~ a WRENCH in the WORKS ~
CHAPTER 1: Exposition Eightfold
In Which:
Jaune Is In The Woods,
Nora Hits A Pig With A Hammer,
Pyrrha Gets Bribed (But Not Very Well),
Blake's Boyfriend Makes Her Get A Degree,
Weiss Ruins A Research Grant,
Lie Ren Drinks Alcohol In A Hobo Camp,
Adam Taurus Gets A Little Bit Genghis Khan,
and Yang Faces Consequences For Grabbing That Guy By The Nuts And Throwing Him Through A Window.
Deep in the forests of Vale, a small patch of earth shifted.
Stones moved, dirt churned, and moments later a gauntleted hand wreathed in cream-white light pushed up through the loose soil.
Quickly finding purchase against the ground, an armored, glowing figure burst from the earth and roared in defiance. He crawled up to his knees, then with labored breath rose to his feet and shouted to the sky.
"WITNESS ME, OUM! I HAVE WITHSTOOD THE BLOW THAT SENT ME FALLING FROM THE HEAVENS I ONCE TOOK FOR GRANTED! I HAVE FACED THE ARMIES OF DARKNESS AND SEEN THEM SUNDERED! I HAVE CONQUERED THE UNDERWORLD AND RETURNED TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING! FOR I AM JAUNE ARC, WIELDER OF THE YELLOW DEATH, MASTER OF SOUL AND BLADE!"
A deer walked up to him and placidly began to chew on his hair. Jaune's Aura fizzled against the creature's teeth for a moment before finally shattering into vanilla-scented swirls.
Honestly? He was kind of impressed it had lasted that long. He hadn't had much time to rest while stuck in that cave- fuck you Raven Branwen, you psycho bandit-ass bitch- and he'd taken quite a few hits from the fucked-up ancient Grimm that had lain sealed within. And really, the way he'd been sleeping lately he probably hadn't even managed to get properly topped all the way up since his Bullhead to Vale had crashed in the Grimmlands.
He'd been stuck down there long enough he'd resorted to eating Dust on at least one occasion. Perhaps it might not have been wise to eat unidentified energy crystals, but the only thing had happened was his Aura went tingly for a bit. He hadn't died, and that's what mattered!
He shook his head and took stock of his situation.
His scroll had long since run out of battery, all that remained of his rations was a single Pumpkin Pete's marshmallow bar, and his guitar case was scratched and caked in mud.
Crocea Mors, his ancestral blade, rested in its shield-sheath on his arm; ready as ever to defend him should he need it.
So Jaune wandered, flip-flopping between general misery and a deep appreciation for fresh air and sunlight.
Hours passed.
Eventually, at the very edges of his hearing, he heard a sound he hadn't heard in quite some time; human voices. Overcome with excitement and hope of rescue, he rushed towards the sounds- and bursting through a bush into a small clearing, he saw them.
An older man with grey-streaked hair sat crouched over a small wood pile, attempting to start a fire while a smaller red-cloaked girl fiddled with some device or other.
The man looked at him, pale crimson eyes appraising him in a way that cut directly into his soul. Jaune immediately ducked behind a tree.
He took a deep breath, brushed his hair back with his hands, and straightened his hoodie. "It's showtime," he mumbled to himself, then stepped back out with a swagger born of hours spent in the mirror.
The man remained unmoved, and the girl's device had begun to unfold into some kind of… automatic tent-pitcher? It belched smoke and shuddered ominously, but continued on in its work as now both people stared at the lost boy.
He leaned up against the tree and gave his suavest grin. "You guys know the way to Beacon?"
The machine exploded with a deafening pop, setting the fabric of the tent ablaze. A single screw flew into the man's eye, sending him reeling back; he dropped his striker as his feet kicked out directly into the fire he'd just started.
The girl showed no indication of surprise, simply reaching into her cloak to produce a large red block of metal that shifted and clicked into a scythe twice as large as she was.
Jaune took a step back despite himself.
This monolithic reaping tool blurred into a red-and-silver whirl as she passed it between her hands before spearing her malfunctioning machine on the tip of the blade.
The older man hopped on one leg, eyes screwed shut and singed foot clutched in both hands. Unable to see where he was going, he tumbled into the still-aflame mess of fabric that used to be their tent.
Ignoring her companion's plight the girl smiled brightly at Jaune, silver eyes alight with enthusiasm. "Yep!" she popped the p. "We were just headed there!"
