Chapter 13 – You Know He Survives
Don't worry. You saw him in Living The Dream with Long John, so they're fine.
"Huntsman, they're coming!"
"I know."
"We need to move faster, huntsman! Do you hear me? We need to–"
"I know."
"Was that a Grimm?! I think I saw a Grimm? There's a–"
"I! Know!"
Cardin's arm wasn't healing, and he could barely find the strength to raise Crocea Mors. He wanted to use The Executioner, his more familiar weapon, but it was simply too heavy to hold above his waist. Long John was now slung over his shoulders like a feather boa, but the sheep-like townsfolk were too willfully ignorant to pay any attention to that. Their eyes were drawn to the forests.
Cardin was leading them through a shallow ravine, hoping that the natural barriers from both raised sides would offer them some cover, but they weren't. No bulky elevated cliff of dirt and grass could shield their intense fear.
He wanted to snap around and scream at these people to control themselves and their terror, but that wouldn't be fair. He was just as terrified.
The Grimm had them surrounded. They knew it, and the Grimm knew it. Cardin was no longer the hunter in this scenario. Every now and again, a black shadow would pass over the body of people as the Beowolves above skittered about. Cardin even locked eyes with an Alpha at one point, but it just disappeared back into past the tree line into the cover of the forests. It was broad daylight, but the trees were giving enough shade to make it resemble night, with only scant sunbeams breaking through.
These monsters weren't sparing them. They were savoring the hunt. Cardin knew that he and the rest would never make it back to the walls of Vale, despite the fact that they had to be less than a mile away at this point. He and his band of civvies were jogging through their small gulch, which was pretty much their top speed. The people could probably sprint the rest of the way, or at least pick up the pace, but Cardin with his frail body and injured arm was holding them back.
We'll never make it.
Cardin nodded his head and stopped running.
We won't. But they might.
One of the passengers stopped behind Cardin. "Huntsman? W-Why are you stopping?"
Stupid Valkyrie chick, shoving me into a rocket locker.
The one person stopping triggered an avalanche of halting feet and confused civvies who had no idea what to make of it. The correct choice, the obvious choice, would have been to keep running even when Cardin stalled out, but these folks saw him and assumed he knew some grand secret knowledge.
It's no different than me and the Mistrilian hunters. They were graduates, but that fact didn't teach them the grand secret on how to be invincible. I'm not magically wiser just because I got my aura unlocked. Enrolling in Beacon didn't cause my common sense to evolve to the next level. I'm still just a person.
A person who needs to focus…
Cardin composed his thoughts.
The sight of the Grimmlands. Orbies pinning me. No way out.
"K-Keep going," Cardin grunted out, biting his lip as a fresh jolt of suffering shot through his right arm. He dropped Crocea Mors, and it silently stabbed into the peat beneath his feet simply by gravity.
Joining Raven because I thought it would be a ticket to the easy life.
"What? We can't!"
"We need you! We'll never make it to Vale!"
Fitting in with her tribe so easily.
Cardin clutched his pain-riddled arm. "I…I…I…"
"You know what you have to do, Cardin," Ozpin had said in his dream.
"…I have to turn around."
"WHAT?" asked one particularly distressed civvy.
Cardin coughed some blood onto the naysayer who'd questioned him, though not intentionally. "I'll lead the Grimm off. They'll follow me if I lead them in the other direction. Keep going through the ravine. Stick together, and don't for the love of Dust veer off for anything. Vale is due…"
He fell to his knees.
"…due west. Keep running, full speed. Don't stop, no matter what happens."
Aura, as long as it held, was a Grimm magnet like no other.
My first meeting with OC, calling him and the others Faunus rapists.
That and negativity.
OC, the man who set me straight, decapitated like livestock. Raven standing atop his head.
Fortunately for Cardin, he had a deeper pool of regrets to draw upon than any huntsman or huntress alive.
Laura. Never even got to name her own boy…
Heather and Harkin and Farrow and Roux and Amethyst. Thrown to the Beowolves like their whole lives, all their overdrawn, exaggeratedly heroic stories, didn't matter one bit.
Lionheart. Scum. Filth. ANIMAL!
The people hadn't left. Cardin shooed them with his hands.
