Vale was a broken husk of a city, a shadow of it's former glory as the streets turned to rivers of innocent blood, two armies fighting over the scraps of a once great city, battled in the City of the Green King, the crown jewel of an ancient kingdom, the land where Empires rose, was now again in flames, Caine saw the paintings, he read the books, this was nothing more than another stop in this cycle, A nation is founded on the rotting corpse of the old, that nation grows and it dies, and a new nation takes it's place, professors say that's how it works, and how it will always be, there he stood, Vale aflame, it disgusted him, he failed, his plan for the better part of a decade, the one he worked so hard to do, came down like an airship ablaze
"Caine." his teammate spoke "This theatre's a bust, we'll be at a stalemate against the AICS."
"AICS?" Caine never heard that one before
"Alliance of Independent City-States. They just declared their existence a few minutes ago, the eggheads already figured that they're siding with the White Fang's revolution, and most of 'em hold vital cities and networks."
Caine sighed
"Do we know if they're with Salem?"
"We know that they threw their lot in with her." She said " This has Tyrian written all over it."
Tyrian, head of Salem's black ops division, the bastard has been a pain in his side for the past decade now, that snake just ignited a powder keg under their feet, no allies, barely any resources, vale now a burning husk, the Valerian armed forces looks like a circus to the world, this side of the continent is lost
"Another thing, The old man's still kicking."
"Did the old man say that we're pulling out of Vale?"
"The Old Man has already given the order to hunker down and hold what we've got, he'll be sending our replacements later."
Has that wizard gone mad? Hunker down, defend a pile of ashes?
"Replacements? Where we going?"
"The Sea King's Temple."
Caine looked to the dying husk of Vale, it's smouldering ruins, nothing more than scraps became a battlefield in this unending horrible thing called war
"What a damn shame." The throneless prince lamented the slow and painful death of the city
______________________________
The Courier came to, he saw the green tops of the green pines of Vale
The cackle of fire and the sharpening of a blade
He turned to see Carolyn sharpening the blade with care and precision
"No reaction?" He asked
"No." She replied all the while sharpening the blade
"You aren't surprised that I'm alive?"
"Yes, even the tech you have."
"Well, if you must know-"
"I said I don't care."
"Typical Carolyn." He said "No wonder you got your friends killed."
"If you think that got me, I already accepted that every single one of my friends were gonna die the moment I met them." She shot back "You're the dumbass if you thought they were gonna live forever in this line of work."
"A leader must-" He objected
"What do you know of leadership?" She was mad "Huh? If Ozpin wanted you to be one he'd have made you one, A leader serves, a boss orders."