"Damnit, pipsqueak," grumbled the man, climbing out of the remains of the tent without a care for the fire licking at his clothes, "Don't just tell him that!"
"But he just seemed so friendly!" whined the girl, absentmindedly pulling the broken machine from the tip of the scythe that dwarfed her. "And- and he wants to go to Beacon! He's totally a good guy!"
"Can confirm," Jaune quipped automatically, still reeling from the sight before him. "Good guy here."
The man slinked across the clearing, casually picking up a large block of metal that Jaune had initially assumed to be some sort of surfboard or perhaps cooking surface. His assumptions were proven incorrect as, with a clockwork symphony of clicks and clunks, the handle extended and the segmented blade curved into another gigantic scythe.
The man's pale crimson eyes locked onto Jaune as he slung his weapon over a shoulder without even a hint of strain. "I'll be the judge of that," he snarked.
Jaune straightened up as the man walked up to him. He shuffled nervously, and was rewarded with a shaudenfreudic chuckle.
"Nah, you're right, shortstop. He looks too dumb to be any good at being bad." The man reached out and patted Jaune's head condescendingly. "You can ride with us- if you can handle it, that is."
"Yay~" cheered the girl as she latched onto Jaune's arm. "I'm Ruby, that's Qrow, and this," she waved the largest, sharpest farming implement Jaune had ever seen with a single small girl arm, "is Crescent Rose! You're the first person we've run into who's running around alone out here, are you a Huntsman? Are you appling to Beacon? My sister is going there this year, so we were going to stop by to say hi! It's so lucky we ran into you out here, right? We're going to have so much fun!"
Jaune nodded slowly, even as his eyes drifted back towards the bushes. The lovely, quiet bushes that weren't going to burn down if he slept in them.
And as this girl dragged him into their camp, he mourned what could have been.
The Beast of Extinction let loose a deafening roar as it approached the Warrior of Man, heedless of the dark ichor of its brethren that painted her weapon black. It knew no fear, no caution, no wariness of overwhelming strength. Nothing but raw, targeted aggression.
And this aggression, it acted on. It curled up into a ball and rolled towards the Warrior, quickly gaining speed and turning its own bone plating into a devastating instrument of destruction while fully covering any potential weak spots it could have had.
This was the signature attack of the Grimm known as the Boarbatusk; a move that could bowl over any Huntsman who took it, and outright kill anyone else.
Nora Valkyrie simply grinned and spun into a devastating uppercut with her weapon. The silver warhammer Magnhild met the Boarbatusk's charge and, with a cry of "Fore!" from its wielder, launched the Grimm cleanly into the air.
The short redhead set the head of her hammer down on the ground and shielded her eyes with her offhand, tracking the arc of the Grimm through the air. It crashed into the ground with a distant 'crunch.'
"Dude," said one of the raggedy-looking fighters nearby, "that had to be at least 50 yards. Someone go pace that out before the body dissolves."
"Yeah, sure, go pay attention to the dead one," complained a white-haired fighter fending off a Beowolf. "Not like we have a job to do or anything."
"Here," said Nora, "I'll kill that, you go pace that out. I wanna know how far it was, too. I think my high score was, what, 60?"
"It was 58 and a quarter," corrected a voice from the trees above them.
The two Nomads looked up as a half-dissolved Nevermore fell through the branches to the forest floor, followed silently by a young man with a streak of pink in otherwise black hair. He calmly pointed a weapon towards them and released a precise burst of automatic fire, felling the Beowolf their attention had strayed from.
Nora nodded to herself, heedless of the carnage. "You're so smart, Renny! I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Plenty, I'm sure," Lie Ren responded blandly. "I pretty much exclusively ask you to not do things."
The white-haired fighter kicked the dissolving Boarbatusk idly. "60 and a half," she called out. "You definitely beat the Tribe's record!"
Nora pumped Magnhild in the air and let out a victorious whoop.
Ren patted her back. "New record, excellent work." He turned back to the group of fighters. "By my estimations, it should be about time we head back to camp?"
A beefy redhead squinted up at the sky for a moment. "Yeah, that looks about right." He let out a piercing whistle. "ALL RIGHT, TRIBESMEN, THAT'S IT FOR NOW! HOW ABOUT WE GO SEE WHAT THE COOKS WHIPPED UP FOR US TODAY, YEAH?"
