Disclaimer: First thing first, I don't own 'RWBY', 'Command and Conquer: Generals/Zero Hour', or the 'Rise of the Reds Mod'. They are owned by Rooster Teeth, EA, and SWR respectively. Please support their official/mod-ficial releases.

Chapter 1: A World Engulfed in Darkness

A tall white man stood stiffly, looking out at the frozen wilderness that expended into the distance from his tower. He wore a white uniform, his black hair kept short and swept to the left, his hands were covered in white gloves, and his signature revolver was strapped to his waist neatly in its holster. But alas, despite looking barely in his thirties he felt tired.

Being both a general of the Atlesian Army and the headmaster of Atlas's huntsman academy, along with being a part of Ozpin's silent group was very taxing on his mind. Dealing with the needs of the officers, instructors, soldiers, and students was hard enough, but dealing with Ozpin's extra mysterious agenda and the Council's extremely narrow view of thinking was enough to put lesser men in the psyche ward. But not for General James Ironwood; he knew that Atlas practically depended on him, for if the self-serving assholes that could only be described as the pinnacle of human arrogance that only Jacques Schnee could possess, then Atlas and very well the three other kingdoms could fall in a matter of years.

He raised a mug to his lips, savoring the warmth that only coffee could give him, as he thought about the situation that threaten Remnant.

First and foremost were the creatures of Grimm; black, soulless creatures that devoured humanity whenever and wherever they could. They plague all the kingdoms, and they made further expansions nearly impossible. Attempts like Vale's Mountain Glenn were usually doomed if they could not use environmental features to their advantage to either limit or outright halt the Grimm from encroaching. He suspected that Ozpin knew more about the Grimm than anyone, but that man kept everything close to his chest.

Next were the damnable White Fang. He could rationalize and empathize with the Faunus, those poor bastards who were openly discriminated in public and exploited by large corporations like the SDC due to their animal features, but they moment they resorted to terrorism was the line he drew in the sand. They went from peaceful protests to kidnapping corporate officials, bombing stores that discriminated against Faunus, and executing anyone they deem a 'threat to Faunus equality'. James had no illusions that the White Fang was less about equality and more about Faunus superiority, and the sooner they were dealt with the better.

But finally, there was something that had him confused. Recently in Vacou, there had been reports from his agents that something was amiss. Outlying villages on Vacou's border seemingly stopped reporting their status, patrols went missing in the desert with nothing found, and quiet recently several bullheads went missing, no report, no distress signals, nothing to indicate what had occurred being sent out. At first he suspected perhaps the White Fang, but according to reports they were mostly operating in Vale and Mistral, not Vacou. It puzzled him; what was going on in Vacou?

He sighed, moving as to sit back at his desk and go over the latest reports when his scroll beeped. Pulling it out, he swiped across the screen and saw it was Specialist Winter Schnee. She was currently in the field, just outside of Atlas's walls, working on eliminating some pesky Grimm that had set up near a commonly use caravan route. He press a button to receive the call.

"Specialist Schnee, what is the reason for this call?" James asked, sitting down in his chair as he talked. He was glad he had when Winter began to talk.

"Sir, I have what appears a squad of soldiers with casualties currently surrounded by a large number of Grimm, including the two deathstalkers I was sent to eliminate," Winter promptly reported. James was confused; there should be no soldiers near that location, at least not from Atlas. But the White Fang…

"Are they White Fang?"

"Negative sir, in fact, I don't know what their affiliation is," Winter answered. James felt his eyes widen.

"What, what do you mean?" James asked. Winter paused, as though collecting her thoughts.

"They don't appear to be in any uniform of any kingdoms or PMCs, and their weapons appear standardize yet unlike any I've seen," Winter replied. "Permission to give them assistance?" James hesitated for a moment. It could be a trap, yet if they weren't White Fang then he shouldn't leave a fellow man to face the Grimm alone. He took a deep breath, hoping his decision wasn't too brash.

"Support them, and support will be there ASAP," James said. "Godspeed Specialist Schnee."

"Thank you sir," Winter said, before the call ended. He sighed. He really hoped he didn't fuck himself over.

Winter Schnee pocketed her scroll. Despite being young for a specialist, only 21 years of age, yet with her training and experience, she was regarded as one of Atlas's rising stars in military affairs. She however only hoped her training and experience would be enough for this situation.

As she rushed towards the surrounded soldiers, she saw they were being ordered by an older officer, in his mid-thirties by her estimates. They all wore grey uniforms with black pants, and they wore a mix of distinct black and moss green berets, and the weapons they used were interesting.

