"If I could, I would annex other planets"-Cecil Rhodes

Constantine/Algeria/1837/Private Fleurs Arquette's POV/ 2nd Light Zouave battalion

"Fix Bayonets! Form Ranks!" The Officer yelled as the soldiers of the 2nd light Zouve company formed up. I was sweating bullets at this point as I looked upwards. Up ahead lay a large 20-meter (65 foot) gap in the once polished walls of the town of Constantine. Ironic how the Muslim Raton's (French ethnic slur for Algerians) would name a town after a Christian emperor. May Christ bless their heathen souls.

"Engineer corps bring up the ladders!" The officer then yelled as siege engineers rushed forward carrying crud wooden ladders. Our brother company, the 1st light Zouaves would be assaulting the walls with crud wooden ladders made from dry wood and palm trees. The engineers with much haste brought up the ladders and formed up behind the 1st. My battalion would be spearheading to push into the gap the Pix pounder guns had opened up.

"Bayonets fixed?" The office barked as he pulled out his An XIII pistol and unsheathed his saber.

"Yes sir!" The Battalion rang out.

"First 8 Companies forward!"

"Hommes en avant! Vive la France! Vive la Republique!" Our Company captain yelled as he aimed his saber directly at the gap and charged forward

"Vive La France! Vive La Republique!" Me and the first two Company's yelled as we advanced at a walking pass forward towards the stone walls of Constantine. As we advanced, our bright blue uniforms shinning in the rolling sands of Algeria and the hard rock of the mountainous terrain an eerie silence remained 200 Meters away from the town. The town itself was located on a Cliff Phase. There were only two ways in. Advancing up the bridge that lead to the town or scaling the small cliff face with ladders. The latter was being done by the first. They were scaling the cliffs and then walls as the engineering core brought up the long 30-meter (90 foot) ladders and planted them. Up went the soldiers of the 1st while we advanced along the large stone bridge. Despite its impressive size especially considering it was built to connect one small cliff (Were our siege camp was located) to another larger one it was still tightly compact for 2 companies of 300 or so men advancing through it.

The Gap in the town was located in a nice spot that was accessible both through the bridge and by the cliffside due to its width. Thus, an assault up the bridge and up the cliffs like something from the Middle Ages has been chosen. However not all those scaling the cliffs would be advancing into the gaps. Some, those who were going up the long ladders were to take the walls themselves.

The Raton's defending this blasted town soon welcome us. Not 50 meters up the bridge and towards the town and the Ratons opened up on my company and sister one. Musket fire rang out. I was lucky to be in the middle portion of the long assault column the 2-spearheading companies of the 2nd. The entire row of men in the front of the Column went down. Some unlucky bastards by the edges tripped and fell to their doom as they were knocked back by the force of musket balls slamming into body.

Luckily for us we weren't using muskets. Something much better. Something to beat off these petty tribesmen who had so humiliated us in 1836 (The first battle of Constantine saw 1,000 Algerian tribes' men decimate a French force of 8,000 inflicting up to 50% casualties. Despite this high casualty count only 800 French soldiers died. The Algerians lost 50 or so men.) Something other than superior artillery.

The Delavigne rifle which replaced the musket balls in our rifles with lead. They weren't exactly balls. One could call it arrow shaped in a way, the projectiles in the gun. Either way they had greater range and were far more lethal than petty muskets. Some of the tribe's men were using the inferior British brown Bess musket so some men were hit in the head or even chest by the musket balls but luckily since they weren't within 10 meters of the those tribes men firing ranged (30 feet) the balls simply bounced off them or left ugly black spolches on their uniforms.

