Chapter 1 - Training Exercise
An airship flew over the densely wooded forest surrounding Beacon Academy. The sides of the airship opened up to reveal three people wearing Blade of Marmora outfits, with Qrow standing behind them with his hands in his pockets. The three blades looked at the forest beneath them, going to grab their weapons from their sheaths. One of them drew a small knife out from behind his lower back, another drawing his sword from his back, and the last drew his from the side of his belt.
"You three know the mission," Qrow told them, walking behind back and forwarth behind them. "Work together to get the chess pieces we've scattered around down there. You know the locations of each one, but be warned that some of the schools better huntsman and huntswoman are going to be there to stop you." The three nodded before standing up to jump out of the airship. "One last thing, no killing them. This is a pure combat mission. Anyone who hurts my nieces are going to hear from me."
They all chuckled and jumped out the airship, plummeting towards the ground beneath them. Once the three of them landed they instantly had to dodge a rocket fired at them. Each of them decided to hide behind a tree, waiting for a chance to attack their assailant. "Yeah that's right! Run you little bitches!" They heard the infamous, Yang Xiao Long yell at them. "No one can touch me! Because if you do, you'll be hearing from my uncle!"
"Fuck this!" One blade yelled, running out and charging Yang. Her grin widened as she realized who it was, the one person she always managed to annoy no matter what. His name was Liam Castellano, with medium brown hiar that somehow managed to make any girl fall for him. His dark blue eyes had a way of making a girl weak in the knees. In Yang's term, he was the definition of handsome. "You're mine Yang!" He threw his blade at her, watching as the handle hit her forehead and knocked her down. Quickly sliding, her caught her in his arms and laid her down. "Please just stay down," he sighed as he got back up.
"Liam what the hell man!" Keith said as he threw his mask and hood off, glaring at his friend. "We weren't supposed to hurt them! Qrow is going to have all our asses on the line!"
"Oh relax Keith would ya?" Liam asked, doing the same thing Keith had done. "We'll be fine because Yang clearly has a giant ass crush on me. So she'll make sure to tell Qrow that we did nothing wrong." Liam put his mask and hood back on, watching Keith do the same as their third member sighed. "What's the problem Dick? Afraid we'll have to fight your alien girlfriend?"
"The same could be said about you two!" Dick said, watching as both Keith and Liam froze to turn and look at him. This was the one thing the three never saw eye to eye on, and they've been working together for a few months. "Acxa is all over Keith and Ezor totally has her heart set on Liam! So how about you leave Star out of this and I'll leave your two little flames out of it?" Both of them shrugged and walked off, leaving Dick standing there. He sighed and ran to catch up with the other two.
Liam was walking ahead of the group, when he sighed as he heard Ruby jump out from the bushes to surprise attack him. He quickly reached for his belt and threw a bag of cookies to his left, watching Ruby move past him and tackle the bag of cookies. She tore it open and started to eat them, meanwhile the rest of her team and Liam's sighed. Blake decided to attack next, thinking that he should have nothing to distract her. She was quickly proven wrong when a ball of yarn landed at her feet and she went crazy over it. Both Liam and Keith wondered if her boyfriend, Ethan, knew about her yarn secret. With Weiss being the last one from Team RWBY remaining, she carefully readied her sword for attack.
Her train of thought was quickly interrupted when Liam threw a knife that landed next to her head, causing her to fall out of the tree and into his arms. She blushed and could tell he was grinning underneath the mask, but her blush quickly went away when he dropped her and tied her to the tree. She sighed in defeat as Liam turned to look at Dick and Keith, both of whom were watching Blake play with the ball of yarn. He walked over and grabbed both of them, literally dragging them away from Blake.
"Our mission objective is just up ahead," Liam sighed as he heard the two continuing to talk. Then an idea popped into his head. "Wait," he said, turning around to face the two. "Isn't Keith supposed to be our leader? Why the fuck am I the one leading us if he's supposed to do it." Both of them shrugged and Keith decided to do what Liam wanted him to do, which was lead his team.
