A/N: So I don't want to make too many of these, but I felt that I had to in order to relay some history behind this story and why it might feel like it veers in a different direction in a couple of chapters.
Originally, I started this a year ago, with a different title (which I have since removed) I decided to revisit the idea because of new inspirations. However in that year since I originally started and posted the first two chapters I have developed the concepts a little more, which means that the original enemy which I envisioned (the white fang) have since changed to a different group.
I also don't know everything about RWBY, nor will I pretend to, and the story deals a decent amount with dust which I feel hasn't been explained the best. That being said, if I do get something wrong or it feels too unnatural to be believable, feel free to let me know. So, with all of that out of the way, please enjoy what I have written, the next few parts are still going through editing, so they might be up soon depending on how my schedule goes.
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Hayden kept an eye on the thug. He often placed himself amongst crowds of people to make sure he was out of sight, though he wasn't really too inconspicuous with his wild, red hair. An impatience had built within him over the three days that he had tailed the thug which had started to become too hard to ignore.
His team had been had been hopeful that he would meet up with the contact that had supplied his group with military hardware at some point, but unfortunately the thug appeared to have caught on to Hayden's operation and had only acted like an upstanding citizen since, albeit one that hung around in shady bars and met with known criminals.
Hayden grinned as he saw that the thug had finally reached his breaking point. The man suddenly disappeared into an alley, a toppled, disgruntled woman the only evience that he had left behind. The red-haired Huntsman shook his head and tapped on his earpiece. The communication line opened and alerted the rest of his team.
"Tuilen, he's heading towards you," Hayden sighed. "Honestly, I was kind of hoping that he'd have more spine and confront me, rather than just running away." All four of his squad had split up in each of the directions to make sure that they would be able to intercept and follow the thug no matter where he ran.
"Good, close in on his location, make sure you don't lose track of him and let him slip past you, I don't want to have to find another target," Aelius told them. The thug continued his mad dash, and only cast the occasional glance behind to check if he had lost the Huntsman. He only looked back twice before another figure in a neat, Atlesian officer's uniform dropped down in front of him and sunk his fist into the man's chest. Needless to say, the thug fell down to the ground and wheezed in pain.
The newcomer appeared to be Hayden's complete opposite in every regard. Whereas Hayden was tanned and wore light clothing that completely disregarded the strict guidelines, his own uniform was pristine and showed very little of his pale skin. Contrary to Hayden's fiery hair, both in nature and colour, his was black with blue highlights, straightened and combed as if he was going to a formal occasion. At the same time, it was clear that they were twins.
The two both had tubes of dust that extended from their pauldrons and circled around their arms, down to their hands. Hayden's on his right and Tuilen's on his left. However, it was the face that hammered in the fact. When the two faced each other, it looked like the reflections of a mirror. Though it could be said that the warped metaphorical mirror showed their fears back at them.
Tuilen pulled what looked to be a compacted flamethrower from his back and flourished it to extend the weapon out into a voulge; a polearm with the blade's side bound to the pole, rather than fixed by a socket to the tip. He placed the dull end of the weapon against the thug's chest and pinned him down with it.
The thug groaned as he grabbed at the air like a turtle on his back. After a few moments, he recovered enough to realise what had happened and made a half-hearted attempt to get back up which was greeted with a swift crack as Tuilen brought the base of the voulge down on the man's hand, who fell back down and winced as his back hit the pavement.
"Careful, we need him to be able to talk," Hayden called out as he approached from where the thug had appeared from. The man looked up at the both of them and blinked in surprise before giggling and murmured something about seeing double, then fell into a stupour. "And there we go, Aelius won't be too happy about this one."
"You're one to talk," Tuilen retorted. "Aren't you the one who almost roasted the last one alive?" Hayden gave him a look that could almost be called offended, if it weren't so blatantly fake. Though he quickly grinned again and looked down at the thug, amused by the quiet ramblings.
"Well I stopped once he ran out of aura," Hayden shrugged. "Besides, what's the point of interrogating someone if they've still got their aura anyway? If there's no threat of damage, they won't be scared." Tuilen was about to make his own response, but another voice cut him off.
"We have ways of getting past that particular problem," it replied. Aelius rounded the corner, his hands in his uniform pockets. The clothes that they all wore were identical in nature, not that much of a surprise for a uniform. What was interesting about it was the heavy, dark clothes that they wore.
Steel plates were stitched into their coats on the shoulders and down the backs while their thick, leather shirts and pants protected their chests while still letting them move around with Huntsman's usual inhuman capacity. Naturally each member of the team had their own variations on the uniform.
Hayden was covered in them. A lip ring was concealed beneath a cloth mask, though the chain that led to his earring made it obvious what was underneath. What parts of his apparel hadn't been burnt was torn, and the remained had been defaced with names and references to pop culture. In a sense, he wore his heart on his sleeve. More steel plates had been added across his armour, which included the pauldron from which the dust reserves for his weapon had been concealed underneath.
Tuilen on the other hand hadn't touched the uniform itself. He wore armour similar to Hayden, but the only memorabilia that could be seen on him was the chain that he always wore around his neck that held their family's symbol.
Aelius had gone in the opposite direction. A lot of the plates on his armour had been stripped away to allow for easier movement. A harness hung from his back where it looked like a weapon sheath might have once been attached.