The first and most common were smaller than an assault rifle but larger than a pistol, they seemed to have very little recoil, yet fire very fast. The next fielded by those with the moss green berets were shoulder mounted rocket launchers with a massive warhead. Finally there was two massive automatic grenade launchers mounted on a tripod behind the makeshift cover they had made out of ammo crates and trees.

However, despite being surrounded and having some injuries amongst their number, they kept calm and kept effective fire on the Grimm. Winter only had a moment to be shocked as one of the rockets slammed into a deathstalker and blew clean off its massive claw, causing it to screech horribly in pain before another warhead finished the beast off. Yet Winter could see that if she didn't get in there and if the support didn't get there fast enough, this unit would be doomed. The Grimm were getting awfully close, and it seemed they didn't use melee in their fighting style.

Winter came up behind an Alpha Beowulf, and before it could react, thrust her sabre into the back of its skull, killing it instantly. She then used a speed glyph to dart to the next Beowulf, and quickly repeated what she did to it and two others, all before the Grimm could react. She heard what she assumed to be the officer shouting to his men, but it was in old Mantlese, and she didn't have a good grip of the language, so she didn't understand them. But it was clear from their intention as Grimm around her were filled with bullets that he had ordered them to give her support.

She quickly darted around the field, trying to get close to the soldiers, yet there was always another damned Grimm blocking her way, requiring her to kill it before getting closer. It was in this flurry of action that Winter noticed something that the soldiers didn't; a shadow that was moving quickly along the ground.

Sparing a look from above, Winter could've screamed in anguish as she saw a Nevermore flying above. If the soldiers lacked any means to combat that damned raven of death, then it would let loose a barrage of feathers that could impale them, causing them to lose formation and become overwhelmed by the Grimm. She shouted out to them.

"Take out the Nevermore before it fires!" Winter saw the soldiers' confusion, but the officer took a glance up, and seeing it, went to a box, hopefully to pull out something to kill it. However, this delay in noticing it was all the Nevermore needed; it hovered in midair, before curling its wings inwards, letting loose its deadly feathers.

The feathers impaled the ground and hit several of the soldiers directly, killing them almost instantly. However, before the entire unit was wiped out by the one Nevermore, Winter saw the officer holding a narrower rocket launcher, quickly firing a rocket at it. The Nevermore flew to evade, yet to Winter's amazement the rocket actually followed it, before its warhead separated and detonated in several smaller charges. Yet despite how amazing the rocket launcher was; the damage was done.

Winter could only watch as the Grimm, with the men manning the grenade launchers dead and several of their comrades injured from the feather fall, rushed in and began slaughtering the unit. Yet Winter could only watch in morbid fascination as the soldiers, desperate to take out the Grimm and buy their comrades time, pulled the pins of their grenades in their death throes, taking the Grimm that killed them with them.

All that was left of the soldiers was two soldiers and the officer. Winter decided that support would take too long, and that her best course of action would be to exfiltrate the remaining survivors. She used several glyphs to speed and direct her to the officer, bypassing the Grimm. When she got to the officer, she saw a Beowulf try to slash at him. She tried to stab it, only for the gesture to be pointless as the officer raised a pistol in his off hand and fired point blank into its mouth, blowing its brains outs.

"Sir, you and your men need to come with me; we are too surrounded and support is too far out and won't have a place to land here!" Winter said as she went and slashed the throat of a Beowulf that came up behind her. The officer nodded, and was about to order his men, but two things happened.

The first was that a Ursa Minor got in range and mauled one of the soldiers that was standing next to a ammo crate, but not before the soldier primed a grenade. The other soldier, seeing the grenade, pushed the officer and Winter away, before he, his fallen comrade, and the Ursa Minor disappeared in a massive fireball. This left only the officer and Winter.

"We've got to move!" Winter said, grabbing ahold of him, before using her glyphs to get them out of the fallen position. Before they sped off however, the officer threw a grenade into one of the surviving ammo crates, which caused one hell of an explosion, taking out several Grimm in the process. Winter, with the officer in tow, dashed towards an open area she knew that the Bullheads could land.

A few moments later thanks to the speed glyphs, Winter and the officer arrive at the open area. Winter was about to ask the officer his name and what he and his men were doing, but she was pushed aside almost instantly. She was about to curse the officer, only to see him fire a burst from his main-hand's gun into an Alpha Beowulf, which had somehow managed to keep up with her. However, the Alpha was able to land a glancing blow on the officer's head, sending the officer down to the ground knocked out.

