We're Calling it a Success
Chapter 3: Customs


Yang's Log, Day 2, 4:56 p.m.
Mission Status: On Track
Update: Get it? Seriously though, I should probably check on the CCT testing.
Personal Status: About to work out some frustration.

"Somehow, I knew this was going to happen."

"Really." Yang spared a glance at her partner. Despite the resigned words, Blake was ready for battle. Heck, I'm probably already looking at one of her copies. The blonde blinked and returned her attention to the Grimm – it appeared content to study them for now, but Yang knew that just meant that it was looking for weaknesses. Not that it would find any. "You knew we were going to get ambushed on top of a moving train, that we snuck aboard, so that we can get to a population center on a continent that's supposed to be uninhabited, because our bleeding-edge hover-bike broke down after our team leader changed our mission parameters?" The brawler settled into a combat stance. "That's some solid fortune telling, there."

Blake, or maybe Shadow!Blake, shook her head. "No, just that first part."

"What do you have against trains?"

"I have a terrible history with trains. There's the one I robbed with Adam, the one we tried to stop in Mountain Glenn, not to mention the three or four during the war…"

"You worry too much. Check it out…" Tired of waiting for the Grimm to make a move, Yang decided to go on the offensive, leaping up at it. The Grimm leering down at her was, well, mostly humanoid, not to mention human sized. That was a first. A rounded head sat atop a reasonably-sized torso, arms and legs in a familiar configuration. Two burning red eyes sat in approximately the right place on the face. The jagged, toothy mouth, bony plating, and bony shoulder fins sort of ruined the evil silhouette look, though.

Fortunately, it was usually (pretty much always) the case that bigger Grimm were stronger Grimm, so Yang wasn't expecting any trouble. True to form, when her jump carried her up to the level of the creature, a burst from Ember Celica gave her the boost needed to deliver a devastatingly fast spin kick. It connected beautifully with the Grimm's… face-mask thing, sending it careening up the train. The occasional bang and *thunk* noise indicated where some part of it had struck another car, at least until it came to a stop near the engine. The huntress, for her part, landed where the creature had stood.

Yang winked at the form behind her. "See? Not so bad. I'm going to go check and make sure that it's dead."

The brawler shielded her eyes against the gritty wind from the train's passage and started to make her way forward. Her partner watched her for only a moment before another Grimm, nearly identical to the first, made a perfect three-point landing on 'their' car, dragging a claw through Blake's shadow as it did so.

Yang spun at the noise, planning to leap back and pound this new threat into oblivion, when the first Grimm reappeared, seemingly from nowhere. The huntress skipped back from its swipes, mindful of the limited space to maneuver, and set herself as the monster came at her again. This time she held her ground; while she'd love nothing better than to finish it by leaping into the air and dropping her bionic arm on it hard enough to make Grimm pancakes, that would probably destroy the train car and possibly decouple all the cars behind it, leaving Blake stranded.

Plus, she kinda didn't want to prove Blake right immediately after asserting that everything would be fine. She still had her pride.

Instead, she fell back on her fundamentals, dropping into her boxing stance. Yang ducked and slid to avoid its follow up attacks, surprised to find the Grimm adopting a similar posture, if a dreadfully sloppy technique. The brawler helpfully showed it the errors in its footwork and blocks by hammering it with jabs, hooks, and elbows, letting Ember Celica's tremendous kick add to the damage. When it started to work out a counter for that, she added a few kicks to the mix, throwing it off balance once again.

The exchange lasted less than ten seconds, but there was still a bit of strategy to it. Having already noted that the creature was considerably harder to put down than the average Grimm – seriously, it's human sized, but it's taking beating that would drop an Ursa – Yang had managed to force it around, putting it directly between herself and the engine. Then she really cut loose.

Launching herself forward with her gauntlets, she started with a swift, recoil-boosted punt that sent it shooting down the line of train cars again. Unlike before, though, she kept after it, blazing through a sequence of strikes that she'd long ago perfected for keeping an opponent, Grimm or otherwise, off their feet, in motion, and disoriented. Upon reaching the Dust car behind the engine, the brawler delivered a vicious uppercut that sent the Grimm shooting skyward, then jumped up after it and spiked it back down. It struck the ground with a satisfying thump… immediately in front of the train.

The exact point at which it died wasn't clear, but Yang could see the telltale signs of a Grimm body dissolving as it was ground under the wheels, the black particles dispersing from under each car in turn while the locomotive chugged inexorably onward. She dashed back to Blake's flatbed car just in time to see her partner finish off her own attacker, landing a hard and accurate strike from behind with Gambol Shroud that sent the Grimm's head rolling. The faunus caught the rest of the body and examined it clinically for a moment before tossing it off the side of the train.

