The Gray between Black and White

by Masterdude21

Driven by desperation, Beacon Academy joins a pact with Onyx, an ancient conspiracy that deals in war and blood. Their child soldiers are formidable, but utterly devoid of human morality. When team RWBY befriends a small group of them and unknowingly break their shackles, they discover that the Grimm are not the biggest monsters on Remnant... - Heavily AU, lemons, WhiteRose, OC's

37. Chapter 37

I reached the 400 000 words! Yay me!

Tuutje07: well, sometimes I take inspiration from Red vs Blue, yes. Beacon knows about a lot of things, but politics are a bit weird. When so many countries don't communicate with each other, things like civil wars are not well-known.

Alfred Hitchcock…damn. That's awesome. Thanks.

A flying tomato: Hunters being hunted. I like that. Glad to see you liked this chapter :)

RWBYbomb21: No, I failed!

…that's alright. I don't plan doing a lot of those narrations. The other story will still have to wait a while, as I update it very sporadically. Also, there is no such thing as wondering too much :3

---

Dear general Ironwood,

Need I remind you that Atlas has been indifferent of Vale for fifty years prior to this event? That, while Onyx forces have been working to clear the Kingdom of its turmoil, you lacked the decency to even sit back and watch, choosing to do nothing at all? Need you be reminded that it was the Themeluesi himself who supported the creations of your "pets"? That the sole reason you ever found success was because of OUR funding and OUR assistance?

---

Day 60– unidentified forest- 16-06

"Be nice?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"What if I asked…pretty please?"

"…no."

Ruby groaned in frustration and resisted the urge to throw leaves in the Cho's face. She wasn't asking for much! All she wanted to know was how he and Lisa had met before they came to beacon! What was so difficult about that?

"Don't so mean Jason, you don't need to tell me your life's story. Just tell me the basic parts!"

"I don't want to."

"Was it that traumatizing?"

"No."

Ruby narrowed her eyes and glared at her conversational partner's face. The red forest threw a perfect glare at his features, seemingly illuminating them. She could see that he wasn't repressing bad memories, that he wasn't suffering from past experiences and that he wasn't sad or remorseful in any way. So why would he not tell her? It wasn't like it was a traumatizing tale…

"I just thought…because the Adamant family is so renowned for their expertise as Hunters…someone working with the police wouldn't have had any trouble with them."

"Have you met the Adamant family?" Cho then agitatedly asked and Ruby knew that she had succeeded.

"We have Professor Adamant…and Lisa is an Adamant…does that count?"

"No, it does not. The Adamant family –or the Adamant Clan, as they were known by the Vale Police Department- has been running amok for years."

"That doesn't sound very positive."

"No, it does not."

They had left the large hunting-shack-thing at sunrise, knowing full-well that they had a very tight schedule to follow. Every day they weren't at Vale was a day that things could go wrong there. They had managed to hitch a ride with a group of traveling merchants for a few hours, before their convoy had had to stop at a nearby town to refuel. There had been no war of any kind there, so they had all thanked the merchants and headed out on their own again. They were getting closer and closer to the Northern-most point of this big mass of land, but there was still no word of their actual transport for when they got there. The constant walking and walking bored Ruby out of her cloak.

"Do you want to know how I first met Lisa Adamant?"

"Yes please."

"She was recently incarcerated and I was responsible for overseeing her questioning. We were both about…fifteen and something then."

"I am fifteen and something now." She tried to envision a young Cho, but the only result was one with the exact same head and a smaller body. The proportions just weren't right.

"Yes, you are. Do you know what else you aren't? An Adamant. Lisa had blown up a commercial sign. One of the big ones."

"Wait, what? How…what? Why?"

Cho shrugged. "After she was questioned for nearly twenty minutes, the most complicated reason they got out of her was that it was, and I quote, "standing in her way". "

Ruby stared at the boy, unable to fathom why someone would blow up a commercial sign for such an arbitrary reason. "How does that justify blowing up a commercial sign in a city?"

"Beats me. There wasn't any collateral damage, despite the fact that she obviously used explosives to blow it up."

"That sounds…actually a bit familiar. Explosives?"

"We suspected that a certain demolitions expert had given her a helping hand with it."

"What, did Grace help her or something?"

"My superior was glad that she did. Had Lisa blown it up by herself, she would have taken out the surrounding buildings as well."

"I think you are viewing the situation a bit too negatively."

"No."

She could easily envision LACG's leader doing something as rash as blowing up a sign for it blocking her view, but she could not envision the girl actually hurting people with it. "Were there wounded?"

"No. And after exactly thirty minutes had passed, her uncle came to pick her up. He works a part-time job with the police."

"Her uncle?"

"Guy with sunglasses…careless with guns…Joel something. Brother of her father."

"What happened then?"

"She recently told me that her father had given her another scolding of a lifetime. She didn't blow up anything else though."

"And that was how you two met?"

"Yes. The Adamants are a destructive bunch. It might have been better for Vale that her brother left for a few years, as he would have been worse for the city's infrastructure."

"That's right, Professor Matt left when she was about thirteen, right? Why did he do it again?"

Cho shrugged. "Lisa says that it was because of something bad. He had just graduated Beacon's original education in Atlas, too. Whatever it was, it must have been bad enough for Beacon to be built in Vale as well."

"And that's where we come in, right?"

"Yes."

They were silent after that. The forest they were currently trying to cross would lead to the very first proof that they were nearing the North, because they would eventually encounter a forest that was very snowy. After that, they just had to cross a glacier above a very large river and then they would be close enough for their transport to the actual North. Ruby loved the idea of finally reaching their goal after all these days, but her optimism was not shared by the rest of her team. As it turned out, not everybody was keen on arriving at very cold places. That was too bad.

Ruby spotted Blake walking by herself and remembered that she had acting a bit odd lately. She was more reclusive than she normally was and she acted…well, a bit paranoid. Not like mister shoot-the-phone up ahead, but paranoid nonetheless.

"Hey Blake," she greeted her friend. "What's up?"

"Ruby? How did you get here so fast?"

A tiny bit of semblance. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm fine, I just-"

"Don't lie."

"What? How…ah. Can you stop-"

"Nope."

"...alright. I'm not fine. I don't really like being here. It reminds me of my time with the White Fang."

"That can't be very pleasant."

"That's the thing…it was. Being in a group with people just like you…accepting you because of your differences, not despite of them. I didn't grow up in the Kingdoms…and we had to fight to survive…but we were close to each other. We cared for each other."

"Don't you have that here? With us?"

"That's not the same and you know it. I left the White Fang because of their violent methods…but I didn't like doing that. I had friends…and mentors…they were my family."

Ruby had never asked Blake just why or how she had left the organization. Perhaps it was time to do so. "Did they mind you leaving them? Did they let you go?"

"The White Fang used to be a peaceful group. But when I left…things had changed. They didn't like it when people deserted them. But I had someone who helped me."

"Who?"

"A man called Tukson. He had also left the White Fang…and he helped me find my way into Vale. He gave me supplies…info on who to stay away from…moral support…friendship."

"Sounds like a nice guy."

"He is a Faunus."

"Like I said, a nice guy."

Blake looked at her with an expression that looked like a mixture between skepticism and vulnerability. Then she recovered. "He is. I haven't visited him in some time though…he has a bookstore in the city."

"Maybe we can visit him together sometime?"

A moment of hesitation. Then… "That would be nice."

For a split-second, Ruby didn't want to continue. She wanted to let the conversation end at its pleasant note and call it a day. But she had to know; she had to be certain. "Ehm…Blake? Who did mister Tukson warn you for? Who did you need to stay away from?"

Blake frowned, as if trying to remember something. "He warned me for…certain White Fang members…someone calling himself a 'physician'…and another man, whom I can't remember. I guess that's it. Why?"

Ooh…sudden suspicion. Ruby's concern was justified though; Blake had been warned to stay away from quite a lot of people…but not for Onyx. Meaning that the name of the shadowy organization was a very recent reveal on its own. "A physician? Why?"

The Faunus shrugged. "Tukson said the man was dangerous, that's all. I wish I could remember the name of the other one though…there's something important about that…"

But Blake could not remember. And an hour of walking later, when she still didn't know the name and Jaune was in desperate need of a break, their group stopped at a formation of rocks underneath a few large trees and dumped their bags. The meadow in the forest was really beautiful too; the sun shone through the leaves and created these pretty patches of light at the red leaves, while the rocks remained in the shade of the trees. It reminded her of home somewhat, before they had been forced to vacate it to move to Patch. It was a real shame…but their father had taken really good care of them until Vale and after that…he must have wanted to be certain. He must have wanted to go after Summer, knowing that she was alive somewhere.

"You alright?"

Ruby looked over her shoulder and immediately felt her heart leap into her throat "Weiss! How are you?"

The Heiress groaned and sat down. "Did I ever mention how much I hate walking with enormous, impossibly heavy bags? It's bad for my health!"

