The Warlock, the Witch, and the Empire

Chapter 16

Kingdom of Atlas (Imperial Control)

Since the time of revelation to Ironwood, (Y/n) and Salem finally had achieved what they wanted.

Once Ironwood had been shown the truth of the world as it was, that Ozma and his inner circle didn't really appreciate and trust him due to his power, he was willing to give control to the Warlock and the Witch over Atlas in service as a fellow new admiral with Maldice to create a new Empire, albeit with the expected reluctance.

Since then, the two had cleared things up with James to remove the doubts in him in case of possible defection to the enemy, pointing out that with or without their truth, their enemies that were now his would've moved against him due to his methods regardless of their moves. Using the fact that playing pretend hero like Oz's child soldiers did with people's lives results in catastrophes such as the Fall of Vale to point out the weakness of the old ways, Ironwood was more willing to accept the reality of how the world and humanity really was and obey their new orders as their newest military leader.

Two days after that, Ironwood pulled to announce to the people of Atlas and Mantle that the entire kingdom would officially become part of the Empire they were creating under the guise of being part of the Galactic Empire, in return of making Atlas the official providential capital of all of Remnant.

While Atlas was buzzing with excitement at such a prospect, Mantle was more worried that it might spark another Great War that they lost in the past. To ease their tensions, the Imperials announced that most of Mistral and the newly recovering Vale were willing to be a part of the new system that the Imperials were implementing: turning the kingdoms into provinces and turning the ruling councils into one single Imperial ruling council, which would collaborate with each other in unison and combine resources to effectively, truly unite humanity into one civilization.

There was indeed some negative backlash to the news, particularly the ones that didn't want Faunus in it once they announced that the Faunus race would be integrated with ruling and commanding positions as well, but they were effectively silenced discreetly by the Poison Heart team to calm dissent.

Once that was done, (Y/n) didn't waste any time in introducing Salem to the public, proclaiming her to be a fellow ruler in that she could control Grimm allegedly gained from insidious experimentation by human researchers obsessed with gaining any advantage over the Grimm. To demonstrate her power, they brought in a few Chrysalisk Grimm into the main city square of Atlas (the ones they introduced to Ironwood nearly gave him a heart attack before he was assured they would not harm him) and demonstrating their control over them, even with tensions and negative emotions high among the people that were near them. After that, they then used the newly created Grimm to be implemented into the military so that each squad had a Chrysalisk Grimm that complimented their specialty.

Fear and nervousness was indeed high because of this, which sparked a normal Grimm frenzy, but this was used to skyrocket their effectiveness by using the entire reserve of Chrysalisk Grimm they had to annihilate the hoard that tried to attack Mantle and showcase their use as new defenders of Remnant.

The people were now more willing to give them a chance now with all these changes that were making life better since Vale's fall, but there were still a few groups that were against the Imperials taking over. Particularly Robyn Hill and all the Huntsmen and Huntresses that didn't want them in their normal society to change. Another condition of the changes was that the role of Huntsmen and Huntress would be dismantled and reforged into the first ever Imperial Ranger Corp., a new section proposed by some Imperial advisors that saw the use of the student recruits from the fall of Vale into their military units, and sought to exploit their skill sets.