Yang hopped back down to the flatbed, flushed and grinning. She felt pretty good about that fight – two less Grimm in the world, and the good guys kicked ass! Blake gave her the tiny 'well done' smirk that she loved, before asking, "So, was yours some kind of sad wannabe ninja too?"

"Huh?" The brawler stretched a bit, still amped up from the sudden adrenaline spike. "Nah, mine tried to box with me. Poorly."

"That's odd. I didn't recognize that type of Grimm. Maybe this kind has enough self-awareness for imitation?"

"Maybe." Yang shrugged. "Doesn't do it a lot of good without our weapons, training, auras, or semblances. As far as I could tell, it was just really durable." She walked over to the side of the car, taking a look at the countryside again.

"Maybe," Blake echoed, "Hopefully the locals can tell us more."


Ruby's Log, Day 2, 6:56 p.m.
Mission Status: It's
definitely progressing in a direction.
Update: Hoping the gate isn't too much of a hassle.
Personal Status: One part excited, two parts concerned.

"They have to have noticed us by now." Ruby looked around, scanning for anything she might have missed for the zillionth time. Weiss still hadn't explained her plan to Ruby, because Weiss was a giant meanie sometimes who enjoyed generating drama for no reason.

"Of course they've noticed us." See? That was just uncalled for. "They can't get a lot of foot traffic on this road, and there haven't been any vehicles on it since we arrived, so there's a decent chance that this is the most exciting thing that's happened to them today." The former heiress maintained her pace. It was fast enough by most standards, but slightly slower than Ruby would have liked, which had been driving the younger huntress nuts since their last semblance jump. While 'very close' to the gate in continental terms, they'd still been far enough away to require mechanical assistance to see the gate, and the hike there had been lengthy even with the paved road making for a clear and easy trail.

The team leader waved an arm in frustration at the foreboding guard post. "So why aren't they reacting? Most of the time getting spotted leads to at least a few long range potshots."

"That was the war, Ruby. With enemies?" Weiss gestured too, though she managed to keep it at least quasi-dainty. Her feathers weren't ruffled enough to sink to Ruby's level. Yet. "And they are reacting, they just haven't started shouting or shooting at us."

"Yet."

"Nor will they. Right now, they have a tentative ID on both of us, but they're still going to ask us to identify ourselves to make sure. Right about…"

"Halt! Identify yourselves!" The voice blasted out from a megaphone concealed somewhere on the imposing wall. It was hard to see past the floodlights that had been trained on them through the sunset gloom.

Ruby blinked as Weiss pulled out her weapons of choice for this encounter – in her left hand, she held her huntress ID badge, and in her right, her business card. Ruby settled for just the badge. "Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee! We're huntresses operating out of Beacon."

A blue and silver clad guard trotted out to meet them. While he kept his weapon handy, he didn't brandish it at them. He scanned their badges for verification and jogged back to the gate. After a moment, Ruby was able to hear the sound of machinery moving, and could vaguely make out some of the heavier cannons on the walls tracking toward them. "Okay, Weiss, this would be a really good time to tell me why they're going to let us through. Is it the war hero thing? Because I don't think a clandestine operation is going to care about that while they're making us disappear."

Weiss was a couple of steps in front of her, and had to turn to address her. The taller woman (the universe had granted her one final growth spurt, bringing her closer to Winter's height, specifically to be unfair to Ruby) had completed a multi-hour hike and now stood silhouetted by unflatteringly bright military search lights, literally at gunpoint, and somehow managed to make that look fabulous. Ruby saw her trademark thin smile form. "The war hero thing helps, but they're going to let us through just because we're huntresses."

The team leader squinted. Apparently there were levels of illumination that you just didn't adjust to. Despite the glare, though, she saw one of the guards make a hand sign at one of the others, apparently counting something off, and that was when the realization hit her. "Aaaand huntresses work in teams of up to four." Honestly, she was more irritated with herself for taking this long to figure it out than she was with Weiss.

Her partner nodded. "They know as little about us as we do about them. I guarantee you that right now, they're making a sequence of calls, going ever higher up the food chain, until someone tells them to just let us in and do what we want. If they attack us, we might flee, and even if they kill us our teammates might surprise them."

"And they'd definitely report it back to Beacon." Ruby moved up a couple of steps, mostly just so she could look at Weiss at an angle that wouldn't have her staring right at the gate. "They won't even try to confiscate our weapons, that could just lead to us telling Blake and Yang to sneak in with theirs."

