The aircraft, that Velvet is quickly told is a Valkyrie, speeds over the rooftops. It isn't just different in form to a Bullhead; it is faster too. Even at its top speed, a Bullhead still flew almost leisurely through the air. The Valkyrie blasts through the night's sky. And compared to a Bullhead flight, it's a lot bumpier too.

The Valkyrie pitches upwards as the pilot avoids an extra tall tree, which unfortunately pitches the rabbit Faunus backwards again with a cry of alarm. She clutches at the handhold that has been lowered down above her head, but Velvet still almost goes off her feet.

"Got you!" One of the soldiers says loudly as he puts a steadying hand against the middle of her back. It is not the worst way that someone has touched her, with or without her permission. It is a strong hand that keeps Velvet from falling flat on her arse. But the touch is so unexpected to her that Faunus Huntress-in-training shoots to stand right up.

"T-thanks." She stammers out, the man withdrawing his arm to cross it back over his chest. He gives her a look of confusion, but it only lasts a second before he lowers it and he begins fiddling with his rifle again.

That's the thing that has Velvet on edge. As a Faunus, she has become so used to people looking at her in undisguised disgust, pity, or quiet indifference.

These men and women look at her with a mix of confusion and intrigue, mainly directed at her ears, and also.. what looks like critique at her outfit.

It is the strangest reception that Velvet has ever experienced.

Fitting that it's from the strangest group of people that Velvet has ever seen.

None of their uniforms match any design that she's seen from Atlas or Vale, and definitely nothing like what she's seen from Mistral. The armour they wear only protects the torso, shoulders and head, for starters, and it's a deep shade of what Velvet guesses is khaki (even with the natural Faunus ability to see better in low light, she can't tell for sure), while the rest of their uniform is just cloth. Their weapons are long rifles, supplemented by grenades and knives. Knives!

It's only taken Velvet a few seconds to take in this information, but she still can't figure it out.

A buzz fills the air as the pilot speaks through an intercom.

"We're five minutes out, everyone. It's taking a little longer because we had to take on some… extra weight."

Behind her, Velvet hears Fox nudge Yatsuhashi.

"I told you; you shouldn't have had that extra plate of food before we left."

Yatsuhashi stammers in annoyance at the joke. And the soldiers chuckle at the comment too.

"Hey, look at that." Fox sends. "I'm breaking intergalactic ice."

Intergalactic. Velvet has heard that word thrown around all the time in the bad, and sometimes good, sci-fi moves that she's seen. The ones that invariably dealt with aliens coming from 'outer space', aliens that looked like Grimm but with extra stuff like stalks added to them, or humans and Faunus in ridiculous amounts of makeup and prosthetics. And to her, that's where that word belonged; in science-fiction.

And yet… here she was. On an aircraft that was definitely not built to any standard on Remnant, with men and women with clothing and weapons she has never see before.

"So… where are you-GAH!"

Velvet, and everyone else, cries out in alarm as the Valkyrie jinks to the right, nearly throwing everyone around, a warning klaxon straining at Velvet's ears. The soldiers grumble and call out in annoyance at the act, while Fox add his own cry to the din.

"Hey, buy me dinner first!"

The pilot's voice came through again.

"Aerial contacts in-bound! Fast movers! Everyone, buckle up. Crew chiefs, get those heavy bolters ready!"

The men in the green uniforms and steel body armour on the large bore guns at the side, turning the guns on their swivel mounts from side to side as they track for targets.

Fast aerial movers… Nevermores.

Picking her way carefully, Velvet moves to the airman on the right side of the aircraft. The wind coming in is furious, whipping at her face and hair, and forcing her to drop her rabbits ears behind her head lest they suffer an injury.

She opens her mouth to call out to the airman.

She never gets the chance as the Valkyrie jinks to the left, pitching everyone to the right. And unbalancing the airman hard. Velvet rushes forward to grab at him, to pull him back in. At her side, one of the soldiers has pushed himself out of his seat to do the same.

The man disappears out of the doorway just as Velvet reaches it, her hand inches away from grabbing at his gear. In the darkness, she sees his form tumbling away, arms flailing as the airman screams. The fall will surely kill him.

The shadow that blasts past, snatching him from sight and silencing his screams kills him instead. It shreds the body cleanly in half, the lower portion tumbling to fall beneath the treetops instead.

Velvet can't help the gasp of fright and shock that comes to her throat. It's not the first death she's seen… but it is the most pointless death she's seen.

A strong hand lands on Velvet's shoulder and she is pulled back into the bay. It's not the soldier who helped her into the Valkyrie, but he's the same height and build. A sharp nose and chin, with a scar going through his upper lip to bottom of his right chin. He wears a helmet on his head too, but it's not hard to see the violet eyes staring at her. He's an officer, Velvet can tell right away.

There's little emotion in those eyes, although Velvet feels that there's a smidgen of pity in them.

"Arkin!" He calls out, turning his head to the side slightly to look at the other soldier out of his seat. "Get on the gun."

The soldier who was out of his seat nodded his head as he got onto the crew-served weapon, checking the weapon before he swung it out of the doorway. He immediately sees a target as he begins firing, the space now filling with the heavy bass roar of the gun. The gunner on the other side begins firing now, their weapon adding to the din.

"We're in the shit now, everyone!" The officer calls out. "Get your weapons ready and loaded! Get set for a combat drop!"

"Yes, sir!" Each soldier calls out in response. Immediately, they each begin to check or recheck their weapons. Each rifles whines as buttons are pressed on the side, small lights switching on. Others pull out more… esoteric weaponry. Long barrelled devices with pilot lights at the end, fat bellied weapons with pipes for barrels, a thick cylinder set in the side and a simple trigger and others that Velvet finds hard to describe. The only weapon she recognises is the grenade launcher.

The feeling in the vehicle changes; anticipation laced with anger fills the interior. And it has the rabbit Faunus fidgeting.

She feels she has to do something.

Turning her head, looking past the soldier fiddling with the small laser sight on his rifle, she makes eye contact with Fox. Or… as close as she can with the blind Vacuon.

"You okay?" He sends.

Velvet nods her head instinctively before she remembers. She replies. "Yeah, I'm good. Should… should we do something?"

"Wouldn't do any good." Yatsuhashi cuts in, his own thought-speak coming in loud and clear. "None of us can fly. I think we should save our strength for the fight on the ground."

"Besides," Coco chimes in, shrugging even as she speaks on Fox's telepathic link. "If these guys have things like this for transport, they have to have things like jets or something."

Velvet sees the logic in that. Huntsmen, even students like them, are capable of a lot of things. But flying without aid… that's not something they can do. So all Velvet can do is just sit in the seat given to her.

The soldier at the gun to her side, Arkin, keeps firing. Short controlled bursts, the rounds zinging out in the darkness, fat brass shells either falling to the deck or into the night's sky.

Something pricks at the edge of Velvet's hearing. Something loud and fast, incoming, but she can't tell from which direction. There's too much noise to tell properly.

The intercom sparks to life. "Three minutes out. Good news, everyone: the cavalry has arrived."

Half a minute before, flying over a stretch of the Emerald Forest towards Carterstown, a lone aircraft flies straight and true.

They call her 'The Crimson Baroness.'

Only half of that appellation was right. Her Thunderbolt was partially painted red, but she wasn't a baroness. Not anymore.

Shifting the throttle, Flight Lieutenant Miro Jax, Ogre Squadron leader, 568th fighter wing of the Imperial Navy, drops her craft into a shallow descent before she levels off, thrusters burning hot as she shoots over the treetops of the forest below her. Everything is shown to her in shades of green, the night-optics of her heads-up display on night vision mode.

As she flies, keeping an eye on the sky outside and the radar inside, Miro checks her instruments.

Ammunition – Two-thirds down.

Fuel – Half-way down.

Avionics – in the green.

Engine temperature - nominal for combat operations.

Her 'Bolt was flying good and true, same as always.

Miro Jax loves the Thunderbolt. She loves the Lightning too. And the Avenger, the Marauder, the Aquila. She loves to fly. And she has her uncle to thank for that.

"Ogre Leader, come in Ogre Leader." A voice squawks in her ear. LeGeun, her number two.

"Ogre Two, this is Ogre Leader. What's the skinny?"

"Ogre Leader, we got a Valkyrie getting pecked at by some big birds. Bearing two-six-niner, mark-zero-eight-three. You're close enough to assist. How copy?"

"Ogre Leader copies all. Think you can keep that horde at bay without me?"

A short chuckle comes through, the sound laced with static. "We'll save you the best targets, Baroness. Good hunting. Ogre Two out."

'Cheeky git'. Even as she pushes the fighter forward, she can't help but smile. She's no longer a baroness. She has told them before, when she was a rookie, not to call her that, but she found that the more she pushed to not be called it, the more they used the title.

She was a baroness, another lifetime ago. Back when she used to wear frock jackets and petticoats with too much lace and not enough breathing room. When she was 3rd Baroness Miro-De Silvia-Organes, scion of the noble house of Jaxson, from Biskari Secundus.

The world whips by, the night sky dotted with stars above flashing past in her flight. She scans her head side to side, watching for any sign of contact.

She was the first Imperial pilot on this world to score an aerial kill, three in fact, the previous night. Her targets were avian in shape and form, yet almost as big as a Lightning, and she could tell from the way the night vision worked on them that they were as black as pitch. They looked like unrefined and feral carrion birds. Ugly.

And one has just flown into view on her starboard side, two o'clock low.

The radar pings back incessantly.

Looking at the target, Miro gauges the size quickly. The creature is flying almost at a leisurely pace, but the huge wings beating the air are deceptive on how fast the creature is flying. Looking around, the pilot scans for any more beasts in the vicinity. None she can see, and the radar only shows the one.

Pushing her 'Bolt forward, Miro lets herself overshoot the target. No good shot from the back, so she has to do the next best thing. She pushes the craft up into a turning ascent, flying up further into the night sky.

Turning her head, she looks down at the beast below. Sure enough, it's pitching itself up, moving to follow the aircraft.

Perfect.

Gunning the throttle, Miro pushes her 'Bolt into a turn, right at the apex of her climb before she pushes the aircraft down into a curving dive. She goes straight for the beast.

She likes to think she's caught the beast by surprise, but she doesn't know if they're capable of such things. But she knows that her autocannon ammo punches through the wings and pinions like a knife through paper. She goes over the falling corpse as the beast falls beneath the canopy, disappearing from sight.

Fourth kill.

Banking, she turns her 'Bolt around and heads back to her target.

That move had been one of the first ones her uncle had taught her. The decorated Biskarin air-ace, Flight Captain Theodorus Jaxson, veteran of the Insurrection War, eighty kills in three years.

Miro loved that man, and still does. He's probably dead now though.

The tree canopy flies past her again. And does the blazing form of a tracer from a heavy bolter.

Miro jinks her 'Bolt to the side before levelling off, eyes scanning for targets. Then she sees it in the distance.

It's a lone Valkyrie, heavy bolter fire pouring from its open side-bay doors and its nose gun as it tries to avoid the quartet of flying predators that are skimming past it. The avian beasts try to rake at it with their claws or snap at it with their beaks, but the pilot is flying too fast for them to catch. But not fast enough.

Miro flips a small switch on her dash. "Valkyrie Two-One, this is Ogre Leader. I have you in my sights. Peel down and try and go to the nap of the earth. I'll deal with the big birds. How copy?"

"Rapier Two-One copies all, Ogre Leader." The pilot says, clearly relieved at being rescued. "They're all yours."

The Valkyrie guns its engines, descending sharply before blasting off. The act doesn't deter the beasts though as they quickly give chase. These beasts were big, each one the size of Miro's Thunderbolt in length and width, and if they were lucky, one could easily bring down the Valkyrie.

Four together… they'd tear it apart.

She works the rudder of her 'Bolt, pulling herself along behind the chase. She lets the gun sight waver over her chosen target for a second, but the lock is lost as the beast at the back surges forward, snapping its maw at the tail rudder of the gunship.

"Shit." Miro mutters to herself before she activates her radio. "Rapier Two-One. You need to pick up speed. I cannot get a good shot without hitting you."

"Ogre Leader. I can't. We're overweight, can't get the speed up."

Shit. Autocannons won't work here. Too great a chance of a stray shot, and the lascannon is out too. Too much penetration power.

An idea clicks in her head. Working the shaft and rudder at the same time, Miro kicks the 'Bolt to the side, gunning the engine so she's now flying at an oblique angle away from the Valkyrie, eight kilometres away. The timing had to be right for what she planned.

She counts down in her head. 'Three… two… one… NOW!'

G-forces kick in hard as Miro virtually slams her 'Bolt around before she guns forward again, engine burning white-hot as she guns forward. The Valkyrie is coming up from the port side, and the beasts still following behind.

She switches from autocannons to her lascannons. And she just flies forward.

She's got to get this right. Got to get it just right. If she's too late, she's miss completely and if she's too early…

"Let the 'Bolt do its job," Her uncle's voice comes to her mind, the mental image of him sitting with her in the still cockpit of the trainer aircraft he owned to teach her how to fly. "The machine knows what it's to do and what it's job is. We just point it in the right direct. The 'Bolt decides on how fast we get there. And after that? It's all in the Emperor's hands."

The Valkyrie is approaching the target point, the machine just on the edge of Miro's HUD. She breathes out, the sound heavy and cloying in her oxygen mask.

