Late Night, Surrounded by Fall

"Are you sure about letting this applicant in, headmaster?"

A woman with green eyes and light blonde hair stood across a familiar old-looking table, worried at the manuscript displayed across the hologram being projected by the table.

It had been only a few hours into the day and she was already feeling the onset of another migraine ever since the headmaster made her stop her work to get coffee. He had already dumped the majority of the workload on her and she wasn't happy about that.

Now that they were preparing for the initiation of the students of Beacon academy, she hoped the headmaster would take this more seriously but she was now questioning whether the coffee she had been brewing was affecting the headmaster somehow.

"Positive Glynda, I think this young man has potential."

The image in front of him was a tall, scraggly, blonde boy desperately trying to smile for the camera in his picture. While largely inflated numbers of his school history were displayed beneath him. Glynda only looked at the headmaster questioningly.

"This manuscript is evidently all faked, headmaster. There are no records of him showing any kind of activity in an academy that was destroyed years ago and he physically looks like he couldn't hold a sword let alone fight with it."

The headmaster only closed his eyes and took a slow sip from another cup of coffee he had Glynda brew. His lips lengthened in contentment as he spun around his chair with his eyes still closed.

"Yes."

"..."

"You can't be serious," Glynda exclaimed in disapproval.

"He's an Arc, he has the potential to grow into something better. If he had the support of a team and proper guidance at his side he could turn out to be one of the more talented students of this year."

Glynda knows that she should completely deny the applicant. There was still initiation, they would launch the applicants into the grimm-infested Emerald Forest. A mere teenager with no formal training, no knowledge of the grimm, and a questionable history couldn't survive the test.

She sighed deeply at the thought, she'd trusted Ozpin all these years. All this time his decisions were the ones for the best. She held back another migraine as she acquiesced. At least the boy had an aura, god knows what she'd do to Ozpin if the boy hadn't unlocked his aura.

"Alright. Let's move on to the next applicant."

The next image flashed as a recognizable pair of amber eyes was shown on the holographic screen. She recognized the bow on her head existing as a cover. Discrimination was still rampant in society, she grimaced at the fact that this particular applicant wanted to hide who they were. She slowly read the bottom portion of the transcripts and paled at the name displayed.

"Blake Belladonna? Wasn't she part of the White Fa-"

"I'll accept her application." Ozpin deadpans.

"..."

"She's a terrorist, headmaster."

Ozpin only continued to wear a smile on his face as he swirled his mug around trying to relish the smell of the coffee.

"A high profile one at that." Glynda continued.

Ozpin took another long slow sip of coffee before finishing and finally replying to the visibly irritated Glynda.

"Yes."

She could feel the blood clotting at the headmaster's blatant disregard for the student's safety by letting a confirmed terrorist enter the campus. Ozpin already let an underaged young girl enter the academy two years early. Granted, she was skilled but she was still fifteen! Was he doing this on purpose? She didn't know but one thing she knew for sure was another headache resurfacing.

'Calm down Glynda, you don't want to burst another blood vessel like last time. Breath in… breath out… okay now, just ask Ozpin why.'

"May I ask your reasoning?"

"I can see that she's willing to change, I believe that if she were to reform she could be a great asset to our objectives. For that, our facilities and environment we provide will be of help throughout her time here in Beacon."

Glynda was surprised, despite Ozpin acting like not how a headmaster should, there were still times that showed why she decided to look up to him. This was a great example of that.

"Oh and Glynda?" Glynda raised an eyebrow at being called.

"Could you brew some more, please?"

*CRACK*

The sound of cracked ceramic was heard from the hand of Ozpin, which was caused by Glynda's telekinesis acting up from the floodgates of rage being opened. Ozpin calmly stood up, went to a cupboard nearby, placed the damaged mug, and pulled out a new one before walking back to his chair and setting it down on the table.

"Moving on." Ozpin let the hologram flicker to the next applicant before being interrupted by the appearance of a video call from General Ironwood.

'Ah, I see he has received the footage.' Ozpin had sent Ironwood more videos of the machine earlier today. He was alerted to its presence when an SDC freight train arrived earlier and reported a robbery possibly orchestrated by members of the white fang.