Weiss nodded approvingly as the guard settled into the traditional body language of a man on hold. "If this isn't just a misunderstanding, if something unseemly is going on here, they'll wait to make their move until they have all of the variables locked down. That means figuring out where our partners are, how we got here, how we found them, what we're doing, and how much contact we have with Beacon."

"And whether or not we have a second team on hand for backup." Ruby scratched at her head and hoped the guard would finish the call soon. "You worked all that out with a glance at the gate? You're getting scary, Weiss."

"Schnee training. It's the gift that keeps on giving." Though her tone was sardonic, Weiss surprised her by shivering. In her defense, it was cold out. "I just hope they let us in soon."


Blake's Log, Day 2, 6:35 p.m.
Mission Status: Unknown (CCT Testing On Schedule)
Update: Arrived in a town called Leadwater. I
really hope that's not literal.
Personal Status: Perplexed

As it turned out, the locals were friendly, helpful, and informative. It was creeping Blake out.

Yang, naturally, found the town dull; the luster of it being on a purportedly uninhabited continent had worn off quickly. It didn't really feature the brawler's "scene" – namely, anywhere that she might be able to find a street race, a good fight, some monsters, something interesting/unique, or all of the above. Like all good small towns, there just wasn't that much for tourists or visitors to do, and Blake knew it wouldn't be long before Yang was metaphorically pulling her hair out. Indeed, the pair had already split up to cover more ground, the goal being, in the blonde's immortal words, to "get out of this one-mosquito town faster."

What her partner had missed, though, was how bizarre the place was. It was subtle, so much so that team RWBY's intrusions expert had wondered if she was actually becoming clinically paranoid. Eventually, after enough asking around and enough cogitation, Blake had figured out what the problem was. Then she had confirmed it with a little experimentation.

The whole dynamic was off. There were humans and faunus working side by side everywhere, and faunus seemed to be in oversight and management positions more often than not. Shops, the occasional café… there were no glares or whispered imprecations. There was no out-of-sight, around-the-corner bullying. No inflammatory graffiti decorated the lower income housing or even the railroad cars. Her best way to test without outright asking was waltzing into the local bookstore like she owned it. The clerk on duty – a human – hadn't reacted at all, other than to ask if she needed help with finding anything.

The books had all been locally published in what would have been yet another mystery if Blake hadn't spent the last hour with the ebullient and ever-helpful people at the local visitor center, wandering about town, asking questions, and actually getting answers. When she and Yang reunited, she finally had a working theory.

She located her partner chatting with, of all things, an honest-to-Dust motorcycle gang. Blake waited out of sight for their conversation to finish before pouncing. "I think I know what this place is."

"Oh?"

"I want to hear what you found out first." She shrugged. "It'll help me confirm it."

Yang started stretching – a sure sign that either a fight was coming, had just happened, or boredom was creeping in. Blake suspected the latter. "Well, I was mostly talking about the day to day stuff with the people I met. Less history, 'cause I knew you'd be all over that. Um… let me think. The whole… everything out here, is known as Chamber. It's not a kingdom, but… it's kinda close? No one would really answer me on that. Apparently it's been here for long enough that middle aged people have lived their whole lives here, but I couldn't get a sense of exactly how old it is past that." The stretching stopped as she pulled out her scroll, and Blake felt a small thrill at the realization that Yang had taken notes. Yang never took notes. Progress!

"But yeah, they've got most of the stuff you'd expect a kingdom to have. A highway system, factories, the big…ish port city is the capital, they've got more goodies there. Newspaper, local CCT channels and shows… no real news from the mainland. Only a few of them had heard of the Autumn War." Yang looked up at the faunus. "You know what they don't have? Fortifications. At all. They have a militia, but I got the sensation that it's kind of a recent thing, and it isn't for fighting Grimm. Actually, half the people I talked to didn't know what a Grimm was. Some of the more alert ones told me that they have, and I quote, 'a ranger or two' that take care of any weird wildlife they come across. Other than that, dust storms and a condition called the Scream are apparently the big killers around here."

"Sounds nasty."

"Yeah, I didn't get around to asking about what Scream is, but it sounds pretty conspicuous. Anyway, that's about it. Population-wise, it's maybe a sixth of the size of Vacuo, but spread out over twice as much area as any of the Kingdoms."

"Alright then. Most of that is helpful." Blake nodded. "Chamber is something Sun told me about once. Well, he mentioned it during a conversation and I looked it up later. It was a euphemism for a notorious lockup. Vacuo, being the resource-starved kind of place that it is, had a history of disposing of its criminals and prisoners… permanently."

Yang winced. "Not to sound like Uncle Qrow, but wouldn't that normally mean killing them?"