Her finger hovers over the firing stud. The Valkyrie gets closer to the centre of the reticule.

Time seems to slow as she sees the crosshairs go over the nose, the cockpit, the engine, the troop bay…

She depresses the firing trigger, and her lascannons blaze into life.

Twin beams of white hot energy spit out from the nose of her 'Bolt, slicing neatly through the night air. They cleanly cut through the head of the first beast, obliterating it's maw and head in one shot, while the second beast is decapitated. Their corpses tumble to the ground like thrown toys by a petulant child, and it makes Miro's heart soar with joy.

Six kills.

Miro roars over the two remaining beasts. Her radar pings. They're on her six o'clock, low, and gaining.

"Rapier Two-One, this is Ogre Leader." She says happily. "You've got your breathing room. Punch those engines hard. Good luck. The Emperor Protects."

The soldiers in the troop compartment whoop and holler in joy at the sound of the explosive sounds and the heavy mechanical roar outside, and Velvet can't help but smile in turn.

"Angels on our frakking shoulders!" The soldier on her left cries out happily, raising his hand to fist bump the soldier who would have been sitting in place of the Faunus Huntress-in-training. He stops, hand raised, as he realises who is beside him instead.

Velvet simply smiles in return before she bumps her own fist again his. It's a small thing, but it makes the soldier's face light up in joy as well, and it's a familiar thing for Velvet to do.

"So what was that?" She asks loudly. "What saved us?"

"Thunderbolt!" Arkin calls out from the side door. "Air-superiority fighter. Lot of guns at front, big engine on back."

"Coco was right then." Fox sends. "They've got jets."

Velvet doesn't say anything else as she turns in her seat, to try and look out of the door. She can make out their destination in the distance, and she is soon filled with worry.

The sky is blazing orange. A huge fire has taken hold somewhere, although whether it's the town itself or outside of the town, she can't tell. But it doesn't bode well.

In the distance she can see other dark spots moving in, although from the general shape and speed, she has to guess that they're other aerial transports too. Not Grimm like Nevermores or Griffons. Human machines, coming in to help other humans against the Grimm.

If these guys really were from outer-space, humans from outer-space, and that they had come here to help humanity on Remnant… that thought made Velvet's heart soar.

"Velvet," Fox says with his telepathy, sounding quite morose. "Can you try and get eyes on outside? Something big is moving out there, but I can't get a good read on it."

Getting out of her seat, Velvet stands up next to the door and looks outside. The sky above is clear, although it's beginning to stink of smoke and other smells that she doesn't want to dwell too much on. So she looks down.

Even with the vaunted low-light sight of the Faunus, especially for a rabbit Faunus like herself, Velvet can see nothing below the treetops.

"What you looking for?" Arkin calls out to her, having to with the wind whipping past them and one of the engines virtually right above their heads.

"My team-mate says there might be something below us!" She replies. Velvet doesn't reveal how Fox's Semblance works, since she has no clue as to how these people would react. "His gut's acting up! Have you got anything for seeing in low light?"

The soldier purses his lips in thought for a moment, looking past Velvet's head at where his commanding officer is, before he reaches into a pouch at the back of his waist. Bringing the hand forward, he pulls out a what looks like a small metallic box, but in the red light afforded by the interior of the Valkyrie, Velvet sees a small series of buttons and dials on one side of it.

"Magnoculars." The solider explains as he fiddles with some of the buttons with one hand, keeping the other on the butterfly grip of the heavy weapon. "Got it set to night vision mode for you."

Taking the proffered device, Velvet gives it a once over. It's flat grey, a simple, utilitarian design and it's clear that's suffered a good few knocks during its use. So it's definitely useful. The Huntress-in-training is a bit perturbed by the winged-skull icon on the top.

'Maybe it's a fashion thing.' She thinks to herself before she moves to stand in the doorway.

Raising the magnoculars to her eyes, her view of the dark landscape below is quickly replaced by differing shades of green. It's not the best night vision device she's ever used, but Velvet is thankful for it nonetheless, as she begins scanning the trees below.

She pans the magnoculars left and right, trying to find anything that would set Fox off. His ability to sense Aura or, in the case of the Grimm, the lack of Aura, is never wrong. But, trying her hardest, Velvet can't see anything that would have set Fox off.

"See anything?!" Arkin calls out.

"Not yet…!" Velvet says, turning her head slowly to see if she missed something. The treetops are so damn thick!

"Five o'clock! Low!" Arkin suddenly calls out. "I saw a flash of something!"

Velvet flicks her head round to the direction that the soldier called out, magnoculars scanning the area. She doesn't want to discount what the man has pointed out. Soldiers have a different perspective on combat than Huntsmen do, Professor Port always said, so it would be wrong to ignore any call they made for movement.

But right now, she can't see squat. Just more green as foliage and branches pass by. She sees a gap in the trees as they speed by…

Then she sees it.

It's a flash of colour, lighter than the green around it. It's segmented, long and it looks like it ends in the form of a stinger.

The foliage thins out a bit more, and then she sees more of it. Or rather, more of them.

Death Stalkers. Five of them. The one bringing up the rear is the largest, easily the height of a three storey building at the tail, but the ones in front are still terrifyingly big.

"What did you see?" Arkin asks.

"What did you see?" Fox sends at the same time.

Removing her magnoculars from her eyes, Velvet moves back into the interior of the Valkyrie as she turns to look at her teammates, which means she's looking at every virtually every soldier in the aircraft too. And, apart from Fox, they all see the look of fear and worry on her face.

"Nothing good."

The line is breached in half a dozen places. Beowolves stream over the parapets and they are met with Cadian fury. Lasguns flash in the night, explosions rock the wall, and fires rage. The earth to the eastern edge of the town is aflame with promethium fed flames from the Navy weapons, unlucky Grimm feeding the conflagration, while discharge from flamers bathe parts of the wall in their fires as they burn Grimm to cinders.

And fire rages in the heart of every Cadian that fights this night.

"Remember Cadia!" Commissar Anton bellows as he fires round after round from his bolt pistol. His hat has been lost in the fight and blood matts the side of his face, but still his stern voice and visage does not waver. "Remember proud Ursarkar, and the glorious Eighth as they held the last line! Remember their courage, remember their resolve! Remember their fury, and we shall carry this night to victory! Do not let them be ashamed! Cadia stands!"

More beasts scale the wall. The Kasrkin meet them. Even as the Grimm scale the walls, hellguns blast them to pieces, meltaguns and plasma burning them away to oblivion. The heavy bolters and autocannons are forced to depress their fire as low as they can to send the hordes clambering the fortification crashing to the ground or send their rounds winging right in front of the faces of the defenders to blast the Grimm climbing the wall.

Running battles are being fought in the area of Carterstown just behind the wall, squads of newly arrived Cadians running to and fro to draw any Grimm that breached the line to them, keeping them away from the civilians.

All this, Captain Thade sees and knows intimately. Because it's playing out almost exactly as in Kasr Drak. Sure, there's no need to seek cover in the face of inbound fire, and these beasts do not rend the mind as well as the body with their unnaturalness.

But these beasts, these creatures of Grimm, are very much as chaotic and unnatural as any fodder of the Archenemy and the Fell Powers of the Eye.

And so, it falls to them again. As it was, as it is, as it always will be.

"Cadia stands!" Fidor roars as he swings his fist at a Beowolf that has managed to climb the ramparts in front of his position at the gate.

Such an act would be futile against a beast that takes several bolter shells to fell… if the captain's fist wasn't encased in several inches worth of adamantium, itself surrounded by a crackling field of energy. The beast's head explodes in an explosion of ichor, meat and evaporated tissue.

Kasr Drak fell. Cadia fell. But not this town. Not this night, not ever. Carterstown will not fall.

"As long as one Cadian draws breath, as long as our hearts still beat, Carterstown will stand!"

He fires his plasma pistol again, the blue coils on the back lighting up in furious life as a ball of sun-hot energy splashes another creature in a shower of ashes.

Blood, fire and ashes.

That is the Cadian way.

The roar of an engines overhead as a Valkyrie pitches up and away, its hold laden with evacuees, the gunners at the doors firing away at the enemy on the ground as they pass overhead.

"Status on evacuation!" He yells out, his voice straining to be heard above the din.

His vox-operator, a young man called Tolya, holds a hand to the side of his helmet to hear the report before he replies.

"Destrier crew is reporting a small mechanical fault! Ten minutes to fix, flyboys say, sir!"

Tolya quickly removes his hand from his helmet to take a hold of his lasgun, firing it quickly and efficiently at the head of a Beowolf that appears over the wall. The weapon discharge is thick and bright, the vox-operator pushing the lasgun to full power. It still takes two shots to the head to drop the creature off the stonework. Fidor blasts the head of another with a shot from his plasma pistol. The shot is low enough to melt part of the ramparts.

"Bullshit!" He roars back. "Tell those Navy arseholes to fix that craft, or I will torture their frakking souls myself!"

Tolya doesn't reply as he puts a hand back to his helmet.

"Navy also reports that one flight is late. Something about… a pickup? I'm not sure." The man shrugs and shakes his head as he keeps reporting. "They're running behind schedule. Mobbed by a flock of 'big birds', but they have us in sight. ETA… ninety seconds."

Quickly, Fidor casts his eye across the battlefield, seeing over the flames and the smoke and the darkness. The sky is just shrouded by clouds, but his veteran eye quickly spots the tell-tale twinkle of a fast moving Valkyrie on approach from the west.

Venting the built-up gas from his pistol, Fidor takes a quick look around his area. The battle is at what to the untrained eye would be a stalemate, but to the veteran officer, something in his mind prickles.

An instinct, gained and honed through battle against the enemies of Mankind too numerous to recount. A survivor's instinct that has kept him and those under his command alive for many years.

He pays attention to the instinct. And it screams trouble.

"New contacts!" Someone calls out. "At the treeline!"

Turning to look in front of him, casting his eye over the battlefield. Through the writhing masses of Grimm and the dancing flames, it looks like the trees at the edge of the clearing are moving, bulging slightly.

No, check that. They are moving. Or rather, they are being moved.

The first pair of trees are smashed to the ground, the sound lost in the swell of battle.

"Rocket teams; lay krak on the treeline. NOW!" He bellows.

The heavy reports of several missile tubes firing in concert, their propellant charges blasting smoke and dust to shroud parts of the wall, roar out before their rockets fly through the air. Propellant burning, the long missiles topped with armour-piercing warheads fly over the mass of bodies below. It takes seconds for the rockets to reach their targets.

In the black, firelit night, it's hard to see the impacts properly, but Fidor can just make out white insectoid carapaces, lined with red marks before the rocket's armour-piercing warheads punch through.

The krak missile is an armour killer, plain and simple. Against tanks, the adamantium dart inside tumbles, shredding the crew inside with razor sharp fragments of their own tank. It's a brutal death for any tank crew. But against a beast like that…

The first beast crashes down to the ground in an explosion of dirt and leaves, blood and ichor leaking through three neat holes in its carapace. The others rush past it, right into the melee.

"Bio-titans!" Someone calls out. And Fidor is hesitant to ignore the term.

Each beast is a scorpion in look, but monstrously huge. Giant pincers large enough to bisect a man snap menacingly in the air, while above them wave bright stingers, almost golden in colour, dancing tantalizingly above their forms as their tails bob and sway. Three of the beasts are as tall as a two-storey hab-block.

They remind him heavily of the Tyranid bio-titans, the lesser strains, just above a carnifex in deadliness and ferocity. Not something you want to meet eye to eye.

The new arrivals march across the field, their spindly looking legs propelling them easily across the mass of bodies swarming underneath. If they trample any of the other Grimm underfoot, they show no signs of noticing it.

"Target and deny!" Fidor roars, directing the missiles against the beasts.

More rockets bang out, their shooters switching from the swarm to the larger beasts. Missile streak out on streaks of white smoke, creating strange whorls in the smoke as they pass through or over the fires of battle. Some shots streak over the targets, missing to impact on the trees, or smashing underneath to throw up clods of earth and dirt.

One missile strikes true, right in the head of one of the beasts. The anti-armour warhead destroys the head of the beast outright, causing it to pitch forward as it's body drops dead.

Then the largest one bursts from the woods. Trees are flung to the side by claws as large as a Chimera's chassis. It's body is the bulk of two Leman Russ' and the length of three. Its curved tail reaches the height of a three-storey hab. And it charges straight at the wall.

Specifically, at the gate.

"It's going to ram us!" Tolya yells out, even as he raises his lasrifle to fire at the beast.

"Get on the radio! Tell the flyers to target the beasts! Now!" Fidor calls as he raises his own pistol.

It's a futile gesture of defiance. But it's a comforting gesture in a cruel universe.

No order needs to be given. The section of wall above the gate opens fire, an indiscriminate blaze of fire and fury. Las-shots, bolt rounds, plasma and melta light up against the beast, scorching and scouring its hide, even as it barrels towards them. Above their heads, the Avengers blast through their air again. Their rockets spent; they rely on their main cannons again.

BRRRRT!

BRRRRT!

Bolt cannons roar and Grimm die by the multitude. But the Alpha beast is fast enough and smart enough to use the lesser beasts for cover. It quickly works its way alongside one of the smaller beings, letting it take the brunt of the aircraft's ire before it dashes towards to the wall.

It's now close enough for Fidor to see its face. Eyes, ten blood red balls, burning with rage, stare balefully up at him and the occupants of the wall.

