I know it takes some time and the chapters might lack structure. its not a thought out story I suppose, but rather a collection of impressions in really choppy chronology.But nevertheless, I hope you like it. Leave a comment if you did. Or didn't. Both.

Here we go.

Gesprochenes Wort

Spoken Word

General James Ironwood was a man of war. He was a man of composure. He was a leader and a role model. Yet, he couldn't help the familiar anxiety in the presence of that one man, the Hunter.

He did not feel ashamed for that. He, as well as his friends Ozpin and Glynda, knew that feeling uneasiness or even strange dread in his vicinity was to be considered normal. It was the standard. After that night in the forest, many years ago, he had met Johannes and Maria only a handful of times, but every time, the Hunter seemed to tower over everyone else like a giant.

Maria's company was much more easy to enjoy. She too inhibited a strange, unknowable quality, but her demeanour was much more human, infinitely more approachable. That she could keep up such a cheery attitude, even though she was always close to the Hunter, it was a mystery. It made her one to be admired, not that the general would admit that.

Though now, even she was reserved. It was only appropriate in the context of what they were doing.

The roof of the 'Hotel", the building acquired by Johannes as his base of uoperations, was filled with people. Men and women, human and faunus, some huntresses and Ironwood and his men, stood around a large stack of wood, covered in crimson sheets and on top of it, lay a dead man. He was dressed in full battle kit. Fatigues, armor, helmet, gloves and boots. Only his face was free. His eyes were closed and the slack muscles in his face made it so that it almost seemed as if he was smiling.

A woman, dressed similarly, stepped out of the crowd, a canister in her hand. Ironwood immediately recognized Specialist Mary Decker. The woman the Hunter had taken from his airship, during their investigation of the Atlesian super submarine. She stood for a moment, regarding the pyre and then turned around.

"Dimitri Lio Stravinsky…" She left the name to linger for a moment.

"Dimitri Stravinsky was a man of great courage, as all hunters are courageous."

Brrrttt!

A rapping went through the lines, as all the black clad men and women answered Decker with a stomp of their feet.

"He was a man of skill, as all hunters are skilled."

Brrttt!

"He was a man of duty, as all hunters are dutiful."

Brrt!

"He died as a hunter. Fighting for the lives of those next to him. With tooth and nail, without mercy or respite…"

Decker raised the canister and pulled a pin from it's top. Just now Ironwood realised that it was an incendiary grenade of some kind.

"As a hunter should!" She exclaimed loudly and all present answered with a choir of "A-OOH!"

Almost carelessly, she tossed the explosives into the pyre, where it ignited with a weak poof and immediately engulfed the stack of wood in yellow flames. Moments after, the power was alight and the fire licked on Dimitri's boots and clothes. It would take some time for the pyre to burn out and to perform the rest of the rites to the corpse, but Ironwood didn't have all day and he knew that the Hunter knew that.

Johannes emerged from the crowd, throwing the General a single glance and pointing his hand downwards, towards the staircase. Ironwood nodded and made to follow him, two of his personal guard in tow. The rest would stay to pay their respect.

They moved several flights down, moving between rooms and floors as they did so. The building was uncannily complicated and Ironwood didn't know how anyone could be familiar with it's layout, except they lived here for years. To his surprise, he saw many more men and women in uniform throughout the Hotel. He hadn't counted, but he would guess that the roof had at least carried two hundred soldiers and they passed far beyond twenty while moving through the building.

Now, Ironwood trusted Ozpin and Ozpin trusted the Hunter, but what he had seen here, was beyond suspicious. Not only the soldiers and the obvious militarism within the compound, but also the quality and quantity of their hardware. Once they passed a room into which he could catch a glimpse, which seemed to be an armoury, complete with a quartermaster and a list of attendees. The sheer volume of firearms, ranging from handguns over assault rifles, up to anti materiel systems was impressive, even to someone like the General.

"Is it okay for you to leave the ceremony early?" He asked, while he pondered his observations. Johannes did not stop as he answered.

"I am not of the sentiment that rituals like the one above us, are too much of the essence."

The General raised an eyebrow at that.

"Then why bother? Why not just bury them where they fall?"

The Hunter snapped his fingers. "Decker explained to me that it would be beneficial for the morale of the troop. She is much better versed in the complexities of the human mind than me. But I still think… I know, that the body is just a vessel for the consciousness. And as soon as the electrical stimuli in the brain cease to function, this vessel becomes an empty shell. Worthless beyond sentimental value."