"Not necessarily. Controversy over death penalties is a thing in all four kingdoms. There have been times in Vacuo's history when it was illegal. That didn't mean they wanted to feed all the various nasties that had permanent sentences."

Blake looked around, briefly marveling at how incongruous their current surroundings were with their history, or at least what she was guessing was their history. "The solution they came up with for several decades was exile. They'd ship their prisoners north to a penal colony on this landmass, where they'd do make-work. Eventually that fell out of vogue, the death penalty was temporarily re-instated, and, in a move that might be called 'pretty damn cold,' the guards pulled out and left the then-large population of prisoners to be devoured by Grimm with a cache of weapons, some leftover Dust, and the run of the facilities."

"And that didn't happen."

"Right. Apparently there were Grimm in the past, and one really elderly gentleman I talked to actually remembered fighting quite a few of them – pretty much what you'd expect from a people in exile accused of horrible crimes against their fellow countrymen. Even so, he said they tended to arrive along predictable routes, allowing the exiles to set up choke points and deal with them way more effectively than you'd expect."

The brawler's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't really sound like the Grimm. I mean they're not geniuses, but they don't really follow migratory patterns or have favorite paths."

"That's what I said to him, but he swears it's true." Blake shrugged and motioned for the two of them to start walking. Their path meandered down what passed for the town's main street, letting them pass by the kinds of little buildings and charming shops that always seemed to congregate in the oldest parts of settlements. Some of them even had old-timey facades. "Anyway, Chamber was originally segregated by gender to keep the population in check, but the guards pulling out more or less signaled the end of official birth control." Yang snickered at that, and her partner rolled her eyes with an indulgent grin. "You know what I meant. Add in some criminal groups using the place as a secret smuggling haven, shipwreck survivors, and another round of exiles – political this time – and you have a burgeoning society."

Yang looked around, clearly bemused. "So, uh, why is this place more 'mom and apple pie' than 'pirate murder town?' It's made of killers and hardcore survivalists, right?"

"Pirate Murder Town has to eat." The faunus grinned. "I know they show pirate ports or outlaw country in movies as being pretty much wall-to-wall lowlifes beating each other up all the time, but someone has to take care of things like growing and collecting food, pumping water, making sure there's somewhere dry to sleep, fixing tools that get broken, taking out the trash, and so on. Back when the White Fang took a turn for the worse, we still had to have people making sure everyone was fed and rested. Anyone coming in that was too angry or violent to fit in or follow directions was quickly shut out. I'm guessing it was a similar story here. Two or three generations later, here we are."

"Alright, but how do they get the kingdom-only stuff? They can't be manufacturing everything they need here. I mean, CCT components? Atlas barely trusted us with that stuff."

Blake nodded. "My guess? They trade for it."

"The… forgotten descendants of former prisoners in the settlement no one knows about." Yang didn't look convinced.

"No, think about it." Her partner leaned closer to the blonde. "This place is a natural breadbasket. Whatever chased the Grimm off? It's allowed them to expand faster and more safely than any of the four kingdoms, and overdevelop all the stuff you need a lot of land for. They're growing a huge surplus of food, spices, domestic animals… Vale would kill to have a setup like this somewhere. And if Vacuo's council, or some part of its government, knows that Chamber didn't die in some kind of Grimm eclipse…"

The brawler's eyes lit up with the realization. "Then they could trade exclusively with Chamber to make up for their own food shortages. They're famous for always having an emergency reserve during tough times." She slapped a fist into her other palm. "But that would mean that they're breaking, just… all the international laws."

"Not to mention screwing over the people of Chamber if the Grimm do come back."

Yang threw her arms out wide, no doubt with dreams of leaving the last of rural Alo behind her. "Well, mystery solved, then!" She spun on her heel, no doubt to make her way back to the Puma – the train's engineer, though grumpy about having the two of them stow away aboard his baby, had sportingly pointed them in the direction of a shop that might have the tools Yang would need to fix it.

Necessity of repairs aside, Blake caught her partner by the arm and dragged her back. "Mystery not solved. That was just the boring background infodump-"

-I love how you treat these missions like we're characters in a story-"

"-and now we have to work out the actual issues. First, where did the Grimm go? Second, what's up with the faunus?"

The blonde blinked at her before fidgeting nervously. "Well, three or four really off-color jokes come to mind, but…"

Blake shoved her face into her free hand. "Not that, Yang. The faunus are equals here. And I mean equal equals, not just on paper."

Yang stared at her, still not quite following. "That's… that's good, right? I was like ninety-nine percent sure that was your endgame…"

"Yes, that's good, but so is the Grimm disappearing." The brunette raised her gaze to match the blonde's. "I want to know how."

