if he loosened up his muscles and unclenched now, he would pass out from exhaustion. It was only the continuous exertion, the steady force that he'd had to apply, that enabled him to stay upright. The second he let himself and his focus go, he would be out of it.

His knuckles were caked in blood from the wind and the strain, as his aura had broken quite a while ago from enhancement of his strength. That meant he had really needed to push himself to the limit. Hits and semblance usage would burn through aura fast, but simple empowerment of muscles to increase strength or agility only used up, like, 5% per hour or something. Cardin wasn't big on numbers. He was a fighter, not a thinker.

The rocket locker slowed itself by burning out the last of its Fire Dust and exhausting the blast downwards towards the ground. Descending and decelerating to a stop, it came down not with a resounding crash but with a light 'tink.'

Cardin tried to step out, but his legs failed the second he took a step. His pants also fell down; he hadn't noticed at the time, but the initial jolt that had made everything go wrong had also slit his belt. His arms were still in working order, though, so he managed to pull himself to the edge of the nearest ravine.

I can't stop, or some Grimm will find me and have me for lunch. If I give up now, everything I went through will have been for nothing.

The last of his strength was spent as he pushed off the edge and rolled down the 6-foot cliff. From here, he was hidden from view of any Grimm that made their way through the flat plains. As long as no Grimm decided to take a detour and climb down next to him, he'd be fine.

"Need some sleep," he muttered aloud.

Cardin's limbs felt like they were made of solid lead. His eyelids asked for permission to drop, and his brain just barely had the strength to grant it.

Cardin stepped past the door, not knocking. Why would he need to knock? He was the one in charge here.

"Hey there, big boy."

The room looked a lot like Mom and Dad's old bedroom, but instead of the fancy pants stuff dad always kept, there were huntsman implements. The Executioner was hung on the wall, alongside a wide array of clubs, blunted polearms, and smaller maces. Dust Crystals of every shape and size were littered on the floor. It looked like the little red girl, Rudy or whatever, had designed the room.

"I was worried if you were coming."

The only thing of Mom and Dad's that was still there was the bed. The curtains were drawn, preventing Cardin from seeing who was inside, but he had a feeling he already knew.

Stepping past the wine bottles in their ice coolers and the illuminating crimson candles that lined the floor, Cardin pulled aside the shades to see a head of blond hair. Above that hair was a pair of handcuffed fists, restrained by the bed's headboard.

"Ready to get started?"

"DAAAAAH!"

Cardin awake with a jolt. His fists instinctively lashed out, but there was no one in front of him, and he ended up cracking the red rock walls of the canyon in which he'd been resting.

His neck was aching, but he felt a lot more well rested now. Cardin looked up at the sky, hoping to tell if it was morning by the sun, but thick gray clouds blocked his view of the sky.

Guess I'll just have to roll with it…

Hey, what was that? Man, I guess I'm really eager to get back to Beacon if I'm dreaming about…tying down Arc and kicking the loser's butt.

Cardin stood up. He wasn't tall enough to see over the ledge of the ravine, but his instincts told him that even if he was, it wouldn't be wise to yet. Stepping closer to the wall, he reached up, hopping a few feet into the air, and caught his fingers on the ledge. His arms and legs were also feeling better now, though his darn neck…

Lifting slowly, he flared up his aura just in case and raised himself so that his eye level was just above the ground. If there were any Grimm, they'd just barely see the tip of a human's head popping out of a ravine, but he'd see them first.

Nothing. The coast was clear. Cardin saw some winged ape Grimm type that he'd never laid eyes on before soaring through the skies in the distance, but none were even remotely close to him. He was still hidden.

Wonder what those things are…I guess I'm in the heart of the Grimm territory now, so it's not surprising that I'll see a few rare Grimm that no one else has documented yet. No one goes out to these territories and survives, so there's probably new species abound–

Cardin's throat seized up.

"arisssssarissssarissss"

No one survived the Grimmlands. Even pro-hunters who'd trained their entire lives and launched well-manned scouting missions with the finest Dust the SDC could provide had never returned from their expeditions.

T-That just means I'll be the first. Damn straight – Cardin Winchester, blazing the trail, going where no pussies have ever made it. I'm an Alpha Male something fierce.

The pep talk he was giving himself wasn't doing all that much to quell his fears, and the pain on his neck was only intensifying the more he worried. Cardin raised a meaty hand to rub at it.

His hand felt something.

His neck didn't feel his hand.

"PSSSSSPSSSSSPSSSSS!"