"Alright fine," Keith mumbled under his breath. He crouched down and pulled up a holographic map from his armlet. Three red dots appeared on it and those were the teams objectives. "Dick, you'll get the first piece. Starfire will most likely be guarding it, so just take her out quickly. Liam, you'll get the second piece. Just like with Dick, I'm sure Ezor will be guarding it. I'll get the third peace and take care of Acxa. Sound like a plan?" The two nodded and Keith drew his knife, transforming it into its sword form. "Get the pieces and meet up at the rendezvous. Team JNPR and Team CVFY haven't been seen yet. Let's keep it that way." The three split up, each of them going their separate ways.
About 15 minutes later, Liam was running from Coco's gunfire with Velvet right on his tail. He was lucky and had managed to knock out Yatsuhashi and Fox before he was noticed. Coco was not very happy with him on the other hand, hence sending Velvet on a kill mission. He dodged left and saw Velvet temporarily lose her attention, causing her to trip on a branch and fall. Coco ceased her fire as Liam dashed towards her and caught her. He gently laid her down, before flashing her a thumbs up and running towards Coco. The team leader wasn't ready for the young adult to blow past her, running off towards the direction of his objective.
Liam saw an airship approaching the area where Coco's team just was, wondering if they were being extracted due to their status. He shrugged it off and kept moving through the forest until he saw a silver pedestal holding a gold chess piece. He walked forward and went to grab it, before sighing and removing his mask. After attaching it to his belt he removed his hood and quickly threw his blade into a tree. He heard a startled squeal from the invisible alien and sighed.
"Come on Ezor," he sighed, Ezor revealing herself to him. She smiled at him, before pulling his blade out from the tree and throwing it back at him. He caught it and flashed her a smile. "So I see they sent you to protect the," He picked up the chest piece to examine it. "Poorly painted chess piece? Seriously Ozpin? You couldn't have used like actual gold? You had to paint it?" Ezor giggled at his antics before crossing her arms and walking towards him. "Nope!" Liam told her, watching as her feet were entwined in a trap and brought her up towards the tree line.
"No fair!" she yelled, struggling to cut the rope. "Get me down from here this instant you sack of shit!" Liam chuckled, pocketing the chess piece and throwing his blade up to cut the rope. She fell and he caught her in his arms, placing her back on her feet and catching his blade as it boomeranged back to him. "You are the absolute worst, you know that? I swear sometimes you're worse than Acxa."
"I'll take that as a compliment?" he hesitantly asked, hearing the familiar voice of Keith in his ear. Of course every time he was alone with Ezor, Keith just had to ruin the moment. "Motherfucker…" he sighed, hearing Ezor giggle. "What do you want Keith? I'm on my way to the rendezvous." He paused for a bit. "What? No I was not distracted by Ezor, I had to deal with Team CFVY. I heard the fight from you and JNPR from over here. Did you go easy on them at all?"
They were interrupted by hearing an explosion close to them. Liam pulled Ezor close to him as they saw Starfire chasing Dick across the forest floor. He tossed his chess piece to Liam and he caught it, pocketing it immediately after. Ezor was blushing madly, and mainly for the purpose of Liam's arm around her waist. She went to rest her head against his shoulder, when she felt him pull back and flash her a smile. She pouted slightly, before seeing a note land at her feet. Looking around she saw Liam was gone.
I promise to make up all of what just happened to you! I wish we had more time together, but my stupid teammates have to keep ruining it. How does a date on Saturday sound? Her heart started beating faster as she read the note. I'll take you out to a nice restaurant and we can catch a movie afterwards. It'll be perfect, I promise. Just let me know when we get back to Beacon. Ezor had no idea what to think, other than pure joy that flowed inside her heart. She jumped into the air and punched it, cheering in joy.
