New story

There will be a poll on my profile at time of posting (unless it takes a little longer to load, in which case give it 30 mins) to decide what story gets updated on Thursday and becomes the weekly story going forward. You have three choices: this, Raise or Wildest Dream. Vote there, please, and not in the reviews.

This story:

Kind of inspired by a whole lot of things, such as:

Starship Troopers, Muv-Luv, Attack on Titan, every dystopian military fiction ever. You get the gist. I'm not really taking any one thing from any of them, but rather playing with the idea of a Salem who was a lot more active in the whole "kill humanity" thing and didn't just sit in a tower being useless for however many centuries. This Salem has used her brain, has used strategy, has learned and adapted, and the world is in a much worse place because of it. Also, she's not a secret to anyone because she was happy to out herself and crush morale – since, what's even the downside? She's immortal.

Chapter 1

It was nine years ago when the great wall was breached. Jaune had been a boy at the time, only eight years of age, but even he had understood the wave of terror and grief that overtook the Vale arcology. He could remember watching the news reports with his mother, who had been clinging to him desperately as drone-cameras showed the vast plumes of smoke, the jagged, triangular crack that had been driven through the twenty-metre thick walls. He could remember the horde of black and white shapes driving through, and the thick cloudy miasma of black smoke, laden with spores, washing down over the wilderness and killing or corrupting all living things within a five mile radius.

His father had been one of the many heroes honoured for holding back the tide while communities fled. They had a shiny medal on a stand in their cramped living quarters, a small chunk of bronze not two inches by two inches across; it was the most the arcology could afford to spare for those who had given their lives. He would have much preferred his father than the medal, but such was life in the arcology. It wasn't the first loss, either. Saphron, Coral and Sable had also been killed in action in the years since. They received no medals, no recognition, their deaths being par for the course. Instead, they were honoured the same way the many tens of thousands who died every year were – by the communal statue in the centre of the arcology, which rose up like a sword of black stone. Every month, their mother would go and lay a paper flower at its base.

Jaune couldn't help but wonder if she would do the same for him, as he and his squad disembarked the Bullhead and stepped out onto the grass. His DR8-SMG swung left and right, scanning the trees as his heavy black boots flattened grass beneath them. The squad of six fanned out to form a semi-circle around the side of the aircraft, Sergeant Anders in the centre with a gloved hand raised. They were all silent, bar for the laboured sound of their breathing filtered through the heavy-duty gasmasks they wore. The air was not thick with spores, but you could never tell. The Dread Queen had grown crueller in her strategies over the past few decades, pushing the Grimm through constant evolution and improving faster than humanity ever could. The Grimm Rot had been new, catching Vale completely by surprise, and it had cost them over forty per cent of the population – most of those fighting men and women and, worst of all, the huntsmen and huntresses sent to face the Grimm.

Sergeant Anders lowered his hand and waved it forward. Jaune held position, knowing the order wasn't for him, but Lucy and Tom hurried forward to press their backs into nearby trees and scout the area. It was impossible to see their faces through their masks, but they had been a squad for three years now, and their jerky movements made their anxiety as clear as day. Jaune didn't blame them. His heart was racing.

Join the Engineering Corps, thought Jaune. It'll be safer there. Great advice, mom.

In fairness it was safer – or it would be. Skilled and qualified professionals were rare and valuable, and not to be thrown away lightly. No lives were, but you certainly couldn't afford to send a qualified doctor or surgeon to the front lines. Engineers were similarly prized for keeping the arcology and the military equipment in one piece, but the time it took to invest that kind of experience and training in a person was expensive.

Jaune had been told, in no uncertain terms, that he would be taught the barest of basics – welding, jury-rigging and some electronics – then sent out on missions with squads, and that they would teach him more if he survived. That wasn't a cruelty; it was just the way things were. There was no point putting him through a three-year education if he was unproven, and there were veterans who had proven their worth and were more deserving of the investment.