"What are you waiting for? Run!"
He kept his voice low, so as to not set off any temperamental Grimm that would have the choice to make. Would they go after the mass of jittery civilians, or would the most hating, terrified, bitter huntsman to have ever lived fill their stomachs tonight?
I'm going to die.
I went further than anyone, did more than most hunters do in a lifetime, and now I'm going to die less than a mile from my home to a small handful of run-of-the-mill Beowolves that I could mow down for a warm-up any other day.
Cardin steadied his breathing, reclaimed the sword that wasn't his, and jogged back into the forest with that final burst of weaponized negative bait.
This was the same place he'd learned how to be a man in, or so he'd thought at the time. Cardin had truly learned more in the jungles of Mistral than his youthful training in the outskirt woodlands of Vale, but that was neither here nor there.
Surrounded on all sides by a single pack of Beowolves was nothing unusual for a huntsman. Cardin had been in this position before, many times. And no, not like the meme of the girl sitting on the couch with…never mind.
Down an arm? That shouldn't have been a problem. Any hunter who couldn't fight this few Grimm with a hand tied behind their back was a disgrace to the title.
Down a dominant arm, and forced to use a sword he'd only handled three or four times before? A setback. A serious setback.
Four…make that three…percent aura? It may as well have been a death sentence. No matter how monumentally talented a warrior was, they weren't worth a dried up damn if they didn't have aura to fall back to.
It would be okay, though. A warm, cozy cot was waiting with his name on it.
No! I can't think like that!
He needed to keep his negativity about him. As long as Cardin were the most negative, most spiteful, saltiest little jerk in all these woods, the Grimm would come after him and not the people he was sworn to protect. By this point, assuming they could all run like banshees, they'd be halfway to Vale. Still, there could have been some Grimm as close as the edge of the walls themselves. If Cardin even calmed down for a second, he would be condemning those innocents.
Stupid Arc! Gave me a sword, but it's his fault I came here!
Stupid Grimm! Why do you have to exist? You don't even want to! Just die! Just stop!
The Beowolves were now out of the shadows, snapping at his heels as they salivated over their handsome catch. Cardin lifted Crocea Mors as high as he could, hoping to take down as many of them as he could before he fell.
Should be about fifteen seconds, at only three percent. My best record is five in half a minute, so that's…two and a half to slay? I can beat that, easy!
Uhhhh…wait, crap…
Cardin rephrased his optimism.
Only because there are so many that I can stick my sword out and impale three just like that. I'm so surrounded. Woe is me.
He sighed. It had to have been enough time by now, and even if it weren't, all eyes were on him. Being a negative nancy was no longer necessary.
"Alright, then, c'mon! Get some!"
An Alpha pushed its way to the front of the pack, howled to tell its comrades who would be going first, and tried to jump Cardin. He raised the sword, and the creature's own momentum was enough to impale it.
It wasn't killed instantly, though, and kept swiping with its front paws at Cardin's torso. The beast had reach, and Cardin impulsively raised his battered arm to defend himself without thinking. Four white skeletal claws belonging to the dying Beowolf caught the wound where his flesh was opened and tore it even wider.
"AAAHHHHH!"
He considered pushing through the pain and trying to kill a few more, but what was the point? He was toast no matter how well he performed. The Invincible Girl herself wouldn't have been able to turn it around were she in this poor a situation.
Cardin fell to his knees, his breathing panting and ragged. A Grimm bit him from behind on the throat, and Cardin spent the last of his breaking aura slamming his head back the snap its neck.
Two, then. Not my record…
Actually, it was only about ten seconds to kill them. That's, what, five seconds per Grimm. Times it by six, so I woulda killed six Grimm – hey, I did beat my record.
At least Cardin would die with a smile on his face.
The Grimm were no longer ravenous in their pursuit of him, now that he had no aura or negativity to keep them focused on him. That didn't mean they would let him go, only that they felt they could take their time in tearing him to shreds.
Another Alpha stalked its way to the front, intending to claim the kill. Cardin lifted his head up and laughed heartily into the woods, despite the fact that none of its occupants would hear it.
"It's been a blast, world."
"SKREEEEEEEE!"
"Wha – no! No, LJ, don't do it!"