She got a slightly dejected sigh in response. "This is going to involve more marching around Mosquito Town, isn't it?"


Ruby's Log, Day 2, 7:51 p.m.
Mission Status: At least the CCT tests are still running.
Update: On our way into Mystery City.
Personal Status: Grimm and Dust, it gets
cold here at night.

The sound of the truck's door slamming shut and the engine roaring off into the night were the last Ruby saw of the gate guards. Weiss had somehow talked them into giving the two huntresses a ride, even as they were opening the gate. That had only gotten them so far, though, they were at the very edge of the city Blake had seen from so far to the south.

And what a city it was! Atlas's design choices were in full swing, and it glittered before them in the dark. Deliberately over-engineered clockwork, just similar enough to Ozpin's decorations to make Ruby a bit homesick, littered the buildings at the city's edge. The closer one's gaze drifted toward the center, the more built up the city became, transitioning to smooth, ultramodern whites and silvers studded with festive lights and advertisements. The buildings got generally taller moving inward, but it was at the city center – and to a lesser extent at the edge of the harbor – that a cluster of massive spars stretched toward the heavens and the shattered moon that hung over the city like a final, crowning ornament. Ruby could see the necessary equipment for airship docking, air traffic control, CCT, and a few extra things that she didn't recognize.

Ruby let out a happy little sigh. "Wow. This is super cool."

"It is impressive," Weiss agreed. "We should-"

That was as far as she got before a flicker, just in the corner of her peripheral vision, caught Ruby's attention. The huntress found herself tumbling backwards on pure reflex, losing track of her partner in the process. She needn't have worried; the telltale sound of the Schnee glyph materializing told her that Weiss had also managed to react in time.

A swift flip put Ruby on her feet, and her brain finally caught up with her body. Standing before her was a Grimm, and one that she hadn't seen before. It was humanoid, surprisingly so, and for some reason it reminded her, just a bit, of Yang. Maybe it was the way the bony plating swept down the back or wrapped around the fists like white little gauntlets. It even extended to the way the creature moved.

Her first order of business was looking for Weiss. She found the former heiress more or less where she'd left her. Weiss, being a bit more direct in her defenses, had elected to block her incoming Grimm's attack with one glyph and use a second, black glyph and a flying kick to send the creature tumbling away, creating distance and giving her time to evaluate the threat.

She noted that her partner had drawn her weapon and followed suit, deploying Crescent Rose all the way to its scythe form. Oddly, the Grimm just stood there and let her. Ruby wasn't complaining, but it did seem a bit odd – normally she got rushed and had to use her Semblance to create distance, buying herself time to unfold it, even with all the enhancements she'd made during the war.

Either way, she didn't waste any time. The moment she felt the scythe click into position and lock, she took a whirling leap at her foe. The Grimm set itself to block, apparently old enough to possess some basic self-preservation instincts, but the move it made would have been insufficient to defend it from Ruby even before her time at Beacon.

The cloaked huntress rarely attacked in a straight line anymore. When she'd covered most of the distance, she planted the head of Crescent Rose into the ground behind her and fired, sending her into a flip that dropped her, feet-first, right behind the Grimm. She snapped the scythe around behind her without looking and, feeling the haft catch against the creature's torso, fired again.

The recoil kicked in as expected, but the Grimm surprised her by staying in one piece. Though it sported a nasty gash across the torso, the otherwise intact creature went sailing past Ruby to land next to the one Weiss was fighting. The huntress, still going easy on her Semblance after the trip she'd made that day, darted up next to the former heiress. "They're not tough, but…"

"Durable," Weiss's eyes narrowed. Her Grimm had some superficial differences to Ruby's – instead of plating around the arms, it had black bony knobs protruding from its head and a long, whip-like structure protruding from one arm. Actually, it sprouted a long, thin spike from the other arm even as they watched. A glance at Ruby's original target showed a large, bony blade growing from one forearm. "But I think it would be in our best interests to finish them off quickly."

"You got it." Weiss gestured with her free hand and a massive glyph appeared beneath them, dragging the Grimm into the air above it as though channeling a tiny, highly selective singularity. Another large, black glyph appeared in front of them. By then, Ruby had taken that time to plant the blade of Crescent Rose into the ground, and chambered another round into the weapon.

There was little flashy about it from there. Crammed together in midair, the Grimm thrashed as semblance-accelerated high caliber rounds tore them apart. The two huntresses kept their guard up for a moment, scanning for additional threats, but none presented themselves. "Weiss, is it messed up that I'm actually happy to see the Grimm?"