So, here he was, clad from head to toe in military fatigues in an unnatural shade of white and grey. Camouflage had long been proven pointless against the Grimm, and it was more important then be able to spot one another in a pinch, preferably before they planted bullets in one another's backs. He flinched as the Bullhead's engines roared to life behind him and the aircraft lifted up. He could have been a pilot too, entrusted to shuttle people to and from danger, but rarely to remain in it. If only he had the stomach for it. Even then, it'd be the same deal. Until you were proven worthy of it, no one was going to take you seriously.

A low crackle sounded in Jaune's left ear, and the ears of all those in the 412th Engineering Regiment, Squad 16. Sergeant Anders' voice came through clearly. "Our mission is simple. We are to reconnoitre the scene of a crashed aircraft, clear the scene and, if possible, reclaim the wreckage for salvage. Failing that, we are to reclaim any dust stores and salvage its flight computers."

Hardware retrieval. Jaune had once asked his drill instructor, back in basic, why they'd risk people's lives for equipment. The woman had laughed at him and told him that those machines were more valuable than he was, and likely more valuable than he would ever be. He'd taken it poorly at the time, but he understood now. Materials were forever in short supply, especially after the wall was breached and Vale lost a good seventy per cent of its territory, mines, refineries and all. Military equipment didn't grow on trees, but people did. In a sense. You could always encourage more childbirth, meaning that they, in a fucked-up way, were a sustainable resource. Machinery and components were not.

Sergeant Anders called for them to move out, loose formation, and Jaune took his place, breathing harshly through his mask and scanning the treeline with wide eyes. He was glad for the yellow visor that prevented his squad mates seeing how terrified he was, even if he knew deep inside they were no better.

Everyone knew their lives were counted in hours outside the arcology.

/-/

They found the downed aircraft exactly where it was supposed to be. That, for some reason, had Jaune feeling tense. The Bullhead's cockpit had been smashed outward with glass across the front and grass before it, and the interior was coated with dried blood. There were no bodies, but then whatever had been inside had clearly broken out.

"No emergency signals were lit," said Sergeant Anders. "Simmons, Rogers and Albert form a perimeter with me. Arc and Lark, I want you working the dust stores and flight computer out respectively."

"Sir," replied Jaune and Sky, moving toward the vehicle. The sooner this was over the better, because they could call for an extraction and get the hell out of here. It wasn't a big surprise when the munitions storage refused to open, not with the way this thing had crashed down. There were no grooves or signs of it being attacked by Nevermore, and this thing should have been able to outfly or shoot them down. Jaune swung his DR8 on its strap around his back and over his rigging, then pulled out a dust-powered cutter and got to work, igniting the tiny, super-heated flame and using it to burn through metal while Sky climbed inside and did the same with the cockpit, working through it to the flight computer.

It took the better part of ten tense minutes to cut a square panel about two feet by two feet out the hull. Jaune caught it as it fell, preventing any loud noise, and set it on the grass. The inside of the storage unit was dented and compressed, but the munitions were in one piece. They had to be, or the thing would have blown sky-high when it touched down. Jaune reached in and carefully disconnected the belt from the feeds, then wound the ends back into the metal container and sealed the lid shut. He dragged it back from the gun it had been spooling into and clambered out, carrying the box with him and setting it down a short distance away, before moving to the other side of the aircraft to do the same on its left-mounted weapon.

"Contact," hissed Lucy through the comms. He knew it wasn't a Grimm because either it, or she, would have attacked already. One of the first things drummed into his head in basic was not to waste time telling people there was a threat if he could open up. Gunfire tended to convey danger more than words could.

"What is it, Simmons?" asked Sergeant Anders gruffly.

"Human, sir. Uniformed. Are there any other squads operating in the area?"

