Here we are, 2025, and here's to hoping it doesn't go any further into the realms of insanity than 2024 did. One can hope. Happy new year to everyone anyway. I'm holding back on resolutions this year since I expect the company I work for to go bust within the first month or two. That'll be a better time for me to decide my future, even if I fully expect my decision to be working on some original works.

Maybe a book or maybe just a web-novel – just doing what I already do with fanfic, but with some original story ideas.

Cover Art: Aristeo Storm

Chapter 61

The entirety of Team SWRT was up for an excursion to the docks once Qrow and Gretchen told them of what they'd overheard the Atlesian officers talking about in Mountain Glenn. Willow was the only one with any real skin in the game since the shipment would be hiding amongst SDC ones, and everyone else was just curious. For a bunch of nosey students, that was reason enough to investigate, especially once they had Willow's assurances that any challenges against them could be washed away by her father.

If they weren't about to get in trouble, they weren't about to worry about it.

But they weren't the only ones worrying about it.

"Rather interesting turn of fortune for you to just overhear this," said the contact amongst Vale's spies. "I'd call it too convenient if you weren't offering to take care of it on your own. Less risk for us this way."

"Good to know our safety is your top priority."

"Does it need to be? Assuming your suspicions of Grimm being shipped to Mountain Glenn are true, you should be more than capable of dealing with them as students of Beacon. Atlas will be transporting weak Grimm if anything."

Easier to capture and transport, and less risk of being an issue if they broke loose.

"Do you need me to do anything? Record it? Take pictures?"

"Release them."

"Ex-fucking-scuse you? I'm not unleashing Grimm in Vale!"

"You wouldn't be. Let them out and they'll attack you, at which point you can all kill them. We'll frame it as a fault in Atlas' shipment – they'll be scurrying to make excuses anyway once this goes public. And it will only go public if there is undeniable evidence. Evidence that I suspect will be hidden away if we try and take our time. Pictures can be faked; footage can be edited. Let the Grimm out and they won't be able to deny that."

He wasn't wrong. But this was to prevent the fall of Mountain Glenn, not cause the fall of Vale. Not that it would – or should – but this still felt uncomfortably close to something a huntsman such as he should not do.

"What if one or two breaks loose? I'm not having innocent deaths on the heads of my friends. I want assurances."

"Fine. We shall station three agents in the area. They will both watch you and also deal with any Grimm that might escape your party – not that any should if you're careful. Open one container at a time and the Grimm will have nowhere to go but through you. But, if this will help calm your mind, so be it. You'll have agents in the wings. Satisfied?"

"Assuaged. I wouldn't call me satisfied about any of this. On a side note, is it really okay for you to let Atlas be exposed like this? They're allies. I'd have thought the best interests of the city would be served by stopping this secretly."

"They may very well be. Our duty isn't to economic stability, however. It's security. This won't escalate to conflict since Atlas will have egg on their faces, and any knock-on effects on trade deals will be for the government to decide. Our job is to keep Vale safe – and Mountain Glenn, too. Anything else comes second to that."

It was probably a bad answer, but Qrow liked it. A simple response with a passing of responsibility for what came after. As a huntsman, he was used to taking the simplest approach as well. Get in, kill the Grimm, leave. There was a whole lot of complicated stuff that often came after in terms of rebuilding villages or dealing with refugees, but it wasn't his area of expertise and the best thing he could do was leave it to the professionals while he moved on to save more lives.

Sometimes, not every little thing had to be solved by one person.

There was a sense of excitement that built up toward the weekend. Every member of Team SWRT had approached him at some point to talk and huddle about the plan. Taiyang wanted to know everything they'd overheard; Willow wanted his help in finding out whether her father was involved (unlikely); Summer wanted to talk planning and making sure they wouldn't be in any danger.

And Raven… well, Raven just wanted to fight, but she used the mission as an excuse by framing the fighting as preparation. No one was fooled, but everyone was so on edge that they agreed anyway. A good fight was a surefire way to calm the nerves.

The mood didn't go unnoticed by Nessa and Peter – who confronted them on the Wednesday. Gretchen didn't try and hide it and blurted out the truth, and while they were curious, they didn't ask to come along.

"Doesn't feel worth it," Nessa said. "Eight people is way too large a group anyway. You don't need so many and I've got other stuff I'd rather do."

"And I promised to spend time with my family in Mountain Glenn. I'll be asking them if you can all come down and meet them after. But I can make excuses if you need me…?"

"We'll be fine," Qrow assured them. "As Nessa says, we already have a team and a half on this. It's massive overkill unless they're smuggling weapons of mass destruction in, and even then it's not like Atlas wants to cause a big scene in the middle of their ally's city."