"Yes, Ruby. Yes it is. Although…" the former heiress hesitated before returning Myrtenaster to her belt, "I think I can understand it. This whole mission has been odd since we got here. Fighting Grimm, even new Grimm, is familiar."

Ruby nodded, about to comment on that, when the increasing whine of powerful engines caught her attention. She returned Crescent Rose to its travel form and put it away. Moments later, several small patrol craft swung around the side of the ridge, spotlights focused on the pair. "Huntresses!" The word hit them like a strong blast of wind; Atlas did love its megaphones. "We detected Grimm in this area. Do you need assistance?"

Ruby and Weiss exchanged a look. Weiss nodded imperceptibly toward the city, and Ruby nodded back. Weiss had mentioned that at some point, whoever was in charge here would want to get them under supervision and double down on border security. Ruby had thought about that and decided that the two of them would play along for as long as doing so would get them where they wanted to go – closer to the answers. "We found and killed two Grimm, but there could be others." That, in and of itself, wasn't an order, but she left the Atlas personnel the chance to interpret it as a request.

They took the bait. "Understood. We'll secure the area and regret that you came under attack within our borders. If you like, we can have an escort to get you the rest of the way into Bifrost."

"That will be lovely." Weiss stepped forward and honest-to-Dust curtsied. "We'll be happy to wait here for them."

The soldiers and their android backup dispersed. When they were out of earshot, Ruby shook her head. "I bet Blake and Yang didn't have to put up with Grimm attacks and shifty locals."


Blake's Log, Day 2, 8:45 p.m.
Mission Status: This text field is feeling increasingly irrelevant.
Update: Two huntresses walk into a bar… one of them doesn't have an excuse.
Personal Status: I should be happy. Should.

Yang took a good, long look at the imposing edifice before her. "This is a tough one," she planted one hand on her hip and gestured at the sign above the door with the other. "Do we swagger our way inside, or do we mosey in?"

Blake's eyes narrowed as she scanned the sign again, searching for some hidden meaning that she hadn't caught the first time. The South Side Saloon loomed over them in giant, faded letters, with the words Proud member of the Prison Bars artfully scrawled beneath that. Her search for additional social cues came up empty. "I don't really see what difference it makes."

"It makes all the difference." Yang turned to face her, the other woman's mischief-making smirk already in place. "This whole area has a tough cowboy feel to it, and 'saloon' is right there in the name. On the other hand, it doesn't even have a fake swing door, and there's only one motorcycle outside, so maybe we're not supposed to take it that seriously."

"I see." She didn't, but she was already strapped in for this ride, and saw fit to keep her extremities and personal belongings inside the proverbial car until Yang's initiative came to a full and complete stop. "So what are the consequences if we guess wrong?"

Yang scratched her head for a moment. "Well, if we mosey when we're supposed to swagger, we're going to look like a couple of posers. If we swagger when we're supposed to mosey, we're going to look like a couple of big-city girls who got lost or something."

The faunus raised an eyebrow. "Which might not be a bad thing. It would get them to underestimate us."

"True! But it would be easier to get information from them if they're taking us seriously."

"Well…" Blake considered that for a moment. "Tell you what. I don't think anyone really moseys anymore, so you swagger and I'll strut. That will cover most of our bases. We'll get a read on the room and then we can decide how we want to proceed from there."

"Sounds like a plan." Yang gave her a single decisive nod and threw the door open. From what Blake could see over Yang's shoulder, she wondered if she had made a bad call. She had mentioned to her partner before that she was really only aware of the cowboy genre's clichés, but she saw most of them in the room in the brief glimpse that she managed to get. The walls were the first visual assault, from the giant bull skull mounted at the back of the room to the various leathers, wood carvings, landscape paintings, and mirrors, all hung to make the place seem bigger and more open than it really was. Earth tones dominated, almost oppressively, and the dust from outside spilled in through the front door. Fans turned lazily overhead, with the shadows cast from the ceiling lights spinning around the room as though on patrol.

The furnishings were universally polished wood, and while there were tables, they were all full despite the early hour. The clientele didn't do too much to break up the imagery, either. While there were far fewer ten gallon hats and buttless chaps than she'd expected, the patrons were replete with fourteen kinds of jeans, big belts with bigger, decorative buckles, not to mention the boots and the frilled skirts. The relative quality and cleanliness of the clothing seemed to be the primary indicator of social status, but there didn't seem to be much division along those lines, at least not in this establishment. The bizarre trend from the town continued, faunus and humans mixing freely, with any comments about animal traits made in a way that suggested everyone in the room was comfortable with them. Score one for Yang, Blake mused.