What was curious was that the crew heard cannon shots a few minutes later, thinking it was grimm being targeted by the wall's security; they saw it fit to notify us. Of course, we first checked the cameras surrounding the city and nearby forests. To Ozpin's surprise, it was the machine launching Blake Belladonna towards a tree. A few hours of speeding up footage later, he saw the cat Faunus wake up and interact with the machine.

The cameras could not hear sound from the walls, he wasn't the one who was part of the wall's security else he would've upgraded them but nevertheless, he could observe the tank transforming into what looked like a more powerful version of itself.

He sent all that to Ironwood earlier and now it seems Ironwood had something to say.

"Do you mind, Glynda?"

"No, not at all." Glynda had calmed down after receiving the call from Ironwood which was good for Ozpin.

Tapping a button on the holographic keyboard that was made by the table, the images from the hologram earlier were now replaced with the Atleasian general staring at Ozpin and Glynda.

"James my friend, what seems to be th-"

"We need to secure this unidentified object."

Ozpin's gaze hardened at his words, James was his friend and he knows that but will he finally understand that there are some things you must not do?

"Its technology will not just help Remnant and its inhabitants in the long run, this is going to change the tide of war." James justified.

Seeing the stoic look on Ironwood's face, Ozpin knew he would have a difficult time trying to stop whatever James is planning to do. James might've let it go earlier but now that the abilities of the machine had been shown, James would stop at nothing to research it.

"On one condition, James. Do not include any of us in this endeavor and I will guarantee we won't interfere but if you overstep your authority on the people of Vale, then I won't hesitate to stop you."

Ironwood sat silently at the other side of the call.

"I understand, thank you, friend."

The call ended right after. Ozpin relaxed and leaned back on his chair while he thought deeply about what just happened. A mug was placed on top of the table full of steaming hot freshly made coffee. Ozpin looked towards Glynda who only scoffed and returned to the other side of the table.

"Shall we take a look at the next applicant?"

"Of course, headmaster."

Back to Forever Fall…

[Bird Hunt: Destroy airborne targets 14/15]

The compass he had, gave Hanns ample opportunity to take out stray nevermores. The flock he got a multi-kill with earlier gave him a lot of nevermore bodies to fill up the bar for his daily mission. After that, it was just following the red arrows and looking for strays that were alerted by the loud bang that came from his cannon.

Hanns was driving rapidly, making sure to avoid trees to not slow down; he had just shot another shell at a fleeing nevermore that evaded him for minutes now. This nevermore was older, the size of the nevermore gave away its age. While you may think that a bigger target would be better, as Hanns found out, it was not.

The older the grim the wiser they were, when they heard the engine of the Pz. III F, it sent out a volley of spear-like feathers which ricocheted away at the armor Hanns had. It immediately recognized it as an actual threat to its survival and promptly flew away just as the shell went whizzing past its body.

Which now led to Hanns chasing it around while firing his machine gun.

'Die damn you!'

The barrage of bullets was absorbed by the thick feathers of the nevermore, Hanns wanted to hit the less durable parts of the nevermore like its body or head but the nevermore was smart. It used its strong feathers to block attacks from the weaker machine gun, learning that it was weaker than the bigger gun mounted on the turret of the Pz.III F.

Hanns knew he just had to be lucky, he could chase it all day emptying magazine after magazine of machine gun ammo and it would hit something to get it hurt and let it slow down enough for him to take the shot with his main armament.

Just as he thought that a bullet finally lodged itself at the back of the nevermore's head, the nevermore stopped flying, feeling the pain from the back of its head akin to a needle pushing itself deep into its skull.

'Yes!'

He pushed on the brakes and quickly aimed at the nevermore before letting a single shell exit from his barrel as it impacted the nevermore he had been chasing.

[Bird Hunt: Destroy airborne targets 15/15]

'Finally!'

[Activist: Win required amount of battles with needed activity percent 1/3]

[Daily Mission Finished]

SL = 26,106 SL → 31,106 SL

MOD RP = 0 → 305 RP

VEHICLE RP = 1,373 RP → 3,873 RP

CONVERTIBLE RP = 9,028 → 9,028 RP

GOLDEN EAGLES = 0

'Looks like missions give out a ton of RP, though I can only do 4 a day which is fine by me. Depends on the medium missions though.'