Ironwood was not surprised at the harsh statement. He had expected for the man's point of view to differ from the standard. It was a fitting amalgamation of spirituality, scientific awareness and cold effectiveness that seemed to dictate the man's being.

"And the mind? The soul? What happens to it in your opinion?"

Now, the Hunter stopped. Just for a single step, but still.

"I do not know." He answered, an amused tone in his voice. "I have learned many things that man is not supposed to know, yet this mystery seems unsolvable."

He opened a door and both stepped into a spacious office. The walls were lined with shelves that seemed to burst with strange contraptions and tomes. Jars and vials and small, insignificant looking trinkets. An origami fox there, a handful of marbles here. He looked Ironwood in the eye as he was about to close the door.

"True nothingness is not meant to be comprehended. It is a burial ground for coherent thought. Even the concept is impossible. There can not be absolute nothing if anything exists."

He closed the door.

"It is also not something that should be discussed while being sober." The Hunter strode past the General and rounded a rather plain, wooden desk which only carried a lamp, a few writing utensils and a small pillow, on which a large black crow was resting, it's beak tucked against it's body and it's eyes closed. Apparently it did either not mind the intrusion, or didn't notice it.

"You can get drunk?" Ironwood asked with a smile as he sat in the chair the Hunter gestured him to take, before sitting himself.

"Not with alcohol, which makes avoiding intoxication rather easy." He answered, before folding his gloved hands.

"But you are a busy man, General. Though I would be pleased to comply, you did not come here to discuss paradoxes and metaphysical improbabilities."

"Right." The General shifted in his seat. "I have chosen to personally oversee the delivery of your order to the Atlesian government. Especially so, since I heard that your operatives are already very well equipped and not least as I have myself spent the better part of the last year to make the council greenlight my own inquiries. But somehow yours is approved within two days."

"Yes, I am aware." Johannes answered, a little smile playing over his face.

"I assure you, that I have no idea why they reacted this quickly. I had anticipated waiting for a fair bit."

"Hah!" Ironwood laughed, making the Hunter raise a brow in puzzlement himself.

"It is because they're afraid." He said chuckling.

"Because you made such an impressive entrance, with your specimen in tow. Somehow these gentlemen are content with Grimm running rampant in our rural areas, but show 'em a squidman and they all lose their composure."

Both looked at each other for a moment, before on each face a grin emerged and finally laughter filled the short silence.

"I guess that also helped your own requisition quite a bit." The Hunter said after they'd shared this small moment.

"In fact, they approved it within the same sitting." Ironwood was still laughing.

"And you would think they'd jump at the idea of upgrading the troops equipment. I remember a time when most if the yearly budget went into the military industrial complex. 'No cost to high' was their slogan when it came to defence against the black tide."

"Complacency is a boon in the enemies hand." Johannes said as the General was calm again. There was some frustration in Ironwood's tone and he had recognized it. Of course he had.

"Do you want to see the list?"

"Please."

The General reached into his coat and produced an envelope, bearing the council's sigil. The Hunter took it and swiftly sliced it open.

"Two hundred units. AICA. Advanced infantry combat armour. One size fits all. The full package. Artificial muscle, integrated, strength enhancing, exoskeletal platform, tank grade tactical armour and helmet. The exo carries itself and then some. Heavier armour and heavier guns. It effectively cancels out all recoil from conventional infantry weapons, if the wearer is proficient enough that is."

Johannes nodded.

"The helmet-" Ironwood continued. "-has a visor with full HUD, AI-supported dynamic threat assessment, state of the art communication system which can be encrypted and all the other fancy stuff. Rangefinders, terrain scanner, thermal and night vision, up to twenty hours of power on maximum performance. It's a powerhouse. A real force multiplier."

The hunter kept nodding, while looking down at the list. He kept reading for a while until he put the paper down on his desk and took a ballpen from a case on the desk.

"I have no idea what any of this means." He finally said. "But I understood 'heavier armour and heavier guns.' So I guess this is alright. I will give this to accounting. The payment should be complete within the day."

"You have no idea what this means?" The General asked incredulously. "How… why then did you-"

"Miss Decker took care of the specifics of the order. She told me that it would maximize our men's lethality and minimize danger for them. I also thought about ordering another two or three air transports and maybe a heavier fighting vehicle. The cars we have now are sturdy, but their capacity for heavy weapons is limited."