"Come on Weiss," replied Ruby, "it's not that bad. Sure, you get sore after days of walking, but we've had a lot of help up to now. And we're almost there too. Just a mile and we'll reach the first glacier. From there, it's easy going! Onyx will supply us with vehicles to cross the sea and then we're in the North!"

"And then? We get to cross a large mass of ice and snow. No small deal if you ask me."

"Well, we'll probably not have to march all the way to the other end of the world, Weiss. The Grimm came from the North and destroyed everything, remember? People will most likely live in the southern part. "

"I do hope so."

"You don't enjoy this expedition then? Just you, me, eleven other people, against the world?"

"This is hardly a romantic journey Ruby."

"No...but we can make it a romantic journey!"

That got Weiss' attention. "What do you mean?" She asked with clear interest.

Ruby smiled and wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders. "Creativity is the source of new things, my dearest Weiss."

"Proceed."

"We will only have to…get semi-lost or split up from the others once to be in hours of isolation. Or we will have to find ourselves a new sleep-place when we find another building to sleep in. There are so many ways this can go right."

The wind picked up and scattered leaves through the meadow, temporarily quieting Weiss as she looked around her to hear if anyone was listening in on them.

"And more ways it can go wrong," she continued.

"Isn't that exciting?"

Weiss scoffed, but she did not mean it. "Ruby Rose, are you implying that danger is exciting?"

"It is when we face it together."

The Heiress remained silent for a few seconds, but then she said: "You are so adorable when you are being rash." After that she pulled Ruby in a hug. "But don't forget that we have things to do."

"I know, but-"

"Ap-pap-pap! Don't talk back to me!"

"Come on Weiss, I just-"

"There's someone there," Alessa suddenly snapped and Blake immediately faced the direction from which they had come. Everyone drew their weapons and took positions among the rocks, scattering to present smaller targets to whatever was there.

"I smell them," muttered Blake. "Blood…sweat…something else…"

"How many are there Alessa?" Demanded Lisa.

"There's one…the rest could be in hiding."

"Cho, move to the right flank. Alessa? You and Grace prepare an ambush," the Adamant then quickly ordered.

"Alright team, take aim. Pyrrha? Shield up. Ren? Cover Nora."

"Weiss? I want glyphs to focus and enhance our fire in the middle at my sign," Ruby followed their lead. "Blake? You and Yang will attack with ranged attacks until I say otherwise."

Everyone jumped to their assigned tasks. Ruby narrowed her eyes as she tried to perceive movement in the treeline; this was either some traveler about to receive the scare of their lifetime, or Grimm. Perhaps a traveling Grimm?

"Steady," mumbled Jaune.

"How close?"

"Ten meters and closing," replied Alessa. Ruby couldn't hear anything moving; no twigs snapping, no bushes swaying, nothing. The area was dead. What was out there?

"Why didn't you see this before?" Asked Lisa.

"They weren't there before."

"That's reassuring."

"Blake?" Ruby softly asked her teammate. "What do you got?"

"I can hear him…her…it. Breaking branches, running."

"Five meters from the treeline," remarked Alessa.

Waiting for something to show its face was always so nerve-wrecking, but Ruby had gotten better at it. She knew that they could handle this –nothing was going on. This was simply some person…with a nosebleed or something. Definitely no problem-

A figure burst out of the treeline and for one dreadful moment, Ruby felt the need to pull the trigger in quick succession until the person would not get up again –until its dreadful appearance had been mitigated by her actions. But she could not, for that would be murder. The person, frightful and terrible as it might appear, was unarmed. No weapons or blades, nothing. She would be even worse than Will, because he couldn't help himself –he honestly thought he was doing good by killing, whereas she knew better.

The person wore armour that had once been exactly the same as Will's; it was black, armoured and sleek. The subtle differences indicated that this person was a female –and very much wounded. The leather-like clothing underneath the suit was torn and battered and there were various cracks in the visor of the helmet. There wasn't a single place on the suit that wasn't dirty or damaged, which led to the questions of 'who' and 'why'.

"Stay where you are!" Jaune yelled at the newcomer, his voice steady.

"Keep your hands where we can see 'em!" Lisa added, albeit louder and more aggressive.

The person did not listen and took a few hasty steps forwards. Then, a shudder ran through her body and she collapsed to the ground.

"Damnit," Blake cursed and ran towards the fallen stranger.

"Cover her!" Ruby ordered her team. "Blake, wait! It might be a trap!"

"It's not," the Faunus replied. "She's alone and hurt!"

Yang ran up to Ruby. "What now?" She asked. "Do we help?"

"Grab Blake and the wounded and get back here," she replied. She saw Will moving towards Blake with his rifle aimed at the trees behind her, scanning for potential enemies no doubt. "It might be a trap."

She wouldn't take chances with everyone she cared for so close to her.

Blake was joined by Yang and, under the cover of everyone around them, the two of them carried the wounded stranger to the rocks.

"Who is it?" Asked Jaune. "What –damn, what happened to her?"

"We're still finding that out, Jaune," Ruby replied with an awkward smile. "Will? Could you-"

But the Operative wasn't listening to her. He was sitting next to Blake, looking at the collapsed form of the other soldier.

"It's Mantis," he then commented, much to her surprise.

"Wasn't Mantis the dancer?" Ren softly asked Jaune.

"Yeah…"

"And wasn't she supposed to be defected from Onyx?" Pyrrha was next to ask.

"Yeah."

"Didn't she kick Grey's ass?" Nora then asked.

"Yeah!"

Lisa, having ordered Cho and Alessa to remain on guard, joined them too. "So basically…we're in trouble?"

"What is she doing here?" Asked Blake. "Did she follow us?"

Greystone roughly searched the unconscious Operative for weapons, shaking her body and brusquely pushing her limbs aside and then went for her helmet, but Blake pushed him away with a sudden and aggressive gesture.

"Back off," she growled at him, her eyes looking menacing.

"You back off," the soldier replied in an equally menacing tone.

"Calm down you two," Weiss snapped at them. "What is wrong with you? She's obviously hurt pretty badly!"

"That's the thing!" Blake angrily said. "I don't want him near her when we help her."

Blake was being awfully protective of the unconscious Operative...was that a Faunus thing? Some sort of…maternal instinct? No, that couldn't be it, as Mantis was of their age…and Blake wasn't the maternal type. Was this a justified form of protection?

"I need to make sure she isn't a threat."

A threat…yup. This was a justified form of protection. If things got worse than this, Ruby would back up Blake.

"She is no threat you psycho!"

"Blake, Operative Mantis is a highly lethal-"

Blake did not let him finish. "Don't call her Mantis; we don't call you 'Greystone' do we? She's hurt and she needs help!"

"Will, at ease," Ruby said, remembering some words she had read in a book. "I think the thirteen of us can handle one unconscious girl, alright?"

The marksman looked at Ruby with tranquil anger in his eyes, but he did yield. "Fine. Just be careful."

"We'll be," Ruby assured him. "Let's see…is she stable Blake? Can we move her?"

"Why? What do you have in mind?"

"If we're going to help her, we might want to make camp somewhere where we can let her rest."

"What about this place then?" suggested Jaune. "There are rocks and trees that can cover us here."

"..him…"Mantis softly groaned and Blake shifted her attention to the unconscious girl again.

"Did she just try to talk?" asked Yang.

Ruby vaulted over the rock and sat down next to the young Mantis. Blake had removed her helmet and she was free to observe how the average Operative looked. She immediately noticed several things that the two soldiers had in common; both of them were very pale and both of them had short cropped hair that looked like it hadn't been tended to in months. Though Mantis –or Alice, as she was actually known- had only half of her head shaven. The other half was shoulder-length hair that could really use some caring grooming. But she didn't look very healthy; her cheeks were gaunt and she had dark bags under her eyes. She looked like she would be really attractive during healthy times.

"Water…" Alice softly muttered.

Ruby was very curious to the Operative's story; why she was here and what she had been running from. But those things had to wait for another time; the girl was too weak to talk or move on her own and if she was being chased by someone strong enough to take her down, they might not want to stick around.

"Alright team," she started, "we're moving out to somewhere we can properly defend ourselves. There should be a small village just up ahead. It's a not on our schedule, we I think that we should go there. Like, now."

"Why the hurry?" asked Yang.

"Just a feeling," she muttered back. From what she had come to understand from the Operatives, those people had to be on levels parallel with Hunters for their profession. Not only that, they were also survival experts and navigators. For Operative Mantis to be driven to such a point of dehydration and exhaustion…there was no way for anything but a giant group of Death Stalkers to be capable of doing so. And whatever it was that had been testing the girl like that, she did not want to subject her friends to the same threat. They would probably be able to win with the thirteen of them, but she would not risk anyone getting hurt on her watch.

---

Day 60 – Café in Vale city District- 22:05

"So my timing really was impeccable?"

"Yep."

"Can't believe that someone in the Schnee Dust Company wanted me to kill a little girl…"

"Yep."