Cardin tried to reach out and grab Long John as the tiny Grimm lunged, but he couldn't stop him in time. The Centinel was already on the head of the Alpha, biting into it. Grimm rarely fought amongst their own kind, but their self-preservation senses were enough to tell them that if something was trying to gnaw into their skulls, they needed to get it off.
"GSSSSGSSSSGSSSS!"
The Alpha's claws were probably doing more damage to its own head than they were to the LJ, but that didn't matter to Cardin when he saw a thin, wiry leg, one of twenty, drop to the ground and disappear.
"I'll kill you!"
Crocea Mors eviscerated the offending Alpha, and Cardin had enough thrust to actually push through its vanishing body and land his blade into the next one behind it. LJ, who'd been on its head, dropped down onto Cardin's head as the Beowolf ceased to exist, adorning his ruddy hair like a coiled-up crown.
"You need to get out of here, buddy!"
LJ bared his mandibles at the Beowolves but remained atop Cardin's head. The front of his tiny little body reared up into the air and began to shake like a rattlesnake at the loathsome Beowolves.
"NSSSSNSSSSNSSSS!"
That was a no, then.
"Guess we go out together."
Cardin tore down another Beowolf when it tried to spring on him from behind, but that was the opening of the floodgates. With no more Alphas to hold them back, the Grimm descended upon the two of them. The pack had at least thirty remaining members, and with zero aura, Cardin would be lucky if he took out one of them.
He didn't let go of his sword, though.
"COME ON!"
"CSSSSCSSSSCSSSS!"
The Beowolves jumped.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
FWOOOSH!
BANG! BANG!
THOOOOOM!
Bullet – familiar bullets – tore through the Grimm before they could land a claw on Cardin or Long John. Ten well placed revolver shots caught the closest Grimm that had circled around him, and a Dust explosion ripped through the ones that hadn't been able to push close enough and remained at a distance.
The enduring Beowolves that survived the initial onslaught turned on the new challengers, but a sweeping halberd cut them all in half in a single tight swing.
"Heya, Card. Where ya been?" asked Dove, stepping down from a fallen tree he'd just climbed over, his revolver-sword Hallshott smoking.
"Oh, you know." Cardin spat out the blood that threatened to fill his mouth. "Here and there."
"Sounds like a – blast!" Russel excitedly bellowed, launching twin rocket blasts from Shortwings. "Get it? Blast?"
Feather's Edge clipped the leg of the last remaining Beowolf, and Sky's left boot made short work of its neck. "We were kinda worried for a minute, there, dude."
"Eh, I had it."
The four teammates broke out into a quartet of childish grins.
It was interrupted by a familiar warcry. "SKREEEEEEE!"
"You got one on your head," said Russel, aiming his rocket launcher.
"Dude, his aura's broke," chided Dove. "You'll blow his head off. Let me. I aim better."
Hahllshott raised to right above Cardin's scalp.
"S'cool," said Cardin. "He's a friendly. Say hi to the boys, LJ."
"WSSSSWSSSSSWSSSSSS!"
Dove and Sky gave LJ a quick nod each. Russel stuck out his tongue and mock-saluted with two fingers to his forehead. Cardin was glad to see his word was still law with the team.
"How'd you lot know I was here?" Cardin asked. "There was no way you could track my trajectory once I was out of the crashing airship."
Sky raised a brow. "Airship? Bro, you must have one crazy story."
"Our scrolls went off when you dropped below 20% and into the red a few minutes ago," explained Dove. "That meant you and that red aura of yours were back in range of the scrolls' long range sensors, meaning you were back in Vale."
"So you came running to find me?"
"Damn straight."
Cardin smirked and shook his head. "Can't leave you for five minutes without the team falling to bits. Ozpin was right to make me the leader if you depend so much on my superior guidance."
"Hey, we coulda let you become Beowolf chow!"
Cardin considered their point. "I guess I'll take a few laps off."
"Laps?"
"Around the school track. Gotta punish you three somehow for now coming to get me sooner."
Sky chuckled. "Well, excuuuuuse us. You didn't exactly leave a lot of clues, just straight up disappearing off the face of Remnant."
His smile faded, replaced by a look of genuine curiosity.
"Jokes aside, where you been, Cardin?"