"BRACE!" The Astartes neophyte yells out, his voice almost akin to a Medusa cannon firing.

The sound of the Grimm smashing into and through the stone wall is louder. Stone is sent flying, some of it reduced to dust from the impact.

Fidor doesn't have time to brace, so he is sent flying off the wall. He sees the battle revolve around in front of him, flames and smoke tumbling end over end, stars twisting. He sees Tolya, careening to the side, his arms flailing wildly as he tries to latch onto something. The Astartes scout is nowhere to be seen, lost amidst the dust and stone. He sees the company standard, the beautiful battle standard of his home, fly lazily through the air, the pole snapped from the force of impact. The bearer is nowhere to be seen.

Then the ground rushes up to meet him, and Fidor Thades' world becomes blackness.

It is a testament to fate and luck, to those who believe in such things, that the waking world returns. The Mechanicus would call it the motive force in action.

It's sheer bloody good luck that Fidor Thade opens his eyes at all.

His body aches all over, his head spins, he tastes blood and he's certain that one or two things are broken.

But Captain Fidor is alive.

He's lying in the front garden of one of the settlement habs, landing on softer grass and dirt than the stone cobbles used for the town's roadway.

His world spins heavily as he tries to right himself, and he coughs out vomit flecked with blood. Fidor winces as pain lances down his left hand side. But by the Emperor, he is thankful for it.

He is alive.

A loud, blood-curdling screech echoes out, drawing his attention.

The scorpion Grimm, the Alpha that breached the gate, is being peppered with lasgun, plasma, and melta shots. The guardsmen do not stay still as they fire at it, constantly moving from side to side, going any direction they can to confuse the beast as it snaps down at them with its pincers and stabs with its stinger.

The bark of a heavy bolter joins from nearby. Turning to look at the point of the noise, Fidor can't help but grin as he sees the giant Astartes scout, his steel coloured armour dented and fractured in some places, blood visible in the fire, holding his heavy bolter firm as he pours shot after shot into the beast. But each shot only scratches its white carapace.

It's like spitting at a raging inferno for all the good it does.

The ground beneath Fidor rumbles slightly, the sound of metal tracks clanking on stone filling his ears and dizzying his senses further. The Salamander crew, deciding now was the right time for their guns to enter the fray. The autocannon roars a bass note as it fires, the steady pom-pom beat of the heavy ammunition. Munitions designed to tear through light-skinned vehicles and heavily armoured troops just glances off the Grimm's carapace. It doesn't even flinch.

A cry of defiance goes up, although from whom, Fidor can't say. It goes up as more Grimm begin to spill through the gap created in the breach. The Salamander shifts target, its autocannon firing along with the hull-mounted heavy bolter, into the encroaching horde.

Feet rush around the captain as more Cadians rush to the breach to stem the tide, lasguns and other weapons sparking and roaring, their cries of defiance on their lips in a roar of increasing volume.

"Hold them!" The voice calls, Fidor finally recognising it as his own voice. "We hold the line! Not a beast gets past us!"

He pushes himself to his feet unsteadily, fighting down nausea as he moves to stand upright. His power fist still sparks into life, and he clenches his fist in defiance as he takes a slow step forward.

A guardsman fighting the scorpion Grimm rushes forward with a flamer and begins dousing its face in flames. Raging promethium fire engulfs its head and it screeches in pain, trying to use its own claws to protect its face and put out the flames. Suddenly, its tail whips forward, skewering the soldier through the stomach. The trooper is killed outright, but his flamer still spews fire, even as the tail lifts the cadaver up and then down to smash the body into the floor.

In Fidor's eyes, the scene takes on a new form. The flames shift in his view, growing larger and wilder. The walls shift, becoming taller and stouter, spouting gun emplacements which roar and boom, even as the breach in them grows alongside it. The forms of the Grimm shift, becoming less natural and more mechanical… but also both more and less in both.

The scorpion Grimm, still with the flamer wielding cadaver on its stinger, changes too. The carapace changes, becoming slicker in form, almost running with molten fire and blood. Brass work appears on its limbs and body, as writing and symbols obscene to nature and reality bleed into life. When next the beast speaks, it's a soul-rending roar of death and destruction.

Kasr Drak is falling again.

"We hold them here!" Fidor roars as he advances down the streets towards the breach in the hive's walls, his power fist raised above his head as a rallying signal and a sign of defiance against the slaves of the Despoiler. "Kasr Drak will not fall while one Cadian still draws breath! We fight them! To the last round, to the last man!"

The defenders rally around him, pushing back to the tide as they rush forward with bayonets gleaming, banners flying. To his side, a might Baneblade speaks, its heavy shell whipping through the air to strike the horde spilling through the breech, while above, artillery rains down on them like the fists of the Emperor Himself.

The Brass Scorpion raises its tail high, as horrible, golden flames streaked with red build up, before it rushes towards Fidor.

He knows he will die tonight, but as long as he dies, Cadia lives…

Fidor lets loose a feral bellow of rage and defiance as he charges the Brass Scorpion, plasma pistol raised to fire and power fist ready to strike.

The wind buffets Yatsuhashi's face fiercely, and he's thankful for his Aura to protect him. His height, combined with the length of Fulcrum attached to his back, makes it an uncomfortable fit for him inside the Valkyrie's interior. So he's forced himself to lean out of side door, opposite to Velvet's door.

He doesn't need to borrow a pair of the spacemen's 'magnoculars' to see it.

The town they approach is a scene unlike anything he's seen before. He sees the fire raging outside the furthest wall, he sees the mass of Grimm pouring from the trees against the town, and Yatsu sees the soldiers on the wall, pouring fire of all sorts of a level that he's never seen before into the horde.

And he's just seen the Alpha Death Stalker smash through the gate.

It's hellish. And Team CFVY is heading right for it.

"The Death Stalker Alpha breached the wall!" Yatsu calls out behind him, informing the soldiers about what's happened. He knows the soldiers can only guess what he's referring to, but he's surprised by their reactions, or rather, their lack of reactions.

He's not done many sorties with professional soldiers, apart from a joint operation with the team and a few squads of Valean militia troops, and he remembers their reactions to hearing about a Death Stalker sighting nearby.

These men and women…

"Shit, I didn't bring enough krak grenades!"

"Hey, Floyd, make sure your meltagun is ready!"

"Hey, sergeant? Why did we leave our rocket launchers back at the base?"

"Who gives a shit? This is just another day in the Emperor's beloved Guard, boys and girls!"

These guys want to fight…

"See anything else out there, big guy?" One of the soldiers close to him asks.

Turning his attention back outside, Yatsuhashi quickly scans the ground. There's running battles as more of the soldiers blast away at Grimm on the ground, or groups of soldiers hunkering together in ragged circles on the walls as they fight more of the beasts on the wall. At the epicentre of all the fighting is the breach in the gate.

And what he sees, has Yatsuhashi's eyes widen in shock.

One man, clearly an officer by the cut of his clothing, is standing tall amidst the chaos. He has a giant fist, covered in crackling energy, raised above his head. A tracked vehicle rumbles beside him, spitting fire at Grimm advancing through the breach. And he's advancing towards the Death Stalker.

"Holy shit…" The Huntsman-in-training mutters to himself.

"Twenty seconds!" The pilot calls out. "We will not be stopping! Get set for a combat drop!"

A shudder runs down Yatsuhashi's spine at the words. Turning his head, he sees Velvet looking at him in shock from the other side of the door.

"Guys," Fox sends, almost sounding fearful. "…I'm not the only one feeling that, right?"

"No, you are not." Coco replies, sounding as shocked.

The atmosphere in the room has shifted now. It's like an oppressive feeling is crushing down on Yatsuhashi's chest. It is rage, pure and barely bridled rage that emanates from each of the soldiers in the aircraft. But then he feels it… he feels it flow through him. His hands, now balled into fists, begin to shake with rage, and he knows the rage is not his own.

Looking back, he looks at his teammates. Coco is stoically standing in place, although he can see her clenching and unclenching her fists. Fox is trembling, his arms shaking as he flexes his arms, his chest rising and falling as he sucks in air through gritted teeth. Velvet has it the worst as she trembles in a mixture of fright and anger, unsure of what is going on as she is affected by the emotions.

'Who are these people?' Yatsuhashi asks himself.

A roar outside draws his attention. The Valkyrie is passing over the wall now, and Yatsuhashi can see the soldiers charging the breach, the officer at their head. And the Death Stalker is moving forwards to meet them.

"They'll be slaughtered…" He breathes out in shock. These men and women are willing to charge against Grimm, Alpha Grimm, without a thought for themselves.

Looking into himself, using the techniques taught to him by his mother and his grandfather, Yatsuhashi let out a slow exhale.

"Guys!" He calls out, not really caring who he's addressing. "I'm going on ahead. I'll see you on the ground!"

Coco and Velvet begin to protest, but he doesn't hear them as Yatsuhasi lets himself drop from the Valkyrie, nearly thirty-feet in the air now. Even if it's descending, it's still a long way to drop. So, as he feels his body pitch down, he channels his Aura, sending it down to the sole of the foot that is still against the metal of the aircraft.

He's off like a shot, drawing Fulcrum off his shoulder as he flies towards the Alpha Death Stalker.

The first event that forms the final stage of the defence of Carterstown, the mutual cooperation between the Huntsmen cadets of Team CFVY and the remnants of Cadian elements of the 46th Fleet of the Indomitus Crusade occurs at twenty-two-sixteen local time.

After action reports from the numerous NCOs and ranking officers present at the defence of the settlement known locally as 'Carterstown' differ from the other as to how exactly the first member of Team CFVY entered the battle to assist the defence.

One sergeant says; "he must have been wearing a locally made miniature jump-pack".

Another sergeant reports; "Rockets. Had to be rockets."

Lieutenant Deckard reports; "All I saw was a flash of green-light. Although, it was hard to tell since I was trying to avoid getting gored."

Lieutenant Maulville says in his report; "He came down on the wings of an angel, sent by the God-Emperor to help us."

Captain Fidor Thade's report is much simpler and succinct of the encounter: "He flew down. And killed the beast."

He flew down and killed the beast.

That was the only way for Fidor to describe what he had seen happen. What the person, if he was a person, in front of him had done

He had seen all manner of things in his tours of duty for the God-Emperor. He had seen scores of hundreds of aircraft, Imperial versus greenskin, duel for aerial supremacy on Tartarus, each side blasting their opponents from the sky, even as frigates and destroyers of both sides plunged through the atmosphere.

He had seen the blasphemous forms of Chaos forces, brought to reality by heretics and blasphemers, wrought in iron and flesh storm through fields of razor wire and mud, only to meet with the mind-bending displays of colours from the leaping and tumbling fighting style of Eldar harlequins.

Those sights would never leave his memory for their horror.

But some sights would remain for the majesty alone. And those memories were always with the God-Emperor's angels of death.

They are forces of nature; humanity's divine wrath and fury given form. They are brutal honour and true martial majesty in the shape of a man. They are as armoured as a Leman Russ and as agile as a Sentinel, with the same destructive force of a platoon of guardsmen. They are the warrior-lords of old Terra reimagined for a cold, uncaring future.

The being in front of Fidor, standing in the shallow crater that he helped create, his curved greatsword held ready at his side, lacks the true awe-inspiring form of the Astartes war-plate, but he is no less majestic for it.

He killed the scorpion Grimm. He dropped down from the heavens, his form glowing with pale green light as he streaked through the sky. In a blur of green light, the warrior had smashed aside the stabbing stinger, the sound of his sword colliding with the appendage ringing in the air. The sound hadn't receded when the warrior made contact with the ground, before he near instantly rebounded back against the beast.

It was as suicidal as Fidor's own charge. But the warrior was committed. He didn't look back, his head focused on his opponent in front of him.

Even when the beast tried to ensnare the newcomer with its pincers and stinger, the warrior did not alter his course. Still carrying forward, straight and true like an arrow, his sword flashed out in arcs of bronzed-metal. White carapace cracked and splintered into hundreds of shards, the pincers breaking, before he landed on the Grimm's back.

With a loud cry, he drove his sword down. The natural armour of the giant resists the weapon for a second, before it cracks. Then it splinters, then black ichor and blood spurt upwards as the sword penetrates down. Down into the beasts' body, before the sword is pushed upwards, though the thorax and up to the tail. His sword was twisted, and the tail was removed with a mighty snap.

In seconds, the warrior has bifurcated and destroyed the Grimm's tail, in three blinks of Fidor's eyes. Jumping back from the corpse, he stands in front of the dumb-struck captain.

Reality is slowly coming back to Fidor's mind, but as he stands in place, finger just ghosting over the trigger of his plasma pistol, he can still only see the most recognisable form to him.

"My lord…" Fidor sighs out, beginning to move into a kneel behind the armoured giant in front of him.

The warrior turns… and the black-gore streaked but earnest face of a tan skinned youth looking at him in confusion.

"Pardon? I'm no lord." The giant teen, if Fidor has to guess, says in an embarrassed voice, even as he hefts the sword the same size as him.

Fidor blinks away the sights from his eyes. The walls of Kasr Drak are gone, replaced with the stonework of Carterstown. The hordes of the Archenemy have been replaced, the hordes of baying Grimm taking their place.

He slipped hard, and he knows it. But now is not the time.

Especially not when there's a Beowolf charging at the teen's unguarded back.