"But you…" Ironwood was still dumbfounded. "How did you even pay for these? It's an order over a few million lien!"

"Six million, two hundred ninety one thousand, two hundred and sixty lien. To be exact. I have been well off for a long time. Additionally, I have seized the finances of several crime syndicates all over Remnant and sold their assets off. My hunters have been well informed… and busy."

Something about the smile on the Hunter's face had changed as he said so. But it was true. Ever since his reappearance, organised crime rates all over the kingdoms had dropped dramatically. Hundreds of known suspects vanished from the face of the earth and several leading figures had announced their retirement. The sudden flash of sharp teeth had something predatory and suggested that no further questions should be asked. Not about the man's methods at least.

"Alright…" Ironwood relented. "I ain't asking about that. However, if you're fitting your men with platforms of that kind, what does that mean for the rest of the world?"

Johannes signed and stamped the papers silently. The bird on the cushion awoke and looked around the room with sleepy eyes. With one sleepy eye. The Hunter sighed dramatically. Ironwood couldn't tell if it was genuine concern or veiled cynicism.

"We have countered a minor incursion in Alasson. I say minor, because I have seen what a major threat is. The… cult that had been rooted there, was young and small, but they were guided, well rather enthralled by a very powerful being. Undoubtedly either a chosen one of a Great One, or a lesser one itself. You must know, General, my… condition makes it very troublesome to kill me."

"I am aware."

"This one, had no trouble to dispatch me when I came face to face with it. I have…"

"Waitwaitwait." Ironwood interjected. "You mean to tell me that this thing killed you?"

The Hunter nodded. "It pulverized my entire head in a single blow."

"And how are we speaking then!?" The General was slightly agitated by now. Not entirely unbelieving, but confused for sure. Johannes smiled his more fatherly kind of a smile.

"Firstly, thank you for not outright assuming I was lying. Secondly, yes, but it is as of now, impossible for me to entirely explain. You see, the only thing harder than killing me, is keeping me dead. Though I wouldn't claim myself to be immortal. That is something I neither know, until the day I thoroughly die at least, nor wish for."

"So it is a curse for you." The General stated.

"It is… difficult for me to decide. Power can be quite addictive. I have not chosen yet, but I have consulted all the legends and scripts I could find. They did not turn out to be overly helpful, but they were interesting. Some religions describe something very similar, much earlier in Remnant's history, but they too aren't concurrent if these individuals described are cursed beings, or blessed with the gifts of gods. But I am sure that they vanished at some point."

The bird hobbled over to Ironwood and fixated him with it's single eye. It seemed to look for something, maybe a snack, maybe it aimed for his eyes. He had heard that carrion crows do tend to eat those first.

"As for Remnant, I can not say. Though I have reference."

"Yharnam." Ironwood said. He had heard the stories from Ozpin. The ashen city in the north. The cursed island nation. Empty and forgotten. Atlesian sea patrols controlled the waters around it, all their captains avoiding it's borders in a manner that could only be described as pedantic, or paranoid. Landing there was not prohibited by law, but the few trying or planning, were thoroughly warned. They also never went far before turning right back around.

"Yes. And this was very much a localized incident. If something like this was to happen on a global scale…"

"Then we will need bigger guns." The General finished the sentence. The Hunter nodded, smiles vanished from his face and a mask of ice taking it's place.

"We need to tell the people. Better sooner than later."

"I concur." Johannes said. "But I have yet to find a way which will neither send the people into a frenzied panic, nor make them dismiss the matter as an urban myth."

"One way or another, they're going to ask who you are."

"Hm." Johannes was silent for a moment, before continuing. "Amusing, if you understand that it doesn't matter in the slightest. But on the flipside, everything hinges on whatever the people are going to be."

"What's the matter Hans? Too tight around the jewels?"

Hans Kercher tried without success to adjust the lower half of his AICA suit, before turning from his locker towards Mary Decker, who had finished suiting up some time ago. It was rare for everyone to have some downtime between missions and now, a few hours after the cremation of Dimi's remains, seemed as good of a time as any to try out the new equipment they had received from Atlas.

"More the thighs, but yes." He answered, before fingering at the locks of his new suit. He knew that these AICA bodygloves were an essential step up from his cotton uniform, but he still preferred the comfort of simple cloth.