Cheers rang out from the forest around them, as dozens of fighters relaxed and made their way back to camp. Men, women, faunus, humans… all clad in ragged clothes and cobbled-together gear. A more ragtag group of individuals, you couldn't find anywhere on Remnant.
Here, Ren and Nora weren't 'those homeless orphans,' they were another pair of weapons against the Grimm. Perhaps not true Tribesmen, but accepted all the same. That's just how it was with the Nomads; if you could pull your own weight, there was a place at the table for you.
And so two of them followed the crowd of warriors through the trees and into a gate in a rough wooden wall. The smell of smoke and cooked meat wafted through the air, guiding them past a throng of patchwork tents, and into the clearing in the center of the encampment. Much of the tribe was already there, clustered about rows of boars roasting over fire.
The food and drink was plenty, and Tribesmen sang and laughed around the roughly hewn tables scattered throughout the clearing. They'd only been there two weeks, but to Ren and Nora? The Camp of the Khan Tribe already felt like home.
The roar of the crowd was barely audible in the small room Pyrrha Nikos found herself waiting in; eyes fixed on the small screen in the corner that showed the match currently going on.
Whoever won that fight would be her opponent in the finals.
A small part of her mind kept track of the combatants (spear user tends towards focused flurries of jabs, axe user prefers to block with the side of the blade), but most of her focus was dedicated to preparation of a more physical nature.
Her heartbeat was steady; a tad bit faster than what would be considered 'normal', but under control nonetheless. She held up her arms and twitched each finger rhythmically; each joint bent smooth, quick, and without complaint. Her wrists were in full working order, as were her elbows and shoulders. Her neck gave a mildly satisfying crick when she twisted it, so she did it three more times; until it went as smooth as everything else.
She worked her way down to her legs and, once satisfied, she closed her eyes.
A deep breath filled her lungs to the fullest, and she held this for a moment before releasing it slowly. A slight unsteadiness to her exhale had her repeating the process twice.
A slight, deliberate smile graced her face; as self-aware as she currently was, it could be nothing but deliberate. Her Aura hummed with confidence; she was ready to fight.
A quiet knock on the door had her tilting her head. "Come in!"
A tall man in a navy blue suit stepped into the room. "Pyrrha Nikos. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Pyrrha's eyes narrowed, and she reached for her weapons. "I don't think you're supposed to be in here."
"Oh, it would take a brave security guard indeed to tell me I can't go somewhere," he laughed, gesturing towards an insignia on his suit. A bronze trident, wrapped in silver chains. The symbol of one of the three ruling Families of Mistral.
Pyrrha sighed and leaned back against the small table in the room. "And what does the Vasilias Family want with me?"
He grinned. "Well, first we'd like to commend you on your flawless record for the fourth year straight."
She raised an eyebrow. "Before the finals?"
"Oh, your opponent will forfeit. You're officially the champion. Congratulations, etc."
Pyrrha frowned. "That's a shame. I was looking forward to that fight."
"Your last one before you go to Haven Academy, yes?" The man pulled a chair from the table and seated himself.
She nodded silently.
"Well, here's the thing, Miss Nikos. I'm here to offer you a deal." He placed a small briefcase on the table. "We have a number of places where we could use a fighter of your caliber, and are willing to, ah… invest in your growth, so to speak."
Pyrrha stared at him flatly. "With all due respect, I intend to become a Huntress."
"Well, of course," agreed the man easily. "And an agreement with us would open many doors for you on that front as well. I will be frank with you: we have people in Haven. We can arrange your placement on one of our teams, get you the resources you need, and ensure our other talents understand you're… on the same side, as it were. You won't have to work for us quite yet, just with us."
The operative word there being 'yet', Pyrrha noted. Were she to take this man's 'deal', she'd be bound to the Vasilias Family politically and financially.
"And rest assured," he continued, "we are very generous to those who work with us." He gently pushed the briefcase across the table to her.
"Is that so," commented Pyrrha blandly, not even glancing at it.
"Well," the man rose from his seat. "You don't need to decide right away. You can keep that either way, and, ah…" He reached into his pocket and set down a business card. "Feel free to call me when you've made your decision."
He paused at the door for a moment, before turning back and smiling. "We hope to hear from you soon."
And then, he was gone.