He raises his plasma pistol, aiming it past the giant teen's torso as the beast closes in.

The teen spins, his sword sweeping up in a brutal arc that severs the Beowolf's head, along with a forearm and half of its torso, in one clean stroke.

More beasts come through the breach, even as they are punished by the Cadian guns.

"Damn, that's a lot more than I'd expected." The teen says in annoyance at himself, even as he swings the blade downwards to remove the worst of the gore from it.

Not saying a word, Fidor moves forward to stand next to the teen, his pistol held ready. His soldier's brain tells him to be wary of the person next to him. He's just seen him destroy two beasts of Grimm, one of which had broken through a stone wall several metres thick, and he'd dispatching another as a hot knife through butter.

He's dangerous in every sense of the word.

But… standing next to him, Fidor gets the same sensations he does when he sees the Astartes. The danger is there. But so is the surety. The innate feeling that this warrior will not run. He will hold the line as long as he can to protect those who need his protection.

"The civilians still can't be evaced," Fidor says simply as he raises his plasma pistol in a fighting stance, his power fist crackling with energy once more. "So we need to hold the line. Just a few minutes."

The teen gives a nod of his head as he hefts his sword in reply. More Grimm are charging at them.

"I'm Captain Fidor Thade." The Cadians says as an after-thought.

"Yatsuhashi Daichi." A small smile comes to the teen's face. "No doubt my name sounds as odd to you as yours is to mine."

"No doubt." Fidor says simply. He sets his face into a grimace as the wave of beasts charge the pair.

Both fighters set their stances for their weapons, Yatsuhashi Daichi setting his sword back to his side, while Fidor takes up a text-book pistol shooters stance, one handed.

The first Grimm, a Beowolf, is within throwing distance now. Its hide is pockmarked with lasgun hits, fragmentation wounds and burns, but it still runs straight and true at the pair.

Fidor wonders who's going to be the first to make the move.

The red blur that zips down from above, landing directly onto the head of the Beowolf, smashing it into the ground about a feet down. The dark-skinned youth, with burnt-orange hair and a red top and black trousers, jams a pair of blades worn on his forearms down into the beasts shoulders before he rips them out, severing the Grimm's arms at the shoulders before spinning around and driving them down into the creature's skull. The squeal the beast creates as it dies is satisfying.

"You just had to jump!" The second teen says loudly in annoyance, standing up to his full height, which is much shorter than Yatsuhashi's. "Really? What were you thinking?"

Turning his head slightly, Fidor raises his eyebrows in surprise as he sees the taller teens face colour at the admonishment.

"I… I…" He tries to say before he simply gives up. "I got nothing. I'm sorry, Fox. I just…"

"Behind you!" Fidor calls out, firing a searing blast from his pistol, vaporising the head of a Beowolf, while the one called Fox spins around a shears off the arms of another creature.

The mass of Grimm is now on them. The flanks are being hemmed in by the guns of the Kasrkin and the other troopers, the Salamander's heavy fire power tearing through the creatures when they get too close. But it still leaves Fidor and the two local warriors to bear the brunt of the frontal assault.

Fox and Yatsuhashi spring forward, their weapons swinging. Each blade, each slice of their weapon, leaves a trail of Grimm blood and bleeding energy, contrails of light following the paths of the blades. The pair are always in motion, only stopping for seconds as to change direction near-instantaneously or to parry a direct hit against them.

It's an amazing display of martial skill in action, and Fidor is dumb-struck. So much so that he doesn't hear the two, softer pairs of feet landing behind him.

"Wow. I've never seen Yatsu or Fox riled up that badly." A silvery voice says from behind the captain. Turning, Fidor finds himself dumbstruck once again.

Several years before The Fall, after a fairly routine suppression of a minor workers insurrection in a hive world, Fidor and many of the senior officers of the Militarum regiments present were invited by the inhabitants of the upper hive to a showcase of various forms of art. One of those forms was fashion.

The girl, who stands about the same height as Fidor, even in two-inch heels, looks like she has stepped right of the memory of that event. Her clothing can be considered the height of fashion to those who care about such things. Even to someone like Fidor, he can appreciate the fine craftsmanship in the woman's outfit of multiple shades of brown, even if it is definitely not suited for the practicality of military combat. Even the beret on her head is decidedly not one that follows any military guideline he knows. Also, how can she see with those shade-glasses on?

The girl tilts her glasses down with a finger, casting an appraising eye on Fidor.

"Nice outfit, I gotta say." She says with a smile. "You guys look like you need some help. Where do you need Team CFVY?"

Fidor stares at the young woman, his mouth moving up and down soundlessly. His brain struggles to process the information of what is going on around him. He's been in battles before, sure, but he's never had a battle that just… took such a weird turn.

The crash of a body landing right near his feet, makes him turn. A bisected Beowolf lands just at his feet. It's missing its lower half and it's left arm, but it still tries to snap and slice at Fidor.

A blur of motion from the woman is all Fidor has as warning as she slams the square box attached to a strap down hard onto the Beowolf's head. Hard. The skull armour splinters, cracks and breaks in a spray of blood and bone. Fidor's brain can't fully process it. Sure, the bag has studs on the bottom corners, but there is no chance that such a thing could destroy the head of anything, let alone one of these Grimm.

The woman doesn't care as she lifts up her handbag and sets it back on her shoulder, the look on her face like she had done nothing strenuous or extreme.

"Yeah…" She says simply. "Want us right here?"

Fidor can only nod as the girl saunters past him, walking in a way exactly like the fashion models at the showcase. She is confident, cocksure and brave, even in the face of the creatures that barrel through the Cadian crossfire and past the blades of the warriors scything through the horde.

She doesn't a say word as she swings her handbag up in front of her. It opens, the sides, front and back folding open… and revealing the unmistakeable inner workings of a heavy calibre gun platform. Six barrels slide seemingly out of nowhere like a cheap conjurer's trick, the form easily identifiable to Fidor as an assault cannon. Gravity joins with weight and the weapon swings down.

It's almost the same in length as she is in height, and has an ammunition drum that nearly touches the ground when held at her waist. And she wields it like a Space Marine would a heavy bolter: with astounding ease.

She's got the trigger depressed and the barrels spin up, the whirring sound filling the air before it becomes a roar of rounds breaking the sound-barrier. Fidor can't tell what calibre they are, but they strike the Grimm hard. Although not hard enough to kill, but enough to punch through skin or impact into bone. The beasts don't slow, but the woman just pans her gun side to side, still firing.

He almost misses it. If he wasn't watching her intently, Fidor would not have seen the grin, the look of sheer manic glee on her face. But he does see what happens next.

The ripple of explosions through the rushing horde is hard to miss. Beowolves and Ursas are torn to bloody ribbons of black, as flowers of red and yellow fire erupt from within them. They die, as all enemies of humanity die; gloriously.

Fidor's legs give out from underneath him as his head swims once more.

"I got you!" A sweet sounding voice from behind him says, as a pair of small but strong hands catch him and gently lower him to the ground. No-one around him sees it happen, his own Cadians focused on the fight, and the local warriors fighting the enemy.

So it's a shock for him when he turns around and sees a round, innocent looking face framed by long dark brown hair… and topped by a large pair of rabbit ears.

"… C-Carmen?" Fidor asks in confusion.

"Huh?" The abhuman girl, the much older abhuman girl, responds in confusion. "I'm… I'm not Carmen, sir. I'm… I'm Velvet. Velvet Scarlatina, sir."

Fidor blinks his eyes before he looks at the girl in confusion. She's right; this girl is decidedly not little Carmen. Mainly because, even though she is small, the girl called Velvet stands just over five-feet tall, excluding the ears. She carries much of the same features; an expressive round face, long brown hair, and large innocent eyes.

She's cute, in a word.

So it surprises Fidor to no end to see her here.

"Do you need help, sir?"

The wind rips away Fidor's answer as a Valkyrie skims the ground just behind them, more soldiers pounding out of the open rear door, lasguns pouring fire into the enemy. They jump out of the transport at a run, even as the Valkyrie continues forward and then jumps up over the rooftops.

"Where do you want us, sir?" Velvet Scarlatina asks again.

Looking around, Fidor scans the battlefield. Her male comrades are in the thick of the fighting, slaying Grimm left and right with their blades, while the other woman works the centre with her assault cannon. The flanks are being suppressed by his Cadians and the Kasrkin.

He shakes his head, before he pushes himself upward. "Wherever you feel best, little miss."

The girl quickly looks around her, the large ears above whipping side to side with the motion before, without a word, she nods her head and speeds off.

Fidor doesn't see where though as he feels himself be pulled up by multiple pairs of hands.

"Captain, sir? Are you all right?"

The familiar voice makes Fidor look around, and he sees Tolya standing behind him. The lad is a mess; the sleeve is torn from his left elbow down, his flak armour is dented and covered in dust and mud, and a nasty gash on his forehead is spilling blood down to cover his left eye. His vox-caster is gone, most likely wrecked. But he smiles brilliantly at the sight of his commanding office alive.

Fidor nods his head. "A little dazed, but I'm alive."

Tolya nods as soldier run past them, the Cadians shouting encouragement and cheers to their commanding officer. And also cheering on the local warriors that have joined the fight.

"Who are they, sir?" Tolya asks as he takes a hold of his lasgun again, the weapon somehow managing to survive the destruction of the wall.

Fidor shakes his head. "I do not know… But I thank the Throne they arrived when they did."

Feeling presences around him, the captain turns and sees several Cadians looking at the trio of warriors fighting. Staring at them, dumbstruck as they were the first time they saw a Space Marine in the flesh.

And Fidor is not pleased by it.

"What are you lot gawking at?" He calls out as he hefts his power fist again, flexing his fingers again before he forms a fist. "We're children of Cadia! Are we going to stand by and let… children do our job for us?"

"No, sir!" They all cry out.

"Then forward!"

He runs forward into the battle again, his mind clear on the reality of what is happening before him.

But the objective remains the same: this town will not fall.

She spotted them when she was dropping down beside Coco, that giant in steel armour with the heavy calibre gun, and when she was beside the commanding officer of the defending soldiers, she saw him clearly through the press of bodies around the breach.

So she runs towards him, weaving and dodging through more of the soldiers rushing to stem the gap.

It's… it's madness. To rush towards Grimm, especially a hoard of such size, is madness. Everyone on Remnant knows that. Even the most well-trained Huntsmen would balk at willingly charging a horde with as much fervour as these men and women are showing.

It's madness.

But, the weirdest thing is… it's working.

As these people charge in with their rifles and other weapons, they do something that not even Atlas is capable of doing; the slow the Grimm down. The torrent of fire they put is astounding to see, all the different discharges from the weapons coming together in a kaleidoscope of sound and colour that's both amazing and scary to see. But it's so coordinated. They've capitalized on the blow that the rest of Team CFVY has hit the Grimm with, and they plug the gaps missed.

Grimm are dying in droves. And a glimmer of hope fills her.

Considering how much destruction and death the Grimm deal out on a near daily basis, to see them suffer in kind… it activates something primal in Velvet. Something… angry.

Velvet skids to a halt as she reaches her target.

And instantly her anger is forgotten. And a primal fear takes over.

The giant IS a giant. Not the gentle-giant that the Faunus knows Yatsuhashi to be, but a brutal giant of war. Standing roughly seven-feet tall, his body is thickened with muscle and sinew. He's wearing fatigues in a woodland scheme, with his torso and shoulder encased in steel plates of armour, almost like the old Valean knights, dirtied and pitted. He's firing the heavy calibre gun in short controlled bursts, arms as thick as tree-trunks keeping the weapon aloft while legs the size of pillars keep him stationary. His square head, with features enlarged and oversized with gigantism, is twisted in a snarl of rage… and pain.

The giant pitches forward, his heavy weapon hitting the ground with a deep thud as he grimaces in pain.

"Brother Ollarus!" A deep voice calls out from behind them, making Velvet turn. And she pales in shock and fear at what approaches them.

There's three more giants, advancing at a quick pace. Wearing the same, all steel armour, they are as enlarged as the first one is, although their weapons look comparatively lighter compared to his one; one carries a weapon that is clearly a shotgun, and the other is… she has no idea what he is carrying, but it's got a sickle magazine and uses a heavy calibre round, judging from the size. Two of them also look… young, when she looks past the size and musculature. The looks of concern that is plain on their faces.

The third one, however, is another being entirely.

"On your feet, Neophyte." The giant with a thick, pitch-black beard and piercing green eyes says as he bodily takes a hold of the first giant's shoulder. "Raise your weapon and keep firing."

"I can't, brother-sergeant." The warrior, that Velvet guesses is called Ollarus, says out through gritted teeth. "… The pain… is too much."

The giant looks down at the other, Velvet doing the same, and her eyes open wide in shock. What she thought at first was dirt was blood, seeping from open rents in the armour. It flows in thin lines across the armour and down to the ground, pooling slightly around his form.

Ollarus turns to look at his commander… and notices Velvet standing aghast at them. The giant with the beard follows his eyes as he bodily turns to look at the Faunus.

His eyebrows knit in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, his voice a deep-bass rumble. "All civilians are to keep to the evacuation area. Leave."

Velvet shrinks backwards. The noise of the battle holds no fear on her, nor the Grimm. But this giant… terrifies her. He radiates a killing energy, a being who kills easily and unhesitatingly. His eyes, green as emeralds in the night, stare at her unflinchingly, and she feels… small. Like, she wants to run and hide.