"Well, I'm keen to be involved after if this is true," said Peter. "My parents and sister have just moved into Mountain Glenn and I am not keen on the idea of Atlas causing problems for them."

It was obvious they hadn't made the Grimm connection. In all fairness, it just wasn't something anyone would expect from Atlas without context. In the future, research on Grimm was more commonplace – even the White Fang had known how to capture Grimm and unleash them on Beacon. Back this far, there was only one thing you did with Grimm, and that was kill them. Atlas also hadn't been so reckless in this time.

Or we just never noticed. I thought Ironwood was bad with Penny and his robots, but if this was happening back in our time and we never noticed, then they were far worse.

Ironwood's rogue robots had aided in the fall of Beacon. Past-Atlas' projects may well have caused the fall of Mountain Glenn. That was leagues beyond even the worst fallout Penny's death in the Vytal Tournament could have caused.

And we never noticed. We just swanned on with Beacon thinking everything was okay…

Ignorance had been bliss. But maybe it was that same ignorance which later ended their bliss and caused the fracture of Team STRQ. Sticking his head in the sand and pretending everything was going to be okay wouldn't fix anything.

And going out with his old team to kick Atlas in the nuts sounded like the good old times anyway. Given what Ruby and Yang had gotten up to in their first year, Qrow felt they'd be proud of their uncle for causing a ruckus.

/-/

"You're in a good mood."

Qrow hummed and regarded his sister with a raised eyebrow. It was a very random thing for Raven to bring up as they crept out on Saturday night, acting for all the world like they were going clubbing in the city. No one was looking askance at a bunch of teenagers out on a Saturday night.

"You're in a very good mood," she said, nodding her head subtly toward the others. "They're nervus; you look like you're one second away from breaking into song and dance. This is fun to you."

"Is that a criticism?"

"I'm just curious. You're not normally like this."

"Happy, you mean."

Raven scowled. "Giddy. You do happy, you do content, and you do brooding silence. You don't do gaily skipping through the streets. At least I didn't think you did."

It didn't sound like it bothered her. In truth, Qrow hadn't even noticed his mood, but now that she'd pointed it out, he realised he was a little more excited than usual. It wasn't hard to trace the reason. His adrenaline was out in force.

"I guess I'm looking forward to a proper scrap," he admitted.

Raven's eyes darted to his ruined arm. "That one not enough?"

"No. It was…" He hesitated, but this was his sister, so he relented and told her the truth. "It was amazing, Ray." Her eyes widened. "My heart was pounding, my nerves on fire, and everything felt so real. It felt so much better than a spar or fighting Grimm." He noticed her surprise. "Please don't take that as a sign to go off and try to kill people to chase the feeling."

"You're saying that to me when you're the one admitting to being hooked on it?"

"I'm not hooked on killing that woman; I'm hooked on being productive. Doing valuable stuff. Beacon is… It's great, but there's a lot of downtime."

Time that children needed to develop and make connections and expand their skills; time he understood was necessary for them. But as he'd gotten older, he tended to find it harder to truly relax in downtime.

And he'd certainly never had so much of it.

A week or two's holiday once every year, but being back in school and only doing school hours and having the rest of every day off…? That was a lot of free time. More than he knew what to do with. The fight alongside Maria had made him realise what he was missing most. Not Ruby or Yang – even though he dearly missed them – but activity. Something to do. A goal to chase, an objective, or a threat.

And there were plenty of threats here but addressing them had been so slow.

"Just don't do anything stupid with your arm like that," she said. "If there is a problem there, let me deal with it."

"Ah, such a cute little sister I have."

"I'm the eldest!" she hissed.

"A cute older-younger sister, then."

"That doesn't make any sense." Raven growled and shook her head. "But whatever. Better you in this mood than being a whiny little bitch. Is this going to change anything?"

Qrow's head snapped around. "What do you mean?"

"You're bored of Beacon. Are we gonna split?"

He didn't miss the casual use of "we" that indicated that she'd be coming with him if he did. It was as wholesome as it was concerning. "No. Nothing like that. I'm bored, not devoid of all will to live. I figure I'll just spend a little more time hunting Grimm in the forest not that I know this is my thing. Or maybe look into some criminals. We technically have a license to make arrests once we're students."

Raven accepted hat with a quiet nod. "Take me along if you do. Sounds like more fun than dealing with Taiyang."

He agreed easily enough. Anything that kept Raven in Beacon and content was good – and he expected Maria would give him some new avenues to explore as it was. Finding this new pleasure from fighting Tock wasn't all that bad. It had him in a good mood, pushed him to open up to his team and Gretchen, and even had him thinking a little more optimistically about the future. Plus, they'd potentially removed someone from Salem's employ. Now it was Atlas' turn.