She waited a moment, just to be sure, before letting out a deep sigh. This… this wasn't why she fought. She didn't want to be famous, or rich, or influential… She wanted to fight. But…
She idly opened the briefcase, and wasn't quite surprised when she saw it was full to the brim with Lien. That was just how things were done in Mistral, really.
And honestly? Joining the Vasilias Family was the logical choice. The correct choice. Most people wouldn't even think about it. To catch the eye of one of the Big Three? That was probably why half the people at these tournaments even went.
But when Pyrrha thought about spending her days at the beck and call of a Family, about just standing places and looking intimidating, about living the rest of her life as the bodyguard for some aristocrat's idiot son, the only thing she felt was mildly ill.
And to go to Haven, having spurned the offer of the Vasilias Family… would likely put a target on her back for all of its allies. Not that she wasn't used to being the one to beat, but the Families weren't quite known for fair play.
What she wanted to do- what she really wanted to do, was to get away from the whole mess. The tangled web of politics, the omnipresent reach of the Families…
To get away from that, she'd have to leave Mistral.
The realization itself didn't quite surprise her. What surprised her was how absolutely okay she was with that option. What surprised her was the revelation that it really was an option. She was an adult, she had money from the tournaments, she could leave, and nobody could stop her.
The briefcase closed with a snap, latches securing themselves with a touch of her Semblance.
And yeah, it was a little scary. There were so many people that were going to be upset at her… the Families, her fans, even her parents.
A vicious grin split her face, almost against her will. The case dangled from her fingertips as she slipped out the door, a spring in her step that had been thought long-lost. One look at her face had the crowd of competitors quietly make way for her.
They saw the briefcase. They thought they knew what it meant.
'Pyrrha Nikos,' they whispered, 'finally acting like a Champion. Finally getting the memo, finally playing the game.' The rumors only made her grin sharper.
Because the last time Pyrrha had felt this kind of nervous? That would have been her first tournament circuit. And, well…
Everyone knew how that fight had gone.
SDC drones littered the length of the train segment; broken and sparking on the floor. There had been more than usual, but still not enough to stop them.
Their foes defeated, Blake Belladonna and Adam Taurus approached the last compartment on the train.
The one that held what they had come for.
An arc of crimson steel sliced through the lock, leaving the door to swing open.
A crowd of dirty, bruised bodies– both human and faunus– shied away from the entrance. Away from the light. But the shadows in the compartment weren't quite enough to hide that there were far more people within than there should have been. That each and every one of them was chained to the walls. That there was no real way to feed them while they were in there.
According to the shipping schedules, they'd been in there for at least 24 hours already.
Blake glanced at Adam, at the cold raw fury in his single blue eye.
She put a hand on his shoulder, then stepped into the compartment herself. "It's alright. We're here to rescue you. You're safe with us."
The medics they'd brought with them filed in after her, spreading out to break shackles and treat injuries. As their lights brightened the room, threw into relief the atrocities these people were subjected to, her grip on her weapon tightened.
Adam gently bumped into her. "Come. We still have to keep watch; there might be more security left on the front of the train."
She nodded and followed him back out. The crimson leaves of Forever Fall rushed by as they stood watch.
A moment passed.
"Are you okay?" asked Adam.
"Yeah, I'm…" Blake trailed off. "No. I'm not okay. I'm furious."
"Good."
Blake turned on him. "Good? You call this good? For every train of Nomads we rescue, there's two dozen that we can't afford to attack! And those are just the ones in transit! How is this good, Adam?"
"I didn't mean the situation was good," he explained stoically. "I meant it's good that you're angry. It means you haven't given up."
Blake stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you, I'm just- I wish we could actually stop this. I wish we could march up to Atlas and make the SDC stop this. I wish we were strong enough. I wish I was strong enough."
Adam smirked. "Your wish is my command." And he held out a piece of paper.
She took it and frowned. "Adam? What is this?"
"An invitation to Beacon Academy's Initiation. You said you wanted to be stronger, didn't you?"
Her eyes widened. "But- But I'm needed here! I can fight, I can help the raids, I can take care of the people we rescue, I can-"
Adam held up a hand. "You can make it into Beacon, you can get stronger, and then you can come back and make up for all the work you missed out on in a tenth of the time."
She looked back down at the paper. "That's four years, Adam."
He turned away from her. "I'll wait for you."
Her lip wobbled. "I don't want to go."
"I don't want you to go either," he admitted, still facing away. "I want you to stay with me forever. I want to run away from all this and live a peaceful life, far away from the Kingdoms and the SDC. But you would hate me for that; I would hate me for that. So we have to do what's right, instead of what we want."