"Not that I know of." Jaune could see the person now as well, and they'd clearly seen them. The figure was dressed in the same shades of white and grey, with a domed helmet unlike their own, and straps hanging off his uniform that were criss-crossed over his chest. "Flight rigging," said Sergeant Anders. "One of the pilots. Stand down, Simmons. Let me approach. Everyone, stay cautious."

Anders broke off from his position just as Lucy Simmons backed away from her own, the two quietly swapping places and allowing their CO to take point. He kept his weapon, a modified Atlas K4 Handgun – practically a relic of a bygone time – pointed downward. He held up a gloved hand to stop the figure who, to Jaune's relief, did in fact hold his position. Sergeant Anders then touched his hand to his gasmask and opened a broadcast channel.

"State your ID, rank and name, soldier."

"J-Junior pilot," stammered the figure, a young man – or even a boy. Jaune's first ever mission outside the arcology had been at fourteen. It had been relatively safe, with only two casualties. "ID: A66295. 14th Airborne, VAF. Private Bolt, sir."

"Were you the pilot of this aircraft, Bolt?"

"Yes sir."

"What caused it to crash land?"

"Co-pilot lost his mind, sir," answered the boy. "I had to put him down, sir. He damaged the controls and sent us into freefall and there was nothing I could do to salvage it. I barely survived the landing."

"Lost his mind? What did he try and do?"

"He tried to stop my mission." The pilot's head rose, and Jaune felt his stomach drop out. The glass visor was shattered, and though it was too dark to make out the boy's face, he didn't need to. The protective seal was broken, he'd been outside the arcology too long, and his eyes were glowing red. "He tried to stop me completing our queen's orders," droned the former soldier, raising his sidearm. "For that he-"

Sergeant Anders was faster. He swung his arm up, aimed and fired, sending an explosive round through the pilot's visor and into his skull. It detonated in a blast of orange fire, red blood and brain matter – which was a disturbing and messy shade of grey. The headless body tumbled back into the grass.

"Grimm Rot," snarled Sergeant Anders. "There must have been a breach in the aircraft's containment and the spores got inside. This is why you keep your helmets and masks on no matter how uncomfortable they may be. Co-pilot must have brought it down to prevent whatever the Queen ordered this one to do. Good soldier. Remnant Invicta."

"Remnant Invicta," said Jaune, echoing his squad mates.

"We need to speed things up," said Sergeant Anders, turning back to them. "What he saw will be relayed back to the Queen, or whatever drone is orchestrating things in this region. We can't rule out the chance there are more-"

A black, clawed hand came out from the trees and hooked around Lucy Simmons' midriff, closed and squeezed.

Jaune had not-too-secretly harboured a crush on her; everyone in the squad knew it, aside from Lucy herself. She was a brave, if plain-looking girl with big green eyes and a friendly smile that had Jaune smitten from his first nervous day in the squad two months back. He'd been working up the nerve to confess, egged on by Sky and Tom. As the Grimm squeezed pulled her back, Lucy screamed, but it was silence as another hand came down atop her, striking her head and clapping down onto the other. The result was that the girl he fancied popped like a balloon, spraying blood out over the grass as her feet hung limply from the bottom of the closed, black fist.

Sergeant Anders shot first and shouted "OPEN FIRE" second. Everyone turned their weapons on the shape bursting out from the treeline, dust rounds flashing bright orange and impacting it. Beowolf, Jaune's basic training told him. He'd once seen a picture of an old Beowolf and the new one – the old one looked like an over-sized dog that moved on two legs and had once been considered easy prey for huntsmen.

That was a long time ago and that wouldn't do for the Dread Queen Salem, who controlled the Grimm. They had evolved over the years, growing wilder and stronger and faster and more intelligent. This one was three times the size of a man, but its arms were thin and spindly, like twigs if twigs were made of solid muscle. Its skull came out on an elongated neck with an open maw ringed with three rows of razor-sharp teeth that it bared at them. Six red eyes, for the sake of redundancy, looked down on them, and it dropped Lucy's body, then stepped on it with its hind leg. It moved on all fours, streaking into the clearing with alarming speed and slamming its hand down on the aircraft like it was a prize. Sky, still within and working on the flight computer, did not survive. The cockpit was flattened under the Grimm's weight, and him along with it.