With a hiss of depressurizing air, the suit came off his legs and spread open around them. The thing itself looked much like a black layer of raw muscle, wrapped around the body and interspersed with little ports for the load bearing exoskeleton to interface with. The upper thighs were covered in fabric, much like cargo shorts, as it was probably easier to sew pockets onto those as to attach them to the actual suit. Still, he had to smile a bit, as the whole thing made people look like genuine video game characters, just much more fierce, as these were real.

"Maybe you're getting fat." Decker teased while stretching in her own unit. Kercher had to admit, even though the suit was thick and made everyone seem inhumanly buff, it still fit tight to the wearers body and as such, left much less to the imagination as the old fatigues.

"I might be. Might also be getting old." He huffed as he began reattaching the legs.

"Hm. You look the part. How old are you anyway?" She asked.

"I'm gonna be twenty-seven in April."

"What?" Decker looked at him surprised. "You look like you're going forty soon."

"Thanks a lot, Mary." Kercher grunted as the suit locked in place. He took a few steps in a circle, satisfied with the results. Properly attached, the suit felt a lot like a diving suit. Maybe a bit more loose, but not much.

"Hey, you still look good for a geezer." She chuckled, her eyes quickly glancing over his upper body. Much like herself, he was covered in all kinds of scars. Gunshots, stabs, cuts, shrapnel. A few were fresh, earned during the fight for Haven, along with the blue and blackish marks of bruises by blunt force. They looked painful, but both knew that pain was only temporary. It made no sense to hang on to it. Under all that, he was a testament to human performance. A body trained exactly for one thing: to be more reactive and stronger than his enemy, with a mind inside that had designed itself to be fast and violent.

Most soldiers in Atlas' military came for the glory, for the money and for the social status and respect it brought them. Decker knew. She herself had joined with wide blue eyes, keen to become a hero of the kingdom. It had taken her years to break through this naive dream and accept that she was doing the dirty work for people who earned so much more than her by attending nice banquets, spouting boisterous speeches and living in generous mansions. All that, while she slaved away below deck of Atlas' aircarriers.

But she had read Kercher's dossier. She had researched him and learned all there was to know when Johannes had recruited his first batch. His first generation of hunters. Kercher hadn't come for the glory, or the money. He had come because he hadn't had another place to go. Among all the bigots and racists inside Atlas' society, he had more reason than almost anyone else to hate the Faunus, yet he had never generalized. Even when he was as young as nineteen.

Police records had held all the information Decker could need to figure out what had happened to Kercher's late girlfriend, Catherine Linda Hemsen. All the raw details of her kidnapping, Kercher's ordeal to find her, the day he came stumbling into a frontier ranger station with blood on his hands.

They had raided the camp hours later, found the people inside cooped up in cages like livestock, crippled and defiled for their perceived crimes against Faunuskind. The white fang had done horrible things in their self proclaimed fight for equality and had only damaged the efforts of those who tried to change things in a peaceful manner. And Kercher hated them for both of those reasons.

The records even contained the addendum of Catherine's suicide a few weeks later. She had taken a knife to her wrists, with a letter for her dear Hans. An apology and an attempt at explanation.

Days later he enlisted. He displayed exemplary discipline and skill. In record time, he ate through all available courses, gaining top marks in the process. It didn't take long for him to be thrown into combat against the people he had harboured so much ill will towards.

He excelled at being a soldier, but so much was already expected, but what surprised his superiors was his ability to completely detach his personality in the face of death. The hurting young man stepped back when the shooting started and someone else replaced him, someone cold and calculating. A man who would give his opponents neither mercy nor respite.

His first two years of military service were easily accessible, but later the reports became harder to read. Literally. Some pages seemed to contain more expunged and redacted content than actual readable text. But Decker knew to filter the lack of information and piece together what the man had done during his time in Atlas' special operations units.

When he wasn't being borrowed by the several intelligence agencies, he was part of the "1st Schwere Späheinheit", the heavy recon of Atlas' specialized infantry commands. They were essentially commandos, structured around the traditional Jäger squads of the Great war. Independent and equipped with too much specialized equipment to count, these soldiers would, in a scenario of war, operate behind enemy lines, disrupting supply chains, taking out key enemy positions and wreaking general havoc within the enemy's backyard.

But there was no ground war to fight. Instead, bandits in the countryside, gangsters in the cities, the white fang everywhere and most of all, Grimm.