One of the medics approached. "Sir? That's everyone off the train. We're the last ones left."
Adam nodded. "She'll be staying; this train heads to Vale." He turned back to Blake. "Get off before the wall and go around to a different entrance. Everything you'll need should be in your pack. I'll take care of your things while you're out."
She stared at him. "You planned this, didn't you? I was never going back to camp today."
Adam nodded. "I couldn't risk you convincing me to have you stay. I'm depending on you, Blake. We'll need your strength when you return."
She blinked away tears and nodded resolutely. "Yeah. Got it."
He walked up to the edge of the train, and looked back. "Good luck," he said quietly.
And before she could say anything in response, he stepped off the train and disappeared.
A flash of white danced around gunmetal gray. A thick blade of Dust-forged steel swung down, crashing into the stone where she had once stood. A thin line of silver whirled about, slashing through a thick, inky-black hamstring before plunging straight into the shadowy not-flesh that made up the back of the monster's knee.
The Armor Gigas ignored what should have been two debilitating attacks and instead launched its leg back in a sickeningly fluid motion. Despite its knightly appearance, it fought like anything but; its movements were jerky, unrefined, and unconstrained by the concept of form or anatomy. She threw herself backwards rather than take the hit.
Weiss Schnee grit her teeth in frustration. Her Aura was likely somewhere into the yellow at this point; not that her opponent was giving her the chance to pull out her Scroll and check.
Not that she'd spend that chance to do it. She would rather spend it on something constructive, like attacking the accursed thing.
Not that that had turned out to be all that constructive either. She'd been throwing herself at that Oum-be-damned Grimm for half an hour now and it was no worse for the wear. And Weiss herself was rapidly coming to terms with the fact that she was not an endurance fighter.
She was precision, she was grace, she was the raw fury of the very elements themselves.
She had Dust and a rapier, and was up against a gigantic, armored beast.
By all logic, she should have already won.
Unfortunately, she faced the slight complication that even if she could dance circles around the Armor Gigas and lance as many hits through the joints as her father had Lien, that didn't really matter when her enemy was the armor itself rather than someone inside it.
This was unfair! It'd probably take a full team of Huntsmen to kill this blasted thing!
But of course it was unfair, she realized as her eyes drifted to the mirrored glass of the observation room looking out over the arena. It was one of her father's challenges. The point wasn't to give her a chance, the point was to beat her down until she gave up.
She snarled, long past maintaining any semblance of decorum, and wrenched her eyes back to the fight. Perhaps this would let off some steam; A bright red glyph shone in the air before her, unleashing a torrent of fire on the Armor Gigas.
It didn't do anything, of course. The flames washed across the steel plating, leaving behind a few soot marks and not much else.
It swung its blade at her with that inhuman not-form, its joints twisting and stretching like elastic. She kicked off a Glyph and bounced up behind it, slicing through the stringy black un-flesh of the thing's elbow with the point of Myrtenaster.
It faltered for a moment, before thick tendrils shot out from the severed joints and reconnected the arm. It shifted and swung the blade at her new position, and Weiss dodged once more.
There was a heat in the air, now, lingering from her gout of flames. A click of Myrtenaster's cylinder and another Glyph heralded a rush of ice; twisting up one leg of her foe, wrapping around the chestplate, and spreading all the way to the opposite arm.
The cool air was a blessed relief to her skin, even as the Gigas shattered the ice by simply moving. That had also been about as effective as she'd dared to expect.
But- but what was that sound? The tortured groan of metal? Why…?
She thought back to when she'd created Myrtenaster. The finest Dust-forged steel, the finest weaponsmiths, the finest teachers. She'd insisted on creating it herself; despite what Father thought, a weapon was a deeply personal thing for a Huntress. And she remembered the first thing the (SDC-vetted) blacksmith had told her: "Be careful with temperatures. Carelessly heating and cooling your metal will weaken it."
And this time… that's what she wanted.
She danced backwards away from the Armor Gigas, rummaging through the pocket of her combat skirt. When she gained the distance she needed, she stopped.
Front foot pointed straight at the target. Back foot at a 90 degree angle. Body held low, blade drawn back to her chest.
Four red and blue crystals, glimmering between the fingers of her off-hand.
A single massive Glyph appeared on the floor below the Armor Gigas.