Winter immediately checked for a pulse, and was glad that despite the gash from the blow, he had a normal if slightly elevated pulse. But the sound of several growls forced her to turn her attention away from the officer and towards the several Beowolves, who all lunged at her. She swung her sabre across its next, before rotating in place and using her parrying dagger to stab one of the Beowolves in the eye. She activated her semblance and used a inertia dampening glyph to stop a swipe from one of the Beowolves. She slashed the Beowulf across the chest before burying her dagger in its skull, killing it while it was wondering how it didn't kill her.

She was about to kill the forth Beowulf, only to hear the telltale noise of the chain guns opening up on the Arrowhead dropship. It gunned downed the Beowulf that she was about to take down, before opening sustained fire on the tree line, mowing down the advancing Grimm. She saw a second one nearing the ground towards her, with the piloting shouting for her to get on. Grabbing the officer, Winter got on the second Arrowhead, before the rear door ramp closed up. Setting the officer in one of the Arrowhead's seat, Winter took a seat opposite and ordered the pilot to take them out.

As the two Arrowsheads retreated back to HQ, Winter leaned back in the seat, looking over the officer. Now that they weren't fighting for their lives, Winter took a closer look at the officer. Roughly 190 cm tall, lean body build that melded with a good amount of muscle, with a couple of scars marring his slightly pale skin, and blonde hair that was buzzed cut. Looking at his uniform, she saw that on his uniform that lay on top of his shoulder was a patch with a grey circle above three diamonds which had oak leaves wreathed on the bottom diamond, and finally he had a number of ribbons that seemed important.

The three ribbons had alternating patterns of Black, Red, and gold, with one having the word 'gefecht' in the middle, another having gold oak leaves on the center, and finally, there was a ribbon 'Nemesis' in the red section. It was at this time that Winter spied a medal wrapped around his neck. Being careful not to disturb him, she took a glance at the medal, and saw it was similar to the second ribbon, with the neck strap sharing the same colors, which led to a gold cross with a circle that held an Eagle over another cross.

Winter placed the medal back to where it was, wondering what the medals and ribbons represented. She knew that Atlas had some medals, usually reserved for those that served above and beyond the call of duty, but no other kingdom really had medals for their soldiers or huntsmen. The common consensus was that duty and recognition were enough for them, and that by having medals it caused undue competition amongst the rank and file. But for Atlas, where perfection was constantly sought after, this mentality didn't apply.

"Specialist, we are two minutes out from HQ," the pilot said, interrupting her thoughts. "Please have the…VIP ready for the medical staff. Also, General Ironwood wants to debrief you once we land."

"Understood," Winter said, before sighing. She really did wonder who this officer was, but she had a debrief to get ready for. Which meant paperwork. Winter groaned in frustration; she despised paperwork.

It had taken three hours for the debriefing to finish and for the salvage/medical team to return, but in the end, James had more questions than answers.

From Winter's firsthand account, it was clear that the soldiers had training, were highly disciplined, and had competent weapons, yet several things failed to add up. First, it appeared that neither the officer nor his soldiers had their aura's active, which was practically suicide when operating in Grimm-held territories. Next the weapons didn't seem to use any dust; no instead they used a nitric-based propellant to propel either explosive warheads or copper encased lead rounds. Finally, the only melee weapons they had were nine inch blades, which was extremely odd as the standard for Atlas was at least a shorts word or some equivalent, be it in blade or blunt form.

The next thing was that, like Winter had noted, their uniforms were not like any used by a PMC or one of the kingdom's military. From design the closest they resembled were from Atlas, but the color and details were wrong. It was highly unlikely that a caravan group or some remote town would put this much effort into their uniforms, so it made no sense.

However, as Ironwood and Winter walked to the infirmary where the officer was resting, Ironwood wondered why the officer looked familiar. It was like de ja vu, but he could put a name to the face. It was driving him mad, the officer's face taunting his thoughts.

"Hello General, specialist, here is the findings from our tests," greeted Dr. Braun, a frail-looking old man, handing Ironwood a file. "We discovered something odd about our friend here." Before James could ask, Winter beat him by asking.

"What is odd about the officer?" Winter asked. Braun rubbed his chin.

"Well, we took blood to see if he had any illness we needed to worry about, and thinking to down two birds with one stone, I had his DNA tested on the database, and there was a hit."