Decker knew from experience that most of a soldier's service was spent holding off the black tide. Grimm where a literal plague all over the world and it wasn't uncommon for a battle hardened veteran to never have fired a single shot at another person. Those were the one's on the posters, the ones that the papers wrote stories about and Decker held no ill will towards them for it. They were important. They gave people hope and kept spirits high, which was as substantial to holding off the Grimm as a good rifle.

Decker and Kercher were not like them. Their service had not allowed them the peace of mind to keep being a monsterslayer. Instead they became the monsters, the wraiths, the wrathful spirits. Decker had boarded pirate vessels, and assaulted smuggler strongholds. She had put down human traffickers and not to forget about that cursed submarine.

Kercher had done some of the more shady jobs when working in intelligence. Whenever the spooks needed a heavy hand, they formed so called IUs, impromptu units, which always consisted of the best available operatives. These could be field agents from their own staff, or the military kind for more overt activities, or a mixture of both, especially in more time consuming operations.

Ops like the elimination of a high profile crime boss or white fang cells weren't edited too much in the records. What took Decker a lot of time and some contact with her former comrades in the navy intelligence, was a large document labelled "Operation Pigbay", even though it was neither conducted at a bay, nor were there pigs. And even with all this black marker, it was obvious that it hadn't been a security mission for a Mistralian politician visiting Menagerie. Not with so many deaths.

So, Kercher had spent years in the worst shitholes. Almost all eighty percent of his service were consumed by grey scale morality and black operations. It certainly explained his affinity for combat and his ability to make hard hitting decisions, even though the Hunter had yet to lead them into a fight where the sides were unclear.

No one really knew what their commander was expecting to go up against that warranted such a substantial upgrade of their personal protective equipment. Until now, they had been equipped like any other military force on the planet, except black. Now, they were wearing the threads of the future, tailored to make each of them a one man or woman army. But Decker was content with leaving this thought slip into the back of her mind and instead focus on more pressing matters.

Teasing Hans for example.

"Is that just me, or is your hair getting thinner?" She said and chuckled as he immediately whipped towards the nearest mirror where he bowed his head down to see the top. Decker meanwhile had evolved her chuckle into a fully grown laugh, holding on to one of the lockers to support her.

"Mary!" Kercher exclaimed. "You little skank! Don't fuck with me!" He snapped, though the corners of his mouth threatened to form a small smile at her antics.

"It is!" She continued, still laughing. "It has been since we know each other. It's because you never have any fun!"

"Not your kind of fun, yes."

"Well, you could try to get laid once in a while."

He stared.

There he was, a man designed to withstand the most hazardous of environments while still retaining enough momentum to break shit getting in and out, and he was stalling at a tame, sex related remark. He was only half a killer, in a very positive sense. A lot of their peers had failed to retain a certain childlike quality that made them human and while Kercher could be cruelly efficient in battle, when off duty, he sometimes had similarities with a very self conscious teen. In a weird way, it was endearing to Mary, who felt a strange maternal instinct around the slightly older man.

His eyes narrowed at her.

"If you call me a virgin one more time…"

Further he didn't get, as Decker erupted in hysterical laughter, grabbing her sides as she gasped for air. He tugged up the corners of his mouth in his typically wry smile and turned back to his locker, his armor by now fully assembled. It was like he was wearing a second, thick skin. Might as well gear up completely and adjust his other stuff to it.

Wearing a vest over the suit was weird. Normally, the straps and sides would press into his body. Kercher wore his plate carrier tighter than necessary to minimize the wiggling when he moved. With the AICA, he didn't feel the thing at all. Neither the added weight, nor the familiar pressure factored in with his sense of self. It was like he was wearing the suit and nothing else. The helmet on the other hand, was strange in the complete opposite way. With the visor down, which were a pair of glorified ballistic goggles, he was immediately assaulted with a confusing but fascinating torrent of information. The AI analysed terrain, distances to certain points, living organisms, electronic devices and of course, all weapons around him. Well he was standing inside an armory. Fortunately, after the HUD had displayed twenty-five overlapping, identical weapon designations and statuses, it caught up and consolidated the info into a single prompt of "25x M12A4 ATech AR 5.56RMS".

He looked down at the pamphlet on the bench beside him. The HUD read "AICA v.34.2311 BSuit user manual - please read carefully before use".