Weapons lore: The Devalinge rifle is the first rifle and weapon to use what you would consider modern bullets. It was also the rifle. It used at first a cone shaped bullet before then changing to cylindro-conical bullets and then finally the stereotypical shape of a bullet we all know a love. In the 1830s its bullets were cylindro-conical shaped. It also was the first rifle/ musket that did not require a ram rod to reload with the bullets being placed in by hand. However, gunpowder was still required to fire the gun and had to be poured in like muskets. Now to the Brown Bess. The Brown Bess was a notoriously poor rifle. The chief example of how poor it was came from the Mexican America war. The Mexican army armed with Brown Besses as its standard musket inflicted losses in the tens to the Americans while suffering hundreds. In many cases the musket balls would just a stain on the shirts of American soldiers and nothing war. The only time the musket was even useful was in close range but by that point just use a bayonet.

The men scaling the cliffs have it little better. Seeing it better to consecrate their musket fire on us the actual tribal defense force, if you want to call it that, laid down volleys of muskets into our ranks while the women and children tossed down pieces of the battered walls onto the soldiers of the 1st company climbing up the ladders. Some of the ladders were pushed off sending tens of men tumbling to their doom.

Their bodies hit the hard ground and bloody soil of this god forsaken land.

More and more men dropped to the ground dying as we closed the distance. 2 more companies were sent in behind us as my company and its sister one were being picked apart as we charged across the bridge. We charged across the bodies of our dead and dying comrade's bayonets glinting in the Saharan sun. Some men passed out mid charge due to heat stroke.

Some of the men on the ladders had already reached the gap or were scaling the walls themselves engaging the women and children on them in hand-to-hand combat. One man plunged his bayonet into the body of a 13-year-old Raton. The filthy kids' corpse was sent tumbling down his side of the wall probably hitting the town's stone roads.

n the gap the Tribesmen fought the men of the 1st in their own close quarter's nightmare. One of the tribe's men tried to cleave one of our captains in half with his crud Arabic sword only to have the captains saber go directly through his chine. The tribe's men gagged out blood as the saber went further into his head and out the other side.

My company and its sister company finally reached the Breach in the wall and gate of the town and charged forward joining our fellows in the close quarters combat. I jumped over one of the dead bodies of my comrades and fired my Devalign rifle at point blank range into a Raton tribe's men with the lead round going through the tribesman chest killing him before I then rifle buttoned another who tried to come up behind me. One of my comrades got his face smashed in with a rock, while another wrestled with one of the tribesmen on the ground as they fought for a saber to hack at each other. Several tribes' men were firing out of the windows of them houses.

I heard the screeching sound of artillery as several artillery rounds plastered several of the once beautiful stone houses of the town flattening them and their occupants indiscriminately. I hastily reloaded my rifle as I took cover behind some of the rubble. I was at a semi safe distance from the chaotic melee which we were quirkily winning, driving back the Muslim tribesmen back into the town itself.

I then gently placed my rifle on a nice spot of rubble and took aim at one of the tribesmen still firing from one of the houses. I fired my rifle as it left a puff of smoke in the air. However, the smoke was clear enough for me to see the tribesmen get nailed in the head and go tumbling down onto the stone road below cracking his head open.

I then got ready to reload only to hear a war crime from above as a women leaped at me with a dagger and tried to stab me. The dagger went into my shoulder as me and her wrestled each other. My left arm went limp as the dagger further imbedded itself in my shoulder as I fought to hold back the pain. I was now just using my right to defend myself and it seemed I was dead until she was bayoneted in the back repeatedly by one of my comrades. She coughed blood onto me and let out a wail of pain before falling onto me limp.

I pushed her dead body off mine.

The battle surgeons were already moving his way through our ranks as the fighting exited the walls and entered into the inner town. One of said surgeons quickly reached me and helped me up as I was directed away from the fighting. He wrapped a bandage around my wounded shoulder hastily. It was a shame I wouldn't part take any longer in the taking of the town.

"Need water?" The Surgeon asked as he pulled out his water canteen that was slung on his hip. I nodded as he handed me the canteen, and I savored the warm water from it hungrily.

As I was brought back to camp with the hundreds of other wounded, I saw the priests bring up a large cross into the town.