"That good then; we know his identity and we can begin piecing together some of the things that aren't adding up," James said. Braun shook his head.

"Alas, the results are seemingly impossible," Braun said. "Take a look General and you'll see the issue." James raised an eyebrow, wondering what Braun was hinting at, before opening the file. He skipped down to the DNA results, and his blood ran cold.

The results showed a match to a missing person case, one that he and Ozpin had interest in due to it being related to their old friend Nicholas Arc. Roughly three months ago, Nicholas Arc and his wife Jean went missing along with their seven daughters and one son during their routine vaction from their home to Vale. Ozpin and James had poured any spare resources they could into finding their friend and his family, only to come up completely empty.

Yet here this officer was, looking in his mid thirties, yet with the DNA match of Nicholas's 15 year-old son Jaune Arc. James's next words summed up the entire situation.

"What the hell is going on?"

Author's Note: And that's a wrap! Yes, it's another crossover, it's not like I already have like twelve other stories I could be writing on, but this idea struck gold and hasn't let go. So to answer some questions that you guys are likely to be having.

-Rise of the Reds: 'What the hell is 'Rise of the Reds'?' some of you may be thinking. Well, to put it bluntly, it's a partial conversion mod of Command and Conquer Zero Hour, building upon the games three main factions (the Chinese, the US, and the terrorist GLA factions), and then adding two new factions; the Russian Federation and the European Continental Army (ECA). The mod is still going strong despite some setbacks with a Microsoft update the prevents CD-based games from being played, and it is by far my favorite mod out there. So if that is all you want to know about the mod, go down to the next bullet, otherwise keeping reading onwards.

The mod was first released in 2008, and back then it was pretty broken. The original factions weren't modified, and Russia was filled with either pretty crappy units or units verging on being overpoweringly broken. But then SWR got the team down and they began fleshing out not only the factions, but the lore behind ROTR. For the next eight years they made a cohesive story, overhauled all of the original factions, implemented several unique things missing from CnC: ZH, and made a booming community.

As it sits, ROTR is verging on its most anticpated feature: unique Generals that will appear in ROTR 2.0. It was while I was going over the lore of one of the upcoming ECA generals that got me thinking; just how would a character from RWBY fair in dying days of the First GLA war up to the opening salvos of ROTR's WW3?

-Remnant vs ROTR's Earth: The first thing I considered was fairly obvious; the cultural differences between the two worlds. In Remnant, the two biggest threats are the terrorist White Fang and the legions of Grimm under Salem. Meanwhile on Earth, there maybe no Grimm to worry about, but the GLA and later Alexsandr's Shock Brigades certainly level the playing field. This in turn made me consider the technological and military standing of both worlds.

In ROTR, the five factions are large armies that have resources, are fighting for territorial control, and waging war on a scale never before seen. The use of WMDs in ROTR are widespread, with the Chinese using liberal use of nuclear weapons and napalm-based concoctions, the ECA has access to a solar-powered death laser and neutron warhead equipped railguns, and the Russians have the Tremor AGAS and their nuclear ICBMs, just to list a few. In addition, the soldiers are trained to fit their countries needs and are not independent super-powered warriors.

But on Remnant, the situation is vastly different. There appears to be no WMDs, the hunters hold more power than standing armies, and what armies do exist are filled with rather untrained forces that are largely supplemented (in Atlas's cases) with drones. That said, hunters have access to some insane powers, and Atlas does have an impressive air fleet.

But how do the two compare? Well that is going to be a focal point in the story, where the unlucky bastard that goes by the name Jaune Arc buts heads with the likes of Ozpin, the Council, and Ironwood. None of them are inhenrtainly wrong in their views and opinions as far as how best to protect Remnant, but it's a difference of doctrines.

-Last things to talk about: Some of you may be wondering when this story takes places, and I have the answer; two years before the first episode of RWBY. The reason for this is simple and alluded to earlier, but since I don't want to spoil anything, you are going to have to wait.

In addition, something that's going to become clear quickly is that I have an issue with RWBY's dependence on their 'legends'. It's not that they are bad per say, but they feel rushed, and largely ignoring the struggles that occur earlier on in RWBY. So while they will make an appearance, expect Jaune to object to relying on them to save humanity, as from his experience on Earth, no one man can make the difference.

That's all I'm going to talk about, sorry for the long ass Author's note, but I felt I needed to speak about these subjects. So until next time…wait, the next chapter is already posted, so get to it! I'll catch you guys in the next chapter!