That said, they still didn't look too out of place. Remnant was a colorful world, no matter where you went, and their combat-ready ensembles were no different. Regardless of whether or not they quite fit the cowboy theme, the huntresses pressed on with their original plan. While the low din in the room and the crowd meant that their big entrance didn't draw as much attention as her partner had said it would, it didn't go unnoticed. The bartender - a mountain of a man with an equally enormous handlebar mustache, turned as they entered, smiling when they took a pair of stools at the end of the bar. "Well howdy there! Sunshine, Alley Cat, what can I get for you today?"

"Alley Cat?" Blake spat the words before she could stop herself. She quickly modulated her tone, hoping the huge guy would mistake her outburst for confusion. "Have we met?"

Totally nonplussed, the bartender started wiping down one of a series of glasses. "Naw, but everyone gets a nickname when they come in here. We pretty much base 'em on what people look like."

"It's true," the man next to her leaned over conspiratorially, nodding at the barman. "We call him The Walrus, an' he ain't even a faunus." Blake could actually kind of see it. The huge man would have been more imposing if he hadn't gotten quite so fat with age, and the giant white mustache did have a certain tusk-like look to it.

"Ayep. So she's Sunshine for the hair and outfit, an' you're Alley Cat, 'on account o' the ears."

"That's…" Choose your battles, Blake. "...fair." Blake gave up. "Why Alley Cat, though?"

Yang elbowed her playfully, "What's wrong with being an Alley Cat?"

"I don't know, it just sounds… trashier than a regular cat."

Her partner shrugged and leaned forward on the bar, already making herself at home as she squinted at the local specials, written in honest-to-Dust chalk on a blackboard behind The Walrus. "Well, if he knows about your taste in romance novels…"

"Those are not trashy!" Blake felt her face start to heat up in a way that she knew had nothing to do with the room's temperature. "They're just a little… risqué. At times. I'm surprised that you're okay with 'Sunshine.'"

"The way I see it, I lucked out not being 'the blonde with the rack.'" Yang sat up slightly straighter as something on the list of specials caught her eye, addressing the massive barman and waving to get his attention. "I've never heard of an Ursa Bomb. What's in it?"

Blake tuned that conversation out to focus on other things, allowing Yang to order for her. Possible jokes about who was wearing the pants in their relationship aside, the faunus would freely admit that Yang was better at finding something Blake would actually drink in a place like this than Blake herself. She had tried to learn the lingo of alcohol, but here her normally impressive study habits failed her. She just didn't have much of an interest in it, nor the kind of history that would let her learn it through osmosis.

Instead, she went back to scrutinizing the establishment, feeling even more tense than she had when it was a complete unknown. She had seen this level of harmony and cooperation between humans and faunus before - but only at the heart of faunus slums, where the humans that did live there were well known and popular enough to be relatively safe, or in the more closely knit teams at Beacon where students had to depend on each other for their very lives. But there was no such neighborhood or academy here, only this town... this town that had apparently been past the point of prejudice for so long that even the lingering hearts-and-minds resentment and deeply buried bigotry was gone. This is just surreal.

Something about it screamed 'phony' to Blake, like there was some obvious clue she was missing. She allowed herself to take some pretty outlandish theories under consideration. Robots? A conspiracy where everyone in town is in on it? No, the conversations and body language were fluid, chaotic, and natural. People occasionally fumbled punchlines to jokes, or slurred their speech if they were too far into their cups already. An illusion? A dream? She doubted she'd have nicknamed Yang 'Sunshine,' even in her dreams, and if this was an illusion, it was an exquisitely detailed one involving tactile sensation for the stools, bar, door, air, and body heat, to say nothing of the sounds and smells. In short, there was enough cohesion and detail for her to rule that out.

She tested and discarded half a dozen other scenarios before finally shaking her head and giving up, wondering just how warped her worldview was that not having some kind of slur thrown at her had her on edge. Her deep breath and shift in attention had come just in time, too - The Walrus had dropped some bright blue… thing in front of her, with Yang giving her a thumbs up and a goofy grin. Blake rolled her eyes and picked it up, allowing herself to ease up, if only a little.


An hour later, Blake caught herself actually, finally relaxing. No boogeymen jumped from the shadows, nor had anyone had an unkind word for either her or her partner. Yang finally seemed to be enjoying herself too, having discovered that virtually the entire male population of the town and a good percentage of the ladies in the room shared her taste in motor vehicles and contact sports.

Of course, the blonde's increased chattiness was due partly to her being into her third Ursa Bomb. Blake coughed lightly. "You might want to take it easy, Yang. We don't even have a place to sleep yet."

