Welcome to the first chapter of The RNBW Conspiracy. This is a reboot of my LIARs series as I ended up not liking how it was going and how the first one turned out. Now the characters meet Monty's rules for OCs. This story is a new plot based on campaign for the Unofficial RWBY Tabletop that I'm currently writing. The chapter titles will be based on songs from a playlist of songs I listen to when writing this story.
Chapter 1: Reapers
Good morning Robyn. I trust your flight to Mistral was well. I'm sorry to say that you won't have time to take in the sights. The board of directors has given the go ahead for this operation and we're only getting one chance to pull it off. Your targets are General Wilhelm Braun of the Winter Knights, a paramilitary unit secretly funded by the Schnee Dust Company, and Commander Ichigo Guriin, commander of the 3rd Mistralian rifle battalion of the Black Fist, an anti-faunus terrorist organization known to operate in Atlas, Mistral, and Vale. These two men are believed to be the source of the SDC's more questionable labor forces, with Guriin capturing faunus across the globe and then giving them to Braun to use in the mines in exchange for weapons, armor, and vehicles. They are both to be eliminated.
They will be meeting in the village of Morino Ie in the jungles of northern Mistral. The village has been occupied for the past five days by Black Fist soldiers who have left the human population alone, mostly. All faunus citizens have been rounded up and are in the train station awaiting deportation. Secondary objectives include the liberation of the prisoners, destruction of the Fist's motor pool to cripple their armored capabilities, and the recovery of sensitive documents that could conclusively connect Braun with the Schnee family.
Time is of the essence Robyn. I cannot stress the importance of this mission as it could prove your team's worth to the Agency. It will also place a major dent in the profits of the Schnee company if the information recovered is leaked to the public.
Good Luck.
Greymoore.
Nikolai stood at the bar with glass in hand drawing no attention to himself. No one had noticed that he had been wiping this same glass for the past half hour. The general was entertaining his guest with only a handful of guards in what was once the town hall which gave him the best opportunity to kill both. The Black Fist commander sat at the meeting table surrounded by four of his best soldiers, nursing his drink waiting for the Winter Knight general to arrive.
The room was painted a light beige with a pair of windows on the far side of the room with curtains drawn facing the clocktower on the other side of the street. A small glint of light proved to Nikolai that Wikolia was in place and ready to take a shot. A single wodden table sat in the middle of the room where the first target was currently sitting.
Ichigo Guriin stood at an imposing 6'4", still two inches shorter than Nikolai with his semblance deactivated, but still taller than the norm. Green and black hair standing in short spikes, the falseness of the color showed that he was much older than he pretended to be. Intel from HQ said his age was most likely 57, but the way he dressed and dyed his hair said 32. He dressed in the standard black mandarin collar jacket that all officers of his group wore, the patches on his purple arm band signifying his rank.
Nikolai had used his semblance to take the form of Lieutenant Jacob Conifers, a Valic soldier who enlisted in the Fist because he felt his brother and family were too close to the faunus and were thus traitors to their race. He had been called away from the so called "Front" to act as the bartender for this meeting as citations state that he knows how to mix drinks. The real Conifers is currently at the bottom of a nearby lake with weights strapped to his feet, this way, Nikolai could not be interrupted during his work.
"You remember the drinks, right lieutenant?" The commander asked turning towards the assassin.
"Yes, sir." He replied in a false Valic accent covering his own Vacuan accent. He placed the glass he was cleaning on the mahogany bar and picked up another glass.
"Second target approaching the target building. ETA 1 minute." Nikolai's subdermal radio flickered to life presenting the voice of Wikolia, the squad's sniper. The assassin coughed signaling that the other target was already in the room.
"Lieutenant, are you coming down with something?" Commander Guriin asked turned to his would be killer. "You know those animals carry all kinds of horrible diseases they would love to infect us with."
"No, I'm fine."
"Go to Doc Rommel's tent after the meeting to get looked at." He ordered. "You never know with them."
"Found the train station. Dear Oum, it looks like something from the War." The radio flickered to life again, this time with their resident saboteur, Byron. He objective was the liberation of faunus from the train station where they were going to be shipped off to be worked to death in some secret dust mines.
"These ass hats wish it still was the War." Robyn, the squad leader piped up. Robyn was in the office next door to the meeting room having drilled a hole in the wall to watch the meeting with a camera and to confirm the kills. "Give me a sitrep."
