A/N: If you're unsure of any of the military equipment I list here, a quick google search will bring it up. For visualizing or imagining purposes.

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You stand at the main door of the hangar, arms crossed, watching as a CH-47 Chinook painted white with an Atlas tailflash descends and sets down on the tarmac of the airfield. A splattering of other helicopters, a mismatch of Vale and Atlas, circle the airfield and land at safe distances away from the central helicopter. Still, the Chinook is in the center of the hodgepodge of choppers. You see Pave Hawks, Venoms, more Chinooks, and two new Ospreys. Above you, two Apaches circle the airfield but not in the pattern.

"Wow. Ironwood sure knows how to make an entrance." Blake speaks up behind you, down out of her hammock.

"General Ironwood? From Atlas?"

Blake nods. "That's him."

You turn your attention back to the white Chinook as it lowers its rear door. About a half dozen Atlas soldiers clad in the same uniforms as the troops you remember from yesterday, walk out the back, fully armed. Following, in an immaculately white military uniform adorned with silver accoutrements, is an older man, black hair with a touch of gray around the edges. Glittering stars flow around the man's shoulder boards, signifying the rank of a general, but your somewhat limited knowledge of the higher Atlas ranks leaves you wondering what level of general. Weiss would probably know.

Speak (or think) of the Ice Queen, and she shall appear. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch sight of the white-haired huntress dismounting one of the Pave Hawks painted with Vale markings. Not dressed in her usual battle gear, she grabs a green flight bag and hefts it over her shoulder, walking quickly back to the hangar. The green flight bag matches her green flight suit with rolled sleeves and long nomex gloves.

"Feel good to be back in the cockpit?" You ask over the sound of rotors spinning down as Weiss passes you in the hangar.

"It would, if I didn't fail half of the maneuvers on the qualification card!" Weiss angrily tosses her flight bag onto the desk, causing stacks of papers to spill over. She yanks the chair out and sits down hard, causing the chair to depress and sigh under the sudden weight.

"What happened?"

"I flew like a rookie! I have countless hours in the Pave Hawk but flew like it was my first day. It's frustrating."

"You're just rusty. You have to get back on the horse."

Weiss slams her hand down on the table, with a sudden glare at you. "I don't need a pep talk."

Blake turns her head at the sound of Weiss slamming the table. "Weiss… Switch is just trying to help."

"Well, he's not!"

You put your hands up in surrender. "Sorry."

Weiss closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Just… go clean your rifle or something."

You back away, heading over to your area and sitting down on the cot. Cleaning your rifle actually isn't a bad idea- you still haven't cleaned it from yesterday. You reach out for it, with it still leaning against the wall, where you left it. "Come here, buddy." Its weight and curves are very familiar to you by now, your hands gripping it like the first time seeing a sweetheart in months.

You stand, grabbing Solution in its holster and walking over to Ruby's weapon bench. You lay a soft mat out, placing both weapons on it and systematically breaking both of them down like you were trained. Funny how repetition and sleep deprivation burns a process into your brain.

Easy. Press the pin out of the lower receiver, tilt the upper away from the lower. Slide the bolt release out with the charging handle. Disassemble bolt carrier group into its parts. Check for damage. Check for debris. Clean as necessary.

You don a set of latex gloves to keep your hands clean and protected from solvents, and get to work. Using a multitude of brushes, cotton swabs, cloth patches, and polishers, you work the grit and burned gunpowder out of the internal parts of your rifle. It's tedious, but oddly… soothing. The mechanical simplicity of cleaning a weapon is relaxing for your mind.

"SWITCH!"

Your concentration is broken by Weiss's shout.

"WHO THE HELL GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO EAT MY FOOD?" Weiss throws the empty egg carton at you.

It bounces off of you as you throw your hands up. "Thought it was communal. I was hungry and wanted a good breakfast…" That's… sorta a lie. Yang did tell you that those were Weiss's eggs.

"Ask next time!" Weiss turns and throws herself into her desk chair again. "This day keeps getting worse."

"I'm sorry, Weiss."

"I'm sure you are." Weiss doesn't even look at you with her reply.

You let out a breath, and turn your attention back to your Mk 18, disassembled on the workbench in front of you.

Okay, refocus. Flush everything with solvent. Lightly lube specific parts with oil. Carefully reassemble the bolt carrier group, firing pin locked in. Ready for action. Slap the bolt group back into the upper receiver, close the two halves, and resecure the pin. Function check. Pull the charging handle back, pull trigger. Repeat through the whole cycle of semi and full automatic. Then, make the weapon rack-safe. Switch to semi, pull trigger, bolt depressed forward. Good to go.