A lot of the people who have bullied her for being a Faunus liked to play up the predator-prey aspect, making fun of her for being one of the many 'prey' Faunus. It never worked with them because none of them were threatening. Even the Faunus who were considered 'predators' didn't threaten her.

The giant in front of her is a predator. Through and through, he is a predatory killing machine.

Velvet reaches behind her and pulls out Anesidora. Her team-mates have all shown their weapons and shown their skills, so she should too, if she wants this giant to take her seriously.

Her nerves betray her. "I… I'm a… I can…"

A sound of disapproval comes from the giant's throat; a growl of annoyance.

"Get back with the non-combatants, girl. Now."

Velvet feels herself deflate. To be treated so coldly, so dismissively, without a word in edgewise for her defence.

She forgets it though as the three giants begin firing their weapons, each gun roaring and barking loudly, at onrushing Grimm. The one in pain, Ollarus, tries to add his own fire to the fusillade being thrown up, resting the gun on the ground with its large box magazine and bipod to keep it steady.

But, even as their weapons blow Grimm to pieces, Velvet sees it's not enough. It just needs something extra.

Her fingers tighten around Anesidora's camera box. As Coco says; actions speak much louder than words.

Even as they fire, she trains Anesidora on each weapon. The shotgun, the compact automatics, the heavy weapon. She takes pictures of them all. As she does, her Semblance takes effect. The motions to operate the weapons, to control them, to use them as if she had used them for years even though she's just seen them, all of that information flows into her mind.

She selects the first weapon. One of the compact automatics.

She ignites the hard-light Dust in her weapon.

It takes seconds for the wire-frame to form in her hands. Each mote of Dust flows along the same lines in the same mould the weapon would have been cast from. Each groove in the fore and pistol grip are copied, every nick and bump in the metal frame, the dual-headed eagle with outstretched wings is copied in bright, light-blue light, as the weapon forms in her hands.

As soon as the light is formed, Velvet depresses the trigger. The barking roar from the muzzle is the exact same as the one sound from proper weapons, each bolt strikes the Grimm with the same strength as the actual rounds. Limbs are shorn off, bodies are burst open and Grimm are decapitated.

The firing only lasts seconds, but throughout it all, Velvet has been focused and professional. So it's only when she releases her finger from the trigger, allowing the weapon to disappear does she notice that she is being stared at by the giants.

The stares are mix of confusion, wariness and restrained hostility.

The one with the beard looks at her dubiously, studying her hard. All Velvet can do is smile wanly at him as the Dust disintegrates into miniature motes of light, the copy disappearing into the night sky.

"P-problem, sir?" Velvet asks, just to break the silence around her.

The giant sniffs the air…

Then turns around and takes the large weapon from Ollarus, passing him his own automatic weapon in turn.

"Move back to the second line. Get yourself patched up and await my instructions." The leader tells Ollarus.

For a moment, the younger giant looks as if he is going to protest before, resignedly, he nods his head and stands up. Even wracked by severe pain, Ollarus still holds himself tall as he jogs away from the fight.

"Keep on the attack, Neophytes." The lead giant orders as he racks the slide of his new weapon, checking the load, before hefting it heavily in his hands. He turns his head to look meaningfully at Velvet. A look of a challenge.

In seconds, the Faunus Huntress-in-training has the same heavy calibre weapon in her hands. It's just a few pounds lighter than Coco's minigun in hard-light form, but it's still a hefty thing. She racks the slide, just the same as the giant did before she turns to look at him.

The giant nods his head.

"Thaddeus." His voice is a low, bass grumble.

"… Velvet." She replies, her voice considerably lighter.

Thaddeus grins, perfect teeth showing through. "You can copy our weapons. Can you keep our pace?"

Velvet returns the grin before she aims her copy of the weapon at the horde.

Coco is pouring fire onto the Grimm. Gianduja is running hot, she's sure of it. But not as hot as she is right now, she's sure of it.

She pans the minigun left to right, making sure to spread her bullets and Dust liberally among the crowd. When she's got the spread right, then she does it. She brings the Hype.

Her Semblance is exactly like herself: dynamic, expressive and hard to miss.

The Fire Dust in each bullet, of each round dug into the hide and skin of each Grimm, ignites in a rolling wave of explosions. Grimm are shredded and destroyed, bone armour and limbs go flying. Coco Adel kills Grimm at an accelerated pace.

But it's just not enough.

At the edges, she can see Yatsu and Fox adding their own kills to the tally, and they do it with all the skill and strength they possess. They are green and red blurs of movement, their weapons flashing as they dismember and decapitate the beasts in front of them.

Coco racks up a body count as high as her teammates are, but she's at a disadvantage and she knows it.

Gianduja is not a mobile weapon. Even with her Aura, Coco can't handle her weapon on the move. The recoil from the gun, and the spread of the bullets work against each other on the move.

So she bounds forward, spinning down her fire every time she does. It's not great, and it's nowhere near something she likes to do. But she needs to support her friends. She keeps the barrels of her minigun spinning, but Coco doesn't fire as she moves forward.

Forward, fire, stop firing, forward. It's a nasty set of stops and starts. Even with the extra firepower being poured onto the horde from the soldiers, Coco still realizes that she is exposed against the Grimm.

Velvet would be nearby in any other fight, helping Coco with supporting fire, but she's disappeared. Probably finding new weapons to photograph, not that Coco blames her. These guys have all sorts of interesting weaponry and she's sure that her friend will find some great ones to copy. Whichever one she finds though, Coco hopes she uses it soon.

She stops firing for a second as she moves up. And that's all it takes. Even through the gunfire raining down on them, a pair of Ursas have singled her out as a target and they barrel towards her. They speed up as they see Coco's weapon stop firing and she rushes forward.

An easy kill for the beasts.

Coco's Aura tells her of the onrushing beasts, but she's at the point of no return in her bound forward: she can sacrifice stability for firepower, or sacrifice firepower for speed.

She lands on the ground, and she lifts up Gianduja, and she depresses the trigger. Fire spits from the muzzle of her gun. No time for theatrics now, so she uses her Semblance almost right away. Each bullet that fires hits the first Ursa like a missile, blasting it to ribbons and ash.

The second one barges pasts its fellow. It's larger, faster, more armoured. Its bone armour is merely charred by the flames from her minigun. It gets within the arc of her fire faster than she thought possible.

Coco grimaces as she moves to shift Gianduja into its handbag form. Time for a brawl…

The blast of cornea-burning bright blue light that splashes into the right shoulder of the Ursa Major makes Coco thankful that she wears sunglasses. She watches as the ball of blue energy hits the Grimm square in the shoulder joint, atomizing fur, muscle and bone in an instant. The limb comes flying off the Ursa careens to the side, roaring its fury and pain at those that would dear interrupt its charge.

Another roar comes in answer. The roar of human anger, accompanied by the roar of guns. Soldiers run forward, ten of them, this time wearing more bulkier, more encompassing plates of armour. They carry larger, matt-black guns, firing out white-blue beams of energy in a near-constant stream, right at the Ursa that tries to charge back. One of them has what looks like a pistol version, thick cables connecting it to their back, and a sword that shines with coiling sparks of energy.

A soldier steps forward, their face covered by a full-face mask and helmet, while in their hands they carry a short, stubby gun with a thick, blackened barrel.

Ursa roars at the soldier at rears onto its legs. And the gun speaks in reply.

The blast of energy that punches through the Grimm's torso, coring it with intense heat and energy, stops the beast dead. The Ursa topples to the ground dead, its body dissipating quickly.

Without a word, the soldiers split into two teams, five bodies in each, as they move up on either side of Coco.

"We've got them pressed!" The soldier with the sword and pistol says as he stands next to Coco. "Now let's kick them in the teeth!"

The soldiers give a loud cry in response, a two-syllable yell, before they begin firing heavily onto the Grimm horde.

Coco is thankful for her sunglasses for several reasons. One thing is that she can easily hide her eyes when she shows an emotion that doesn't fit her perceived personality.

The look of wide-eyed awe is one of them.

But she shakes it away as she grips Gianduja again. Lifting it up, she aims it at the horde of Grimm once again before she smiles.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" She hollers out before her gunfire joins the fray.

It's the oldest equation in the universe: the immoveable object versus the irresistible force.

Battered, bloodied, but unbowed and unbroken, the Cadians and neophytes of the Steel Drakes have resisted the horde for nearly six-hours. They have spent enough ammunition to lay waste to the town itself many times over. The aircraft of the Imperial Navy have scorched and scoured the landscape with their fury in ways that only Mother Nature can ever hope to repair.

They have resisted the Grimms advance hard.

In any other time and place, the numbers of the Grimm would have won out. The arrival of the Death Stalkers and the destruction of the wall would have signalled the death knell of the defence of Carterstown, and the destruction of two companies of Cadian infantry, two platoons of Kasrkin, eleven Astartes and scours of Imperial Navy armsmen and crew, and the massacre of the remaining civilians in the town.

It would have been an unprecedented loss to the 46th Imperial Fleet and their mission on Remnant. To Remnant at large, it would have just been another night of fire and blood-shed. Another town that would have been lost to the Grimm, even if the arrival of visitors from outer-space, humans from outer-space no-less, had stepped up to help defend the town and its citizens.

The Imperium had the Grimm at bay by their very jaws.

The arrival of Team CFVY altered the equation.

With the blow struck to the horde by the team of Huntsmen-in-training, the horde reels. The hold it has on the town weakens, leaving it clutching victory by the skin of their teeth.

Now, a cry goes up from the defenders. A cry that is the opposite of what even Alpha Grimm, the most veteran of veteran creatures, would hear in a situation. A cry of victorious rage.

Capitalizing on the blow, the Cadians rally and counter charge. They charge right into the teeth of hell, void black forms and fire seeking to welcome them to death. They charge into the mouth of hell.

Lasguns, melta, plasma, flamer, chainsword, bayonet. All do the bloody work of the Imperial war-machine as the Cadians clutch the enemy by the jaws and kick them in the teeth.

Even as men and women are disembowelled and butchered, the Cadians do not let up their counter-attack. They cry out in righteous fury, their martial fury aided by the skill and weaponry of Team CFVY.

Older Grimm, ones that have caused death and despair for years by themselves, see the shift in their prey and they are confused. What should have been cowering humans, reeking of fear and panic, are glowing figures of rage and anger. It was an impossibility, just as the Grimm themselves are an impossibility. Even with the glowing forms of the Huntsmen cutting them to pieces, the horde can only take so much punishment before the brutal mathematics of Imperial war win out.

The death knell for the horde comes when Veteran Sergeant Thaddeus, along with Huntress-in-training Coco and Velvet, combine the fire power of their heavy guns, along with the remaining Kasrkin and the reconnaissance Salamander, to hose down the remains of the gates with heavy firepower.

The ground and broken stones run thick with black Grimm blood.

And then, as is the remit of the Cadian Shock Troops, the horde breaks.

The immoveable object has overcome the irresistible force.

Anger! Rage! Spite and fury!

If the Alpha could speak, it would be ranting and raving at the iniquity of what was going on. It would be cursing out the humans for what it had done to its packmates. It would be yelling about how such an easy victory had turned into a protracted siege and had seen the deaths of multiple Alphas of so many stripes.

Instead all that came out of its maw was a series of bellows, howls and screams as it roared its anger against the humans.

These humans. These… strange, foul-smelling, angry humans.

There was no fear! Always, when the Grimm attacked any human settlement, fear was present in the defenders. Even if the vaunted Huntsmen from the Kingdoms came, the fear remained. How could humans not fear the Grimm? They were numberless as the shadows in the world and as vast as the night sky. They could never be stopped, only slowed.

And yet these… these humans. Fear had no hold on them. The wall and the shattered gates burned as brightly with rage as the eastern edge of the town did with fire. Each new Grimm that appeared seemed to add fuel to their hatred and their anger.

The easy victory became a stalemate, and with the arrival of the Huntsmen, the stalemate has now become a route.

The Alpha Beowolf howls and roars, trying to exhort its pack-mates to remain! They can win this! They could! They just had to keep attacking! Attack, attack! That was always the way of the Grimm. No matter their form or locale, attack was the only thing they knew. It deep within them, right from their spawning.

But now something new was spreading through the horde. Something alien to the Creatures of Grimm. Something they knew but had not experienced on this level before, especially not in the Alpha's lifetime on Remnant: panic.

What had first been a trickle of Alphas deciding enough was enough became a stream of Grimm that were running from the flames and the fight, the creatures streaming past the Alpha in droves.

The desire to lash out at them was there. Weakness was to be culled, fear was to be met with claw and tooth. But Grimm could not kill Grimm. It is impossible for one beast of the night to harm another, even though the Alpha sorely wishes to at this moment. So instead of lashing out at the runners, all it can do is growl and snarl at them as they retreat into the forest.

Yet, even as it rages at the defeat being handed to the horde, the Alpha thinks. Its age allows it to do so, so it has been hanging back during the battle, watching the path of the human airships that have come down from the sky and into the town itself. It's been watching as they land in the eastern corner of the town, then lift off after several long minutes.

And it's noticed the change. The aircraft come down filled with anger… but leave filled with fear and sadness.

The beast looks around the battlefield. Other Grimm are still assaulting the gap in the wall, or trying to clamber up the wall to get over. But all of those attacks are focused on the southern and western sides of the town, leaving the eastern side unmanned.