Cardin panicked and began to rapidly brush whatever was flung around his throat off. When it didn't let go, he gripped whatever it was – it was below his chin, so he couldn't see it – with both hands and yanked it right off. That did the trick instantly; the tension disappeared, as did the pain. Cardin looked down to see what had been biting him.

In his hands, Cardin held a tiny Centinel.

What the – that's one of those Mantlean bug Grimm, the kind that looks like a centipede, or maybe an earwig! What's it doing this far from the crater?

Well, they were in uncharted lands. It was entirely possible that they were native to here as well, and no one knew because no one had been here to document them.

The fear began to die down. No one except me.

Who knew? Maybe the tiny things originated here and had swum to Solitas. This was the Grimmlands, the source of all things monstrous.

Cardin looked at the wriggling little bug in his hands, then felt one of them to his neck. There wasn't any blood, meaning that he must have subconsciously raised his aura in his sleep when the miniature son of an arachnid tried to burrow its way into his throat. That was good; Cardin had no supplies with him, so even a tiny infection could spell disaster. His primary combat school had drilled into his head that aura only boosted healing, not the immune system. If this little demon had bitten its mandibles past the skin and injected Cardin with Grimm AIDS, he'd be screwed. As it was, his aura automatically regenerated faster than the skinny pipsqueak's micro-jaws could gnaw into it, so there was no real damage.

The small insectoid was probably less than three feet long, but it had next to no strength. Cardin held it by the antennae and dangled it for a second. It was so weak that it couldn't even muster up the upper body strength to raise its own butt into the air to try and free itself.

Little weakling – Cardin would take his time tearing it apart limb from limb. Grimm were attracted by fear, so a little stress relief was owed to his at this point.

Wait a sec…I left my mace in the locker. Gotta go get that first.

He could just imagine coming back to Vale, mace proudly slung over his shoulder. Cardin would be the first man, woman, or child to have braved the Grimmlands and not only survived but taken a few names.

Holding the Centinel in one hand, he gripped the ledge in the other and hoisted himself up. Years of doing pull-ups back at gym class had made such a task measly work for one as tough as Cardin.

The locker was just a short distance away. Cardin took one step towards it and faceplanted.

What…oh, right. My belt got caught, and now my pants are sagging. Shame they don't have a clothing store out in these parts, cuz I could really use a–

Hold on a second.

Cardin looked down at the Grimm in his hands. Its pincers on both its face and butt were curved outwards, making little J-shaped…

"First to the Grimmlands, first to wear a Grimm for clothes – today is a lot of firsts, isn't it, mate?"

The cinched Centinel offered no response beyond its usual chittering. Cardin had had to suck up his gut a little bit to get it to wrap around his waist, but once he'd hooked its pincers together, it was tighter than the finest leather belt lien could buy.

"Great. Now that I'm done being naked, it's about time to get started. So, what am I getting started with?"

The big fix to his problems was obvious – repair the locker. Dust was present in plentiful quantities, but he had no idea if the purple (probably Gravity) that surrounded him would work.

I guess it'll have to – I ain't got a choice.

The Dust rose out of the ground like massive spires of a mighty castle. The ground typically tended to be even in most spots, and it looked like only the Dust spikes had disrupted it. It was almost as though this were a flat continent, then some sub-dermal geological BS had happened, pushing the Dust out and making all the features in the land. Whatever had happened, it was to Cardin's benefit, as the ridges, canyons, and plateaus that lined the horizon were probably the only thing giving him and cover from those hordes of Grimm that were roaming this hellish place.

However, he'd need to not only refuel it but somehow control its flight. Maybe if he were lucky, the preset destination of the Isle of Paste would still work, but Cardin wasn't feeling lucky.

Either way, I'll need to turn it on first. If it launches right away, all the better. If it doesn't, maybe I can find a scroll port or hotwire some kinda sumthin'.

Those weren't the only problems, though.

The amount of time it would take to both dislodge that much Dust from one of the crystals without making it blow the heck up as well as grind it down to useable powder would make this a multi-day endeavor. He'd been lucky enough to only find Belty McCentipede here last night; if he tried to spend another night without real shelter, he'd die for certain.

On a more pressing note, he had no food or water.

I don't know if there are any animals in this place, and I also have no clue if fresh water flows here.

It probably did – just because there were Grimm didn't mean the water cycle got interrupted. There were already clouds in the sky, which meant that there would eventually be rain. Rain meant lakes, and lakes meant quenched thirst.