Cardin was a jackass.
Correction: old Cardin was a jackass, and new Cardin just felt like a jackass.
The boys had immediately shaped up in the way they treated Faunus the second he'd outlined his new ways to them. That was a good sign, but it also meant that they weren't actually very racist back in the old days and had just been going along with it to humor Cardin.
I was a bad influence.
Cardin exhaled.
I need to be better now. This is the first step.
"Hey, Velvet!"
The petit rabbit Faunus was with her team. Cardin had chosen this particular time to confront her and apologize, as any other moment would possibly be mistaken for an attempt at bullying her when she was alone. Even at his worst, Cardin had known not to attack Velvet in the direct line of sight of Coco Adel.
Coco eyed him suspiciously, but Velvet allowed him to approach.
"Yes?"
"I…I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for what I said and did. It was rude of me and very smallminded."
It was a moment that made him look back and cringe. No, look back and burn with shame. He'd rounded up Team CRDL and pushed her around, yanked on her ears, and viciously made fun of her for her Faunus heritage. Others might have dismissed it as schoolyard antics or even him having a crush and wanting her attention, but Cardin knew the truth. He'd truly thought of her as subhuman simply because of a fluffy pair of rabbit ears. He'd actually seen her as nothing more than…
An animal.
Cardin lowered his head in a display of apology, hoping that Velvet would accept it. There was nothing to be done if she didn't, and that outcome was something knew he would simply have to live with if it came to pass. Velvet owed him no closure and no forgiveness; it would only be if she found it in herself to be the bigger hunter that he received such things.
"Oh…uh, d-don't worry about it. Um. Water under the bridge…uh…"
"Cardin."
"Cardin, right. Just…uhhhhh…remember to pay me back that ten lien you owe?"
Cardin tilted his head to the side. "What?"
"O-O-Or try not to be rude to Faunus."
I won't. Still, that was weird. Why did she–
"O-O-Or don't go around say my butt looks fat in the clothes Coco buys me, you know, c-cuz, well, she spends a lot of time carefully sizing them to my–"
"You don't remember me?"
Velvet paled in shame and retreated behind her ears, which lowered to cover her reddening face.
"Yes. I'm so sorry, Carlos."
Cardin blinked. Here he'd been, thinking his horrid behavior had scarred this girl for life and traumatized her irreparably, but she just walked it off.
Maybe that said something about how prevalent anti-Faunus sentiment was if Velvet was so inured to it, but all he could think of right now was that ̶C̶o̶c̶o̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶a̶p̶e̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶d̶i̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶ Velvet was happy.
Guess I'm not as important as I thought.
Velvet was still embarrassed, so Cardin smiled back as disarmingly as he could. "Hey, don't worry about it."
He reached into his wallet and pulled out a ten lien chip.
"This should cover what I owe ya, right?"
Velvet plucked the money out of his hands, cautiously at first as though it might snap at her, then eagerly pocketed it.
"Eight pound bag of carrots, come to mama!"
Velvet and her team turned to leave, with the rabbit Faunus waving him a goodbye as she did.
"Thanks, Coleslaw!"
That's one.
His journey to redemption was a long and arduous one. He first apologized to the old man Faunus of Team JNPR who he'd mocked on the first day of class, then to Dr. Oobleck for being so disruptive, then to Ozpin for having been the subject of an international search and extreme child neglect lawsuit for Beacon when he'd gone missing for nearly a month without leaving any clues or making any contact. There were a few other minor or recurring characters that he'd been rude to offscreen, so Cardin apologized to them in a manner that was as equally offscreen as his bullying.
It took him the better part of a day, the rest of which he used to cover his makeup work in history, the only subject where he'd actually fallen behind. Professor Port's lectures were so useless that Cardin had jumped right back in without missing a beat, and his experiences in the Grimmlands and Mistral had actually improved his combat more than Goodwitch's class would have in the same period of time. Plant studies wasn't something critical, and Professor Peach had just ignored him and continued to hit her bong in front of the class for the lecture (it was Weed Studies that week).
There was still one thing he had to do.
"You got this, bro."
Cardin nodded his head to psych himself up and agree with Russel simultaneously.