Not that it isn't unprotected. The grass around the stone wall is engulfed in flames, roaring and roiling fires. The Alpha has seen what the flames have done to others that it has touched; consumed into walking, wailing pillars of flame before being reduced to ash.

But it is the only side of the town that the humans with guns are not guarding.

The voice in the Alpha's head returns:

"No. Do not enter the flames, for you will perish. Retreat to the woods, to the safe dark. Live, grow, and strike again."

But as much as the Grimm are the embodiment of darkness, they are also the embodiment of dark thought. Fury, rage, anger… spite.

That's what the Alpha wishes at this moment. The dreams of destruction of the Kingdoms is forgotten, the thoughts of the slaughter of humanity and Faunus are pushed aside.

The Alpha wishes to spite the humans. And where better can it spite the enemy from an area they thought protected, and against a prey that cannot fight back?

So it runs forward. A speeding bullet of obsidian fur and white bone. Its size allows the Alpha to bulldoze those too slow out of the way, while its status means that other beasts stop their retreat to allow it to pass. It cuts across the horde, dashing away from the fight at the breach, toward the flames.

Enemy shot and bullet wings past and over it, other beasts taking the hits. Some hits impact on the armour or punch through flesh and fur, but they do nothing to impede its advance.

It only stops at the edge of the flames.

The roar of the flames is louder than any noise the Alpha has encountered before, and indecision worms in the Alpha's brain. It has reached the size and age it is now by avoiding such things, by not taking such risks. It has kept itself alive by knowing when to run to a fight and when to run away from a fight. This action is one that even its own brain cannot comprehend.

But it must. It has to kill humans. It must destroy humanity.

What's a little pain when it can bring glory to its dark mistress?

So it plunges in.

And is immediately engulfed in pain.

Time and distance lose all meaning to the Alpha as it barrels through the burning field. All it knows is that it has to travel a straight line to reach its destination, everything else is secondary.

But the fire licks at its fur, scouring away hide and skin, exposing muscle to the hot, angry air. Bone armour is scorched, and the pads of its paws send agony through its body.

A large, flat, dark shape looms ahead of it, and the beast jumps up. Claws extended, they dig into the unremitting stone of the wall, and it climbs.

Even up on the wall, the fire still burns horribly, and it tries to sap the beast of strength. Claws crack and splinter as the Alpha fights the agony during the climb. Steel spikes reach down, and tear open the skin on the chest, breaking open armour to let blood and ichor pour out, only to evaporate from the heat.

It reaches the top. Even in the air free of flames, the Alpha is still in pain. The damage done to its body cannot be repaired without a return to the spawning pool. It is dying a slow death, caused by its own desires and hubris.

But, from its vantage point on the top of the wall, it feels vindication.

It can see the shapes of a single human aircraft, big and blocky, sitting in a large square of land surrounded by buildings. It simmers with anger and the wrong smell again, while humans, small in number but numerous in weaponry clamber around it. Yet that is not what takes the beasts attention.

Hidden in a large building just to the edge of the cleared space, the Alpha can smell and see the taste of fear and panic on the huddled forms of humans within. It is tantalizing to the Grimm.

Pushing itself up to its feet again, the Alpha Beowulf stalks across the top of the wall towards the building. As it does, its long tongue slips from its maw to hang limply from between its teeth.

It will die tonight. But it will not die alone.

The storehouse the last group of civilians are sheltering in is quieter now. The main group of children were the first to be evacuated along with the elderly and the infirm, so that left only the adults and the families that did not want to be separated under any circumstances.

One such family is the Stone family, along with their newest family member.

Nella and Bear had no true reason for not putting either Melo or Carmen onto the first aircraft the Cadians sent to the town. They know that, and they accept it. It's a parents instinct to protect their child. So they knew they should have sent them off with the aircraft.

Instinct also told them that to send the children out with the Cadians, into that horrible night, was dangerous too. Safety surrounded by danger. To separate would be to lose sight of them, and to lose sight of them would be the worst thing for them.

So the Stone family, and the last remaining townspeople, are left to wait in the cleared storehouse, families clustered together with others. Mothers try to keep their children calm with songs or stories, fathers armed with whatever weapons they preferred or have stand watch over their families, even as they chat with the other men.

The sound of heavy footsteps moving quickly draws Nella's attention from them. Turning her head, she hears the sound of hurried movement as a door bangs open.

"Triage!" A gruff voice calls out. "Where's the medic?"

A woman's put-upon voice replies quickly. "O-over here! Wounded on the left, hurry!"

Nella suppresses a shudder at what she knows is happening. It's no secret, and the Cadians aren't shy about showing it either.

They come away from the battle in small streams. Groups of men, maybe two or three, supported by the people in the green and steel uniforms. Each person was a wreck. Their uniforms were invariably dyed with blood, always their own. They were missing limbs; arms or legs, while others had faces or torsos reduced to rags, yet were somehow still alive.

Nella has seen better accidents from the men who went out cutting lumber for the town.

The Cadian medic, an older man called Valim, was the person left behind to tend to the wounded, along with five other medics. And they took to it well, alarmingly well even. Wounds were sterilized and patched up, flowing blood was staunched. But it wasn't enough. Even though they were kept away from the main group of townspeople, they could hear the wounded as they succumbed.

Doctor Fleur stepped up. A woman in her forties, her children were already on the first transport out, so she stepped in to help the medic with the treatment of the wounded. Following her example, several other women, the ones who were best at first aid, stepped up to help.

Nella Stone is not one of those women. She is better at mending clothes rather than mending bodies, so she stays with the other families, keeping Melo and Carmen quiet, even as the world outside resounds with the noise of battle.

A door opens, the sounds of battle outside raising in volume along with the cries of the wounded, before it drops again as the door shuts.

Nella looks at the new arrival.

They're one of the 'naval armsmen', as Father Constantine had called them, and he's conversing with the mayor. He's a stocky man, his body covered in an emerald green body suit which is then covered by steel armour not too dissimilar in cut to that worn by the Cadians, but bulkier on the torso. It also looks… almost archaic in design, even if his helmet is bulbous and simple; a pot-shaped helmet with a sliding visor of orange coloured glass. He cradles a lethal looking shotgun in one arm as he speaks to the mayor.

Gods, if ever there's an example of duality, it's the men that Nella sees standing in front of each. One, tall but thick in the guy, dressed in the jacket and trousers of a life-long frontier mayor, his lever-action weapon hung across his shoulder, the other, shorter, simplistically dressed in green and steel, with his weapon held lazily in his arm.

"What are they saying, ma?" Melo asks, seeing who her mother is focused on.

"I don't know, dear." The woman replies. "I… let's try and get closer."

Standing up, the two Stone women form a chain of hands with Carmen at the end as they move a bit closer to the pair of men talking.

"… it won't take long, sir, I promise you that." The armsman says simply.

"I believe you, son." Mayor Goldthwaite says, sounding sure of the man's words. "But you need to tell us."

"… I already have, sir."

Goldthwaite shakes his head simply. "No. You need to tell us."

Nella and the girls stop as the armsman turns to look at the room filled with just over forty people.

"E-everyone," The man says out loud, clearly unused to speaking to civilians like he is now. "The pilots have found a small fault with one of the engines of the Destrier outside. Something's been sucked into the air intake of one of the engines, so we've had to shut it down for safety before they find out what's wrong. Word is; ten minute fix. Then they'll get you out of here."

The relief that permeates the room now is palpable, with Nella's sigh being echoed by almost every person around her.

They're almost safe… just a little more…

The sound of crushing rock and splintering wood precedes the sound of metal being rent and wrecked before the building falls into blackness. Screams and yells accompany the loss of light. And a roar answers back.

The roar of a Grimm.

An enraged and pained Grimm.

A big one.

"Grimm!" Someone calls out, stating the obvious in the way that only a panicked person can do.

"How did it get in?"

"Have they been killed?"

"What about the wounded? Could it smell the blood?"

Nella can't answer. Not that she knew the answers to those questions, because she didn't. But because the loud roar has clenched her throat shut, her mouth is dry with fear and she is rooted to the spot.

Living in the wilds means that Nella is acutely aware of the Grimm. She has seen their shapes and forms, heard their roars of anger and their death noises as they are dispatched by the town militia. But to hear one up close…

"Ma…" Melo says as she begins to shiver, holding her mother's hand tighter even as the girl pulls Carmen closer to herself.

Opening her mouth to speak, Nella's words of comfort die on her lips as the world shakes. Stonework splinters and cracks, timbers are smashed aside, and a wounded Grimm, larger than any that Nella has ever seen, smashes through the wall furthest from her.

It is blinded with pain and rage, that much is clear, as it makes no attempt to attack the people inside the building. In its agony, it is seemingly content to destroy the stonework of the building it has somehow found itself in.

However, the worst is done.

The people in the room panic.

Cries of fear ring out as every person rushes towards the door, some even going for windows to escape the Alpha Beowolf as it works on levelling the building.

Nella does her hardest to keep hold of the girls, bringing both arms to take hold of them, but the tide of people works against her. The children are taken from her grasp, herself separated in the tide of fearful and panicked people.

Nella calls out to them, but her voice is drowned out in the cries of people and the roars of the Grimm.

A pair of strong hands take hold of her arms, stopping Nella from being pulled down by the crowd. Looking behind her, Nella sees both the mayor and her husband are now stood behind her.

"I lost the girls!" The mother cries out, tears beginning to form in her eyes. Either in fear or the feeling of failure and loss, she can't be sure.

"They'll be fine!" Bear cries out, even as the Grimm roars again and more masonry falls. "We need to get out of here!"

"Mayor, sir!" The armsman yells, having easily made his way to stand in front of the trio, acting like a shield as the last of the townspeople fled the building. His brutal shotgun is held ready in his hands. "Please assist the medics in evacuating the wounded. You two, for the love of Sanguinius; run!"

The Grimm suddenly turns, taking its attention away from the building, to the only people in the building. Its ears flick back against its skull as its eyes focus on the humans.

"NOW!" The Imperial cries out.

Nella is yanked outside by Bear, the mayor rushing off as fast as his game leg can allow, before she and her husband are outside the building. Behind them, they can hear the ferocious bark of the Imperial's shotgun, firing shot after shot. They can hear the building tremble again, the Grimm growling. The scream that follows is mercifully cut short.

The rest of the townspeople are being herded into other buildings by the towns militia and more of the armsmen, their guns ready even as they wave for Nella and Bear to come to them. At the edge of her sight, Nella can see Carmen and Melo with another group making for the Imperials.

Even as she runs, the mother breathes out a sigh of relief. Which is quickly replaced by a scream as the wall of the storehouse behind them erupts outwards, stone-work and masonry flying free to crash to the ground. She risks a glance back.

The Alpha Beowolf is standing tall, its form dripping with dust, dirt, and blood, red and black. It's a giant, larger than any Grimm Nella has seen, a giant walking nightmare of a beast, made all the more fearsome as flames begin to take hold of the building. In one giant paw, it holds the dismembered and eviscerated corpse of the armsmen.

The Grimm howls and roars as it sets its sights on the group that Nella and Bear have joined.

Another roar answers it. An equally bestial roar, but one issued from human throats.

"For the Emperor!"

Squads of Imperial armsmen have come running towards the site of the attack, their weapons bared and ready. There's over two dozen in all.

Nella gets a sickening feeling in her stomach as she sees the beast throw the corpse in its grip away, dropping to its haunches before it sprints towards the Imperials.

The men and women of the Segmentum Pacificus battlefleet are some of the most hardy that exist in the Imperium of Man. With their proximity to the Ocularis Terriblis to the galactic north, the Halo Zone that encompasses the boundaries of the galaxy and the ork freebooters that exist within, the Aeldari of Saim-Hann, the battlefleet of Segmentum Pacificus is sorely tested day in and day out. Xenos pirates, heretical and renegade marauders. Enemy ships of nearly all shapes and forms are faced by the captains of their ships, while the armsmen face the inscrutable and perfidious beasts of the void with nothing but a prayer on their lips to the God-Emperor and a shotgun or hellgun in their hands.

So, as the Alpha charges, they open fire. Solid buckshot and lances of light flash out through the night air, slapping and stabbing into the beasts hide.

But like so many other enemies of Mankind, it simply rushes through the fusillade directed at it. But the armsmen still hold their ground. Shotguns bark and hellguns thrum as they continue to pour fire at the beast.

The rounds do nothing to the beast. Neither slowing nor feeling pain, the Alpha barges into the ranks of the armsmen. The luckiest and the fleetest dodge out of the way, rolling to the sides before coming up firing again. The unlucky ones die. Their carapace armour affords no protection against the Alpha Beowolf. Bodies are torn asunder, blood arcing in the air as they are savagely ripped apart.

Naval discipline holds. Not confined in the tight, manic corridors of their regular field of battle, the armsmen begin to run rings around the beast. Like carrion predators hunting a larger predator, they chip away at the Grimm as they circle round it, shotguns and hellguns peppering the creature's hide.

Yet even as they scour flesh and hide, drawing blood and marking bone, the beast gives no indication of feeling pain, or even feeling the hits landing. As it turns its head to look at its new quarry, the armsmen see the creatures eyes. Flat red, with no hint of an iris or pupil, while black veins worm their way from the edges. Eyes filled with madness.