By the time I reached the camp I learned that the fighting had ended.

146 of my comrades had died in the assault on Constantine while 367 were wounded. This had been one of the costlier battles in my nations colonial adventures to pacify the Muslim hoards.

I let out sigh as I was guided into a medical tent to have my shoulder properly patched up.

Present Day/ Berlin/ Kingdom of Prussia/1869/ Otto Von Bismark's POV

"How many men can we muster up when the war with France comes." I asked Field Marshal Moltke.

War with France was coming. The French obviously did know it normal the everyday citizens of Prussia soon to be the unifiers of the Germanic people. I was planning to bait France into a war. Just like I had done with Austria and Denmark. Denmark has been particularly amusing. Still high off their victory in the first Schleswig war. A victory they forgot was only because of foreign involvement. Had Britian, Russia, and Sweden did not intervene diplomatically the war would have been a Prussian victory. Which is why our victory had come so fast in the second war. The Danes had failed to catch up to the times. Their muskets verse out needle guns and later breech loading rifles. The result was predictable. The Danes were shattered.

Then Austria was baited into a war against us. The Austrians were defeat in 6 weeks. The Danes ironically enough lasted longer against us than the Austrians.

Now there was only one last opponent preventing us from unifying the Germanic people. The French.

If the French took the bait, the southern Germanic states would throw their lot with us in fear of French aggression. If the French mobilized before we do then then the remaining Germanic states who haven't been brought into the fold will join us, however if we mobilize first and initiate the war the Germanic states will throw their lot with the French

The entire plan for our war against France relied on French Speed and the French starting the war.

Which is why I did my best to wear down Emperor Napoleon the 3rd with a string of absurd demands and letters to personally bait him into war.

(This strategy worked and led to Napoleon the 3rd personal staff and military generals tired of him being long distance roasted by Bismark to pressure him into a war against Prussia. The common misconception is that Bismark trigger Napoleon the 3rd with his demands which then lead to the war. In reality Napoleon the 3rd really didn't care and made his own counter demands as both Bismark and Napoleon the 3rd busied themselves in sending demands to each other with Napoleon the 3rd wanting to split the Germanic states in-between France and Prussian Spheres of influence while the Prussians aiming for the unification of the states into the German empire.)

"We currently have 200,000 men on active deployment, but we can bluster them up with an additional 1 million conscripts once we begin mobilization when the war with France inevitably begins.

"Good. We will be needing those additional 1 million men."

I carefully looked down at a map France.

Those Million men would be needed to combat Frances army of 400,000. That is if the reports of France having 400,000 men on active duty was true. For all we know they could have more or less. Hopefully less

Remnant/ Present day/ Beacon/ Vale/ Ruby's POV

"...isthat?"

Ruby Rose ignored the question even as it passed from her lips, staring wide eyed out their dorm room window, the portal affording a grand view of the curious weather pattern swiftly forming in the distance. In the General Direction of Mount Glenn.

Having appeared after a deafening boom with such force that it had rattled the windows and sent her sister Yang barreling into her in an attempt to shield her from some attack. After more than a minute of pounding over-pressure, startled screams, and rattling furniture that had seen Blake's bunk bed topple to the floor, everything had ceased.

Ruby extricating herself from Blake's scattered sheets, taking it upon herself as Leader of Team RWBY to try and come to terms with the situation. To understand, and now she couldn't look away.

A storm of clouds as dark as Grimm matter, moving with purpose in a way that seemed wholly too sinuous. At the storms core an eye...or at least it looked like one. Burning crimson with a pupil of burnished gold that made her headache the longer she stared.

It was looking at her, she knew that...she knew so much, sensuous whispers caressing her senses and twiddling clawed fingertips through the meat of her soul, promises made in pacts of blood, echoes of things beyond the reckoning of mortals, and so much more...and... and...

The young Huntress shook her head out, the strange lapse all but forgotten in a sudden need to act, to do her duty.