The Vale docks hadn't changed much from the future. The city had always relied on imports to feed its large population, so the docks had been made large from the start. If anything, it was a little newer now – which sounded odd to think. The machinery was less rusted and the warehouses were better maintained.

Some of that might have been because of all the new investment around Mountain Glenn. The second city wasn't on a coast so any goods had to be shipped to Vale and then sent to Mountain Glenn via rail. That meant more need for warehouses and facilities in Vale, and thus higher investment. After Mountain Glenn fell, there'd probably been a harsh economic downturn in shipping. Not that Qrow had been old or mature enough at the time to notice it.

Saving Mountain Glenn might even boost Vale's economy, or at least prevent the crash that happened in the past. Not sure what knock-on effects that'll have but I can't see them being bad.

Hell, maybe Signal and Beacon would get the budget increases they'd been needing for years.

A teacher could dream.

Slipping off the main roads, the six of them edged around the metal link fence until they found a spot where a dumpster was pushed up against it. They climbed up and Taiyang folded away the barbed wire on top, casually using aura to reinforce his hands so he could just push the spikes away. Security measures weren't meant to stand up against huntsmen anyway, just the casual thief.

"I'll go over first," Taiyang said. "And I'll catch you on the other side."

Summer went first and dropped into his arms, then Willow. Raven made Qrow go up next, saying he'd need a push up only having one arm. Gretchen and she linked hands for him to step into, and then lurched him over. Qrow landed in Taiyang's arms and sarcastically kissed his cheek. "My hero."

Everyone, Taiyang included, laughed.

There was less laughter when Gretchen came over, ended in Taiyang's arms, then scrambled awkwardly out of them. Neither of them dared make eye contact, what with Gretchen's messy and reluctant forced confession via Raven. Speaking of Raven, she vaulted and landed on her feet, refusing to give Taiyang the chance to catch her.

"At least you got a kiss from one Branwen," Qrow said, slapping the man's back.

"Lucky me…"

"Enough of this," Raven hissed. "Willow, you know where the containers are?"

"Yes." Willow checked her scroll. "I have the location of some dust shipments meant for Mountain Glenn. They'd have come on the same ship as the ones from Atlas, so I assume they'd be kept in the same general area."

"Probably will be," Qrow said. "The sailors unloading them wouldn't know the contents, and Atlas wouldn't want to be suspicious by making a big deal of keeping theirs separate. Where are they?"

"Warehouse six."

"And that is—?"

"That way." Willow pointed. "But I can't get us in the warehouse."

That was a bridge to be crossed when they got there. The six of them skulked between shipping containers in the direction of the warehouse. Slowly letting himself fall to the back, Qrow glanced around in search of the promised agents. The fact he couldn't see any might not mean anything, since they would surely be watching from a distance with binoculars or scopes anyway.

We should be fine anyway. At worst, it's a couple of Grimm and we can deal with that.

Even with one arm, he could hold his own against a couple of Beowolves or Boarbatusks, and it couldn't be anything much bigger if they were fit inside a shipping container. No Goliaths, Deathstalkers or Ursa would squeeze inside.

Once they found the warehouse, the huge shutters doors out front were closed, but a smaller door on the side was unlocked and swung open when Qrow tested the handle. The others seemed shocked, though Qrow wondered if his "friends" in the government hadn't come ahead of him and unlocked it for them. They didn't want to personally involve themselves in this, but they wanted to know what was inside the containers just as much as he did.

"Must be for janitors," he said. "Or someone forgot to close it. Probably doesn't matter when every container inside is meant to be locked anyway."

"I guess so," Taiyang agreed, and stepped in after him. "If the containers are securely locked, then locking the warehouse doors isn't necessary."

The warehouse should have been locked despite that, but it could have also just been lax security. This was an era before the violent White Fang. It was even before Roman Torchwick was a thief, and while other criminal groups absolutely did exist, it'd take a lot of work to steal full shipping containers. Easier to take smaller, high-value goods and fence those.

Inside, lights dimly illuminating the containers but no one was to be seen. The wide, open spaces allowed them to spread out without fear of discovery. The warehouse was abandoned, its workers all at home and asleep. A majority of the containers featured the signature snowflake symbol of the Schnee family, while others were stamped with recognisable brands from food and drinks companies, pharmaceuticals and at least one fashion brand from Atlas.

"Would the military sneak things in under someone else's brand?" Gretchen wondered out loud.

"If it's illegal, then yes," said Summer.

"But the research thing in Mountain Glenn is a legal and known thing," Taiyang pointed out. "It'd be expected for them to ship goods to it, so they could just hide in plain sight. I see a few with Atlas logos."

"Or they might do both," Summer said. "Send the normal goods under their own logo and then send some less-than-legal ones under fake brands. That way if customs checked theirs, there wouldn't be anything suspicious—"

CLANG!

