User blog:NerdWithAKeyboard/PE Proposal - Carmine Esclados & Bertilak Celadon

What's the work?
RWBY: After the Fall is a 2019 novel by E. C. Myers that takes place in the world of RWBY. It follows Team CFVY after the Fall of Beacon, where they moved to the deserts of Vacuo and have spent the last year training at Shade Academy.

Who are the villains?
The main antagonists of the novel are the Huntsman and Huntress duo Bertilak Celadon and Carmine Esclados, who are, in reality, traffickers tasked with kidnapping people with powerful Semblances.

What have they done?
Carmine Esclados and Bertilak Celadon were partnered together when they were training at Shade Academy. However, upon graduating, they applied their skills to trafficking, working for someone only known as the "boss". Their mission was to kidnap people with powerful or useful Semblances, then deliver them to the boss.

At some point, they were tasked with targeting elderly, retired Huntsman Edward Caspian, who they believed had the ability to amplify others' emotions, which could potentially attract Grimm to whatever place they desired. Carmine and Bertilak tracked him down and posed as bodyguards-for-hire, and Edward hired them to protect him and his grandson August "Gus" Caspian while they traveled from Vale to the Vacuo settlement of Gossan. Seeing as how they intended to take him that way anyway (they plan on taking them to their boss at one of the shores where there is no civilization or connection to the CCT Towers), they agreed and escorted the Caspians on their journey. Along the way, the emotion amplifying Semblance created what they called "mood bombs", brief and powerful amplifications of negative emotion that attracted Grimm. In order to maintain their cover, Carmine and Bertilak fought off the Grimm, but allowed the Grimm to destroy each settlement they traveled through in order to force the Caspians to keep moving. Even after they helped the Caspians and others evacuate, took much of the credit in order to boost their reputations (they state later in the book that they hated having to protect the settlements at all).

However, Edward begins to catch on that the two know more than they're letting on, and sends out a distress signal to Shade to help the fleeing survivors, not fully trusting his bodyguards. Shade sends Team CFVY, who helps out the wandering survivors while trying to figure out the secret behind the "mood bombs". They first meet Bertilak in a bar, where he at first only comes off as a brutish jerk, as well as a xenophobe who assaults one of the waitresses for being a Faunus and bullies Velvet. Carmine is better at hiding their true intentions, as she acts friendly and affable to the students (so far as getting Coco to develop a crush on her), and defusing issues caused by Bertilak. Despite their act, Team CFVY is immediately suspicious of them due to how they keep the Caspians away from everyone else.

Coco and Fox get Carmine and Bertilak away from the Caspians temporarily by offering to help with guard duty, and Velvet and Yatsuhashi go to interrogate the Caspians and see if they know anything about the mood bombs, which they deny. However, another one strikes, and the settlement's leader Slate suggests that they spread out the survivors so tensions don't rise again. Carmine and Bertilak are suspiciously enthusiastic about the idea, but it ends up getting shot down. Clearly getting desperate to get their target while still maintaining their cover, Carmine stays at the settlement while Bertilak lures a sleepwalking Edward into the desert and tries to abduct him. However, he is met by Fox, and plays it off as retrieving the senile old man and bringing him back to the settlement. Carmine feigns relief, but Edward and Gus decide to come clean that the ever more senile Edward's Semblance is to amplify emotions, and that Gus' is to cancel out other Semblances, which he has been trying to do with his grandfather. Bertilak and Carmine pretend to be surprised, and they both try to forcefully remove the two from the settlement for the "safety of everyone else", but Team CFVY won't allow it. This, however, causes yet another mood bomb that attracts a swarm of Grimm. Carmine stays to "help", when in actuality she uses the attack as a cover to let Bertilak finally kidnap Edward as she and the others leave.

Fox (who, in case you didn't know, is blind) realizes that Edward and Bertilak have gone missing, and sets out to find them. He tracks them down, but Bertilak takes advantage of the old man's memory loss and allows him to fight Fox. Fox wins and gets Edward back to reality, and Edward reveals that he lied: he has the power to cancel out Semblances, and Gus is the one that amplifies emotions (he lied to protect Gus from potential angry mobs). However, Bertilak ambushes Fox. He then messages Carmine that Gus is the target.