You peel the gloves off and toss them into a trash can at the end of the bench. Your gaze once again falls to the black and tan Mark 18 at your fingertips. Unnamed. In a roundabout sort of way…. It saved your life. It deserves a name.

Your callsign is Switch. Maybe something to do with that.

Killswitch?

Master Switch? Nah. Maybe not something to do with your callsign….

Something to do with the last mission?

What about the jets that gave you air support? Jets like Pyrrha and Jaune's use afterburner.

Afterburner? Maybe something to do with fire?

Nova? Supernova?

Wait. You recall learning about an ancient battle at Thermopylae, where a smaller force with superior firepower and terrain defeated a significantly larger force…

Thermopylae? What if you shortened it to Thermo?

Thermo.

"Thermo." You say quietly, picking up the rifle in your hands again. "I'll call you Thermo."

Putting the cleaning supplies away, you place Thermo against the wall again in its rightful place. Solution and its holster goes on your hip, weight shifting your gait a bit but not uncomfortably. That's the problem with 1911s… their full metal design is a bit heavy and bulky, but that only improves accuracy. Besides… Solution is highly modified and customized. Built just for you, to fit your hands with and without gloves.

"RWBY, rally up outside!" Ruby's command voice cuts through the air and breaks into your thoughts.

"Roger." Weiss calls from her desk. Blake hops down from her rafter-hammock, and you stand to walk over and outside to the chairs you sat in with the team last night.

There's a rough map of Remnant on the table, with key strategic locations such as Beacon Field drawn on it. Papers decorate the table around Ruby, all signed as command orders. The team is all there, even Yang, still covered in motorcycle oil.

"When'd you get back, sis?" Yang asks, wiping her hands off with a red shop rag.

"Minutes ago. Ozpin had to leave to greet Ironwood." Ruby takes in a deep breath, and lets it out in a bit of a sigh. "As you all know, we're still off call for tonight and tomorrow. The following day is our next op. I want to brief you all now so you know how to prepare."

She picks up one of her papers and a marker, and draws a circle on the map, southwest of Vale. "This is the target of a new Grimm offensive. Abbeyton. Small town. Ozpin thinks that the Grimm are going to use it as a foothold and resupply point to push their lines farther north towards Vale." Ruby's hand trails up the map to point to the area you were fighting in yesterday. "Atlas is penned up holding the lines to the north, and a detachment of Mistral's main naval fleet is heading there but won't get there in time to intercept. We can, however, rely on them to cut off the supply of new Grimm troops so we don't get overrun."

"So what's our role in this mess?" Blake crosses her arms, eyeing the map.

"Simple. We infil to Abbeyton, and act as excursion to head off Grimm scouting the place. Abbeyton is small and is being evacuated right now. It'll be a ghost town by the time we get there. But… it has an airfield. An inoperational airfield after the Grimm bombed it, but an airfield nonetheless that either Vale or the Grimm can rebuild. Once the situation gets too hot for us alone, we call in air and act as spotters for air-to-ground strikes." Ruby starts to grin. "The good news is that I lobbied for JNPR to be that air support."

You note the ridges surrounding the town, and the easy sea access that the town has. "What's the count? And what's our exit strategy?"

Ruby sifts through her papers and slides one over to you. "Pave Hawks from Phoenix Squadron will be standing by to pull us out if things get bad. They can get spun up and be in Abbeyton in 45 minutes as soon as we cry 'wolf.' As far as hostiles go… hard to say. Intel guesstimated at 200 fighters with light vehicles and shore-landing equipment. Abbeyton is a port city, after all."

Blake pipes up. "A lot can happen in 45 minutes, Ruby…."

"It's the best they can do. We're trying to get Vacuo to contribute a quick reaction force to get there sooner and pull us out of the fire, but… they've got enough problems of their own. I wouldn't rely on that QRF. We can trust Phoenix though. They've always stuck their necks out for us."

Weiss shakes her head. "I don't like it. If anything screws up our air, like bad weather, or faulty electronics… there's no way out until the helicopters get there."

"Look, everyone. We've never backed down before, and we're not going to start now. We have our mission. Ozpin wouldn't send us on a suicide mission." Ruby locks eyes with each member of the team before continuing. "Get yourselves ready over the next day and a half. Clean your weapons, ready your loadouts, get hydrated and fueled up. I'm here if any of you need to talk it out."

One by one, all of the team silently pledges their support behind Ruby and the mission, with Yang finally responding: "We'll follow you anywhere."