"Keep firing, men!" A sergeant calls out, pumping the slide of his shotgun as he chambers new rounds. He never gets the chance to fire them as his head is torn from his shoulders by broken claws the size of forearms. Blood welters up to the night air before the Grimm tears into his body again, ripping apart the carapace armour with little resistance.

It does not stop to savour the kill nor the slaughter it has meted out before it spins on its heel and lunges forward, bearing another armsman to the ground. Its jaw snaps down, hooking into the sides of the man's ribs before, with a sickening crunch and a blood-curdling scream, the Alpha slams its jaws shut. Armour, cloth, bone and muscle are all ripped away in one single stroke.

The speed of the act has shifted the combat. What had before been a ready counter-attack to protect civilians had stalled quickly by an equally swift attack from the beast. Though the armsmen still pour all the firepower they can onto the creature, in the end, it does nothing to slow it down.

The Alpha slaughters them. Bodies are torn, ripped and crushed to bloody gore as the beast metes out its maddened anger and fury on the armsmen. To the credit of their training, the armsmen do not baulk or run from the beast slaughtering their fellows.

Inside the Alpha's mind, it is a swirl of madness. Pain from the body sheers its mind blank, flaming nerves fraying at every semblance of sense in its mind. Where once was a mind possessed of brutal and primal cunning, now stands a tortured psyche, brought from pain and anger. Pain from the fires, pain from the wounds of the climb, pain from the rounds impacting against its hide, and pain from the sound echoing through its head. Just at the edge of hearing, it's neither a sound made any humans, nor a sound made by Grimm, but it grates at the Alpha's mind, nonetheless.

So it drowns out the sound. It drowns out through its maddened roars and howls, and it drowns it out by slaying the humans around it. It doesn't matter which human it gets, even though it's sating its thirst for blood on the soldiers, it will target the nearby civilians soon.

Chief Petty Officer Karilian sees the slaughter of his men. It's not the first time he's seen armsmen under his command die, and it's nowhere near as close in savagery as in some fights he's been in. But it still riles him up, angers him.

So he falls into an old truth; anger does as much good in a fight as courage.

Karilian lets loose a mighty bellow from deep in his core as he charges at the Grimm. His power mauls sparks to life, full charge. Enough to decapitate an onrushing ork nob, or to cave in the power armoured chest of a traitor Astartes. It will be more than enough to kill this beast.

So he charges. He charges right at the beast even as it shreds another armsman to pieces before it stomps another one flat. He charges, power maul held ready and bolt pistol in his other hand.

When he's at the right distance, with the Grimm's back presented to him, he swings the power maul. A solidly built man, with the strength in his arms spent in a life-time in His Divine Majesties' Navy, Karilian knows the kinetic energy from the swing, combined with the weight of the maul and the energy from the power source will kill the beast. He doesn't know the actual formula, but he's done it enough times to know it will work on any foe.

The power maul goes past the point of no return, and a look of savage glee splits Karilian's face.

… then the Grimm turns to face him. And the chief petty officer's body feels lighter.

The man's eyes dart to the side as he sees a green and steel object fly out of sight. It takes a split-second for his brain to realise that it is his forearm, power maul still sparking as its held in his former grip, flying off in a different direction.

He tries to bring his bolt pistol up, but by then it's too late. The beast's jaws are on him.

"Oh…" is all his brain manages to tell him before he begins to be savaged by the Alpha Beowulf.

The mighty jaws of the creature bite down, engulfing the man's head, shoulders and upper torso. Teeth puncture through armaplas and ceramite like it was simply paper, before tearing through cloth and skin beneath. The officer's screams of pain are muffled by the Alpha's own muffled roars of anger as its teeth grind on the armour. So it does what its most basic of instincts tell it to do: shake the human apart.

Karilian's body, for the man is now certainly dead, is tossed back and forth and side to side like a ragdoll. Blood pours from large punctures in his body that grow in size with each violent shake of the body. One of the teeth punches down through the nerves of the shoulder, and the fingers in the corpses remaining hand contract, firing the bolt pistol.

Karilian had loaded his pistol with Kraken penetrators, a round he found to be very effective when dealing with the shock and awe nature of the zone mortalis. Now, his only act of foresight does little to change the situation. Ammunition designed to punch through heavy ceramite and adamantium-equivalents punches through the remains of the bone armour and becomes lodged underneath, spilling more black blood in droves. It drives the Grimm to new heights of madness.

It thrashes the body solidly side to side, flinging the corpse around its head, even as the bolt pistol in the cadavers hand still looses its ammunition. Shots go wild, flying through the air to vanish into the night or to fly wildly into masonry, causing more shrieks and cries of panic. Civilians move out of the way of the shots burning through the air, many of them knocking others aside to escape the potential for airborne death.

One of the people knocked aside is a small child, just a little over six years old, with russet brown hair and large hare-like ears of the same colour. Either through accidental indifference or just plain basic human drive to look out for oneself, she is pushed aside and away from her place of safety as the Beowolf finishes it treatment of the corpses.

Bolt pistol now spent, the limbs shorn free from such violent motion, the Alpha lets the naval officer's upper torso fly from its maw to smack wetly to the ground. It lets out a loud growl as it advances towards the cowering mass of people hidden in a home. It stops, however, as a new scent reaches it on the air, making it turn its head.

Its ears flatten against its lupine head as it swivels slowly to take in the sight of the Faunus child, rooted to the spot in fright.

The same child that escaped its ire in Marysville, the smell of that doomed town still upon her.

Glee, primal and baleful, comes to its mind, unbound and unrestricted, through the madness. Its mouth opens in a tortured parody of a smile as it slowly creeps towards the child. It savours each mote of fear coming from her.

The mood swings in the townspeople. Cries of fear and begging become cries of anger and rage. Shouts for the creature to turn away from the child and to face them instead range from men and women, one pair even rushing out of the house to try and divert the Alpha's attention to themselves. More shots ring out, solid shot and Dust rounds impacted on its hide.

But its course will not be swayed. Not when its victim is so close. Drool mixed with blood drip from between its teeth as it savours the death that will come at its hands.

"YOU SHALL NOT HAVE HER!"

The shout does something that it shouldn't have done to an Alpha such as itself, a being of destruction created from one of the deep spawning pools in the Valean wilds. It has seen the death of hundreds of humans and Faunus, and put scores of Huntsmen to death with its claws and teeth. It is murder and discord given form by the whims of the Brother of Darkness.

And yet it is frozen in place by the sheer volume of hatred and anger directed at it from one solitary human.

"Turn and face me, beast!" The booming voice calls out. "Be you alien or daemon, I care not! For the Lord of Terra is with me, and I fear no evil!"

It is a challenge; the Alpha immediately knows this. The voice is issued from a human throat, but it has heard the same tone in animals. Wolves, bears. They have all dared to challenge the Alpha for domination of hunting grounds, and have all either been sent with their hide and pride wounded, or fell before its ire.

So it spins around, its form a blur of black fur, white bone and red eyes.

And is instantly blinded, by both light and pain.

Bright silver light, brighter than a star and equally as painful, radiates from the human's upraised hand, shrouding his body in darkness.

Again, he shouts.

"The Emperor is my Shield and my Shepherd! He is protection against the blasphemy of the xenos, against the blasphemy of the daemon! And He is with me tonight, foul alien! So I say to you again: You shall not have her! As the God-Emperor is my witness, I shall not allow it!"

The Alpha roars, madness and pain taking hold again. This… this is the source of the noise! That horrible grating sound. Louder now, stronger. It is the antithesis of everything that make the Grimm, everything that opposes the darkness that the creatures of the God of Darkness stand for.

"So come at me, foul beast!" The human challenges again, the sound of a sword being drawn preceding the sight of the three-foot blade at his side.

The Alpha pulls itself to its full height and roars again, spittle and blood flying from its maw, as it stretches out its paws. Its claws shine with blood and its eyes shine with madness.

The swordsman advances undaunted, sword held at his side and the icon emitting the silvery light held in front of him. His steps do not falter, nor does his voice.

"That thou wouldst bring them only death, that thou wouldst spare none, that thou wouldst pardon none. We beseech thee, destroy them!"

The Alpha lunges at the man, and he screams in incoherent rage as he lunges in return.

Sword and claw clash in the night.

Fear has frozen her to the spot. Fear that paralyzes the limbs and the brain into inaction.

Carmen knows that monster. Her papa had tried to stop her seeing it, but she had seen it during the bad night. She saw it standing over the mayor, its mouth and claws ready, and it was trying to get down the well at her too, trying to claw its way down the well her momma and papa had put her in.

She's terrified.

So she can do nothing but stand there as she watches Father Constantine fight the monster, his sword flashing with steel in the light as he swings it against the Grimm. He's slower than the beast, but the icon in his hands keeps the beast back, seeming to hurt it every time he holds it to the Grimm's face.

Her view of the fight is blocked by a familiar face blocking her sight.

"Melo!"

"Carmen!" The older girl cries out before she takes the Faunus girl in her arms and lifts her away. Quickly, the pair begin to run. Away from the fight, and away from the protection of the townspeople. "We need to get out of here!"

So the pair run. Melo has to put the younger girl down after a while, overestimating her own strength in the rush of adrenaline, so they end up running hand in hand. Directly towards the Cadian lines. They run, faster than either has run in their lives, driven by fear.

Behind them they hear the clash of blade and claw stop, before an ear-splitting roar fills the night sky. Quickly followed by the rapid sound of heavy footfalls.

Melo lets out a squeal of fright. "Run!"

Carmen does her best to keep up, but she is much shorter than the older girl. Nearly every run is a stumble and a fall for the girl, but she does her best to keep up. Out of breath, and out of options, she does something she has never actually done before; she prays.

Her momma and papa never taught her any serious prayers to anyone, nor did she ever hear either of them saying any. But she tries.

'Brothers of Light and Dark, Holy Gods… anyone! Anyone who can hear me; please help us!' She cries out in her head, even as she begins to feel tears stream down her face as she hears the sound of footsteps behind them.

"This way!" Melo calls out before the pair jink down another street.

'Someone, anyone! Oh… Emperor, please, if you're listening… Help us!'

"Where are you?"

Carmen lets out a gasp in shock as she hears the voice respond inside her head.

"T-The Emperor?" She says in quiet shock.

"… If you want to speak to me, you need to think what you're saying."

That… did not sound like something a God would say. But the rapid and heavy footsteps behind them, and a quick roar, put that thought from Carmen's mind.

"We're being chased by a big Grimm! Help us!" The young girl screams inside her head.

"Just keep running," Another voice, this one deeper and wiser than the first sounded, cut in. "We'll find you."

So the pair run. They run even as the sounds of pursuit continues behind them, the beast roaring and snarling. They run as they hear the snapping crack of lasguns and other rifles firing away at the Grimm.

It's instinct that keeps them running. And it's instinct that makes Carmen put all of her miniscule strength into pulling Melo down to the ground, the older girl crying in shock as she falls.

The sound of a claw slashing through the air above their heads, accompanied by the sound of a heavy weight sailing above their heads prove Carmen's actions right.

The Grimm misses them by inches as it tries to leap at them. Its jet black body flies over their heads as the pair of girls hug the ground, before it impacts on the ground with a tremoring rumble. Flagstones crack and splinter, some sent flying in dangerous shrapnel.

Slowly, painfully, angrily, the Alpha Beowolf pulls itself upright. It stares blood red eyes straight at the pair of girls cowering on the ground in front of it. It roars at the pair and lunges at them.

There is nowhere to run now.

Melo grips Carmen tight to her as tears begin to fall at the sight of the beast lunging at them. She weeps and calls out to her parents, hoping in the childlike manner that they will appear out of nowhere to save her. Carmen's mind just goes blank with fear.

The beast reaches the apex of its jump… but does not angle itself to fall down onto its prey. Instead, it just sails right over the two children, flying several dozen feet before it impacts against the stone wall of a building, sending bricks and mortar into dust before the roof caves in on it.

He has reservations about using his Semblance, but only on people. On Grimm, Yatsuhashi has no such issues. They are beasts. Worse than beasts. Demons of the dark, nightmares given form.

And as he watches the Alpha Beowolf pull itself from the rubble of the house it flung itself into with his aid, the Huntsmen-in-training realizes that he's not far off the mark.

It is at least twice his height at the shoulder, not counting the large spines coming out of the shoulder blades and spine. Like all Grimm, it has black fur with white, almost grey scales of armour on the arms, torso and thighs. The bone armour, from the horrible head to the toes, is nicked and scoured with countless signs of conflict, truly marking it as an Alpha. An old one too.

As the creature pulls itself clear of the ruin of the home it landed in, the nightmarishness of the Alpha is revealed. Parts of its jet black hide have been burned away to the flesh by the heat of the flames outside of the walls, patches of ruined and burnt hide visible from the light afforded to the evacuation and the flames of battle. Its claws are ragged but deadly from the climb over the wall and its shoulders have been torn bloody by the spikes. The heat, in a twisted sense of irony, has cauterised the wounds, making them horrid to look at, even as some hint of bone peeks out from beneath. Ichor and blood oozes from bullet holes and laser burns on its hide, and blood and human skin drips and hangs from its panting maw.

Black, white and red. The colours of Grimm. The colours of death on the world of Remnant.

The Alpha Beowolf roars, a screaming cry that almost sounds human. A deep, human cry of pain and anger combined with an animal's howl. It's a primal sound, and it sets Yatsuhashi on edge.