The last member of their team, Laure, had decorated a lot of her uniform with her own family's heraldry, the brown and green highlighting the Atlesian colours as well. She also wore a bracelet which never left her wrist. On it was a locket that, despite however much the twins quizzed her on it, she never spoke a word about. Whenever the topic came up, she always diverted it away from the charm. She kept a hood that had been sewn into her uniform over her head. Faunus were not the best received in Atlas, so to hide her mouse ears was a safe move.
"Yeah, and that method has a name," Laure called out as she dropped down from her own direction. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the thug critically, then looked over to Tuilen, who purposefully avoided her eyes.
"I never said that you didn't," Aelius replied defensively and held up his hands to show he didn't mean anything by it. The two of them had been paired during their own test before the squad had been formed, and naturally the strongest bonds they had were between them. "Though that being said, I suppose we don't really have names at the moment, do we, Habein?"
He referred to their codenames that were to be used while they were on missions as part of the internal affairs investigation unit of atlas. Their current assignment was to find who was leaking experimental weapons from a secure sight to the thugs in this city. The last few suspects that they had interrogated were dead ends, but this one in particular had been associated with such dealings in the past, and so they held out hope.
"Several counts of arms trafficking, bribery, armed robbery, remind me why we didn't go after this guy first?" Tuilen asked as he read off the man's rap sheet from his scroll. Hayden rolled his eyes at his brother's show of properness.
"Well I suppose that would be because you were the one that lost his hard copy file."
"Because you took it and used it as a placemat!"
"Both of you, calm down," Aelius interrupted. His usual neutral demeanour slipped for a moment. The two silenced their bickering in an instant. Aelius walked forwards, pulled the thug up from the ground and shook him out of his reverie. "I heard that my name had been mentioned by one of my fellows here before I arrived, you should know what that means."
"Wait, that was your real name?" the thug quailed as he started to feel true terror stab into his heart. The identities of the internal affairs agents were an extremely well-guarded secret, something that was not helped by the distinctive characteristics that each of them possessed. However, so long as a name was not linked to a face, they were allowed some discretion, but if they reported that their identities had been compromised then action would be required to take place in order to regain the security of their anonymity.
They were a separate entity from the Special Operatives unit, meant to act outside of the chain of command in order to ensure that the laws and ideals of the Atlas way of life were upheld by whomever might fall under scrutiny. This caused a lot of friction between their own unit and any that might fear falling under investigation. Others that had not been as careful to guard their personal lives often found them under attack from unknown sources.
"Good, so please do be kind and co-operate with us," Aelius smiled, the expression sickeningly insincere. The thug had heard of whole cartels being completely burnt to the ground and exterminated just to prevent a sketch of an agent's identity from being spread. "All we need to know is where you got those weapons from, and then we will disappear. You will never hear of us again, or at least I hope so. I'll be honest, you can never really tell with this volatile life of crime."
"Fine, just don't get me in any deeper trouble than this, the I.A is one thing, but my boss would skin me if I brought them to his doorstep," the thug whimpered. "It's Verdent, from the research centres to the South of Atlas." Aelius nodded slowly and dropped him back onto the ground. He gestured for the rest of his squad to follow him as he walked away.
"Did that name mean anything to you?" Laure asked quietly once they were out of sight of the thug, to which Aelius shook his head, as a shadow of a scowl danced across his face.
"I'm not sure, but I'm not too eager to go to the R and D base," he muttered. Before he even realised it, his lip had started to curl in anger. He took a breath to calm himself and cracked his knuckles. "I'm going to head down to talk to the major in charge of it and find out about any Verdents that might be operating there, who knows they might be stupid enough to use their real name. In any case, we can't make any mistakes, if they start getting more experimental prototypes than the mechs that went missing before, it's on us."
"Well maybe they should have had better security before we were needed," Hayden growled. Originally a Valesian, he, like many others caught out of their own country, felt no small amount of resentment for what happened to Beacon. "Our country was the one that was hurt in that incident, and they can't even stop more of their damn weapons getting out!"
"That's because we're the ones who are supposed to stop them," Tuilen retorted as he cuffed him over the back of the head. He looked over at Aelius and gestured back at the alley where they had left the thug. "I'll keep following him and stay out of sight this time, make sure that he's not going to continue his dealings."
"Good, if he does, contact us so that we can back you up," Aelius told Tuilen as the twin nodded and rapidly scaled a building to follow more carefully than before. "Hayden, we're off to the base, I need to talk to that major and I would feel a lot better talking to him with backup."
"Well I see that I'm in high demand," Laure stated sarcastically. Her arch tone sent shivers down Aelius' spine, and the officer held up his hands defensively.
"Hey, go easy on me alright? I need you to back us up in case whoever this Verdent is tries to attack us," Aelius reasoned with her, as she crossed her arms dubiously. Her eyes were narrowed as she considered his words, it didn't seem like she was impressed.
"So as per usual I'm going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with my scope trained on your backs," she said. She paused for a moment, then a sly smile began to spread across her face as she looked over at Aeilus and Hayden. "Actually, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea after all."
"Wait, are you sure that I shouldn't be following the guy instead?" Hayden asked suddenly. His question drew the attention of everyone, but his motive was betrayed by his glance at the compacted rifle that was slung across Laure's back. When he was only met with silence, he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I don't think I'm entirely too comfortable with this."