"Shoot it!" howled Sergeant Anders. "Shoot!"

Jaune's SMG came up and he held down the trigger. He had been taught, in simulations and live-fire exercises, where to aim for. The eyes, the throat, thin limb clusters that might, if you were lucky, take off an arm or a leg. All those had been stationary or slow-moving targets in training however, and this thing leapt and dashed about like a mosquito. It lunged and skidded under automatic fire, clamped its jaws shut on the left and right of Tom's chest and bit him in two. Tom Albert died screaming, his weapon firing wildly as his upper half fell and struck the ground.

It didn't stop to savour his death or gloat. It leapt high and over the downed aircraft, landed and hopped again. Sandy Rogers did her best to move out the way, ducking and running to the left, and while she avoided its first swing, her victory was short-lived. It bowled into her and knocked her down, pinned her to the ground with its bulk between her and the remaining three of them. Jaune didn't see her fate, but he saw the Beowolf's head lunge down and heard the choked-off scream. Dead, then. It was just the two of them now.

It was funny, in a way, how little fear Jaune felt. He'd always been a scared boy growing up, which he felt was fair in a world where your dad and three of your sisters had died in the army before you reached eighteen.

He supposed he'd known he would go the same way, but he was surprised he wasn't crying and babbling about it or paralysed with terror and huddled in a ball on the floor. Instead, he kept firing into the thing's back, standing shoulder to shoulder with Sergeant Anders as they unloaded, reloaded and then kept shooting. Really, wasn't it the unknown that everyone was afraid of? It felt like, with the absolute certainty of his demise, there was little left to be afraid of. He was going to die, and that was that, so why bother panicking about it? It'd be one moment of pain and that would be it. He might as well go down fighting like his father had.

And honestly, it was about time he died with his squad mates-

Sergeant Anders planted a hand on his arm and shoved him suddenly, and Jaune was thrown right even as his CO went down. The Beowolf landed atop Sergeant Anders and smashed his skull down into the ground. It jerked its claw to the left to end him, then turned its hungry eyes on the last surviving member of the squad.

Jaune gritted his teeth behind his helmet and brought his gun up. As he did, his eyes spied the munitions crate he'd set aside, and which lay in the mud by his foot. He rolled aside, knelt and kicked it back toward the landing Grimm, then threw himself and twisted in the air, spraying the area as best he could. Ten wild shots spluttered up the mud on either side of it before one found and punched through the thin metal crate and into the stored dust within.

The explosion was devastating. Hot fire and wind burst over his body and picked him out the air, sending him flying back even further until he struck a tree and collapsed at its base. His body screamed and his head pounded, as the darkness swam in and claimed him.

/-/

The retrieval team weren't happy to find a survivor. Jaune knew that the moment they clapped his hands behind his back, cuffed him and demanded he allow himself to be caged in the back of the transport.

He didn't blame them.

Survivors were rare and uncommon, and ever since the Grimm Rot had worked its way past the walls and overtaken Vale, they were typically bad news as well. The spores, once inhaled, worked their way into the lungs and grew into living organisms. The gory and undoubtedly horrifying consequences weren't well-known, but somewhere along the way the rot worked its way into the brain, or took it over, and from then on you belonged to the Grimm Queen.

It was no surprise then when, upon his return to the Vale arcology, he was denied entry and pushed into quarantine in the army camp set up outside. Strapped to a chair and with numerous blood samples taken, he was put through a raft of questions closer to an interrogation than an interview. Jaune answered them all as best he could and recounted the last moments of his squad six times before they accepted there were no discrepancies. That didn't mean he was free to go. It was forty-eight hours before someone deigned to enter the sterilised, white room he had been kept inside, and it was a man in military dress uniform with several medals on his breast. Jaune stood and saluted. "Sir."