The assassin sighed and placed both of her hands on the small table. "I'm really not from around here. This city seems like one big mess to me."

"Yep. Vale has a time of non-communication with the rest of the cities in the Kingdom, which is rather unfortunate."

"Right. Because of the lunatic that murdered your government?"

"You don't kill a government, Maraine. The government isn't just a room of people making decisions; it's a whole bunch of systems on top of each other. The Operative just removed an important system, but not the most vital one. "

Maraine crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a stern look. "And what's with that Operative crap anyway? Damn spooks running around in the city?"

"I told you about Onyx, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. And you made no sense whatsoever."

Normally, Matt Adamant did not like it when people told him that he didn't make sense. The problem was that people always told him that he didn't make sense, because most of them were too thick to follow his reasoning. "I have that problem at days. Alright...yeah okay, alright. Picture your random paramilitary organization, with mercenaries and vehicles and weapons off their own. Yes?"

"Ehm…right?" replied Maraine. She looked so lovely when confused and hesitating. "With their own agenda?"

"Yush. Now, this group has nigh-unlimited resources and information and their influence reaches all over Vale. And they have advanced stuff. Do you understand?"

"That sounds pretty bad. "

"Good, because that isn't like it at all. We don't know what Onyx' agenda is, we don't know how much money or resources they have and their organization is a complete enigma."

Much to his annoyance, the woman grinned. Why was she grinning? "You sound like you are insulted that you don't know everything."

Had this woman met him? "I know I don't know everything, which is very annoying. Now I need you to tell me who gave you the kill-order?"

Maraine leant back in her chair and looked at a nearby waitress, who was currently helping the people at a table just a few meters away from them. "Not mister Schnee himself, if that's what you think. Some lowlife at the bottom of the family, from what I heard. I don't normally ask questions when people contract me, Matt. It's bad for business."

"Yeah, just like killing a student and letting people find out."

"I wouldn't have killed her, moron."

He folded his fingers together and looked at his conversational partner's eyes. They were a very faint tint of purple. "And who was supposed to know that? At this point, with all the craziness going on in Vale, I wouldn't have been surprised."

"I heard about that. The Lonely Angel group was destroyed trying to attack Beacon?"

"In a way. They were destroyed after trying to attack Beacon, with the attack in question being the source of their destruction. Onyx killed them off."

It was obvious that Maraine wanted to reply, but the waitress chose that specific moment to approach them and ask for their order. He and the assassin had been sitting in the café for only ten minutes now, carefully exchanging information in the form of a conversation. Though a conversation always was an exchange of information…

Matt ordered a glass of water and the assassin ordered a coupe of ice. As soon as the waitress had gone though, she continued. "Yeah, I heard about that. The students beat their assault back and then this bunch of soldiers comes in and kills the stragglers."

"That's basically the gist of it, yeah."

"So…since when does Ozpin of all people indulge in running around with a bunch of twisted mercenaries?"

"Not mercenaries. Professional and trained soldiers. And he had some sort of deal with one of their commanders…a deal concerning the protection of the students."

"Protection of the students he launched off a cliff, sicked monsters of Grimm on and sent to a freezing wasteland all on their own?"

"Alright, I know this doesn't sound very good, but the Headmaster really has the best in mind for the kids." He paused for a second. "Wait, how do you know about Beacon's educational choices?"

Maraine laughed. "What, do you think you are the only one with a supposed information network? I have been watching this city for a while now. Who do you think tipped you off on how to save your sister?"

"That was you?" he exclaimed, fully aware of the fact that the café was rather crowded and that people were staring at them. Judging by how the woman buried her face in her hands with a sudden blush, she did not like that.

"Will you calm down?" She hissed at him. "Does everything have to be so over-the-top with you?"

"No!" He replied, but he immediately felt guilty for lying through his teeth. "Yes," he then sheepishly admitted. "But not at night. Tell me though; what do you plan on doing now?"

"Now? I don't really know what to do now. I never refused a contract before…this is not going to be good for my reputation."

"What reputation?"

Maraine did not look amused. "What, the great Heir to the Adamant Clan does not know about little old me?" She said, her words oozing skepticism.

Matt took a sip from his water. He disliked it when people broached this topic. "Not the Heir. Not anymore. Are you really surprised? What did you expect?"

"I had not expected the Adamants to actually take the rumors seriously. "

A faint smile played over his lips, he could feel it. There was no humor there though…only irony. Perhaps a bit of self-loathing. "Few people do. Only the old ones remember now."

"Does your family know what really happened then?"

"Barely anyone knows what happened nowadays. How did you hear of that anyway?"

"I've traveled across Remnant for a long time, Matt. I saw many things…some great, others terrible. I saw and heard of many assassins, saboteurs and killers. When I came to Atlas…I spoke with some of the aged members of a certain circle."

Many things, some great and others terrible…"That's a terrible boast…"

Again, the assassin smiled. "Says the mad-man who invented the mad-man speech."

Heat stung his cheeks and he nearly drowned in his water. Multiple seconds of coughing and attempting to breathe later, he managed to speak words. "You…you know about that too? That too?"

Her smile could not be any more predatory. "Oh yes. I have a friend who functions as a pilot for Beacon. Funny how much things pilots know."

"That," he quickly replied, "was a necessary action to fight off a regenerating, mind-screwing Grimm to buy time for others to fall back."

"You just felt like holding a speech."

"…we are getting sidetracked. What happened in Atlas is not important for now. I need to know what you are going to do now that you refused your contractor."

"That depends. You Beacon people are kind of giving me the idea that the world is going to end son, what with Onyx, the White Fang and these new Grimm."

"Nope. We're experiencing a time of peace, remember? Atlas' people are coming to Vale, the Vytal festival is going to take place in Vale and the Onyx soldiers are keeping us safe."

"You are being sarcastic now, right?"

"Just a tad."

The waitress visited them again to pick up their empty glasses and ask them whether they wanted anything else, an offer which Matt politely declined.

"So what did happen?" Maraine then asked him. "If nothing happened, why aren't you their Heir anymore?"

"Does that make me less interesting, that I am no longer the Adamant Family's Heir?" He replied just as his scroll buzzed with a new message. "I still did a lot of interesting things. Experiments with Grimm, boil-engineering…hacking and stealing…"

The message was from Glynda Goodwitch, telling him to come to Beacon immediately. It sounded rather ominous and all…he should probably heed it.

He looked up again and saw that the assassin was gone. The bill lay in her chair and the waitress was standing next to his table, looking at him with an odd expression.

"She just stealth-bye'ed me!" He muttered, too shocked to worry about the normal person waiting for him to pay. "She pulled one on me! Can you believe that?"

"I just work here sir," the woman replied. Then, in a softer voice, she muttered: "First it's soldiers talking about torture, now this…I deserve a raise…"

He slipped a few Lien on the table and then added a tip. "Let's…pretend this never happened, alright?" He asked.

"Fine by me, sir."

"Good."

After that he made his way back to his replacement car and drove back to Beacon. He was mildly curious as to what the Professor had to say, but he had other things to worry about in all honesty. With all crazy stuff that was going on in Vale, he had spent at least two days trying to fit everything together. The leak of Operative Greystone's murders, the case of tracking down Operative Mantis and the thing about Operative Blackwood having delivered a painful blow against peace-keeping in Vale. Everything tied back to Onyx and the White Fang in one way or another. Even with all his contacts, he had been unable to properly track down the organization's activities on the net.

Matt made his way past the courtyard and quickly found professor Goodwitch's office, where a rather unpleasant surprise was waiting for him.

"Good evening Glynda."

"Good evening Matt."

"What are you doing here, Yale?"

"Doing your job, Adamant."

Matt gritted his teeth and sat down on the other end of the square table. What business did some Onyx spook have in doing his job? His job was teaching students how to be Hunters. Some Black Operations creep had nothing to do with that. "What is it precisely that you are doing then? Cleaning the hallways? Keeping an eye on Braunschweiger?"

"Very funny. I am here to inform the more competent staff at Beacon of new developments."

Now the man was just trying to get him angry.

"You should be looking for the maintenance man then, or the kitchen-staff."

"If you don't have anything worthwhile to add, you can take your leave."

"Now Commander Yale, there is no need for-"

"You want something worthwhile? Very well. Why don't you tell me about Warehouse Six and your activities there? Or exactly what you did to the politician who was residing there? Where you ordered your lapdog to bury the body, perhaps?"

"Professor Adamant!" Glynda exclaimed. "That is uncalled for!"

"You want to know about our operation at the Warehouse? That one starts with the story of yet another lunatic that you were unable to stop."

"I didn't know that Greystone was sent by some backstabbing plotting bastard, otherwise I would have stopped him," Matt softly replied. He felt that his hands were quivering and his ears were getting warm. The nerve of that compulsive lying worm.

"You know full well that I am not talking about the Operative. I am talking about Cassandra."

"Cassandra? " Professor Goodwitch asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Her?" Matt exclaimed, a disturbing sense of dread spreading itself through his innards. "She's here? In Vale? When? Why?"