Pamphlet was honestly an understatement. The issue was thumb thick with very thin pages and almost microscopic font. The whole thing had twenty-three chapters and almost three hundred pages. With most of his past equipment, Kercher only had to skim through the instructions, mostly because he had used a previous model before or the devices had been simple enough, but here, here he feared that he had to read through the whole fucking thing. It would be time consuming, boring and impossible to remember everything the first time, so he would need to keep reading it over and over again.

Start tutorial now? This might take up to 70 minutes.

YES/NO

"No." Kercher said.

Are you sure you want to skip the tutorial? Completion of the tutorial is advised before using the ATech AICA suit and accessories.

YES/NO

"Yes."

Kercher looked at Decker, who was sitting on a bench, trying to suppress another laughing fit.

"How do I turn all of this off?" He asked while unlocking the helmet's visor and pushing it up to the top of his head.

"The tutorial covers this." Decker answered.

"I just skipped it."

"It'll come back in a few moments."

"It didn't say so."

She chuckled. "The suit assumes you're stupid, so it'll tell you one thing and do another."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is. That's why the thing lets you customize everything in the tutorial."

He sighed, before flipping the visor back down. True to Decker's words, the same question popped back up on his HUD. He huffed a gruff 'Yes.' Before sitting down and trying not to be too angry that he had to sit through the mind numbing process of setting up his clothes.

To his surprise, ten minutes in, he realised how interesting the whole software and the correlating hardware was. The interface was intuitive and precise and when he learned how to use gestures and movement of his mouth and eyes to navigate the programs, he caught himself having simple, innocent fun. It was like playing with a new toy. One with hundreds of functions and useful applications. It took him some time until he had warmed up to the neon green writing in his field of vision. In a way, it felt like the inside of a fighter pilot's helmet. He was amazed when the AI instantly recognized make and model when he took a pistol in his hand. It even recognized that it was empty. Truly astonishing.

"Hey, Hans!" He looked up and around the room. Decker was nowhere to be found. Only her disembodied voice.

"Up here." He looked up.

Decker was kneeling on the ceiling. One hand sticking to the metal plate that closed the ventilation system, while both of her feet were lying against a metal bar that ran along the length of the room.

"What are you doing up there?"

"Hanging out." She said, grinning while Kercher winced at the painful pun. "The hands and feet have electromagnets."

Kercher, though still disgusted by her play on words, felt his mind running. Dozens of possible applications for them to hang onto metal surfaces like a snail. Fighting tanks and mechs up close would bear much less risk now. Add to that that the suit supposedly amplified their strength by several factors, he couldn't wait to rip the hatch off an APC.

Well maybe that would be too much, but planting a magnetic charge should be doable.

Kercher yawned and sat up in his cot. It would still take him some time to warm up to their quarters. Apparently, the boss had a problem with all of them bunking in the same room, so he had contracted a crafty crew of construction workers to segregate the sleeping hall into many little… dorm rooms of sort. All of them were a tiny bit different, but all held the same basic furniture. A bunk, two chairs, a table and a mirror. There were barely fifty centimetres between each object in his room and while he managed by now to avoid crushing his toes everytime he navigated his "home", he still had a fair amount of bruises on his hip. Most of them courtesy of the narrow table that he had. He had been surprised how sturdy the little walls were. Not the expected cheap cardboard, but bricks and mortar. Some had even hung up pictures. Kercher had barren walls.

His service pistol, his bunched up working clothes and a stack of books were all that signalled his occupancy of the small room. Well, and a small nameplate with his name on the door and the way that his second chair was arranged. Sometimes, the room was also an office and he greeted other hunters here. Those who sought guidance and some uplifting. He would sit, drink with them, smoke a cigarette and listen to their fears, sorrows, even minor inconveniences. Sometimes he gave advice, sometimes reassurance. One time he had dragged another hunter behind the door, slammed his head into the table and yelled at him to stop "howling the fucking Mistralian anthem at three in the morning." Obviously, he was well respected as an officer in Johannes troop. They trusted him and confined in him. And they also knew to not disturb his night's rest.

His alarm clock just had done that. It was four in the morning.

With effort rivaling a Vytal weightlifting champion, he straightened his legs and hoisted himself up, searching for his clothes in the dark. He then remembered that he hadn't showered yesterday and that he would meet a general today. So he needed something better to put on than his overalls and he needed a bit of soap and water.

Throwing a towel over his shoulder, he wandered out into the hallway. It was cold. No heating and the floor was tiled with marble, but he was unperturbed. The cold didn't bother him, the heat did. Then he smelled something and he stopped.