Would it be better to scout around and make a base camp, or to just chug through the entire thing as fast as he could on whatever dinner he'd had last evening? None of the survivalist classes Cardin had enrolled in taught him the answer to a question like that.

Cardin's stomach grumbled, and he remembered that he had no idea how long he'd been asleep. If it had been something long, like a day, then he was already a day and a half without water. Crushing the Dust up would probably take longer than that, so he needed to find something to drink before he dehydrated. The clock had already started counting down.

So, which way was food and water? Running off into the middle of nowhere sounded like a bad idea, but there weren't exactly deer tracks in the barren wastelands.

Since I've got no idea where a meal or a drink are, I'd better just go in whichever direction is the safest. I've got just as much chance of stumbling into something if I go north or south. Not that I know which way north or south is, without the sun.

In the end, Cardin decided to follow the ravine. That way, when it was time to come back, he could just turn around and follow it back to the locker.

He sang the song again, the Ursa one, to time himself. Wandering for days wouldn't do, so he chose to limit himself to roughly two hours in each direction. Each verse in the song took roughly three seconds, so that meant about 2,500 Ursa would be the stopping point – the exact number wasn't as important as the fact that Cardin had a concrete stopping point. Once he got to 2,500, he'd turn around and try the other direction of the ravine.

I could branch out in other directions, but I'd just get lost. If I can't find food or drink along the ravine, I'll just turn back and try my luck with the Dust.

The flight back wouldn't be as bad, since Cardin wouldn't be held upside down from the locker. He would control the takeoff and flight path, so he could just start off upright, curl up into a ball, and catch some Z's once they levelled off.

Cardin held his breath, hoping that the stag Grimm he'd seen hadn't seen him. Those antlers looked like the kind of thing that could tear through a huntsman's armor in one blow.

It looked kinda like a mount. If that idiot Arc were here, he'd probably try to hop on it's back and ride it or something. Dork.

It was alone, which Cardin had silently thanked the Brother Gods for, because if it did see him, he could simply try his luck against the moose-looking thing. A herd of Grimm, even something simple like Beowolves, meant endless waves of reinforcements rushing him and working down his aura one at a time. A single Grimm was little more than a time-consuming nuisance.

Since the Winchester Trench (if he discovered it, he got to name it) was taller than Cardin was, he could keep walking while the deer sniffed into the air. Still, he decided to watch his step, lest he nudge a rock out of mistake and alert it to his presence. Rushing would have been a mistake, but if Cardin froze up like a snowflake every time a Grimm came out from behind a corner in the flipping Grimmlands, he'd never make it back home.

The deer Grimm had been spotted at a thousand and three hundred Ursa, meaning that Cardin was about halfway through his trek. He honestly was considering quitting early, since there had been no sign of anything of value to a human like him in this direction so far.

"Squawk!"

That was enough to get Cardin's attention. Terrestrial Grimm weren't much of a threat, but if a juvenile Nevermore flew over his head, spotted him, and flew down, it'd draw the attention of every beast from here to the coast. Grimm might be mindless, but they would at least be smart enough to see one of their own diving out of the sky and realize that whatever had attracted its attention might warrant theirs as well. Taking cover at the edge of the ridge, he scanned the skyline for winged creatures.

I sure hope they don't have the ability to talk to one another or mentally communicate somehow. Though I guess the Centinel I'm wearing would've already tipped off the deer and bird to my location if they could.

There were no blackbirds in the sky, but Cardin did see something flying.

"A seagull!"

The deer Grimm heard the shout, but Cardin was already crawling his way out of the ravine and chasing in the direction of the gull. Braving a single Grimm was well worth it if he could chase down the bird towards its point of origin. Seagulls meant the ocean, which would mean fish for him to hunt. Even if that didn't pan out, Cardin might be able to find a nest or even eat the seagull itself for food.

Plus, seagulls drink both seawater and freshwater. It might lead me to a stream or something.

Water was the more pressing concern, since he could go without food for a much longer period of time. He'd prefer both, but he supposed he'd have to take what he could get.

The deer Grimm was surprisingly easy to kill; it had probably spent most of its life in the barren Grimmlands without ever having seen a human, so it wouldn't have much combat experience beneath its belt. Cardin didn't spend much time on it, just smashing the things head with his mace as he desperately followed the path the seagull had been taking. If he lost that, he lost his last hope.