"At ease, private." The man gestured back to the seat, and Jaune took it. The man had come in alone, and while discipline dictated he rise and salute he had been nervous it might be taken as an aggressive action. The man has white-grey hair and narrow glasses and carried with him an ornate cane. His face was familiar, startlingly so, but Jaune wasn't in the right frame of mind to place it. "You are Private Jaune Arc. Correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Squad 16. 412th Engineering Regiment, serving under Sergeant Lennard Anders. Is that correct?"

"Yes sir."

The man nodded. He'd undoubtedly known all that, and this was just to warm up for the real questions. "This is your fifth squad since your graduation sixteen months ago. Is that correct?"

The question was a blow to Jaune's gut and a stabbing pain both in his chest and behind his eyes. He ducked his head, stared down at a spot between the man's feet and whispered, "Yes sir."

"To serve on five squads and be a lone survivor in all cases is impressive. You must be a very lucky young man."

"I don't feel that way, sir."

"Oh?"

"If I were lucky then my squads wouldn't have all been decimated." Jaune bit his lip, afraid he'd crossed a line in talking back. "Sir," he added, just to be safe.

"Your first squad was the Squad 11 of the 410th," recited the man. "You were sent on a routine mission to reinforce and repair an armoured unit holding a mining facility outside the arcology. You arrived, attended and repaired the vehicles without issue, but were ambushed on the way back. Is that right?"

"Yes sir. Everyone was killed."

"Except you, private. How did you survive?"

"My Sergeant at the time, Sergeant Polkins, managed to gravely wound the Grimm, sir. It was half-dead by the time it got to me and I was able to evade it until it died. I didn't… All I did was run away and keep shooting."

"That's perhaps all you could have done. You arrived back safely, underwent testing for rot and were found clean." The officer nodded once, then continued. "Your second squad. Squad 12, also of the 410th. This was one month after your joining the active Engineering Corps. How did they take you joining their team?"

"Cautious but welcoming, sir." answered Jaune.

They hadn't liked the idea of taking on a lone survivor, but they had understood it was bad luck – and people died all the time. They'd lost one of theirs recently, so it made sense that someone would be assigned, and he'd been a convenient pick. They had warmed up to him after a week or two.

"Squad 12 were sent on an active combat mission in sector six if I recall. Backup for huntsman forces on the scene, who failed to contain the outbreak and fell. The supporting forces were overrun and cut down as I recall."

"That's right, sir."

"Yet you walked away in one piece."

Walked was a longshot. He limped, crawled and was found by reinforcements sent to try and relieve the huntsmen, for all the good they did. He'd been carted back and put through further tests, then assigned to a third team, who had been even less willing to accept him than the last. The rumours had spread by then, and he'd become something of an ill omen. Other squads had joked that the squad he was on were destined for death. Those jokes turned very hollow indeed when, not two months later, Squad 2 of the 412th Regiment were annihilated in what should have been a routine escort of scientists to examine rot-infested corpses.

"How did you survive?" asked the officer.

"We kept fighting and fighting and I guess it just worked out. I wasn't the only one to make it out, sir. Sergeant Tanner and Private Winchester also made it through the initial combat. They… They succumbed to their wounds on the way back, with Winchester choosing to take his own life."

He could still remember the brash and angry man, who had hated Jaune since day one, swallowing the suicide pill to prevent Jaune carrying his injured body back. Cardin despised him and had tried to tell everyone Jaune would get them all killed. That didn't stop him making the choice to take his own life rather than slow Jaune down. It was what they were trained to do, and a living, but injured, soldier was a liability to other survivors.