It flared red. The monster was engulfed in a whirlwind of fire. A sweltering wave of heat blew back her hair.
The Glyph flared blue. A pillar of ice snapped into existence, edges already melting from the leftover heat, but that didn't matter because with a flex from her foe, it shattered.
The Glyph flared red. Another torrent of flame, melting the fragments of ice into water, boiling the water into steam. The metal of the Armor Gigas began to glow with a dull heat.
The Glyph flared blue. Another mountain of ice. More fragments of ice on the ground as the Grimm freed itself from its elemental prison.
Her Aura was low, now. Deep in the red. Enough to take a single hit at most.
(Up in the observation room, a scientist moved to stop the fight. To re-enable the Gigas' restraints. To end this cruel, cruel charade.
A single, pale hand stopped him.
"She's not done yet," said Jaques Schnee, ice-cold eyes fixed on the fight in front of him.)
Weiss focused on her foe's breastplate. Jagged patterns of frost criss-crossed the once-polished metal surface. Cold, misty air clung to it like an ethereal cloak.
Not yet, not yet.
The monster stepped closer. The surface of the armor was mottled. Marked with soot and ash and crystalline ice.
And most importantly of all, it was cracked.
She gathered what remained of her Aura; enough to take one single hit.
Or, enough to make one single Glyph.
A brilliant white circle appeared behind her.
She shot forwards, the fragments of her broken Aura streaming behind her as she sailed through the air.
The monster drew back its sword.
Myrtenaster, unerringly, found its mark.
And the Armor Gigas shattered.
Broken shards of steel fell down on the arena, and Weiss stood tall among them. Bereft of Aura, bereft of the energy to even dodge, she grit her teeth and withstood the rain of razor-sharp fragments.
This was nothing next to the despair her father had intended to inflict with this challenge. This was nothing compared to the thought of being forced to dance on his strings for the next four years. This was nothing, when it paid for her freedom.
Eventually she dragged herself into something close to a dignified stance and, with a flourish born more from habit than intent, sheathed Myrtenaster at her side. Tired, covered in cuts, and bleeding heavily over one eye, she turned to give a final, venomous glare at the mirrored window of the observation room.
Her father had set her against an impossible challenge; a challenge that now lay broken on the floor around her. She was no longer a pawn. She was Weiss Schnee, Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.
And she was going to Beacon Academy.
( "Sir," said the scientist into the silence that followed. "Sir, you said she wouldn't break it."
Jaques Schnee gave a self-satisfied nod. "It seems my daughter has steel in her yet."
"Sir. That was a very important Grimm experiment. We needed that." )
The sun had long since set on the Camp of the Khan Tribe, but the bonfire burned bright and ale flowed freely. Tribesmen belted out drinking songs, clapping in time or letting out raucous laughter. Nora herself seemed to be leading one of these songs, a foot on the bench and a tankard waved in the air.
Lie Ren simply nursed his own drink, gently swaying alongside her. They would be leaving soon, he knew, and the boisterousness of his friend was her way of showing she would be missing these people. Better to cry on the road than waste precious time, she would say. A lesson he could likely still stand to learn.
A piercing whistle cut through the song, and the tribesmen quieted down quickly. A tall, dark-skinned woman with golden eyes and tiger stripes running down her arms stepped up onto the table.
"Tribesmen," shouted Sienna Khan, leader of the Khan Tribe, "Tonight is a night for celebration!"
"Isn't every night?" teased a beefy redhead.
Sienna laughed. "You got me there! But tonight is special, because tomorrow morning our favorite wanderers will be leaving for Beacon Academy!"
Whoops and clapping filled the air of the camp.
"Yes! They are strong! They have conviction! No doubt next time we see them, they'll be well on their way to being Huntsmen!"
The laughter and hollers rang out once more. Nora held up her hands, basking in the praise as Ren sunk further into the shadows next to her.
Sienna turned to face them directly. "Nora Valkyrie. Lie Ren. Your strength and integrity have proven your worth to the Nomads. I hereby declare you friends of the Khan Tribe!"
A deafening cheer roared out from the tribe. Nora simply grinned.
"And…" Sienna trailed off for a moment. "And if you should want something more… We would welcome you as family, with open arms. You will always have a home here with us."
The camp held its breath as Ren and Nora stared at each other. The latter with hope in her eyes, the former with wariness. He glanced up at Sienna, then sighed and gave a single, small nod.