"I thought you took proud in gathering information from 'thin air', as you put it yourself."

"Tell me what you know! NOW!"

"Professor Adamant, please! We did not come here to shout at each other. Yale, could you refrain from deliberately dragging this meeting out?"

Neither of them replied, but they both stopped talking. The Onyx Commander then started anew. "The Warehouse Six was the hideout of a corrupt politician, like you know. What you didn't know is that this man was personally responsible for easily a dozen liquidations. Assassinations, if you will. He dangerous. The criminals that offered him sanctuary hired a professional mercenary to bolster their forces. This mercenary was found dead a few weeks back, near the borders of Vale. She never got to the city."

"Then the woman that Ivan had been talking about-"

"-was in fact an imposter. An imposter seeking something in Vale. An imposter who had stolen one of our experimental medications."

"Cassandra…" Matt whispered.

"Indeed. Target Primary. Uncatchable, unpredictable and utterly psychotic. She was the one who contracted the Operative Mantis to test the field-medicine on Operative Greystone, without letting the girl know who she was or why she wanted it."

"If you know all this, why hasn't Onyx captured this woman?" Goodwitch asked.

"We can't find her. She has an assistant…a servant…who helps her carry her deeds out. This woman, Crimson, has been Fireteam Lima's target for a while now. If we can get her, we get Cassandra."

"They were incarcerated by the police during their last hunt, were they not?" Professor Goodwitch asked. Her levels of patience were enormous.

"Yes. Crimson might be just a pawn in Cassandra's game, but she can still be considered a criminal mastermind. Just like a certain other criminal that both the VPD as the great Matt Adamant have been unable to catch."

Again with the low blows. "What's the deal mister backstab? Still angry that a bunch of kids were capable of tearing down your evil plan?"

"Evil is in the mind of the beholder…as you well know. "

Yale's amount of bullshit was growing out of control…and so was Matt's frustration and anger. Here he was, the great Commander Yale, the one responsible for all kinds of shit that Onyx had pulled. The deaths of many at his hands…and he was taking potshots at him? "Oh please, spare me your self-righteous idiocy. Evil finds itself in atrocities, which you have committed in overflow." He spared a quick glance at Glynda, before deciding to add another insult to that the Commander would be forced to keep his mouth shut. "It's just your own guilt attempting to contain itself."

Then, much to his dismay, the officer laughed. It was a short, barking noise that was utterly devoid of humor. "I am trying to contain my own guilt?"

Matt felt a cold pit drop in his stomach when the man placed that much inflection on the 'I'.

"Gentlemen, you must calm down and let reason do its work," remarked Professor Goodwitch. "We are here to discuss the incarceration of this 'Cassandra', or our new Target Primary."

But neither of them listened to her. "My guilt is insubstantial and nothing compared to what you must be feeling now."

"What are you talking about?" Professor Goodwitch then scoffed. "There is no reason for an Adamant to feel any sort of guilty whatsoever."

"Miss, how much do you really know about the Adamant Clan?" Yale retorted to the blonde, but that took it one level too far.

"My family has nothing to do with this," he told the soldier in a tone he hadn't used in a long time. "So why don't you keep your merry little rumors and take them out of this Academy?"

"Oh, but you didn't tell her? Your colleagues don't know about the wretched curse that hangs above your so-called "long line of famous Hunters"?"

Matt got up from the table, fighting the urge to reach for his weapon. "Do you want me to start about you, Field Commander Yale? Murderer in child's clothing?"

"Do let's," replied Yale, who also got up. "Because I don't pretend. I have killed many people, because that is what was needed to ensure the safety of thousands of other people. But the amount of deaths on my name is nothing compared to the deaths at Matt Adamant's name."

"Matt…what is he talking about? I thought you never killed?" The blonde teacher asked him, but her words sounded off, like they came from underwater. Perhaps that was because he did not actually listen to the meaning of her words.

"Yes," he still muttered back, "the Adamant code."

"A code that hasn't been kept intact for a very long time," Yale replied, his voice as soft as Matt's own. "Professor Adamant…butcher of Atlas."

"What?"

"What would you know? To you, human lives are a statistic. Sacrifices that are already on the table, ready to be swept down and made when the moment calls for it, never looking for an alternative," he sneered. It was dead silent in the room.

"I think that Professor Goodwitch should keep a close eye on the next Adamant."

That remark about Lisa snapped him back to the present. "I think that you should leave now…we have things to do, you know? Lives to save, people to help. The exact opposite of the things that Onyx does." He half-expected Yale to make another remark, but that did not happen.

"I'll be in touch," the Onyx Commander said, before turning around to leave the room.

With the soldier gone, it took Matt a few seconds to recollect himself. Only Glynda didn't allow him to.

"Matt, what did he mean? What did you do in Atlas?" She asked.

He couldn't use this now. He had too much things to think about and too much thoughts to sort out now. "I lost Roman Torchwick in Atlas," he absentmindedly remarked and moved to leave the room as well.

---

Day 60 – unidentified warehouse- 19:09

Jaune took one last look around the outer edge of the large building, to check if anything was amiss. Pyrrha stood by his side, appearing as regal and gracious as always. The boundaries of the large building were clear enough; the snow was white and cold, the houses of the village were dimly lit with lamps and streetlights and the last guard was walking back to a different building.

"I think we are safe for now," remarked Pyrrha.

"Y-yeah, I think so t-too," Jaune replied as he reached for his scroll to give the signal to Ruby. They had been waiting and observing the village for half an hour now, freezing their heads off in the hopes that the warehouse wouldn't be too well guarded. Since they had found the female Operative, they had been on the move for the majority of the time. The girl had not been very good at walking; she was constantly stumbling and needed someone to support her.

"We should go back inside, I am starting to feel cold," Pyrrha then said.

"S-starting to f-feel cold?" He replied, his teeth clattering with each word. Pyrrha gave him one look and then broke into laughter.

"I told you that you would need warmer clothes," she pointed out.

"And I d-didn't l-listen…"

Pyrrha grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the safe, warm comfort of the warehouse. It was safe for them to at least spend the night in, though they would have to leave early in the morning. They had refrained from asking for refuge with the villagers, because to them they were just a bunch of armed teenagers. Jaune wouldn't even trust himself if he looked at it like that. Besides; both Will and Mantis looked obviously military and people seemed to take a disliking to military people out here. No, it was better to simply sneak in the building and stay quiet there.

Despite it being safer, the idea of breaking into someone else's property was exciting. It was the wrong thing to do, but they wouldn't steal or damage anything. They were doing it for survival…and the forced need for stealth and quietness was just nerve-wrecking. So it was exciting. He had never done anything like this before; the only outlawed thing he had ever done was forging his papers to get inside of Beacon. Hardly criminal.

Upon arriving at main room, filled with stashes boxes and strange supplies, Jaune saw that Ruby had already arranged the places to sleep. The redheaded girl was currently trying to get some information out of the wounded Operative, who wasn't exactly willing to talk.

"How did you know to find us?" Ruby kindly asked the girl.

"I didn't. …" Mantis sounded really tired. How long had she been traveling? "I saw tracks and followed them…I never knew."

"Alright. So what happened? Why were you following tracks?"

"I never… wanted this for others…"

"Just calm down, you're safe now. Nobody is going to get to you here."

Jaune walked into the room, feeling like Ruby might need a hand. "Who is going to get to us?" He asked

The girl closed her eyes and exhaled softly. She looked like she could fall over any second now. "Him."

"We might need more information than that," he joked. The girl did not take it well, judging by her expression of utter anger.

"I need to move now," she said.

"Why do we need to move?" Ruby asked, unfazed by the Operative's condescending tone. "Who is chasing after you?"

"You wouldn't know him…"

"Ehm…Alice? I don't think there is a person out there who can defeat the…fourteen of us on his own. No matter how well-armed or trained."

"He'll think of something… listen to me."

"We can't let you just run of on your own," Jaune told the girl. "You aren't fit enough to survive in this region."

"Think you can stop me?"

"I don't want to be a jerk or anything, but I don't think you have enough strength left to escape with violence. Not that we would want it to come to that," Jaune hastily added.

"So we will take our chances," Ruby added. "If you tell us who is after you, we can prepare accordingly."

Mantis remained silent for a few seconds, probably overthinking whether she should tell them or not, But then…"Blackwood. Mean anything to you?"

"Oh, Blackwood!" Jaune exclaimed. Then he realized that the name didn't mean anything to him. "Who's Blackwood?"

"Operative Blackwood, the Brawler," a voice behind him remarked and Jaune nearly jumped a feet in the air.

"Hey Will," Ruby greeted the newcomer without even flinching even as Jaune turned around to face him. "Did Blake or Alessa find anything?"

"Negative. We're in the clear."

"Great, another child…" Mantis muttered. For some reason, Jaune felt insulted at that remark.

"Why would he be after her?" Ruby asked.