"Pfft. It's not like I'm driving us out of here tonight. Besides, unlike Ruby, I'm genetically related to Qrow Branwen. You know what that means?"

She knew what that meant only because Yang had said this before, though Blake wasn't surprised that the brawler hadn't remembered the previous times. "That alcoholism and over-engineered weapons run in your family?"

"Yeah, that's rich coming from the Kusarigama/Pistol/Cleaver/Katana girl."

"It's a ballistic chain scythe…" The faunus muttered, glancing away.

"My point is that I have the liver of a god."

Blake wagged a finger in her partner's face, wondering if she should take it easier herself. "You also have the arm of a robot. No body mass there to help you."

And just like that, the room went quiet.

Blake looked around, finally feeling recognition seep in. It was what she'd expected since they'd arrived. The body language that said that they weren't really welcome anymore. The looks that went from accepting and normal to hostile and guarded. Belatedly, she also realized that a depressingly large number of patrons were armed. Why this was a sticking point with them, she had no idea, but she could see the signs that it was about to get ugly.

And Yang, bless her heart, missed those same signs completely. "Ha! That's not going to make much of a difference."


Violet's Log, 3 days until Launch, 8:40 p.m.
Mission Status: On Schedule
Update: This is the best mission ever.
Personal Update: Couldn't be better.

It wasn't quite the top of the Bifrost Control Center. Architectural concerns meant that the top several dozen meters of the tower were home to all manner of machinery, electronics, and counterweights designed to help ensure that the building didn't fall over in high winds. It was, however, high enough that standing right up against the plate glass windows that surrounded Wisteria Mintaka's office and looking out across the city could be disorienting.

Or super awesome.

"Well, I've made the call. They'll be here soon." Violet looked up and caught Wisteria's reflection in the glass, but didn't turn to look. The other woman continued, "You should probably clear out before they get up here."

"I know, but I can't help it." Vi pressed her nose up against the glass, looking all the way down at the cars pulling up below, and the pair of huntresses that emerged. "I really want to meet Ruby Rose. She was the inspiration for everything I am!"

Wisteria put a hand on Violet's shoulder, grinning wryly as she ruffled the blue cloak there. "So I've gathered, but after they leave the meeting with me, Miss Schnee is going to tell Miss Rose all sorts of nasty things about me. You don't want to be tarred with that brush, Vi. It will be better if you make your own first impression."

"Alright." Violet turned away from the view, brushing a lock of white hair out of her face. "But promise me you won't chase them out of town."

"No promises." The taller woman shrugged, "But Atlas's profile suggests that they're at least professional enough to give the city a good sweep, and Cal's assessment is that they're obnoxiously persistent in digging up secrets, so that means they'll probably be here at least long enough to find the launch site. That should give you several days, if it makes you feel better."

Violet blinked. "It does! I'll get out of here for now, then."

She made her way into one of the two elevators, pushing all the prime numbered buttons on a whim. Right before the doors closed, she heard the other set open. Wisteria, already back at her desk as though she'd been sitting there the whole time, rose to greet them and bowed graciously. Her words, however, were lost as Violet was whisked away.


NOW

"Hold on," Goodwitch held up a hand, "How do you know what went on during the part you weren't there for?"

"Records, surveillance footage... we stole a bunch of data." Blake offered.

Yang's head tilted back and her smile reappeared, her tone one of a young woman describing how amazing the party she'd just come from had been. "We stole so much stuff on this mission," she groaned happily.

Glynda toyed with her stray ringlet, her tone sardonic. "Oh look, another gray hair. Please tell me these people aren't who I think they are."

Ruby chortled evilly, "You'll see."

"Alright, what happened next?"

The four exchanged looks again, and Weiss spoke up. "Well, that second night was when things really started to fall apart. Now, I want you to understand that this next part is not editorialized or embellished in any way…"


AN: Chapter 3 complete! In a way this might be the toughest one for me to write, including the future ones, because this was the one where I had to flesh out the remaining outline to make sure nothing got revealed too soon, and that everything that did need to be revealed was in here.

Thanks again to those following along - and for the commentary! I'd actually had the gate scene drafted before posting the previous chapter, and BenRG's take on it was close: Bifrost has a lot going on, and they're really not as worried about starting trouble with Ruby and Weiss as they are concerned that they won't be able to finish it.

Now we can see things start to go south, and get a bit more into that adventure and humor that I promised. Who are these new people? Are their intentions toward team RWBY pure and wonderful? Can Weiss get through the next part of this debriefing accurately without showing a clear personal bias? Will these OCs hog all the spotlight and ruin the fic? The answer to at least one of those is 'probably not.'

As always, reviews are appreciated. See you next chapter!