"Just remember that you were at fault. Don't let your temper get the best of you. Also, don't try to suck his–"
"Dude. I'm in a long-distance relationship with Mata now."
Sky shut up, but his grin didn't fade.
Cardin and his ram beau had texted and agreed to meet up with one another as soon as the White Fang crumbled and he was free of his contract. According to the reports Volta had sent Cardin, that was only a matter of time. Ghira Belladonna was making great strides in the demilitarization process and was probably soon to disband the organization he once founded. That would mean a lot of good things for a lot of people, but Cardin would just be happy to see Mata, Volta, and Cardin Jr.
"Car. You're fantasizing about ram schlong again."
Cardin shook himself back into focus. "Right. Gotta stay on task. He's finally awake, and I promised myself I'd do this as soon as I could."
Cardin's own aura had now fully healed the last lingering injuries that he'd sustained, so he was fighting fit. Fit enough to dole out one last apology…
"Get out there, tiger."
Russel slapped his butt, trying to be cheeky, but Long John leaned off of Cardin's waist and nipped at his finger, taking away some of his sassy thunder. Cardin stepped away from his team and towards the lunch table.
I can do this. I'm just apologizing to my ex-crush who I enslaved.
…
Yo, what the hell was wrong with me?
Arc was having lunch with Team CVFY. He still had a few blood-soaked bandages visible around his shoulders, meaning that he hadn't gotten the aura thing fixed yet. Cardin could offer to unlock it, but given that Arc was now some Citron Superman, he probably had it under control.
"…civil war or something, but you really oughta watch your back, Jaune," said Velvet, pursing her lips. Her eyes caught sight of Cardin, and she frowned for a second in confusion.
Cardin placed a hand on Jaune's back and opened his mouth to greet the man.
"GEEEEH!"
"WHOA!"
A punch thrown at the speed of a fairly slow punch nearly clocked Cardin's recently healed nose. Cardin caught it just in time.
"Cool it, Jauney-boy! I'm not looking for a fight, I swear."
Jauney-boy? Crap, I really need to stop calling him that. I'm with Mata now.
It wasn't toxic affection or misaimed lust this time, just slipping back into old habits now that he was face to face with his former archrival/love interest. Hopefully, Jaune would be mature enough to overlook the little nickname and have a civil conversation like adults.
"YAAAA!" Jaune screamed.
Cardin sighed and waited for him to calm down.
"C-Cardin?"
Arc was panting like he was about to have a panic attack at the mere sight of Cardin.
I really did a number on him. This makes apologizing a lot easier. He pushed me in a rocket locker, sure, but if I was causing him that much stress, I can't blame him for what he did. What he needed to do.
Arc finally got himself under control, but he was looking at Cardin like the taller huntsman was an alien. "Cardin, were you…were you in that rocket locker this whole time?"
Cardin snorted. "Nahhh, no way. I ditched that ride and traded it in for a…look, that's a whole 'nother thing."
Alright, time to get this out of the way.
"Jaune, I just came to apologize. Dove 'n' the others were right, I was…into you, and I expressed it in the worst way possible. Boy, I was being a real grade-A douche back then."
"You're…sorry?"
"Yeah."
Cardin didn't want to leave it at that. It felt so hollow, devoid of any real contrition on his part, but what more was there to say? Arc didn't look like he understood.
Of course he doesn't. He thinks I'm still the man I was before Mistral.
Perhaps if Cardin explained how his experience with the White Fang refugee camp and the Branwens had changed him, Arc would get a clearer understanding and accept the apology. He'd been a jerk before, but then he'd watched Vernal terrorizing the good people of Kuana Lunai to steal their supplies. That had been a pivotal moment in Cardin's life and had galvanized him to realize that being the strongest didn't mean you deserved to lord it over others.
Cardin nodded and expressed the sentiment.
"Being a ripped tomboy bully might feel good if you're the tomboy, but I learned that it's no fun when you're the guy whose meds are being stolen by robbers."
Team CVFY, behind the two men, all blinked.
Jaune blinked.
Cardin blinked.
"W-What?" asked Arc, as confused as anyone who heard that verbal diarrhea would be.
Cardin could think of no feasible way to salvage that train of thought as it crashed into the station, burst into flames, shot itself in the train engine, was swarmed by Grimm, and contracted train-cancer, so he dropped it and moved on with the apology.