The standing Operative shrugged. "Either she's delusional, or she pissed him off."

"Really?" Mantis sneered very weakly. "I'm delusional?"

"So what do we do now?" asked Jaune. "I mean, we're all tired exhausted from traveling these days. If we run off now…we'll only get ourselves hurt."

"We would get ourselves killed," Will corrected him.

"We will stick to the plan and leave in the morning," Ruby then said. "We should all grab some rest while we can…tomorrow we will arrive at the rendezvous point. There will be transport for us there. Blackwood won't get to anyone if he decides to show his face."

Jaune thought that Operatives liked to wear helmets, but he refrained from pointing that out. He did see something else that he wanted to point out though. "Ehm…Ruby? I don't think she got that last part." He pointed at the female soldier, who looked fast asleep.

"She fell asleep?" Ruby said, sounding shocked.

"In the few seconds that we were talking? I guess so."

"She must have been very tired."

The three of them left the sleeping Operative alone and walked away. Jaune was about to tell his team what he had heard, when something interesting came up.

"What do you think happened?" Ruby asked the soldier,

"She was pushed to her very edge by someone tracking her. That can only be Blackwood."

"So she spoke the truth?"

"Anyone else would have died. She can make entire military kill-squads disappear without getting hurt. We all can."

"So the third Operative was the one who hurt her?"

"Wounds delivered by him are severe at best. She wasn't physically assaulted; she was brought to the brink of exhaustion."

"How?"

"We were trained for days of nonstop fighting in warzones…my guess? Mantis has been on the run for Blackwood for at least…three days and three nights."

Jaune heard Ruby whistling. "Nonstop?"

"Nonstop."

Damn.

"How about food or…or supplies? Sleep?"

Damn!

"Nonstop. Noticed the dehydration? Weakness?"

"Yeah…"

The two of them walked past Jaune, after which he quickly moved away. The implications of what Will was saying were...particularly horrific. What living being was forced to fight for days at an end? No human could do that! They weren't…they weren't machines! What did Onyx expect of their soldiers? Was that the reason that Will was so severely messed up? Because of inhumane treatment? And that Blackwood…he sounded closer to a wild animal than a human. Hunting down someone to the brink of death…what sort of man did that? What kind of training had these people received anyway?

Jaune quickly found the rest of his team and tried to explain what he had heard. It was hard to repeat the words that he had heard and, judging by the response of his teammembers, even harder to believe. One thing was certain though; he did not want friends to have anything to do with those…those creeps.

In the end, Ren managed to conclude the entire Operative business with one remark.

"Those guys are weirdoes."

"Pretty much," agreed Nora.

Jaune felt the desire to openly support Ren's statement, but Pyrrha beat him to it with a remark of her own.

"Let us not forget the origin of these disturbed individuals," she said. "They are still human underneath all of their individual problems. Operative Blackwood was stated to have psychological problems…perhaps he simply needs psychiatric help?"

"I think all three of them need psychiatric help," replied Jaune.

Pyrrha looked at him with a worried expression. "Jaune, don't something like that. Will fought in a war when he was younger than you and Alice has obviously been greatly hurt in her young life. We must not judge them by their background alone."

He sighed. He didn't want to think so negatively, but…he was just afraid that all this Onyx business would end up hurting his friends. The first friends he had in a long time. He knew how team LACG had ended up after their fight with Will, back in his whole 'Saboteur' business. And team LACG was by no means weak or undisciplined. Were something like that to happen to his team…to his friends…he didn't know what he would do. Pyrrha had easily become one of, if not the most important person in his life. Thinking that she could get hurt in such a meaningless fight…unthinkable.

"Let's just go to sleep now, alright?" He finally settled for saying. "We'll have to get up early tomorrow."

It was probably for the best that they did. The next morning, the cold had crept into the warehouse and they all woke up as a result of it. When Jaune, clattering teeth and shivering limbs, finally managed to crawl out of his sleeping bag, he saw that various people were still fast asleep. Both Ruby as Yang seemed to have no problem with the freezing bite of the weather and Alessa too was still deep asleep. Both Operatives were nowhere to be found, which alarmed him greatly. With a new jolt of adrenaline in his body, Jaune crawled upright and immediately noticed that his pajamas were way too thin for this weather.

"Come on…" he growled as he desperately tried to mash his various pieces of armour plates to his clothes. "Stick!" He couldn't immediately get the straps right and because of his struggling, his advantage of having woken up early was almost spilled. Soon everyone was clothed, armed and ready to go. He grabbed his sword and shield, knowing that he might need them soon. If anyone was actually after them, they had had an entire night to track them down. He did not want to face the one responsible for tormenting Mantis so much.

Ruby and Lisa were quick to join each other and start explaining the plan for the day.

"We only have to go another ten or so kilometers until we reach the point where we won't half to walk another damn step!" exclaimed Lisa.

"Yeah!" Ruby cheerfully agreed. "So three more hours of walking and then we're finally there!"

"And then we will only have to sit in a plane for an hour," remarked Cho.

"Yes?"

"And after that, we'll probably have to march deep into the North," pointed out Ren.

"True…"

"Through deep snow and fragile ice?" finished Grace.

"I guess so."

"Well, good enough for me!" laughed Yang. "Who's up for a walk?"

Multiple clothes and two shoes thrown at her head had to suffice as an answer for the moment.

"So where are the two lovebirds?" Lisa asked at one point, when the three teams had just silently walked out of the cold warehouse. Blake and Yang started at her with very scary expressions, reminding Jaune of just how murderous women could look. He really hoped to never see Pyrrha like that…

"Way too soon," Ruby muttered with a righteous shake of her head.

"Too soon my ass!" Lisa loudly proclaimed. "They both live!"

"And they both hate each other," pointed out Grace.

"You know what they say, right? Love and hatred go arm- hey!"

At least five snowballs were thrown at her face, of which she barely managed to dodge the last two.

"You hate them too, remember?" Weiss said with a mocking expression on her face. "Do love and hate still walk side-by-side?"

"No thanks. I prefer my guys sane and less blond-"

"What's wrong with blond?" Both Jaune as Yang snapped at the blonde leader of LACG, though perhaps for different reasons. Jaune never knew that Yang had a thing for blondes…that might have made things interesting at the start of the year.

"Yup, tough audience this early in the morning. Shutting up."

Almost as if they had been waiting for the Adamant to quiet down, Will and Mantis reappeared. Both looked very dissatisfied with something, leading Jaune to conclude that it was better for everyone's health that the silly jokes were stopped.

"We're moving," Will snapped, his tone leaving no room for any toleration. Both Mantis as him were wearing their helmets, but Jaune could easily distinguish between the two of them now. Mantis' suit had all kinds of damage and holes, while Will's was still intact. Though the shape of the armour also made for easy separation of the two. Onyx really liked to put emphasis on what separated men and women from each other.

Which was the last attempt at humor that Jaune was witness of that morning, as the three teams sort of split up after that. RWBY took the lead, while both Mantis as Greystone thought it was necessary to completely split up from them all. Throughout the hour of cold, wet and painful marching that followed, he kept catching glimpses of one of the two. But they always kept at a distance, so Jaune could never properly say just which one he had seen.

"I wish they'd stop that," Ren commented as yet another dark form darted away from a tree, a dozen meters to their right. "I keep thinking it's an enemy."

"No kidding," Nora cheerfully remarked. "When the Grimm actually come, we'll just have to check for helmets instead of teeth!"

"I wish we were there yet," sighed Jaune. "My shoulders have been hurting for days now and I can't feel my hips anymore…"

"You are carrying your bag correctly, Jaune," remarked Pyrrha.

"That does not inspire confidence Pyrrha…"

Thankfully, Ruby and her teammates were sitting just up ahead, waiting by the edge of the white forest. The little redhead waved at them.

"Good," he mumbled. "Break! I like breaks…"

His breath came in small, white clouds and his hands were starting to freeze. Despite their preparations and attempts at keeping themselves warm, the cold was starting to get really annoying. And they hadn't even reached the North yet!

"Look at that," Ruby said with a really big and obvious smirk when Jaune sat down, with his team following his lead. She had cleaved down a tree, leaving them a dry spot to sit in the never-ending snow and wetness and ice. "It's so beautiful!"

Jaune looked at the direction that the hooded girl was pointing at and his breath caught in his throat. What he had first taken for the simple end of the forest, was in fact a large, white plain completely covered by ice and snow. To the left was some sort of cliff, leading up to a silvery river in the distance. It was like one of those shots in a movie, where people were standing right above a waterfall that led to a beautiful landscape in the distance. And they weren't even anywhere near the edge!

"Not far now," grinned Ruby. "See that edge to the left? The river runs down there. I think we're very close!"

She sounded so happy that Jaune felt the desire to give her a hug. He would have given her a hug, but his arms felt like they were frozen to hi waist; he couldn't really move them around that well.

"I think it's time for a fire," Yang told them. "Be right back."