Nora immediately jumped onto the table and tackled Sienna in a Huntress-grade hug. The tribe went wild, and Ren, hiding behind his rough wooden tankard, gave the gentlest of smiles.
Adam stalked into the central tent of the Taurus Tribe, coat flaring dramatically behind him. "Deery. We've got a group of 40 refugees coming in. See to their needs," he commanded with no preamble.
The small faunus nodded and slipped out of the tent, leaving him alone with a thin, tan-skinned girl and a hulking behemoth of a man peacefully sorting through papers scattered across a desk. Adam nodded to the former before addressing the latter.
"Bane, status report on the camp."
Bane cleared his throat. "Grimm Patrols A,B, and D went as expected, with group C encountering more resistance than usual. No injuries, we're just lower on Dust than we'd hoped for. Hunting teams report that we'll need to move camp by the end of the month or risk over-hunting the locale. If we're looking to send the refugees somewhere, the Mulberry Tribe is willing to support up to two dozen of them. The Borelis Tribe down south is a little overcrowded, they're actually hoping to send ten of theirs over to us."
Adam nodded slowly, looking over the map on the table. It was covered in a rainbow of color-coded pins and carefully carved figurines- Blake's handiwork, the lot of it. "Any news from further out?"
"SDC scouts have been more active on the eastern fringe of Forever Fall; The Vermeil Tribe is moving to their winter location a few months early to avoid them. Other than that, business as usual."
Adam frowned; Grimm were one thing, but the SDC was a different beast entirely. Perhaps the increased activity was in anticipation of the Vytal Festival, in hopes of defending the rail route better? They could fight, but the SDC numbered thousands and each tribe had only two or three hundred at most. Much safer to retreat for the time being, let it pass.
Maybe if he had teams of fighters on par with himself, but every Huntsman-grade Nomad worth their salt was out running a Tribe of their own. He was practically bending over backwards to keep Ilia and Bane, let alone anyone in the big leagues. Oh, what he'd do to get some real combat power…
'I wish we could actually stop this. I wish we could march up to Atlas and make the SDC stop this. I wish we were strong enough.'
Hmmmm. An idealistic pipe dream for sure, but Blake truly was the best of them. For all that they followed the Rule of Strength, she rarely put it to use for her own benefit. But then again, that was what he was for. He glanced down at the map once more and frowned. "Bane. What's the combat power of the Borelis tribe?"
He reached into a drawer on the desk and flattened out a piece of paper from it. "They're 230 strong, but probably about half of that is real combat power. About a dozen really trained in Aura, with their leader personally Huntsman-grade."
Adam picked up a sleekly carved wooden bull and slid it across the map, knocking over a truncated bat figurine- 'chibi,' Blake had called the style? "How about the Vermeil Tribe?"
Bane fished out another document. "About 300 tribesmen, but they are more militaristic, so a round 200 fighters. 30 trained in Aura, 3 Huntsmen grade including the leader."
Adam twisted his mouth, then straightened the bat piece back up, placing it next to the bull. "Mulberry?"
Bane glanced up at him. "Sir? Is there something I should know?"
"Not at all," demurred the Leader of the Taurus Tribe as he ran his fingers down the side of a furry, eight-eyed piece- was this what Blake thought spiders looked like? Ridiculous. "I'm just thinking. The numbers, please."
And so Bane read them out. And Adam sketched out a line. A thick, red line that zigzagged between each of the local Nomad camps before following the map's own arrow labeled "to Mistral."
Bane and Ilia stared at the map with confusion. Adam was surprised, too. Surprised at how viable it seemed. It wasn't a guarantee, and it certainly wouldn't be easy, but it could work. "Your wish is my command," he whispered to himself, before turning to Ilia. "Get the men ready. We march in three days."
Ilia glanced at Bane for a moment before speaking. "To our winter camp?"
"No, no. First, we march on our neighbors. Next, our brothers and sisters in Mistral. After that?" Adam laughed, the happiest and most carefree he'd sounded in years- since he'd taken leadership of the tribe. "Blake would simply say 'the sky's the limit,' but I've never been one for delicacy. After that, we drag the heavens back down to earth and paint our would-be gods the colors of their own flesh."
Bane stared at him, eyebrows raised high. "Sir?"