But he forces down the sensation. He forces down the fear the roar sets in him and the rage that he feels at the beast going after the two children.

Tightening his hands on Fulcrum's grip, Yatsuhashi draws the sword back, blade parallel to the floor. He focuses his attention as the Alpha gets over its disorientation. He keeps focus even as a figure all in red, with two children in his arms, lands beside him.

"Good timing, Yatsu." Fox sends, keeping his eyes on the Alpha as he carefully handles the girls. Looking down to his side, the blind Huntsman-in-training speaks up. "Are you girls okay?"

The eldest one has her eyes shut tight, tears streaming down her face. "I want my ma!"

"We'll get you back to your parents soon." Yatsuhashi says as calmly as he can, given the situation. "Fox, you get them out of here. I'll handle this guy."

Fox lifts his head, ready to say something to his friend, but he can feel the determination radiating from his teammate, so he just nods his head before he dashes off again.

The ground tremors slightly as the Alpha now stands clear of the house, drawing itself to its full height. The teen doesn't know what's going on in the creature's mind, but as Yatsuhashi sees the beast slam its forepaws onto the ground before it lets out a bellow directed at him, he instinctually knows what it's saying.

Challenge. It's challenging him.

"All right then…" He says softly, readying the muscles in his arms for the fight.

"OPEN FIRE!"

The flurry of beams that splash out against the Alpha, scarring its hide more and causing it to growl out in pain and anger.

They come, firing at a run. Armoured head to toe in armour that would make the Atlesian army jealous, with guns pouring enough fire to match Coco in a good mood. There's only ten of them, but they match the firepower of twice their number. Even as they split into pairs and begin to circle around the Grimm, their firepower does not let up.

Yatsuhashi moves forward to engage the beast, but finds himself held back by a pair of strong arms. Looking quickly, all he sees are faces covered by heavy duty rebreather masks and orange goggles. The grip on his arms are surprisingly strong.

"Stay back a moment, son!" One of them says, their voice coming out as a near metallic rasp.

"Throwing frag!" A soldier in one of the pairs calls out, before their voice is followed by another yelling: "Throwing stun!"

Flashes fill the night, forcing Yatsuhashi to shield his eyes, as nearly a dozen thunderclaps and explosions fill his vision, jarring his sight. His ears ring but he can still hear the sound of the Alpha Beowolf roaring with rage and pain.

"Fry it, Womack!"

Another soldier jogs up to the fight. Instead of the standard laser guns, this one carries a large, heavy looking weapon. It's spine is ribbed like a caterpillar and glows with a light blue glow. It vents blue steam while the barrel is discoloured from repeated firing. The soldier stops and points the gun at the Alpha.

Yatsuhashi doesn't know what the gun is called, but he knows that it's definitely a Grimm killer.

And as he turns to look at the Grimm being peppered, seeing it bombarded by grenades, the huntsman-in-training sees the same realization come to the Alpha.

A giant paw smashes down into the ground, shattering flagstones as it uses its claws like a plough, not caring over the broken state of its claws as it gathers the stones in its paws, and then propels them, throws them, at speed.

"Watch out!" Yatsuhashi calls out, grabbing the soldiers at his side before he spins them both. Using Fulcrum as a shield and allowing his Aura to take the hits, the giant teen feels the barest impacts from the flying rock fragments.

Even as the soldiers still keep firing, not all of them are lucky.

A bright flash of blue light blinds Yatsuhashi momentarily, the sound of the explosion almost deafening him. Although it does nothing to mask the quick, painfilled scream. Blinking away spots in his vision, Yatsuhashi turns and instantly pales. Where once was a man in armour now stands a smouldering pair of legs, everything from the waist up charred away into just smoke.

The legs crumple to the ground, and the Alpha is on him.

Training and his own natural reactions allow Yatsuhashi to bring his sword up to defend against the claw that is aimed at his face. The claw collides with the flat edge of Fulcrum, driving the weapon into Yatsuhashi's face, but he lets the blow ride, leaning backwards to take the shock out of the hit.

If it had been another day and another place, Yatsuhashi would have easily countered the hit, letting the arm slide past him before driving Fulcrum into either the Grimm's chest to bisect it, or taking the arm off before going in for the kill. This is not one of those days.

Yatsuhashi's arms burn with lactic acid build-up, making his muscles ache. He strains against the strength of the blow forcing him down and he begins to feel his backbone ache from him being bent nearly double. Even injured as it is, the Alpha is still formidable.

Looking into its eyes, he can see why: it's all madness. All that remains in the beast's mind is madness from the pain of its injuries.

Yatsuhashi's Aura flares into life, doing what it can to off-set the pain in his arms and back as he pushes back against the Alpha. He lets out a roar of his own as he stands himself back up to his full height, leveraging his sword upright before he gets it loose and starts swinging again.

Fulcrum's near-golden edge flashes in the night as it swings scything arcs through the air. It connects soundly with white bone, drawing dull sounds of impact. If the beast is bothered by the hits, it gives no sign.

Even as white hot lines of laser fire splash into the Grimm, the Alpha is still focused on Yatsuhashi. It's an exploitable weakness, but he's by himself.

"Fox, where are you?!" Yatsuhashi calls out with his mind, knowing that Fox should hear him, even as he parries more blows from the Beowolf.

"I'm on the way!" Fox replies, his voice sounding harried even as he responds telepathically. "I've also brought friends."

Dodging a downward hit that shatters more stone, Yatsuhashi swallows. 'Oh, if it's Coco, this fight will not get better…'

He doesn't dwell on the thought long, as the Alpha swings a heavy punch that connects with Yatsuhashi's right forearm, sending it, and Fulcrum, far off balance. His Aura flares into life to take the hit, but it still leaves him exposed to the Alpha as its mouth opens wide and lunges directly at Yatsuhashi's head.

Yatsuhashi Daichi is not a young man prone to swearing, even in the rare times that his anger is let slip. But as he feels the warm, rancid breath of the creature was over his face, one word springs to his mind and mouth: "Shit…"

Spots of light flash into his vision again as a beam of light the same thickness of his wrist flashes almost an inch in front of his face before it hits directly in the side of the Grimm's skull. Straight in its left eye. That draws a true bellow of rage from the creature, pitching its head back to howl in agony and distracting it from its attempted meal of bleu Yatsuhashi.

"How do you like that, you shit-head Warp freak!?" A man calls out, his voice thick with rage and fury, making both combatants turn.

It's just one soldier, less heavily armoured and armed than the others. His face is dirtied and a large cut runs diagonally on the left side of his chin. His face is twisted with anger even as he ejects a short, spent magazine from his smoking gun and replaces it before he cries out again.

"You want something to eat? I'm right here you frakking piece of xenos shit!"

Even with a steaming hole where one of its eyes should be, the Alpha turns its head at the lone man. His anger is greater than Yatsuhashi's, so the Grimm charges him, knocking Yatsuhashi onto his back.

Pushing himself back onto his feet, the huntsman-in-training chases after the beast. One man alone? Even with whatever sort of space-technology the man has, there's no way that the soldier is going to face the Grimm down alone.

The soldier calmly raises his rifle to his shoulder and aims it at the onrushing beast. On Remnant, if you're not a Huntsman, of any stripe, such a gesture is the same pissing against the wind. But the soldier doesn't even blink as he simply stares down the beast that rushes at him.

The Alpha holds a giant paw out in front of it, reaching forward to skewer the soldier on its claws. Yatsuhashi prepares for the inevitable. Something so courageous wouldn't go unanswered with blood on Remnant.

He does not expect the loop of metallic-grey rope that springs out of the darkness and encircles the Grimm's outstretched arm, pulling taught as it reaches the end of the forelimb.

"Pull!" A deep bass voice commands and the rope is suddenly pulled back, pitching the Alpha off-balance and checking its run.

Stopping himself short, Yatsuhashi's eyes follow the length of rope, back to where it was thrown from. His eyes open wide as he sees three of the giants in the steel armour pulling the rope tight, thick muscles in their arms and legs almost bulging out from their clothing as they put all of their weight into keeping the Alpha Beowolf in place.

Another rope hisses out of the shadows, looping around the confused beasts other arm before it is pulled taught too by three more of the giants. Whatever the material is used to make the ropes, it keeps the Grimm in check, even as it thrashes against the restraints.

With a heavy sound of strained grunts and creaking metal, the giants pull tight on the ropes in their hands as they fight against the beasts strength.

Yatsuhashi just stares dumbfounded at what he is seeing. Six men, each one the size of him, is keeping an Alpha Beowolf at bay with what appears to be lengths of metal rope. Granted, the Grimm is not being kept still as it thrashes around left and right, but still, it's something.

The sounds of battle cannot mask the howls of impotent rage and checked anger from the Beowolf as it fights against its bonds. It takes a step forward, pulling one of its arms across itself to unbalance the giants keeping its right side constrained.

Fox is there in a flash, in front of the Alpha. Raising his tonfas, he dashes forward and begins landing blows onto the creatures torso, cutting away at the exposed skin and muscle on the Grimm.

The howl of pain that the Alpha unleashes signals that was not the best idea. Whipping its arm around, pulling the giants off their feet, the Alpha swings a paw at Fox's right side, just catching him unawares. The student-Huntsman catches the paw on his tonfas, but he doesn't expect the claws to tighten around his arms, keeping him pinned.

Whatever plan had been quickly hatched now falls apart. The soldier, who had so bravely acted as bait now starts yelling at Fox to try and get out of there.

"Take the shot, Guardsman!" One of the giants holding the right arm steady bawls out as they do their best to keep the Alpha Beowolf off-balance. The other band of giants try and get control of the other rope, but the wild movements of the Grimm keep the rope from their grasp.

Yatsuhashi runs forward to help in any way he can when he hears Fox call out to the soldier: "I can take it! Just take the shot!"

He can't see what happens next, but Yatsuhashi can hear the sounds of the rifle firing, and then the beast roaring in pain as its head pitches backwards, letting Fox go in the process.

He takes that as his cue. Rallying his strength, Yatsuhashi charges forward, Fulcrum held ready. He aims for the Alpha's torso, putting all of his arm muscles into one single swipe that will bisect it.

He swings his sword, yelling an atonal inarticulate cry as puts all his strength behind it, and slams it directly into the Beowolfs exposed chest. Fulcrum's edge cuts through muscles, sinew and bone, severing all almost neatly. The lower half drops to the ground, dissolving almost instantly while the upper half follows seconds after, jerked onto its back by the giants still holding the rope taught.

The jaws of the Alpha still snap and growl, weaker than before, but still deadly in its own right. Yatsuhashi draws in a deep breath before he lets out a growl in annoyance. 'How the hell is this thing still moving?'

The Grimm defied all known biological law, Yatsuhashi knows that. Seeing one up close and in such a state proves that. Did it have to do with the nerve-endings in the creatures, one of the few single things that would be able to show that a Grimm is indeed an animal? Or was it just the creatures mind that drove it on; that sheer unrelenting desire to slay humanity and Faunus alike? Or was it, he thinks as he sees the Grimm manage to flop itself onto its front and try to snap at his feet, just the fact that this Alpha had gone completely insane?

"Just kill it, Yatsu." Fox transmits, from his position lying on his back next to one of the crouched giants.

The student-Huntsman nods his head, getting his breath back as he takes a grip of his weapon. Whatever powers this beast matters little, he decides. Right now, it's just a ghastly mess.

The sound of a blade punching though Grimm flesh shocks Yatsuhashi into inaction. Standing on top of the fallen Grimm, the same soldier from before is standing over the beast, rifle in hand. He's attached a bayonet to the barrel of his gun and has driven it directly into the back of the creatures skull. The man doesn't say a word, his teeth bared in a spiteful grimace, even as he pulls the trigger of his weapon. A blast of light flashes forward and destroys the entire top half of the beasts head.

The Alpha's movements stop and its body beings to dissolve.

No-one says a word, even as the soldier steps down from the dead body and hocks up a large glob of spit onto the fading corpse. The wind takes the wisps of black matter away even as they dissolve into nothingness.

No-one says a word, because they all listen to what is happening on the wall.

The sounds of battle have finally petered out, leaving only a few cracks from lasguns or isolated barks from heavier weapons. And in their place, sounding over the fading roar of the retreating Grimm that are running into the forest, a cry has been taken up.

No-one knows who started it, and no-one will be able to say who they think started it or if they even started it themselves. But it's just one word. A name. A cry of defiance and victory, repeated over and over again.

"MARYSVILLE! MARYSVILLE! MARYSVILLE!"

AN: Good GOD! This took nearly forever to finish. Ugh, retail work in the Christmas period bloody sucks. Although I imagine a fair few of you know this.

But here it is! Chapter 6 of A Light Against The Darkness. All 40 pages and 22,493 words of it. God, I need to work on getting shorter chapters out.

Really, it's a problem I do have, and I will admit it. Like, the fight scene with Yatsuhashi and the Alpha? That would have involved the town's mayor, Neophyte Ollarus and all the other combatants that took part in the fight... but no matter what I wrote, it just ended up not working and if it did end up working, then it would have been LONG. And I wanted to bring this chapter to a close. I felt it had gone on long enough.

So yeah, read, enjoy, review. All the usual.

If you want previews of the chapter as it's written and don't mind paying a pittance, then head on over to Ciaran's Curios, my page. I post previews of the bits as I write them, plus I'm also working on character models for some of the cast and characters. In the future, there might be even be some commissioned artwork too.