There was a scent in the air, pleasant and subtle, but completely foreign. It smelled of mint and fresh snow… if snow ever smelled of anything, but the comparison was valid. Someone had come through here and whoever it was, was a stranger.

Ten steps back into his room, he held his gun. His fingers slid over the slide and half racked it, confirming the round in the chamber. Silently, he cocked the hammer, holding it in front of himself, still in his boxers, a towel over his shoulder. He creeped forward, careful to avoid the telltale patter of naked feet on the ground. He came to a corner and stopped, peeked and continued. The scent became stronger. Spearmint, definitely. Weird.

He rounded another corner and immediately stopped. Something had moved, he had seen the shadow. He raised his pistol, finger on the trigger and moved forward, slowly, until he stood at an open door. He glanced at the label next to the frame: "Guestroom". Then it it clicked behind him. A metallic noise. Oh, how he hated this shit.

"Curious, hunter?" The voice was female, young and cultured. He raised his arms, taking great care to show her the left side of his gun, where the safety lever was located. He pressed it down and the hammer clicked back.

"I'm going to turn around." He announced and when he heard no objections, he did so.

This was not the first time he was being held at gunpoint. Using the USPs safety lever to decock his weapon had fooled everyone before. People tended to forget that a pistol could be double action. Decocking the hammer didn't mean the gun was unloaded.

He caught himself half turn. The general was here. Of course there were guests in the building and of course, they could wake up as early as they wanted. He had never killed anyone who he wasn't meant to kill and he wouldn't want this streak to end because of a simple misunderstanding.

"I'm sorry miss. I'm rather safe than sorry."

His eyes fell on the muzzle of a silver subcompact handgun, a moment later, it vanished, fell to her side. He looked at her, up and down, once. That was all he needed.

She was the older version of Weiss Schnee in almost every way and she wore the uniform of an Atlas specialist. He might've been right. She was probably part of the general's entourage. A lock of white hair lightly sat on her left shoulder. Suddenly he was very aware of his own attire, or rather his lack thereof. Her single raised eyebrow didn't help his self consciousness.

"I saw you before." She said. She waited for him to lower his own weapon, regarding him with a critical look as he did.

"You look shorter without the uniform."

He regarded her with a look of his own. From where he stood, he had to look down at her at an angle.

"Specialist." He finally said, nodding his head. He had an appointment. Small talk had never been his forté.

"Mr. Ironwood will not be up for at least an hour." She said as if reading his mind. "It is five past four. Are you planning on sitting around for an hour."

He hesitated, then said no. She smiled.

"Then make yourself presentable. I will wait here." She passed by him and entered the guest room. He didn't look at her as she closed the door, but he was sure she was watching him and he was unsure how he felt about that.

Kercher didn't own a dress uniform, only two sets of civilian clothes, his overall and of course his combat gear. He was guessing that he could either wear the new AICA, or his suit if it still fitted. After his shower he decided for the latter. He didn't necessarily need to be combat ready for an official meeting like this.

Looking into the mirror, he had trouble recognizing himself. He had worn the Atlesian uniform for much longer than the hunter's black, but the last time he had been in civvie attire, it must've been during one of his less reputable gigs. Ironic how much worse his jobs had been when he was out of uniform, compared to when he had been in full kit. But the suit still fitted him well. Light grey with a white shirt and black tie. He had worn it in Menagerie, this clusterfuck of an operation that he had barely survived. How many of them had actually been with the white fang and how many had been local militia he didn't know. He would never know, but he had chosen not to ask.

"Ma'am?" Kercher said as he entered. Compared to his own quarters, the guest rooms were lavish, luxurious. He suspected that the Hunter had simply renovated some of the old hotel rooms. Not the suites upstairs, those had been made into an armoury and a situation room, but the normal rooms.

"I heard only good things about you." She said. Winter Schnee sat, legs crossed, in a couch chair with all the grace that her standing and family dictated.

"Well, you have access to all the reports, so we both know that's a lie." He answered. She chuckled. A light, pleasant noise. She gestured at another chair and he sat down, loosening his tie slightly. It was unfamiliar, uncomfortable even.

"The general wants to talk to you about this operation." She pointed at the ground and at him.

"About what?" His tone was clinical, professional.

"Well…" She shifted in her seat. "Mr. uhm, Johannes shows up from nothing, speaks to headmaster Ozpin like he's an old friend, then he suddenly has an army of mercenaries at his beck and call and a coastal village blows up. Professor Ozpin seems to trust the Good Hunter unconditionally and the council is scared out of their minds. The general is apparently the only one who sees this critically."