What did he say next?
The truth would be a good starting place. Explain to him that it was misguided affections that drove your actions.
"I also learned that I'm into women and men."
Cardin looked at Arc and realized that may have been wrongly interpretable as a declaration of love. It wasn't; Cardin had Mata, but Arc had no way of knowing that.
"And rams."
He could practically feel Dove, Sky, and Russel snickering from behind him, even if he couldn't hear them.
"Again, story for another day."
Okay, so this apology was going about as well as General Lagune's march. Cardin decided it was best to just keep trucking on and just hand off the sword already.
"There's one more thing I have to give you."
What a crazy Vytal Festival Tournament that was.
He'd seen the thing run on the network three years ago and three years before that, but this time was particularly crazy. Not just because the same psycho Cardin's plane had been hijacked by showed up to challenge Arc to a deathmatch. No, they'd continued the tournament after that, and this year's winner…boy, that was a surprise. He never would have bet on the finals round turning out like that in a million years.
Neon Katt winning? What a day to be alive…
But now that it was over and the school year had concluded until next autumn, Cardin was free to enjoy his summer vacation however he saw fit, and he had a pretty good idea of where to start. The maps didn't show the brand new village, but they did show Xuxulin and Penhai and Llorous and all the other fallen settlements that had stood when it was printed, so Cardin figured it wasn't to be trusted. Still, the natural landmarks on it were essential to aim him in locating the new settlement, as he had no way of navigating to it otherwise.
As he set foot on the coastal town, he breathed in the crisp sea air. It felt like it was just yesterday that he'd washed ashore in a commandeered bullhead and feasted on the tuna fish that LJ had brought in. The Grimm in question was cheerily chirping as he recognized the familiar scents of the village's residents.
Or at least he assumed that was it. Could Grimm smell?
"Cardin! Over here!"
Cardin made his way to the waving cluster of Faunus standing at the main gate. The walls of this place were thicker and sturdier than Kuana Lunai, though it most likely was no longer necessary. Raven was dead and buried, and the Grimm horde that Lionheart had fed hunters too had been thinned out by diplomatic envoys – a.k.a. visiting Atlesian military who were helping regain control of Mistral at the new headmaster's request. The threats that had led to the ruin of those many villages were now gone, and only normal Grimm numbers were being reported.
Cardin greeted Mata with a kiss, Volta – oh, excuse him, Captain Volta (as she didn't hesitate to remind him) – with a handshake, and baby Cardin Jr. with a tiny, baby-sized wave. Cardin Jr. didn't really seem to know who Cardin Sr. was, though, and began to cry.
"Welcome to Chroma," said Volta, speaking over the wailing infant.
"Chroma? What's up with that name?"
"It's to honor Ori Chromus," explained Mata.
Cardin paused and racked his brains. Ori Chromus…
"Who?
Volta rolled her eyes and handed Mata the baby. When her hands were free, she scooped up a clump of sand and chucked it at the upper opening of Cardin's breastplate.
"You buffoon."
Cardin chuckled. "Glad to see that our vaunted captain is still just a teenager at heart. And at body."
"It's what OC stood for," said Volta.
Cardin shook his head and placed a hand over his heart. "Nuh-uh. He stood for valor. For kindness. For freedom."
"IDIOT!"
More sand flew his way.
"Ori Chromus was OC' full name," said Mata, doing some peekaboo game with the baby to make it stop crying. "Chroma was built in his name."
"That's a lame name. It may be short, but it is not sweet. I might even go as far as saying that it does not, in my professional opinion as a huntsman, roll off the tongue."
"Well, we couldn't just name it OC-Land," griped Volta. "We came up with a bunch of names: Orinelle, Liunara III, Shelter–"
"Those all suck. Hey, why didn't you name it after me, you know, like you did with the kid?"
Cardin plucked Long John off his shoulders and held him in front of Cardin Jr's face. After a moment of curiosity, LJ recognized the scent of the tiny frog Faunus as familiar and began to crawl all over the baby, eliciting a bright gurgling laugh. Mata set him down to play with his new companion in the sand.