She was scared, terrified of this strange phenomenon, and that meant that others no doubt would be as well. The Grimm would be drawn, she had to be ready.

Something was coming, and she had to be prepared to face it. And to do that, she needed her baby, she neededCrescent Rose...

1 hour later/ Beacon/ Vale/ Ozpins POV POV

"...do we respond to something like this, Professor?"

Ozpin tore his gaze from the window of his tower, away from the building storm that continued to expand over the length and breadth of the Emerald Forest, to share a glance with the blonde Huntress beside him. Noting her unease, her confusion, her hope for his counsel. Such observations helped, especially when it came to clearing the strange feelings and emotions assailing his thoughts.

If he was suffering as such, his students, his charges must be...no! He had to keep him mind on the wider picture.

"With our best foot forward, Glynda. Remnant can afford nothing less." Ozpin settled back into his seat, pinging alerts from over a dozen sources, all figures hoping for insight into just what was happening, seeking answers. Answers the Huntsman couldn't give them. "What do we know?"

It was a curious feeling, to be unaware of something so utterly, to encounter a phenomenon so alien to everything he'd ever experienced. Refreshing, and terrifying all in one.

"Very little." Glynda Goodwitch glanced at her scroll, adjusting her spectacles. A nervous tick of hers she hardly seemed to notice. "Whatever..." Stress lines marred her features, the woman pausing to steel herself with that same indomitable will that had brought her to Ozpin's attention in the first place. "...Whatever this phenomenon is it's certainly not a natural formation. It so far seems to be isolated strictly to Mount Glenn." That was a surprise, and hardly a pleasant one. "What word I've received from James, what scattered updates he's receiving from his people, so far nothing like what has happened in mount Glenn has occurred in Atlas or the other kingdoms. Thats all we know so far."

She then paused as she checked on her scroll ones more. She then continued on briefly "Professor, and people are already panicking."

Panic that would breed fear and negativity, which would in turn draw the creatures of Grimm in their vast hordes. It mattered little what this maelstrom was or what it would accomplish if the threat they already understood doomed them first.

Action would need to be taken, swift action. Nothing he hadn't resorted too before.

Glynda was uneasy however, that much was clear in her manner. A delicate hand thumbing the crop at her thigh, her eyes staring at the storm lost in contemplation. "What is it?" The words made her start, blinking away the distant distraction and returning her thoughts to the present. To unnerve a skilled Huntress like Glynda, a woman of her composure... "Please, Glynda. Speak your mind."

"Is thisHerdoing, Ozpin?" The question he'd been dreading, the one looming over this current predicament like a shroud. Or a guillotine...

Was thisher? After so many years of skulking in the shadows, was this truly the beginning of some grand scheme? An endgame?

"I can't say." He spoke the truth, he could not know.

Ozpin hoped that he'd have had some warning, seen some sign of the ancient threat maneuvering itself into place, but there had been none. Still...

"But if thisisone of Salem's machinations, we will stand ready to stop her as we always have. Inform Qrow of the situation, and work with James to mobilize his forces with support from the student'sif necessary."

"The students?" The Professor sounded shocked, and with good reason, seeming almost ready to argue the point. A look and a solemn nod was all the old Headmaster could offer her reservations. Children they might be, but they were heroes as well, or would need to be to face the oncoming threat. Whatever that threat might be. "Right...Right, I will make the necessary arrangements. I'll start with volunteers, and have the other Staff on standby to assist with any who might react poorly to..." She trailed off, not needing to state the obvious.

Fear and confusion would hardly remain limited to the broader public, and Glynda felt the strange otherworldly wrongness of the Storm chipping away at her composure as much as Ozpin himself did.

"I'll handle it, Headmaster." The woman spoke up once more, seeking to reassure him, the thought very welcome indeed.