However, a sandstorm forms, and the survivors are forced to mount a giant flatback slider (giant sand turtle) to take cover in the grooves of its giant shell. Carmine takes the opportunity to knock Gus out and kidnap him, escaping in the chaos.

Meanwhile, Bertilak confronts Fox and Edward, revealing his true intentions, and stating that the only reason he stuck with the Caspians and "protected" the others was to earn their trust. He explains that his boss has been rounding up people with useful Semblances for a while, and that Edward and Gus were nothing more to him but more targets. He then beats Fox within an inch of his life, all while using his heat manipulation Semblance to torture him with excruciating heat. While he is torturing Fox, Bertilak also explains that he always hated Ozpin and Shade headmaster Theodore, and believed their ideas for peace were weak and foolish. However, with Edward's help, Fox is able to finally fight back. Bertilak tries to murder them both, but they team up on him and eventually knock him unconscious, tying him up and carrying him back to the others.

Meanwhile, Carmine (with the kidnapped Gus), uses her telekinetic Semblace to kick up a second massive, lethal sandstorm to send at the survivors, further distracting them as well as covering her tracks. As Coco and Velvet stay to defend the survivors from a massive new Grimm summoned by the chaos, Yatsuhashi meets up with Fox and Edward to go after Carmine and rescue Gus. Yatsuhashi uses his memory wiping Semblance to make the still-unconscious Bertilak forget about fighting Fox or revealing his true nature. They catch up to Carmine, and Yatsuhashi attacks her, but she proves too strong and tries to use her Semblance to suffocate him in the sand. Bertilak wakes back up, and Gus and Fox convince him that Carmine betrayed him and tried to take Gus for herself. Bertilak tries to kill Carmine, inadvertently saving Yatsuhashi. Carmine is angered by the idea of Bertilak turning on her, and tries to kill him too. She sends a blast of sand at him and Edward; Bertilak uses his heat to turn her attack into glass, but Edward is buried alive. Coco, Velvet, and Fox join in to take her down. Coco fires her minigun at Carmine, but she uses her telekinesis to redirect the bullets at Velvet, and uses her telekinesis on her sais to stab Fox through the legs, rendering him immobile. Coco hits Carmine in the face, disgusted that she ever found her attractive, and Yatsuhashi and Velvet drop Bertilak's glass wall on top of her.

However, Carmine tunnels under the sand and tries to drag Gus down with her, and creates a series of sinkholes to bury Team CFVY, Edward, and Bertilak alive. Edward manages to block her Semblance at the last minute, dissipating the sandstorm and allowing Team CFVY to dig Carmine out.

Carmine and Bertilak (who regains his memory soon after) are taken into custody, and handed over to the authorities when they reach the next settlement.

Mitigating factors? Freudian excuses?
It is unknown for just how long Carmine and Bertilak have been trafficking. However, a rough estimate can be made as they: 1) know their boss extremely well and 2) Bertilak's speech reveals that they intended to use their training for this since the beginning, and they graduated many years before the story takes place.

And while Carmine and Bertilak are technically partners, it's made clear later that they don't like each other, as evidenced by Bertilak immediately trying to kill Carmine when he thinks she's double-crossed him and her not having a second thought when trying to kill him for the same reason.

However, there is the one part where a memory-wiped Bertilak turns on Carmine, breifly fighting alongside the heroes in his attempt for revenge. I personally see this as more Pragmatic Villainy, as he's basically allowing them to gang up on her to better his own chances of taking her down, but I'll admit that it can be open to interpretation.

Heinous standard?
So this takes place in the RWBY canon. That means Carmine and Bertilak have to compete with the White Fang, Cinder's Faction, and Roman Torchwick (all of who are mentioned in the book). The only other villain in the book itself is the boss that Carmone and Bertilak mention, who is never seen, heard from, or has their identity revealed in any way.

Verdict?
Tough call. They don't succeed in their mission and the nature of their past crimes are unknown, but they still kidnap a ten-year-old boy with the intent of trafficking him, beat and torture a blind boy and elderly man, and cause chaos and lethal disasters just to distract people and cover their tracks. I personally would be fine either way but lean towards "yes".