"Your fourth team didn't last one week," said the man. "You were sent on a suicide mission to the wall. The attempt to close the breach. Hundreds died for that ill-conceived and reckless plan. You weren't the only survivor there at least." The man tapped his cane against his leg, and Jaune heard the ring of metal. "I was there as well. A part of me still is."

Ill-conceived. Jaune would have snorted if the situation weren't so dire. The troops had different words for it at the time, even if command had been throwing terms like "courageous" and "counterattack" around. Humanity's counterattack, they called it. Reclaim the wall, push the Grimm back through and seal it, then bring about a golden age once more. The force of four thousand soldiers and five hundred huntsmen had failed to even make it to the walls, being bogged down in combat before they got close. His squad, most of whom he hadn't gotten used to knowing, had been thrown into the meatgrinder alongside huntsmen and huntresses, and had been slowly cut down. Jaune hadn't so much survived as been ordered back with the general retreat.

"You'd been with your most recent squad for a month," said the officer. "Sergeant Anders submitted reports that you were cooperative, obedient and disciplined, but quiet and reclusive. Reluctant to interact with your squad mates."

Jaune shrugged. He knew Anders would have reported on him, along with everyone else, but he didn't much enjoy the note of pity in the air. Yes, he'd been reluctant to make friends with them because he was afraid of getting attached. Yes, that was pathetic. No one could say it hadn't been the smart move, however. It hadn't worked anyway. As the weeks went by, he let his walls be broken down and came to enjoy his time with them, get close, attached, develop feelings.

Honestly, he should have known better.

"Your situation isn't unusual, Private Arc. You may see yourself as misfortune incarnate, but there are many others in your shoes. According to Sergeant Anders, you are unusually resourceful and quick-thinking. His body was reclaimed, along with his recording devices, which confirmed your story and your last moments." He inclined his head. "Detonating the munitions crates killed the Grimm, though it's nothing short of a miracle you survived the blast and striking a tree with your body. Most would have died on impact."

"I don't think I cared at the time about dying, sir," said Jaune. He'd been sure it would happen after all and resigned to the reality of it. "It'd probably have been a quicker death than whatever the Grimm would have done."

"Almost certainly. Your blood tests came back clear by the way. There is no rot in your system."

Jaune nodded, relieved, but also having known that. He wasn't sure how it felt for people controlled by the Grimm Queen, but he figured he wouldn't be thinking like this is he was. Also, his mask had remained in place. "Am I to be placed on another squad, sir?"

"About that…"

Jaune snorted. It was unprofessional to interrupt a commanding officer, but he couldn't help it. "No one wants me. I get it."

"Five times sole survivor is…" The man sought a nice way to say it and then gave up. "It is suspicious. Soldiers are a superstitious lot, and you're looking like an omen to many of them. Most of the officers know it's nonsense but they have to look after the morale of their squads, and they know you will be a detriment to it. It hardly helps that ever since the introduction of the Grimm Rot, command has been afraid of spies and sleeper agents in our ranks. There are some who suggest you're being allowed to survive by the Grimm, despite medical evidence to the contrary. There is always the chance Salem has cooked up something new, something hidden."

It didn't surprise him they'd think that way. There were times he had as well, asking himself why and how he kept surviving by the skin of his teeth, and whether it was by his own actions at all. "What happens now then?" asked Jaune. "Am I to be imprisoned? Given the death sentence?"

The man heaved a long and heavy sigh. "In a sense, it is the latter."

He'd asked it sarcastically, and couldn't quite believe – no, he could believe it, but he hadn't wanted to. There were executions televised almost every week, though most were for traitors, cowards and those who fled combat or disobeyed orders. There just weren't enough resources to bother with prisoners anymore, and most of the former prisons had been emptied out and turned into barracks. When the walls fell, a lot of the farmland went with it. Aquatic Grimm prowled the oceans, keeping them locked in place and making fishing dangerous work. Nevermore prowled the skies and killed birds as well, just in case they might be hunted for meat. It was all part of the Grimm Queen's plans to kill them. No one had the time or resources to waste on second chances. Jaune slumped, defeated.