[Activist: Win required amount of battles with needed activity percent 1/3]

'Two more eh?'

Hanns took a glance at the top of his hud to see that red arrows weren't showing up like he thought they would.

'So I have to find a group of grimm myself.'

He felt his tank churn the earth beneath him as he followed his compass north, deeper into the Forever Fall. Now that he had access to the compass, there was no worry about being lost anymore.

It was getting dark since it had been some time after leaving Blake at Vale. He should get back near the walls before midnight. The Grimm was dark meaning it could easily camouflage itself in the dark of the night.

'I'll just do this quick no biggie.'

He scoured the nearby surrounding trying to find any sign or grimm roaming in packs for him to find. The grimm was getting harder and harder to spot but eventually, Hanns found spotted movement among some red bushes littering the forest floor.

Activating his brakes, he felt the tracks slow down and his suspension goes up and down as he came to a stop in front of a bush, obscuring himself within it. Hanns gazed through his reticle and took note of the grimm he could see before aiming the part where it was densest.

He let the round fly into the group of grimm as he immediately followed up with machine gun fire that would suppress the rest of them. The grimm had no time to react as pack after pack of beowolves died en masse against the machine gun while ursae roared in anger.

After hearing the reload on his gun he made his entire tank move rather than only turning the turret to make his gun reach the desired target faster, compensating for the slower turret speed. He targeted the trio of ursae running on all fours towards him before one of them gets hit by a tank shell and gets its upper half blown apart.

The other two hastened their approach as they both stood on their hinds and lunged, claws open, at Hanns. Their attacks were useless against the more well-armored tank and as Hanns heard the reload being finished he directly pointed the barrel at the head of one of the ursa.

The ursa didn't stand a chance having its head directly in front of the barrel as the skull mask the ursa had cracked and got penetrated by the tank round as its head violently exploded into a black mist.

The last ursa seeing no chance of actually fighting the thing tried to desperately retreat and live another day. Hearing no gunshots the ursa foolishly turned around right as then Hanns was barreling down towards it at full speed.

The ursa tried to stop it by raising its paws but it didn't matter, the heavy tank collided with its arms immediately fracturing its bones into mush as its body was toppled by Hanns before its head gets popped like a balloon by the treads of the tank rolling over it.

'Haah. Good. One last time and I can go now.'

Humming to himself, he felt proud of the upgrades he got. He left the scene with decaying bodies of grimm laying around, some with holes, others with blown apart carcases. He turned to the west and sped directly towards it.

30 minutes later…

'Damn! Where are those grimm!'

Hanns had been searching for one last grimm group for the daily mission to complete.

'At this point I can't finish even medium missions anymore.'

'I should just get to Vale, it's already night out I might as well.'

Disappointed at the lack of grimm he turned to his compass and rotated until he could see south at the top of his hud. This would take him to Vale if he followed it straight. It had been a long day after all. He grinded for a majority of the time and now he was getting mentally tired.

He weaved through trees as he continued onwards towards Vale. Lazily looking at his surroundings he just took in cold air from the atmosphere as he felt the metal on his tank growing colder as the night went on.

A sudden movement of glowing red eyes caught his eye as he stopped and aimed for it. He became thankful at the lucky chance he got, he immediately prepared to fire off a round at the red eye's general direction.

As he felt the pin from his breach impact the back of the shell, the round flew off into the darkness before seeing the tracer from the round disappear into the black mass. The round impacted and emitted a large amount of sparks as it hit the target with an audible and eerie noise he got PTSD from while playing war thunder.

The shell he had didn't penetrate whatever he just shot at.

[Event Active!]

[Giant Slayer: Defeat Ursa Major 0/1]

The thing he didn't want to meet the first time he arrived at Forever Fall, was now in front of him, letting out a primal bellowing roar as its paws shook the ground. The thing that if he met, he wanted to run away to a clearing to get better vision and movement. It was nighttime and he could barely see shit anymore. He could only say one thing.

'Shit!'