So it is done

Atlas

'There's no need to worry, darling.' Lisa Lavender, the reporter with the staggering two-month experience in the VNN under her belt, Vale's main and only fully government-owned news company, tried to reassure herself.

'You're just going to interview the most powerful personalities in the world in the middle of an actual war zone! Nothing to worry about! You're just going to interview them about the biggest political and diplomatic crisis that has plagued Remnant since the Faunus Rebellion because your boss blew a bet with a colleague – that's all! What will they do to you if you screw up? They surely would not kill you or something, right!?'

Lisa wished she could look in the mirror and chuckle, letting it be known to everyone and herself that her fears were nothing more than utter nonsense. But instead, all she managed to get out of herself was to squeeze out a sardonic smile of a chronically constipated person.

If she fucked up here, and somehow make the crisis even worse, she would definitely get disappeared. Fuck her life.

Today, the twenty-first of December in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-one, a Sunday ten days before the celebration of Remnant's biggest international holiday, the coming of the New Year. It was supposed to be the beginning of celebration and merriment, and here she is, walking to the gallows, putting the noose around her neck, hoping that the floor won't drop under her.

In the surrounding atmosphere of Vale, where she had boarded her ship, and in Atlas, where she had arrived, there was a sense of the holiday's merriment. Though the holiday was still ten days away, many people looked as if the holiday was due today, and everyone had a last few minutes to work before they went home to their loved ones.

One could even say that there was a festive atmosphere in the air, waiting for the coming miracle.

"Oh yes, I could definitely use a miracle right now." Tucking her hat and scarf tightly over her ears, Lisa took a quick pull on her coat and glanced at Dorian, her cameraman, who gave her the okay, so she took the first step out of the door.

Fate did indeed have a peculiar sense of humor...

What journalism student, whom Lisa was less than six months ago, hasn't dreamed of working for VNN?

Oh yes, for many of Lisa's fellow students, working in VNN would be a dream come true. The largest television station in Vale, the company offers a solid salary and decent growth opportunities. The idea that Lisa herself could appear on television every day, becoming a face known to most of Vale's population, was a pleasing thought to her ego.

If someone didn't want to sit in a cozy studio, that wasn't a problem either. VNN only – within Vale, at least - had influence and enough money to send their own reporters outside Vale, to other settlements and even to other kingdoms.

In contrast, getting a job at some local TV station, all a reporter, even the most eager ones could count on, was investigating which shopkeepers were using illegal imports – if even that.

No, for any Vale journalist, VNN was a dream come true.

A good salary or investigative journalism was all there within their grasp should they be employed by VNN.

Needless to say, Lisa was beyond ecstatic when she received a positive reply from VNN after sending her CV without expecting much in return. And just a month after she had received her diploma! Lisa thought for a second that all the stars of Remnant had aligned to grant her wish...

Well, in a sense they had. She was hired by pure chance, by a lost bet rather, of her new boss, who just happened to have a 'hire first random person whose resume you see' as a penalty.