If there were any other Grimm in the area, they wouldn't sense a thing, because Cardin was feeling no fear right now. The only emotion flooding through his brain was elation – raw, primal joy at the prospect of having his first win on this island. Everything had been spiraling out of control before, with Arc and his trained attack girlfriend and the locker and the pants, but things were turning around. He'd find food, he'd find water, he'd mash up some Dust, and he'd fly home to a hero's welcome.

The boys are gonna love this story. I'll probably be graduated right on the spot by Headmaster Ozpin.

The seagull flew itself over a small plateau, and Cardin smashed The Executioner into the side of it to pull himself up. Using his gargantuan mace like a pick, he climbed his way up the steep incline, only to find that there was a forest up ahead. Not a forest of trees, but a forest of mountainous Dust peaks.

Cardin had come too far to stop. All thoughts of finding his way back exited his mind as he relentlessly pursued the squawking bird across the arid landscape.

I can do this! Come on, don't take this away from me!

The seagull had flown straight. It was impossible to watch it through the maze of Dust crystals, but Cardin trusted it to be out there on the opposite side once he maneuvered his way through the narrow field of tall, thin power crystals. Chaotic thoughts flew through his brain as he rushed – hastily baked ideas to come back and harvest the Dust, random jumbled notions of using the bird's internal compass to find his way – nothing of actual substance, but enough to give him the right mixture of hope and determination to push onwards.

As he ran, he saw that there was no way forward up ahead save for a thin patch of narrow Dust spikes sticking out of the floor. Nothing he couldn't step over if he was careful, but Cardin didn't have time to be careful right about now – he needed to be fast. The Executioner was mid-swing before he even got to the crystals.

He must've swung too hard or hit them at the wrong angle or something, because he was lifted off the ground as the Gravity Dust fractured.

No! No, I can't lose the–!

Panic filled his body.

The sound of howls filled his ears.

This is okay! This…This is okay. I can make this work.

Cardin gripped one of the closer crystals and pulled himself closer to it. Kicking his boots off the face, he flew through the air, unbound by the confining draw of gravity. His destination was another crystal, one he could grab onto and keep bouncing off of to make it out of the maze.

Just keep jumping, Cardin. Just keep moving forward, and you'll find your way out. Think of it like a Beacon obstacle course.

That helped to calm him down. There was light up ahead – not the bright light of day, but rather the lack of utter darkness that this cave-like Dust forest shrouded itself in. The only way he could see was the weak glow of the crystals themselves, meaning that the light at the end of the semi-tunnel was easily visible. Cardin clawed his way to the front of the crystal on which he stood and kicked off, flapping his arms like he was swimming.

Gravity turned back on when he was outside of the Dust's force field, and his body sank like a rock back into the reddish, crackling dirt.

"Where's the bird?!"

Cardin scanned the skylines, but there was nothing there.

"No!"

"Caaaaw!"

Sighing deeply, he finally found it. No longer was it airborne, hence his inability to pick it out from among the clouds. The seagull had descended and was picking at scraps of garbage in a pile.

Alright. Now I just need to catch it and – wait, what?

Doing a double take, Cardin verified that the bird was in fact scrounging through the top layer of a dense pile of refuse. The waste was formed into a large pile and contained a wide assortment of mixed items – food wrappers, empty bottles, used toiletries, even some bullet casings.

Why was there a dump in the middle of the Grimmlands?

Cardin's eyes drifted upwards.

Oh. It must be the trash that comes out of the huge castle.

Right.

Why was there a giant castle in the middle of the Grimmlands?!

tl;dr Cardin's a boy scout and knows wilderness survival stuff

Next Chapter: Starting at the End

In which Cardin Winchester burgles a h̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ castle and hotwires a c̶a̶r̶ airship.

Author's Notes

Welcome to the sequel to Living The Dream, or rather the Cardin-centric spin-off.

The nitty-gritty first: 80,000 words, 13 chapters. Fully written, still updates on Tuesdays. As mentioned above, it isn't mandatory to read Living The Dream, but you'd probably be better off.

Of the stories I've written, this is probably the best, in my opinion. It's short, but every chapter has its purpose, and there's little to no filler or wasted moments. As a result, the entire story is basically one continuous journey with the plot spanning from start to finish. I like it, and I think you'll like it to, if you're into my style of stories.

Cardin will be starting off as the same jerk from canon, but this is a redemption story (as readers of Living The Dream know). I'm using the same no swear rules from that one, aside from minor exceptions (Vacuoans rejoice).

On an unrelated note, I've reached the limit for the number of chapters I can have on FFN net, so I had to delete some old chapters from K and The Empty Fishtank just to make space.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!