While Yang left to…probably gather some firewood…Jaune took another good look at the white, desolate region that they had to cross. The forest continued a hundred meters to the right and two-hundred meters to the front. They could possibly circle around and cross through the forest there…but this was a much better alternative.

LACG quickly caught up to them and by the time Yang had returned with her arms full of broken branches and twigs, the two spooky Operatives had also returned. Their armour looked ghastly white in the presence of the snow and it seemed to give them the perfect camouflage. Though it did not look very comfortable…

A brilliant flare lit up behind him and suddenly he was warm! Glorious warm!

"There we go," Yang said with a smile. The pile of wood had caught fire and the snow and ice in a radius of at least three meters had molten away. "Now we can all warm up before we continue!"

"I don't think you need any warming up," commented Blake. She looked grumpy…could it be that cats didn't thrive well in the snow?

"So…any idea what we'll be waiting for?" Grace asked as she warmed her hands above the fire.

"A plane," Greystone replied to her. "We'll cross the sea with it."

"You guys are actually going to the Northern continent?" asked Mantis.

"Yep," smiled Ruby.

"You're all nuts."

"Probably," Cho replied with his ever-amused voice.

"But it's gonna be awesome!" exclaimed Lisa.

"Why are you still coming with us then?" Weiss sneered at the girl. "You can leave anytime you want."

She didn't reply to that. The satisfaction that Weiss probably felt was short-lived though. She sat down with a smug smile, a vial of Dust fell out of one of her pockets and Ruby promptly and violently sneezed. Two seconds later, a large hump of snow fell out of the trees above and completely smothered the fire.

Three seconds of silence. Then Alessa said: "That's what you get for not properly sealing our Dust."

Weiss was not amused, but Ruby grabbed her by her shoulders before the situation could turn painful. Why was she looking like she already had another motivational speech ready for them? "Well, that's our cue! We might as well take our leave then! We need someone to scout our right flank though…I don't like those trees."

"Alessa, take the flank," Lisa told her teammate.

"Blake, go with her. Nothing can creep up on you two together," added Ruby. The two girls nodded and disappeared into the woods, leaving a rather awkward silence behind.

"Well, this is going to be fun," sneered Weiss. She was met with few and grumpy reactions. But everyone still got to their feet and donned their bags again. Jaune´s shoulders screamed in protest, despite Nora having gleefully relieved him of some weight before. But they were almost there…almost there…

The three teams (and two Operatives) slowly and warily stepped onto the white plains. Once the first few students –his team in this case- had verified that they would not die a painful, snowy death due to breaking the ice, they all continued in their previous pace. The ground felt weird…Jaune didn't slip over ice, but he also didn't disappear in a thick layer of snow. He had grip…actual grip! He didn't trust it; it had to be a trap.

"So…Jaune," Pyrrha slowly said as she slowed down to walk next to him, "I've been meaning to tell you something for a while now."

"Oh?"

"Y-yes. You know…things have been rather strange lately…with the things happening in Vale. Right?"

He nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. "Right."

"And…well, I…"

"Is everything alright Pyrrha? You look all red around your cheeks?"

"Yes! I'm fine! I've…I just wanted to say that…I think you have been a really great leader so far!"

That surprised him. "Really?"

"Yes…and I think that-"

"Wait, what's that?" Ren suddenly said, pointing at the forest ahead of them. They hadn't walked more than fifty meters yet and something was already wrong? Wrong enough that Ren had to interrupt Pyrrha for it?

Pyrrha looked at him and smiled awkwardly. Jaune returned the gesture and quickly made his way to his friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. "What do you see?"

"Something's moving there…I can't see what it is yet."

Jaune squinted and tried to make out the figure ahead of them. It looked like some black spot on the horizon…only it was growing bigger.

"I think we should warn the others," Ren told him.

"Right. Nora? Tell the rest that we might be in trouble."

"Sir!" She saluted him and darted off to the other two teams, which were marching just a dozen meters behind them.

"I think it's a Grimm…" Ren said and grabbed his weapons.

"It could be a human. Wait it out."

The figure was steadily getting closer to them, to the point that Jaune could make out a rough human shape on it. The black appearance stood out against the snow, though it would occasionally glimmer with white. Almost as if it was both colours at once…a sort of camouflage. Where had he seen that before?

"That's a human!" Ren said with a surprised voice.

"Yeah…I guess so…" Jaune replied, racking his mind for where he had seen that pattern before. He almost had it…

LACG took up a position to their left, while RWBY took a position to their right. They were ready for trouble. The two Operatives were hard to spot…they were still gleaming white…ish…uh-oh.

"Ren?" Jaune carefully asked, a feeling of severe panic starting to spread through his stomach. He did not like the way his voice sounded now. "I think we're in trouble."

"Why?"

"What was the third Operative called again?"

"The third Operative? How so?"

"Just…just bear with me. His name?"

"I…guess it was Black-something. Can't remember…" His features were stern for a few second, as if he was trying to recall something vague. "Heard they called him Brawler though."

The figure that was striding towards them with large steps was obviously human and obviously armoured. But there was something about that assured stride…that totally aggressive approach…it was all wrong.

"I think we should warn the others," Jaune softly said.

"Why? Who is this guy?"

"His name is-"

And then the fear struck. It started with an odd, creeping sensation in the back of his mind, tremoring through his head and causing a slight panic. Within a second, it grew totally out of control and burrowed itself deep within his consciousness, stripping him of nearly all of his rationality. His legs started to shake and his shoulders lost what little strength was left, leaving him completely trembling. The horror was so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that he quickly forgot just what had caused the fear. Fear was all that was left –it reached to the bone, deep within his soul…

Several people around him started screaming and shouting and the dark, monstrous figure approached them uninterrupted, its legs carrying it closer and closer and closer and closer.

Jaune didn't know what was happening. He didn't know anything but the primal fear that tore at his mind, the horrifying and pure dread that came out of nowhere and was now clutching at his heart. And he could see it all; he could see death coming for him. He could see the end of his life approaching him with the speed of a forced shadow and there was nothing there, just the black mass threatening to consume him. The figure reached behind its back and pulled out a weapon, the workings and appearance of which escaped his mind.

Someone pulled at his shoulders and took him to the ground, after which several hot objects soared over him. His head slammed against the cold ground and the shadows clutching at his soul snapped free, loosening the grip on his mind.

He blinked a few times and found that he had instinctively reached for his head, which was throbbing and aching. Lisa Adamant was kneeling next to him, her large and bladed rifle aimed at something he could not see and her features contorted into a silent growl. The shouts of various people came right back to him as he tried to puzzle together what had happened.

"Watch out!" She then yelled and grabbed him by a plate of armour, pulling him out of the way as another black figure sprinted past him. "What the hell is wrong with you!"

But Jaune saw that he wasn't the only one who had frozen up. In the chaotic battlefield, one large figure was being attacked by two smaller figures. One was responsible for the rhythmic shots that he had been hearing and the other one was rushing straight at the large one. When he looked around, he saw that there were very few people capable of actually moving. Lisa was one of them, Yang and Nora were the others.

He realized that the three trashing figures had to be the Operatives, but the skirmish was cut off abruptly as the big guy performed a slashing motion with a large blade and nearly cut Mantis in half vertically. The girl narrowly avoided that fate by performing a backward summersault, after which Greystone immediately backed out of the fight. Why were they being so extremely defensive? The big guy wasn't even facing them yet!

Lisa fired off another round at the large Operative, who stood at least six-and-a-half feet tall. Then she ran off to her own team, where both Cho as Grace were standing like frozen children. They weren't the only ones though; Ren and even Pyrrha were not moving and while Nora pulled Ren right off his feet and slapped some snow into his face, Pyrrha only took a trembling step backwards.

Jaune, cursing his weak legs, ran towards his partner and grabbed her by her shoulders, trying to pull her with him to a safer place. "Pyrrha! Come on, wake up!" What was with her?

He gave powerful tug and the girl's right foot came off the ground, after which she nearly tumbled backwards. Her large ponytail got in his face and when he brushed it away, he caught a glimpse of tears blinking in Pyrrha's green eyes.

"What…" she muttered, as if she had been hypnotized.

"Pyrrha, work with me!" He exclaimed, after which the girl snapped out it.

"I…Jaune? What…what happened?"

"It's him!"

"H-him?"

"It's the guy! The Brawler, he's here!"

"Here? Then…Jaune, we must safe our friends!" The girl then snapped.

"I know, that's what I've been trying to do! You were frozen or something…just like the rest. They wouldn't move!"

"I…I felt…"

"I know Pyrrha, I felt the same. But we need to move now!"

It seemed that whatever this guy's semblance was, it had to do with influencing the mind. Paralyzing or incapacitating with extreme emotions and then striking…why hadn't Lisa or Nora been affected though? Or Yang, who was currently trying to wake her own friends out of their nightmare?