After the training exercise, Keith, Dick, and Liam were brought into Ozpin's office. The rest of the Voltron Paladins were there, watching over them as they had trained. They were all wearing their casual clothes, Lance with his arm around Allura's waist. Shiro looked over at Keith and grinned, which meant one thing to Keith.
"What did we mess up on?" Keith immediately asked, the rest of the team freezing in place. Ozpin had Qrow to his right and Professor Goodwitch to his left, both of whom seemed to have something to say to the boys. "Someone care to explain? Because last I checked, we've been on real missions before and those went flawless. What's the difference with this?"
"You got caught," Qrow said as he crossed his arms. "In your missions you never got caught, but you need to treat every training exercise like a mission. I know you're going to tell me that this universe is different than where you come from, it's evident from the five lions sitting in the school courtyard. I'm sure Dick let himself get caught by Kori just to get a fun reaction out of her, but Liam went overboard with Ezor and Keith need I remind you how Acxa actually tried to kill you?"
"It's all part of the fun," Liam chimed in, earning a book from Goodwitch thrown at him. He caught it effortlessly and raised an eyebrow at her, dropping the book onto the ground. "Look, we're just trying to bide our time until Team RESJ gets back from their mission. Richard is more than a capable leader, Ethan's gonna live regardless cus he's got Blake here. Scott's a smart guy, probably on the same level as Pidge, and Jessica's going to make sure they all come out alive."
"But you three are needed for Operation Rain," Opzin told them, the three boys sighing as he mentioned that name. "You are the crucial piece to breaking into the White Fang outpost and taking out their higher up located there. I trust you three to get the job done, as does Qrow, but all we're asking is for you to take your training exercises a tad bit more seriously."
"I'm sure we can do that," Dick said, looking at the other two as they nodded at him. "Anything else you need Professor Ozpin?" he asked, watching Ozpin shake his head at them. "If that's all then we'll be on our way, I think we could take the rest of day off." Dick, Liam, and Keith, along with the rest of Team Voltron left Ozpins office and made their way to the courtyard. Acxa, Starfire, Ezor, Team RWBY, Team JNPR, and Team CFVY were all there waiting for them.
Starfire flew up to Dick and hugged him, while Acxa smiled at Keith and Ezor at Liam. The two boys were slightly annoyed at Ozpin and it showed on their faces, for Coco and Velvet understood what they were going through. Liam kicked up a rock and caught in his hand, before hurling it across the courtyard and swearing.
"What's wrong?" Pyrrha asked, Lance and the rest of Voltron giving her a look of fear. She looked back at Liam and saw him lying on the grass looking up at the sky. Team JNPR sighed as they saw him not answering Pyrrha's question. She was going to go over and talk to him, but was stopped by Coco. "Will he be alright?" she asked the older girl, who nodded and saw Ezor laying on the grass next to him.
"What's wrong with Liam?" Yang asked Keith, who sighed and looked in his direction. "Is he going to be fine? Do I need to sleep with him to make him feel better?"
"If you want Ezor to kill you be my guest," Keith chuckled. "I think it's just starting to get to him that our mission is actually getting closer and closer." Yang raised an eyebrow at Keith, the rest of Team RWBY joining in on the conversation. "I think he's afraid of dying, and I know that's not a very Liam thing to do, but deep down he knows that this mission is high stakes." Weiss tensed up as she looked at Ezor rubbing Liam's back. "One wrong move and we all die."
"Sounds like a lot of stress," Blake said, clutching her hand over her heart as she thought about her boyfriend. Ethan was currently out with his team on a grimm hunting mission. Although he and Keith shared a lot of similarities in personality, he was different in looks. Shaggy brown hair, and brown eyes to accompany it. He normally wore a red hooded jacket, sleeves rolled up and hood on. His weapon of choice was a dagger similar to Keith's Blade of Marmora dagger. He wore jeans and black military boots, along with a few other things. "I wonder if Ethan's going through the same situation you guys are…"