"When is my execution?"

"Two years from now, give or take however long it takes you to die in the field."

Jaune looked up, confused. "Two years-?"

"The medical teams decided to look deeper into your blood when they brought you back this time, and at my request put you through extensive testing. There are faint traces of aura in your system, which would go a long way to explaining how you survived the explosion, and how you may have survived in the past. Unconscious aura usage is rare, very rare, but not unheard of, and can keep you alive in otherwise hopeless conditions."

Aura? That wasn't possible. He'd been tested when he hit eleven, same as everyone in Vale. Anyone who had aura was pushed into the Huntsmen Corps, and that was considered to be both a blessing and a curse. Huntsmen lived richer lives than many, with proper food and training and the best equipment Vale could provide.

Then they were thrown at the worst of the Grimm.

It was said that huntsmen had once been Remnant's heroes, and the shield that stood against the Grimm, and they were still that in a sense, but the shield was bloody, dented and cracked in places, and the monsters threatening to swarm by were stronger and more numerous than ever.

His mother had wept when he tested negative for aura, because as violent and as bloody as life in the military was, there was at least a chance you could grow old and live a normal life. The arcology needed its soldiers, so they weren't thrown away for nothing if it could be helped. Huntsmen, on the other hand, were thrown at any and every problem. They were used as knives and stabbed into the Grimm over and over until they inevitably dulled, shattered and were discarded. There were less than twenty huntsmen or huntresses above the age of thirty in Vale, and only three, to his knowledge, above the age of forty. To be drafted into the huntsmen was a death sentence.

"Oh…" whispered Jaune, his heart skipping a beat as he realised what the man was saying, and what he had said. He had always known he would die, that he probably should have died long before now, but to hear this still made his stomach fall. "I'm being drafted, aren't I?"

"I'm afraid so," said the officer, not unkindly. "I am Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon. You are to join this year's intake, to graduate in two years of training and take your place among the huntsmen of Vale." What should have been an honour was little more than a sentence. The man bowed his head sadly. "I am sorry."

"Will I have time to talk with my family?"

"You are being shuttled to Beacon tomorrow, I'm afraid. I will see about granting you leave once you are settled in, but the term began one month ago, and you will already be behind the other students. I believe it in your best interests to attend quickly and catch up. You're free to write a message, which I can have a member of staff deliver on your behalf."

"And I'm to be a huntsman in two years? Aren't children trained from eleven for this?"

Ozpin closed his eyes and nodded his head. "Yes. They are."

A death sentence indeed. The alternative of which would be that no one would accept him, and he'd ever be pushed into forced labour or removed from the military entirely, which would mean accepting a place as a common labourer. A safer life, in a sense, but a helpless life with limited food and amenities, often spent breaking one's back on a farm or in a mine somewhere to fuel the constant war against the Grimm. That would shame his family more than his death would. The Arcs had always been military. At least this way he could try and avenge his squad mates.

"I accept, sir. I will give my life as a huntsman."

Ozpin nodded. "And we will prepare you as best we are able. Welcome to Beacon, Private. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten."

I know there will be a lot of questions like "Why does everyone not have their aura unlocked if the situation is so bad" and "what happened to make situation so bad" and "why is culture so different". Believe me when I say they will be explored in future chapters, but for the first chapter I wanted to better capture the tone and the differences in what Vale is like in this story to Vale in canon. It's not a happy place.

Anyway, reminder about the poll. Check it out.

Or don't check it out. Be strong, independent readers and tell me I'm not the boss of you.

But… what if that's a double-bluff to make you check it out to rail against me…?

Also, yes, invicta is latin but the language shouldn't exist on Remnant. I know. Same as how phrases like "ninja" shouldn't exist but do. Shrug.

Next Chapter: To be determined by poll – either this Thursday or, and more likely, Tuesday 25th October.

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