"I know you will, Glynda. Be sure...!?" He made to reply, opening his mouth to continue on only for his words to be lost as a deafening explosion rippled outwards from the Storm, a wave of force that almost seemed to crash against his very soul. Beacon Academy itself suffered as well, the great structure rattling, the ground wrenching itself underfoot.

On instinct alone, the Huntsman's Aura springing to life only to fail as the world itself seemed lost in the crimson luxin, so alike to a Grimm's baleful eye...

Laughter filling the air at the furthest edges of his awareness, an old sound of such cruelty and malice it made even a Soul as old as his own shudder like a child left in the dark. It was the mad cackling of a thirsting god, one that had been left to rot, and one who's triumph would see all in its path fall to ruin.

Fear itself, and it was awake...

In the Heavens/ Hardy's POV

Oh, this had been so fucking perfect really. She had gotten the people of this backwards planet all spooked up. She really didn't need to do it with such a dramatic effect, but it was so worth it. She could have had the same Dramatic effect on the world of Earth as its inhabitants called it if she so pleased but unlike with Remnant Earth was in the most fear when taken by true surprise. When everything seemed so quiet until it then changed at such a fast pace. Remnant could be brought to fear by force and by dramatics, Earth by pure fast and swift surprise

Luxembourg/ October 8th/ 1869

"Mon due" (French for My God) A Farmer said as he looked at what might have well been an architectural masterpiece. It looked like a ancient roman temple or gate. Golden symbols dotted the roof of it while the rest was made of polished marble. It was a sight to behold.

The farmer didn't exactly know what it was, but it had ended up on his field. This was a conundrum most certainly. The sound of a trotting horse took his eyes off the Gate/Temple. Whatever this thing was.

Approaching his humble farm was a familiar face. A French military officer. The officer wore a stylish blue uniform with red pantaloons. Along with that was his saber hosted on his hip and a red cap with golden ornaments. He trotted Along the road next to the farmers' fields.

"Lt Colonel Fleurs!" The Farmer yelled as he ran to him.

Fleurs turned his head to the farmer. The Colonel had often bought some of his food, mainly vegetables, directly from this farm. The prices in Luxemburg and in the countryside in general were far cheaper and while an officer's salary was neat Fleurs Arquette would take full advantage of cheap prices to buy himself some food. Luxemburg's policy of being open to any military personnel in times of peace made it a prime shopping place for German, Belgian, and soldiers of his own country.

However, the site that awaited him was nothing short of baffling. A large pristine Roman gate was in the middle of this poor farmer's field.

"Do you have any idea how this thing showed up." Fleurs asked, raising his eyebrow as he stared at the Gate. The farmer finished running. He stood in front of the officer and his personal mount panting.

"I have no idea sir. I implore of you to find something to do with it or get some of your men to demolish it. It is taking up a large part of my field and I need the space it's occupying to plant my crops!" The Farmer said equally as baffled as Fleurs.

Something was amiss. Fleurs could easily feel it. This gate, whatever it was, was not natural. However, it certainly wasn't the worst thing he'd seen in his long military career. He'd seen worst in Crimea and Algeria.

"I'll report this to my superiors before pull an engineering team from my division to assist in demolishing this Gate. However, I'm sure my superiors will have some curiosity over a mysterious Gate that appeared out of the blue, what you're saying is correct Monsieur."

"Yes, it is true mon brave homme!" (My good sir) The farmer exclaimed.

"I'll get a demolition team up then. It will probably take a few days to organize things, but you are free to wait. I'll find whoever placed this gate down here and get them to properly compensate you for the loss of your crops." Fleurs said chivalrously.

"Que Dieu te bénisse! Que Dieu te bénisse! You are too kind sir!" (God bless you)

"Nonsense my good man. Your crops are how you make money, and something needs to be done about this thing impleading your harvest." Fleurs responded Nonchalantly and cooly. He turned his horse around and rode back towards his camp. It was a 2–3-hour ride away.

Shopping would have to wait, it seemed.