"Fully armored train, 20 carriages, they're trying to push over a hundred faunus into one car." He explained. "I count many more taking up another 6 cars."
"Start thinning out the stragglers. Don't go for the faunus until the takedown." Robyn ordered. Nikolai began mixing the drinks listening to the orders for parts of the operation he had no part in. A simple whiskey for the Commander and a dry martini for the General.
"The General has arrived, he is now entering the building." Wikolia announced. Soon afterward a soldier entered the meeting room to announce the General's arrival.
General Wilhelm Braun, dressed in his resplendent dress uniform befitting an officer of such rank in the Atlas Armed Forces, entered the room being saluted by everyone in the room no matter their loyalty. The general sat down at the meeting table placing a briefcase before him and opening it up.
The soldiers saluting him took their seats and began the discussion. "I can confirm you have the merchandise?" The general asked pulling papers from his case.
"578 workers ready to serve." The commander replied with confidence. "And now about my payment."
"3 million lien in unmarked cards, 5 Creep Armored Weapons Platforms, and 23 SAM launchers funded directly by the Schnee Black Budget." The general calmly explained presenting a series of papers and cards to the commander. Another officer of the Fist walked up to the table and began examining the documents. He nodded his approval before returning to his post.
"They're waiting for you at the train station." The Black Fist commander explained motioning Nikolai over. He grabbed the tray containing their drinks filled with an aura dampening poison and brought it to the table. Both men took their respective glasses. "A toast, to a renewed deal!" Ichigo exclaimed taking a sip from his glass as Wilhelm did the same.
Within seconds, their auras visibly sizzled away. Taking advantage of this, Nikolai reached to his side and produced an integrally silenced long slide .45 pistol and entered his center axis relock stance. With the gun in his left hand, he quickly shot Guriin and then switched hands to shoot Braun. The guards did not have enough time to draw their weapons before both of their leaders were down.
Nikolai then leapt at one of the guards, tackling him to the ground as a large crack ended with two of the soldiers losing their heads to the massive 20mm round that Wikolia had shot into the room.
Changing his .45 into a .50, Nikolai placed the larger gun into the tackled guards mouth and fired a single shot where his aura couldn't guard. More cracks followed as Wikolia opened fire on the nearby motor pool destroying the tankettes and various vehicles that the Fist had parked there. Robyn took the opportunity to reappear and grab the last guard, wrap one arm around his throat while her other hand slid under his armpit to raise his arm into the air preventing him from reaching his pistol.
Spinning him around to face the door to the room as a pair of soldiers kicked down the doors. "Think your friends can shoot around you?" She mockingly whispered as they aimed their weapons. Nikolai came up behind them and used them as cover to shoot the guards with his weapon now in the form of an assault carbine.
Alarms blared all over the town as a loudspeaker announced that a sniper had been confirmed opening fire. At the train station, soldiers were running around to put in the last supplies before leaving. Byron had been hanging from a pipe on the ceiling of a large mail room, bags of letters that were probably supposed to be sent days ago still sitting ready to be shipped by train still in there, for the past hour, his arms and legs were getting tired. His semblance, a natural sonar had told him the place had at least 20 soldiers inside.
As one man rushed below him, Byron adjusted his blindfold and let go of his pipe and dropped onto his head. The impact of a 150 lbs. man landing on his head was enough to render him unconscious. Byron drew his weapons, a pair of tonfa pistols with integral silencers and used them to whack a pistol out of another soldier's hand as he entered the room. As the enemy reached for his knife held in a sheathe on his lower back, Byron flipped his weapon outward to lock it around his enemy's elbow. Pulling the arm towards himself, he applied enough force to break the man's elbow while kicking out his legs to throw him to the ground. He placed his hand over the enemy's mouth to quiet the screaming as he flipped the soldier onto his stomach. He then placed his second gun at the back of the soldier's head.
"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. What is it?" Byron calmly asked as he removed his hand.
"Uh… 3?" The soldier asked, his voice filled with terror.
"You're right. You get to live. Now tell me how to get into the train or we'll play another round." The mercenary threatened.
"The password is 3256." He cried.
"Was that so bad?" Byron released some pressure from his hostage's back.
"Fuck you, faunus lover." He growled.
"You know, I was starting to like you." Byron then pulled the trigger on his gun executing him. For good measure, he then shot the man he landed on.
