Cal's Monologue

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<I>𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥.</I>
	Everyone in Vale had been frozen with fear "that day," so overwhelmed were they by the breaching of their beloved city by sinister forces only darkness could have imagined up. The onslaught had been ferocious, the citizens and huntsmen alike bombarded by a combination of powerful forces none had been prepared to face. And why should they have been? The Vytal Festival was the great nations' symbolic gathering of peace and the tournament bred nothing more than a sportsmen-like rivalry between the students of their respective kingdom's academies. No one had anticipated any interruptions. Sure, the world had begun to become a little more hectic, but who could have anticipated the anvil that was about to drop atop all of their heads? With the Grimm, how numerous they had been as they converged upon Beacon's walls... With the White Fang, as they had descended from up high, penetrating into the heart of the establishment and terrorizing all who had gathered for the festival's fun events... With the mysterious faction of evil-doers that none could attribute to a single source but all sensed they had significant reason to fear... Even though there had been countless bodies available to stand in this fight, working side-by-side to save their school and try to contain the mess before it reached civilian population, the efforts of the would-be huntsmen and huntresses just hadn't been enough. <I>𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩,</I> and the whole world now knew that. The whole world knew the Beacon students had failed their academy. The local huntsmen had failed their people - the innocent people they vowed to protect from encroaching darkness. They had lost the fight before they even had a clue what they had been put up against. Their vow meant nothing to a faceless force raging, unstoppable, across the city. Even now, months later, very few had the words at the tips of their tongues to describe with certainty the events that led up to Beacon's downfall. There had been plenty of time for introspection and reflection, but no matter how deep one dug into the depths of their mind, answers could not be found. Nobody had seen it coming, and that was the hard truth.
<I>𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘊𝘢𝘭 "𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺" 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.</I> When her parents had abandoned her to fellow mercenary 'dog-fighters,' taking a suitcase overflowing with Lien and another filled with dust while thrusting the girl into the hands of strangers; she was stricken to her core. "The Lovers," the assassins Cal called "mom and dad" had never treated her as if she were their beloved child... But they were all she had ever known. For better or worse, they were her parents. To so callously give her away... Never again did she have to question the value of her life. Cal recognized it had a Lien (Ⱡ) amount attached. But "that day," ...that day the feeling of loss had inexplicably come over her, scars from the past ripped apart as she heard the academy walls crumble. Her eyes were glued to the Grimm she fought with a ferocity she had reserved for the rings. It was frightening how familiar that feral state of being was to her. So <I>natural</I> she couldn't help but be shaken by the joy she felt as her gloved fingers tore through the dark hides of countless Grimm. How she relished their howls as they imploded, collapsing in on themselves like the purposeless creatures they were. It was almost poetic; a testament to the meaning(less) fury driven by pseudo-animalistic instinct. They had no higher reasoning than to hunt and kill. Cal, as something of a feral beast herself, could empathize with the thought-processes behind the predators invading them. They were fueled by their need to feed, beings of chaos, enslaved to their hunger. What she did not understand were the White Fang's motives in siding with the unknown villains that had orchestrated this attack. From her understanding, they had been human. What was their goal in suddenly siding with them? As a Faunus, Cal had mixed feelings about humanity... but morally she did not stand for the bloodshed of innocent people. It didn't matter to what species they belonged; wrong is still <b>wrong.</B> No mask could disguise the shame of senseless killing... Cal knew that all too well. All around her "that day," nonsensical atrocities had taken place and she could not penetrate the haze of dead Grimm to begin deciphering what any of the actions taking place meant, or would mean for the future. In the middle of a war, the future was not relevant. Only the heat of the moment. Only the adrenaline taking her higher and higher as her zest for victory swelled alongside her pride and desperation. Her actions had felt successful, and she thought perhaps she was contributing to the counteraction of these forces greater than the sum of Beacon's parts. But Cal too soon realized that feeling was naive. In her own isolated world, her success was everything but the larger picture? Did not sing to Beacon's success. It cried out in disbelief at her failures. They were all failures. The enemy had won.
In the aftermath, what could be said of "that day?" The day that time had stopped - the day they would never forget as it chased them through every moment, both waking and asleep. Nightmares would follow. Color had drained from this standstill world. What did the grim faces of the remaining huntsmen and huntresses say? The faces of the students? They managed to secure Vale, but Beacon was gone. Its ruins still remained, though professors in the days that followed its fall had gathered and were trying to reconstruct. At every turn, it was as if their efforts to rebuild were thwarted by those same nameless villains that had conquered them that day. Why they lingered was uncertain, and getting rid of them was an impossible task. The White Fang had left them, bloodied and victorious in their own right, retreating with their poster boy into the night. Cal remained in Vale even though the students had been urged to return home. Those coming from different walks of life but sharing a single common thread had stayed, just as she had, adamant in not being turned out. Where would people without homes return to? Beacon had become their home. Leaving made no sense because it meant becoming vagrant. They were not abandoning ship. Luci had tried to bring Cal home with her but Cal knew what they both did. Luci's home did not belong to Cal; Luci was her first friend, her best friend, and Cal would die for her... But Luci's family was not the girl's concern. If Luci was safe, that was what mattered. If team CLDN was safe... she could breathe. Though verbally Cal could not express her words to her friend, she believed that Luci understood intrinsically why Cal had to stay. It was the same fundamental force urging the Rabbit Faunus to return home and check on her parents. H-O-M-E. Family. Maybe she hadn't bonded with the main protagonists, but Vale - and Beacon itself - were home to Cal. Leaving felt like abandonment, and that was the one thing she swore never to do to another being. <I>Abandon</I> them, to turn her back and walk away as if the life of another meant little more than the dirt she kicked up leaving them behind. That kind of pain was too cruel to inflict on another. She would not abandon Beacon, Vale was where she would always return. Before coming to this kingdom, her existence meant nothing. Cal was nothing. A tool to be used and eventually discarded when she broke down. The most merciful outcome she could have hoped for had she stayed with the Black Serpent Fighting Ring was a shot to the head when she had outlived her usefulness. How likely was that, though? No, she would have been returned to Kuchinashi and sold, again, in exchange for more Lien and more dust. Just how far would the insipid tide of the Black Market drag her out into its abyssal sea? How long would she retain her dignity before she was drowned in the humiliation of Faunus trafficking?
Vale meant everything to her. Luci was the person she associated with Vale. Her light. Her friend. She meant everything to her. There was no enemy she would not destroy to keep Luci out of harm's way. Cal cared for all of team CLDN, whether she LIKED them or not. They were her pack, her people. They belonged with her. But Luci was her best friend. Nova and Dawn were more than capable of handling themselves, she never had the same worry plaguing her heart as she did when Luci fought. While a skilled huntress-to-be in her own right, Cal saw in her a frailty that would not easily be overcome. Cal wanted nothing more than to protect her friend from the horrors reality bore upon her own self growing up. If she had her way, Luci would never know the kind of fear or pain that had shaped Cal into the person she was today. Time may be frozen, but life still went on. There were signs of it everywhere. In the academy walls the huntsmen of Beacon had begun rebuilding. In the base fortified within Vale for the displaced students and warriors to stay and keep the city safe from the Grimm flocking toward it. Life always found a way to flourish, even in times of broken spirit. Time may have stopped, but life? Life would not.