"For all their laws and governments, the people of Atlas have forgotten the one true rule," he said. "That by which they won the lives they spend so cruelly, that by which they won the food and shelter they now take for granted, that by which they pried Remnant from the very jaws of the Grimm." His hand fell to the blade at his hip. "The Rule of Strength governs all, and it's high time someone reminded the Schnee of that."
Ilia let a toothy grin mar her face. "I look forward to seeing that, Sir."
A yellow motorcycle roared down the highways of Vale, chased by a half-dozen black vans and suited goons on significantly less stylish motorcycles.
Its rider cocked a mechanical gauntlet and shot a brilliantly glowing projectile backwards, blinding her pursuers for a moment before shattering the asphalt up into the air behind her.
"If you think you're gonna get away with what you did to Junior, you've got something comin' for ya, blondie!" roared a goon toting a crimson machete as he pulled his motorcycle even up to hers.
He swung, and Yang Xiao-Long caught the blade on the wrist of her gauntlet. She swerved into him, pushing his weapon away with brute force before one-handedly slugging him in the face, grabbing the machete, and hurling it backwards into the tires of one of the vans.
Suddenly, a pop jingle blared in the headphones built into her bike helmet. She eyed the caller ID before frowning and tapping a button on her bike's handle.
"Howdy howdy~! What's poppin', Rubes?"
Yang's adorable little sister popped into view, superimposed on her helmet's visor over the high-speed chaos the brawler navigated with practiced ease. Ruby was grinning widely, trudging through some forest or other as she had been for the past… three years, now? Man, being an apprentice seemed like it sucked.
"Hey, Yang! I just wanted to let you know that Uncle Qrow and I might be a teeny bit late getting to Vale!"
Yang snorted, distractedly pumping a pair of shotgun shells into the side of the armored van that had pulled even with her. "You're telling me now? You guys were supposed to be here a week ago!"
"I know~" whined the red-haired girl, "But we ended up running into Jaune- say hi to my sister, Jaune!" Ruby held her scroll to point the camera at a tall, bedraggled-looking blond boy.
"Hi to my sister," Jaune echoed tiredly.
"Sorry about him," Ruby said cheerfully. "He hasn't had a lot of sleep. Anyways, he doesn't have a speed Semblance so we have to go an actual walking speed now. Did you know normal people can take, like, weeks to go somewhere? I know you have your bike and I have my Semblance and Qrow can fly, but a lot of the time people have to walk to places! It's crazy!"
"How the fuck can Qrow fly?" the Jaune guy groused from the background.
"I'm built different," came the snarky reply from the elder Huntsman.
"Alrighty, got it," Yang shouted as she steered her bike out of gunfire.
Ruby's eyes narrowed. "Yang… are you in a bike chase again?"
"No," Yang tried to look innocent, but apparently the focus required to swerve through a construction zone betrayed her.
Ruby pouted. "If you're going to keep getting into chases with gangsters, you should at least let me mount artillery on Bumblebee! I can set it up to do all the trajectory calculations automatically! It'd be so cool!"
'They're not gangsters," Yang wheedled.
"Hey! You take that back!" shouted one of the gangsters chasing her.
"They just want me to pay my bar tab, which I said I'd handle tomorrow!" She said loudly, shooting an angry look back over her shoulder.
"YOU GRABBED JUNIOR BY THE NUTS AND THREW HIM THROUGH A WINDOW!" protested the closest goon.
Yang stuck out an arm and plucked a passing stop sign clean out of the ground, swinging it behind herself to unseat the guy who said that from his bike.
"Or maybe some kind of, caltrops or oil slick type obstacles? It'd be a pain to reload but I always say even the single use stuff is useful if you use it when you need to! Oooh, ooh, what about a taser net? taser bola?" Ruby was barely even paying attention to Yang at this point, listing off ideas on her fingers.
"Alright, well, thanks for the heads up, I'm not letting you mod Bumblebee, love you, keep in touch, have fun, bye!"
"Not even a flamethrower?" Ruby whined.
"Nope! Love ya!" Yang smacked the 'End Call' button and turned back to glare at the remaining gangsters. "Would it have killed you assholes to just play along for my sister?"
"FUCK YOU!" shouted one of the van drivers as they attempted to sideswipe her.
"Ugh," groaned the brawler as she expertly dodged the manouvre. "Maybe I should invest in that artillery cannon."
A/N: Yeah, I fully did salvage half of the Prologue x10 Combo from a Bring A Wand To A Knife-Gun Fight. Sue me.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.