"That woulda been so confusing," wailed Mata. "Just imagine. Hey, Cardin, go run back home to Cardinville to fetch Cardin. My brain would've exploded."
"Anyways, where's this team of yours you wanted to introduce to us?" asked Volta, looking around suspiciously.
"On their way. They decided to take an alternative means of transportation that I convinced them was far more fuel efficient and trendy than bullheads." There was a glimmer in Cardin's eye. "They'll not be long."
LJ had parked the front third of his body on Cardin Jr's scalp and let out a protective chuff, while his rear, which was wrapped around the baby in multiple loops, tap danced their legs on him. Cardin Jr. was tickled by the many thin legs and was clearly having the time of his little life.
This town, this jungle, this entire continent, there was something alluring about it. It was the place where life happened. Every kingdom had adventure, but here was where Cardin had first discovered how the real world worked, not the sanitized version that school presented to him or the outright lies about his own superiority that his family had fed him for so many years. Even though Cardin had spent so long trying to get away from Mistral, this felt like…
Home.
Once he was graduated from Beacon, Cardin had a pretty good idea where he would be coming. After all, with the hunters almost all gone and Haven just barely beginning to pick up the pace to replace them, Chroma would certainly be in dire need of someone to protect them.
"C'mon, let's got show Cardin around," said Mata, ushering towards the village.
"W-What's that?" asked Volta, out of the blue.
"What?"
She pointed, and Cardin gazed out into the ocean, pressing his hand to his brow to block out the intense sunlight. Beyond the edge of the beach village's walls, he just barely managed to make out the sight of something on the horizon.
"Is that…a boat?" asked Mata.
"SKRISSSSSSKRISSSSSSSSKRISSSSSS!"
That was a new one. Long John was mixing his friendly call with his danger warcry. Cardin wasn't sure what to make of the little Grimm as it circled protectively around Cardin Jr.
"It's heading this way."
Cardin rested a hand on The Executioner. This wasn't a Grimm, and the boat didn't seem all that threatening as it grew closer, but he wasn't going to take any risks. The people of Chroma had only just rebuilt their lives from the ground up, taking in the scattered refugees that had survived their villages' falls or the fall of Kuana Lunai. Cardin would be damned if they were uprooted once more by some new threat.
As it came nearer and near, Cardin got a better look at the vessel. It was a rowboat, no longer than fifteen feet from bow to stern, with a single person furiously paddling the oars on both sides to propel the boat towards the jungled coast.
"YOU!"
The person on the boat, a pale gray woman with some startling Grimm-like features, was now close enough to be made out clearly. Boy, did she seem scary. And angry.
"Finally! I've tracked you down, Cardin! You fool, thinking you'd bested me with your cousin. Little did you know that Lionheart sent one secret message to me before he was struck down – to me, SALEM, revealing to me that it was you, Cardin Arc, who ruined my chokehold of Mistral!"
The woman disembarked from her tiny rowboat. The sand beneath her turned into solid glass when her feet stepped on it, and a dark black smoke began to pour out of her hair. Cardin drew his mace and pushed Volta behind him. Mata scooped up Cardin Jr. and took a step back as well.
"I had this miserable continent in the palm of my hand, and now–"
BWOOM!
BWOOM!
BWOOM!
At the same time, three rocket lockers flew over Cardin's head and crash-landed into the sandy waterfront. Two of them dug into the sand and stopped, but the third smashed into the woman and sent her flying backwards with the speed of a missile towards the horizon on the ocean from whence she'd came.
"DAMN YOU, CARDIIIIIIIIN!" she screamed, before fading out of earshot and disappearing into the seas with a splash.
Out of the rocket lockers stepped Russel, Dove, and Sky.
"Yo. What did we miss?"
Author's Notes
It's so weird seeing the other side of the Cardin-Jaune interaction. He's the only POV character from LTD, and writing him as an NPC that can only be interacted with when I REMEMBER writing the other side of the conversation is just strange. It's like time traveling to have a chat with myself and then remembering that very conversation.
For a comedy series, Salem had to be defeated via an Act of Slapstick. There was no other way. Still, it's nice to finally get that resolution to the rest of the story (and Living The Dream) to know that it all worked out well.
I hope you guys liked this fic (all eight of you that read it). I know I did.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!