"Get him!" Ruby yelled the second she had snapped out of her fear-induced state, planting her Scythe into the ground and aiming the gun at the Operative, who was now standing roughly a dozen meters away from them, leering at them with his scarred helmet. He looked like a true monster: his helmet was heavily damaged, his visor had cracks and cuts running all over it and the snow underneath his feet was red with bloody footsteps. And as if his appearance wasn't bad enough, it was also starting to snow. It was as if the sky itself mourned this encounter, shedding tears. Jaune knew that it was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't get rid of it.

There was a two-second break after Ruby shouted, but then everyone aimed their weapons and opened fire at the Operative. It was overkill; nothing could live where that lethal, searing barrage of projectiles, dust and energy impacted. But the Operative…he moved –moved with an inhuman elegance and precision that seemed terribly out of place for one of his posture. He took a large, diagonal stride to avoid some of the heavier shots like Lisa's and Nora's and then leaped in the air, firing his own large weapon four times in rapid succession. His weapon looked identical to Lisa's in every way, except that it was easily twice as big and that the blade was black. Why did this monster and the Adamant have the same weapon?

Bullets and projectiles slammed into the soldier's body even as his own fire impacted in their ranks, forcing many of them to jump, roll or otherwise out of the way. Pyrrha absorbed one shot with her shield –and got knocked back at least ten feet for her troubles. Yang pushed Ruby, who still had her scythe embedded into the thick ice, out of the way and launched several red-hot projectiles at the Operative, who dodged them by rolling in midair and then landed on the ground with a violent shake, burying the blade of his weapon deep into the ice as well.

Jaune recognized Yang's blasts as the ones that Lisa had saved him from earlier. Who had opened hostilities? Was this man simply defending himself or was he seeking to slaughter them all? There was no time to think about such things; the fight was simply transpiring too fast for that. One second the Brawler was in their midst, having just missed cutting Yang in half with his weapon, but the next second he was gone and Weiss had erupted a giant burst of fire in his place.

Jaune couldn't follow it all –he couldn't organize his team fast enough. Nora and Ren met the soldier head-on, but he simply leant backwards to avoid the initial hammer-strike and retaliated by lashing out with a kick at Nora. The girl only just placed her hammer in-between the attacking limb and herself, but that did not stop the attack. She got knocked back a good six meters while Ren opened fire on the Brawler.

"What happened?" Jaune shouted at nobody in particular. It was Yang who answered him, her eyes red and her body burning with fire.

"It's Blackwood! He came out of nowhere and nearly killed Mantis!" she replied.

"Wait, nearly killed her? How did she live?"

Next it was Ruby who answered her. "She was there on second, the next she was gone. Her semblance has to be teleportation or something."

"What are we going to do?"

"We're going to kick him back where he came from!" The redhead informed him and then she charged into the fray again.

Jaune looked around for something, anything that might give them a hand in the fight. This Blackwood was outnumbered worse than ten to one and he was kicking their asses with ease; Nora was now walking with a severe limp, Ren had been struck by a blow that left him lying on the ground with his arm positioned in an unnatural way and the ground was literally burning. Grace couldn't keep up with the rapid movements of the combatants and as a result, she had coated the ground with flames without ever harming the Brawler.

There were a few shattered pieces of metal lying near the forest…a broken-down car was stuck in the ice near the riverside and the ground was trembling with explosions and gunshots. Jaune rushed into combat with his sword and his shield in his hands, but he had no delusions that he could do anything useful by simply fighting. Blackwood was moving too fast and his friends weren't moving much slower. Mantis in particular was a blur of movements as she flipped around, underneath and over the Brawler, slashing and stabbing at each weak spot that would kill a man. Yang, Pyrrha and Greystone were fighting him in close-quarters and Cho and Lisa were moving to help them.

"Grace, rig this area now!" Lisa shouted at her demolitions expert. "I want this ice-cube shattered and him lying at the bottom of the river!"

That was an idea…a very excellent one. "Lisa," he replied loudly as Blackwood managed to get another projectile out of the fray. "What can we do to help?"

Cho shot his electric synapses at the massive Operative, but it didn't even slow him down. The wires impacted, the dosage was delivered and the electricity that could kill an Ursa failed to even slow the Brawler down. Nora got hit by another explosive round and went down this time, her legs unable to carry her body.

"Get him in the blast zone!"

Jaune analyzed the again. The ice was cracked in multiple places and at one point, he could even see that the ground was hollow somewhere. That might be useful in this madness.

Pyrrha and Ruby both started exchanging blows with the Brawler, pelting him with the massive scythe and the sharp spear respectively. Despite the fact that he had been hit by every weapon at least once, he still didn't go down. He simply shrugged off every single attack as if it meant nothing; his armour was damaged, breached, burnt and battered and his movement's hadn't ceased. The only reason that he hadn't managed to move that much around was because he was constantly moving on the defensive as well as being restricted by Weiss, who had somehow managed to channel her Dust in such a way that she was now pinning the Brawler's limbs down. Or at least, that was what she had once explained to him; a specific attack meant to restrict the movement of even the largest Grimm. Well, this guy was only slowed down by her move and by the looks of it, it was costing Weiss a lot of energy to achieve that. She was down on one knee and the combatants couldn't keep the guy down.

"Force him back!" Ruby shouted as she moved back several meters.

"Grace, did you ready the area yet?" Lisa called out. Grace gave her a thumbs-up and then quickly dove out of the way of an incoming projectile. "Ruby! We're good!"

"Pyrrha," yelled Jaune, "drop this guy!"

But Pyrrha didn't hear him. Blackwood has just managed to break through both Ruby and Yang's defenses by somehow making them attack each other and as the two fell to the ground, Pyrrha faced against him.

"We don't need to fight," she told him, going so far as to lower her shield in the process. "We are not your enemy. We can help-"

Blackwood growled. It was an actual, audible growl that sounded inhumanly menacing. Pyrrha averted her face as if someone had struck her and for a split-second, her defenses lapsed.

Perfectly making use of that split-second, the Brawler struck He jumped at her with a spin and attempted to cleave her head off, but then…then a figure darted to the front and…something happened and suddenly Pyrrha was standing a few meters away, supporting a bleeding Operative Mantis.

"Fire in the hole!" Lisa yelled and Jaune felt someone jerking at his hood to pull him back. The next thing he knew, the entire world exploded and he was both deaf and blind. He was vaguely aware of the fact that the ground was crumbling underneath his feet and that people were screaming. He blinked a few times and coughed.

"What…what was…" his sight slowly cleared and he was able to take in what had happened. A large sheet of ice had been broken off by Grace's bombs and both Blackwood as Ruby were stuck as the ice broke collapsed on itself and succumbed to gravity.

Jaune looked behind him and saw that it was Will who was dragging him away from the explosion site. The soldier was bleeding, but he still had all his limbs. People were slowly recovering around him and as soon as Pyrrha, bleeding from a gash on her cheek, saw him, she ran towards him.

"Jaune!" She yelled as she pulled him in a hug. "You are alright!"

"Yeah," he muttered, feeling a heat rising to his face that had nothing to do with explosives. "Is the rest alright?"

The girl didn't answer her, but before Jaune could press for answers he heard someone else yelling.

"Jump Ruby!"

He crept upright and watched what was going on. He and Pyrrha were sitting just near the edge of the cliff, where the large section of ice was slowly crumbling apart. Ruby had stayed behind on the collapsing part of the plateau to keep the Brawler busy long enough for him to fall prey to the plan. Grace's timing with the explosives had been impeccable and Ruby had immediately grasped what Lisa's intention had been.

"Coming!" The redhead gave one last look at Blackwood, who was jumping from one piece of falling ice to another in a desperate attempt to get back to them, before firing her Crescent Rose and propelling herself into the air, away from the Operative.

The falling ice was breaking apart faster than she was able to react though. As she took her jump, the ice underneath her feet shattered and threw her off balance again, just like on the bridge. She didn't get enough leverage or speed to properly make it to the other side; she was going to fall.

Jaune saw Yang leaping off the cliff and reaching for her sister, seemingly oblivious from the fact that she too would fall if she didn't have anything to hold on to. But then, out of nowhere and as if she had been waiting for this, Blake darted past Jaune and threw her weapon at Yang. The blonde raised her arm and allowed the black lint to wrap around her gauntlet, holding Ruby by her waist in her other arm. She swung against the cliff and Blake nearly slipped as the lint grew rigid with the weight of both Yang and Ruby.

Cho and Lisa both rushed towards Blake and grabbed a hold of her, preventing her from falling after her teammates.

"Yes!" Jaune yelled.

And then Blackwood, defying gravity and human limits, performed one last leap and flung himself in the air after Ruby and Yang.

"No!"

The Operative disappeared from Jaune's view and for a brief second, the only thing he saw was Yang and Ruby being helped up by Cho, Lisa and Blake. Jaune could only hope that that…that monster…had missed. That it had missed and fallen…fallen and drowned in the merciless grip of the freezing river.

A black gauntlet appeared and then, before Yang could even do more than hug her sister, Brawler hauled himself back up using only that one hand.