She narrowed her eyes at him and he smiled lightly.

"Anything you wish to say?"

"Hm." He stared into nothing for a short while.

"Just trying to formulate it properly. I am guessing that you have been at our heels for some time?"

She nodded.

"So, you know about the incident at Alasson?"

"You're talking about your skirmish there?"

Now he nodded.

"I prefer to call it a massacre. Nothing strange about it?"

She paused.

"I have seen disasters like this before. Just causes that led to many innocents dead."

"Oh, innocents have died. The whole town full. But when we arrived, they were already dead."

She cocked her head to the side. "How is that to be understood?"

"The men and women in Alasson, were not human anymore. The children were already dead, on the bottom of the harbour. What little was left of their sanity, they used to attack us. So we killed them."

He sat back, hands on his thighs. It was subtle, but Winter saw him clenching his jaw, like men do when they think of the things they had rather not done.

"All of them." He continued. "We went from house to house, combed through every basement and cellar and we killed. There was only a platoon of us, but until we reached the harbour, it was more than enough."

Winter sat forward, uncrossing her legs to sit more comfortably. "What was there at the harbour Mr. Kercher?"

He smiled. A twisted, almost malformed smile that showed more teeth than it should. His eyes they had a sheen to it, something far deeper below the surface than Winter was willing to look. She had seen the eyes of soldiers, of these soldiers. Dead men walking, their minds ruptured beyond repair and yet, they seemed still human, still compassionate and possibly, even kind. Kerchers eyes were unlike them. They were empty.

"Mr. Johannes, our commander, he called it a beast. But he tends to understate. I can not rightly describe it, but it might have been some kind of…" He tapped his fingers. "Some kind of serpent. Had something of an angler fish too. There might've been crab in there too, well, if you taped eight scissor blades to its legs and arms."

Winter recoiled slightly in response, struggling to imagine something so strange. "And how does this fit into the destruction of the harbour?"

"Well, it was large. Incredibly large. It was so large that I couldn't see it completely. I either saw the base of its body, or the head and what was below and I don't even know how much of it was underwater."

"Please. Not even-"

"Johannes, the Hunter… the first Hunter, he engaged it. He was decapitated by a damn backhand slap and moments later, he was bursting through a doorway again. He killed everything that came before him. Even the great serpent. Just like that."

She had stared at him and he leaned forward, meeting her gaze.

"If you ask me, the headmaster has every reason to trust the Good Hunter and the council has every reason to fear him."

"Why is that?"

"Because the Good Hunter is not happy with the council's politics and Ozpin sees in him a source of great power. And in the end, power is what the headmaster is revelling in. And fear is what the council is founded on."

"You think that your Good Hunter is the solution to this?"

He regarded her with a long and deep look. For a moment she feared to have insulted him by speaking of his chief in such a way, but his gaze softened.

"I don't think, or believe… I know that Johannes has seen, survived and overcome indescribable horrors. Things that we wouldn't be able to think of. You know… he sometimes tells stories, of strange worlds or mysteries. I think I even took up some manners of speech from him."

"It seems so." She grinned at him.

"Anyway. Once he told us the story of the end of the world. Well… the end of a world."

"Literally?" Winter wouldn't admit it openly, but the man was entertaining, in a somber kind of way.

"I don't know. He also said that the texts were confusing, but the part that stuck with me the most was the tale of the riders."

"I'm intrigued."

"Four riders, come to bring chaos to the world, so that its inhabitants could prove themselves and could be judged by their god."

She leaned back again, a freshly poured glass of apple juice in her hand.

"One came on a white horse and was given a bow and arrow and he set out to claim victory. One came on a red horse and he was sent to take peace from the world. The third came on a black horse and he was given a scale, to be judge and jury."

Both looked past another. Lost in thought.

"And then I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death."

He did not meet her gaze. Her eyes searched without result for an answer to the cryptic tale. It sounded very old, primordial even, yet the prophecy in it seemed unfulfilled. Looming over whoever told and listened. But she was sure he was connecting it to the Good Hunter himself. She wondered who he was in this story.

But a look at her watch told her that it was time. Both of them were expected. And Kercher concurred when she informed him. Yet he sat a moment longer, muttering something that she did not hear and she did not ask.

"And hell followed with him."