"Songbird, this is Fisherman, two tangos are down, proceeding to target location." Byron explained to Robyn over the radio.
"Fisherman, you are cleared to engage. Rescue those hostages and meet us at town hall, Longshot just arrived with the Skyhook." Robyn replied from the other end.
"I hate the Skyhook." Byron mumbled. "Rules of engagement?"
"All humans are hostile. No faunus is expendable." Robyn explained as machine gun fire burst from the other side of the radio.
"Copy that, Songbird, I'll see you in a bit." Byron explained cutting the feed. Crouching, he snuck into the main platform where the train was parked. While the main force was off hunting his other three teammates, four guards were left to hold the line at the train.
Byron crept slowly across the white tile floor towards a wooden waiting bench. His blindfold and semblance prevented him from knowing the exact details of the room's décor, just the basic layout. Six wooden benches, three on each side of the room for passengers to sit on to wait for their train. There were three ticket booths to his left, which probably had a soldier in them previously.
Byron reached into his sling bag, and pulled out a smoke grenade, pulling the pin, he tossed it into the center of the room causing grey smoke to fill the air. "Everyone, take positions!" One shouted. "We're under attack!" He was quickly silenced by a tonfa to the throat followed by a shot through the eye. Byron then lept at one of the other guards, wrestled his assault rifle away from his hands and shot him and the other two soldiers with a couple of bursts.
As the smoke cleared, Byron went to the door of the first carriage, lifted up his blindfold to search for the keypad, and punched in the code, the soldier gave him. The heavy metal door slid open revealing a bunch of faunus cowering towards the rear of the car. Byron grabbed one of the dead soldier's rifles and handed it to the strongest looking person he could find.
"The code for the others is 3256. There's an armory filled with rifles behind the third door on the right. And if anyone asks, you freed yourselves." He heaved, out of breath, before turning to leave. "Songbird, this is Fisherman, train station is cleared." He spoke into his radio as he left.
"Fisherman, hurry up, the 22nd Mistralian Armored Cavalry division is en route to your position. Make your way to the town hall before they get there." Robyn explained. Byron ran as fast as he could, vaulting over sand bags and market stalls before reaching the town hall, which was under siege by a group of six Black Fist soldiers.
Two went down from sniper fire from the rooftop as an electric shock crossbow bolt struck another in the neck, pushing so much electricity through his body, his heart gave out. Byron snuck up behind one of the last three and took him as a human shield. Drawing his own pistol out as the last two guards turned, Byron shot the last two through the helmet killing them both before snapping his meat shield's neck.
Dropping the last enemy to the ground, he rushed into the building and up the stairs onto the roof. When he reached the top, he was handed a harness by Robyn. "You have two minutes before extraction." Byron began putting on his harness and attaching the cable to the balloon. After confirming the harnesses were on tight enough, Robyn nodded to Wikolia to begin inflating the balloon. A large white dirigible shaped balloon floated 500 ft. into air with a black cable with red flags attaching the balloon to the huntsmen below.
As tanks and armored cars pulled into the main square, a modified airship flew over the village using a pair of horns mounted on the front end to catch the cable and sever the balloon. Without slowing down, the aircraft pulled the cable along its body and lifted the squad into the air.
As the bullhead continued forward, the squad was swung back behind the aircraft as the cable was caught by a team of Agency specialists. Using a crane, the specialists lifted the team into the aircraft and closed the door behind them.
Robyn was the first to unhook herself from the cable and dropped the harness onto the floor. She then walked through the door to the main cabin, nicely furnished with large leather seats and a small bar. The rest of her team followed suit with them laying their weapons in various compartments.
Wikolia collapsed into her seat while Byron gently lowered himself into his making a hissing sound of pain. They both then activated the recliner function. Robyn took a seat across from them to face them. "Nikolai, dear, get four beers from the bar." Robyn ordered.
"Yes, ma'am." He curtly responded before going to the bar to grab some drinks. He handed two to Wikolia and Byron before sitting next to Robyn and handing her one. She responded by kissing him on the cheek before settling back down.
Cracking open their bottles, Robyn raised hers in toast. "Here's to more successful missions for Team RNBW and all the money we'll earn!"
"To all the lives we've saved!" Byron added.
"That to!" Robyn sarcastically agreed. They clinked their bottles together before taking a simultaneous swig from the bottles.