Everyone went silent. Several of them flinched, eyes darting to the door expecting police or janitors or someone to have caught them. Qrow's did not. He knew the sound had come from within the stacks of containers. Soon, they realised it as well, turning to look back.

"That came from in there," whispered Gretchen.

They waited in silence for the sound to repeat but nothing came. Qrow signalled to Summer, Taiyang and Willow and to the left, then himself, Gretchen and Raven to the right. They nodded and split up, moving around the stack of fifty or so shipping containers in either direction. No one made a sound as they did, giving as much opportunity as possible for the sounds to come again.

Thump-Thump.

Raven froze and glanced back. Qrow nodded. The sound had been much quieter. Where the first had well and truly been something colliding with metal, this one had been more akin to objects inside bumping into one another. It could have been merchandise moving around, but the ground was flat and nothing should have been moving. No one would transport living animals in conditions like this, or at least Qrow highly doubted it. Any pets would surely freeze to death in those containers, and it wasn't like airlines didn't allow pets on them.

"There's something moving in there," Gretchen said. "We all heard it."

"Could be rats, though."

"Maybe on the second noise, but the first? Big rats."

"Let's split up." Qrow was aware he sounded like a lunatic even as he suggested it, and Raven and Gretchen both looked at him as such. "We'll all be in the same room and able to respond if things go bad," he said. "But we should split up and listen in on each container. See if we can't see where the sounds are coming from."

"Splitting up is horror mistake number one," Gretchen pointed out.

"But we do have aura," Raven said. "Even if this were a slasher-horror, the killer couldn't take an isolated member out. And we'll all be within shouting distance."

Gretchen didn't like it but gave in after a little prodding. Soon, they were moving deeper into the towering mass of containers, heading down different alleyways between them. Qrow paused at each and leaned in to place his ear to metal and listen. The others did the same. Naturally, he kept his aura activated, not at all prepared to die in a stupid manner if a claw cut through metal where his head was.

As he did, he texted the contact amongst Vale's spies and updated them. A text came back within a minute.

"We are watching the warehouse. Investigate fully. Atlas container codes are 5-1-2-9."

That referred to the code locks to get in. He wondered how they'd found them but put it down to spies being spies. They must have hacked the systems or bribed someone in the know. As Qrow searched, it quickly became apparent the others had decided on the same thing, as he saw Willow and Summer parting amongst the containers as well. Summer was tapping her knuckles on the metal to try and elicit a response from within.

With six of them searching, it would have been too convenient for him to find the container first. It turned out to be Willow. She came, pale faced, at a jog and called his name in a hiss, then dragged him back the way she'd come.

There, a container marked as from a pharmaceutical company stood – perhaps proving Summer's idea on Atlas hiding it outside their own. Willow held a finger to her lips for silence and then moved closer to the container, giving its base a sharp kick with her foot.

An ominous growl emanated from within, followed by a vibration that shook both the container and the two stacked atop it. There was absolutely no mistaking the sound from within. Not to a huntsman like him.

Grimm.

It was true, then. Atlas really had been smuggling Grimm into Mountain Glenn through Vale.

No wonder I wasn't able to find any signs of Salem's involvement. We always assumed it was an attack from outside that brought the city low. We never thought it might be Atlas cocking things up.

"Get the others," he told her. "They need to see this!"

Willow nodded and hurried off without a second thought. In her defence, it wasn't like he would be a traitor of some sort. And he wasn't. He was the one most loyal to them and to Beacon – but he also had to put a stop to Mountain Glenn.

I know the city will fall if nothing is done. If I hold back, all those deaths will be on my shoulders.

And besides, it wasn't as if they'd be in any real danger.

5-1-2-9.

The code flashed green and the container's locks unbuckled with a hiss. Qrow stepped back, readying his sword with his one good arm, and preparing to run. All they needed was for this fight to spill outside where cameras would catch it. He readied himself for Beowolves or Boarbatusks, or perhaps even a flock of Nevermore – though it'd be hard to imagine Atlas catching and transporting them.

What he didn't expect was bone masks on long, spindly limbs. Or the wave of crushing fatigue that came with their appearance.

What was the point of this? Of any of this?

History had already happened. Mountain Glenn would fall; Raven would run away; Summer would die; Ruby and Yang would grow up without a mother. Qrow's weapon slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor, followed after by a thud as his knees hit the concrete.

Apathy, his mind pointed out, and all the knowledge he had on them came to the fore – including the dangerous, soporific influence they held. A trap, his mind hissed. A trick. A threat and an attack.

But he felt every one of his forty years weighing down on him…

Enough that he couldn't bring himself to move as the Apathy closed in and surrounded him.

Next Chapter: 11th January

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