It was impossible! They had shot the guy, stabbed him, blasted him and then exploded him! No living being should be alive at this point! He had been hunting Mantis down for three days, three! How were they supposed to fight something like that!

"Weiss!" Blake yelled, opening fire on the abomination, quickly followed by Pyrrha and Lisa.

"She's down," Yang replied as she unleashed the contents of her gauntlets into Blackwood's face. The Operative took all those projectiles without even flinching and there was no mistaken it –this time he had his attention focused on Ruby. He was standing rigid and tall, taking all the damage that the remaining fighters could dish out without any apparent reason.

And then he moved, at the same time that both Greystone and Pyrrha moved. The brave redhead cut loose and unleashed a devastating combo of spear-and-shield attacks on the brute, followed by Will who, despite his classification as the Marksman, displayed some impressive martial arts.

But Blackwood was too fast. He assumed a strange position, his legs spread out and his body lowered so that it was at the same height as Pyrrha was, before starting to deflect all of their attacks. There was no mistaking it; despite Pyrrha's skills, polarity and creativity, the Brawler had no difficulty parrying and blocking all of her strikes. She jumped over him, vaulted past him and at one point even spun completely around him, using every form that her weapon could turn into. She slashed, hacked, thrust and shot at every possible place on Blackwood's body using what had to be every ounce of her considerable skill. Augmenting that, Will unleashing an arsenal of wicked-looking moves at his fellow Operative; he utilized his knees, elbows, knives and at one point even the butt of his pistol to crack pieces of the soldier's armour and weaken him for Pyrrha to finish the fight.

And Brawler kept up. Growling and hissing he kept up with every single move and prevented himself from being hurt using the weirdest movements Jaune had ever seen. He recognized one move from an action-movie though, where Pyrrha performed several vertical slashes aimed at his head, which he deflected using only his right forearm, bending it up and down with blinding speed to prevent the girl from hurting him.

And then he did something else, leaving Will convulsing and thrashing on the ground and Pyrrha at least eight meters away. She had left an obvious trail through the ice, made by her armour and weapon scraping through the ground. She tried to get to her feet, but her knees buckled and she fell down again.

Jaune couldn't believe it. Pyrrha Nikos defeated? In a fight? That was impossible! What was this Blackwood?

Jaune gripped his word tighter and started running towards the nemesis, discarding the thoughts that he was most likely going to die. The image of Pyrrha, once proud and strong and now lying broken on the ground had snapped something inside of him. He wanted to cut the soldier´s damn helmet off his head and skewer him on his sword. To hurt him like he had hurt his partner.

Blackwood stepped to the fallen Greystone and raised his boot above his head, his intent clear. Jaune couldn't get there in time; the ice was too slippery, his legs too weak. He wouldn't reach the monster in time-

With a loud cry, Yang flung herself at Blackwood and actually pushed him back, buying him the precious second that Will needed to roll away. He had his arms wrapped around his ribs and he was having difficulty standing, but at least he could still stand.

Yang was on fire –quite literally. The ice around her was melting and her entire body was covered in a burning corona of yellow flames. Her eyes were dark red and her punches came with so much force that shockwaves shook the ground with each impact. Not just that; her punches were strong enough to completely shatter the ice underneath Blackwood's feet, despite the force going straight through him. She was pushing the Brawler back; overcoming him with sheer blunt force alone.

Ruby leaped at the fray and Jaune managed to reach the fighting couple as well. For a second, it looked like Yang had overwhelmed the Operative. But then Blackwood lashed out with a punch that was too fast to even follow, let alone dodge. Yang only managed to bring her arms in front of her face to block it, but she was still knocked half a dozen meters back. Her disappearance bought Ruby and Jaune the openings they needed, but then the Brawler's head turned towards Jaune and the same primal fear that had frozen him before returned to him. His legs faltered and his arms grew weak, but then Ruby fired a round straight into Blackwood's gut and his attention shifted to her again. Jaune's capacity to fight returned a second later and he swung his sword at the monster, aiming at his stomach-

And then, somehow, Ruby's body got flung against his and they crashed into the ground together. Jaune felt the air leaving his lungs as he fell flat on his back, the redhead flying off his body and disappearing from his view. That was when things started happening really fast and blurry. His chest was screaming in agony and breathing hurt.

Alessa and Mantis both attacked Brawler at once, while Blake aimed at his back with her cleaver. The soldier spun around and planted his elbow in Blake´s face, only he didn't hit Blake and the Faunus was standing a few meters away with Mantis by her side. Alessa managed to skewer Blackwood in his foot, but it didn't stop him and he performed a spinning kick to her face. Somehow, the air exploded and Alessa got knocked back as Lisa rushed forwards, her rifle smoking.

Jaune groaned and his vision spun around and got darker for a second. When he was looking again, he saw that Yang was facing off against the monster once more. She unloaded her gauntlets at his body with each punch, but the Brawler mimicked her movements and pushed her limbs away before they could make contact with his body.

Then the soldier brought both of his elbows to her face, forcing the girl to dodge. Immediately after that he kneed her in her stomach and threw her to the ground.

"Yang!" screamed Will.

"Don't worry!" Ruby told him, her voice weaker than before. "With each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back! It's what makes her special!"

Greystone's next statement chilled Jaune more than the ice and the snow and his distress only made it that much worse. "Ruby, so does he!" After that, the Operative rushed towards the two fighters, but by then it was too late.

Blackwood must have heard Ruby's remark or something similar, or he was just plain tired of playing around. Either way, he assumed a completely new position and leant forwards. When Yang rushed him with her gauntlets protecting her face, the Operative extended his arm and delivered an open palm-strike at her chest, somehow circumventing her defense and snaking past her arms.

Yang uttered a short, choked cry and fell to the ground. No flying backwards, no marks in the snow, nothing. She fell where she stood and she didn't get up again.

It was silent for a few, impossible seconds. To Jaune, reality had warped itself then and there. This had to be a dream…a nightmare. Nobody was capable of taking out both Pyrrha and Yang in close-quarters. This wasn't happening…this wasn't happening.

"Yang!" Ruby's scream cut through his heart and soul, hurting him more than anything had ever done before.

And Will, despite having never lost control before, managed to come close to that same effect. "No!" He screamed with a ragged voice, which rose in its pitch at the end.

The Brawler stared at Yang's body for a second before uttering another, soft growl. Then he shoved her aside with his boot and went straight for Ruby.

Will reached for a pistol, sprinting towards the monster while doing so. But a dull 'click' was his only response when he pulled the trigger and Blackwood didn't even bother to kill him. The Operative simply threw him aside with one arm and Will landed close to Yang, in a wretched form of irony.

He did not get up either.

Ruby was trembling heavily. Tears were falling from her face and she was paler than Jaune had ever seen her before. He willed his body to move and sluggishly walked up to her, stepping in front of her. He heard her ragged breathing, her silent crying. He turned his back to her wide, shocked eyes and ignored the mile-long stare in her eyes.

"Pick…on someone…your…own size!" he muttered, his body lurching with pain over each word.

The Operative growled menacingly, but his head snapped up with a sudden movement and Jaune heard something cracking behind him. Blackwood flexed his hands and assumed a new position, presenting Jaune with a small window to grab Ruby and pull her out of harm's way. He recognized the familiar tinkling of Pyrrha's armour and he didn't want the little redhead to stand in the way.

Pyrrha looked absolutely pissed. If the Brawler's expressionless and empty visor was scary, Pyrrha's expression was downright terrifying. No angry scowl or disapproving frown this time. Her lips were curled back in a feral snarl and her eyes radiated pure hatred. She looked like she was going to murder someone and for this one time in his life, Jaune hoped that his enemy would die. That he would disappear with the fury of Mistral's best.

Pyrrha moved with her arms and on cue, the ice around them started cracking and breaking. Then shattering. It took Jaune a moment to piece together what she was doing, but when he saw the pieces of metal he had seen before rising in the air and converging on them, he knew what was going on.

Pyrrha was cutting loose completely.

Blackwood shrieked –an inhuman, monstrous scream of pure rage. The fury hidden in its voice ran parallel with Pyrrha's own fury, but she had this one. At least a dozen of the car-sized metal blooms and spires surged towards them and spiraled around the Operative, zeroing in on him.

But something was wrong; Pyrrha was bleeding from one corner of her mouth and she was clenching her teeth. How much energy was she burning with this?

She clenched her fists and pointed them at Blackwood, signaling the metal to do its bloody work. The sharp, metal fringes collided with the Brawler and enveloped him in a deadly embrace, binding his limbs and tearing through his suit. One large piston in particular lunged towards his chest and seemingly penetrated his body, smashing through his armour and hopefully his entire chest-cavity.

The Operative screamed in rage and broke free with one of his arms. Pyrrha moaned loudly, one of her knees succumbing. Then, with one movement of her wrists, she launched the metal –and the soldier wrapped inside of it- over the edge of the ice plateau.

With one last screech, the monster plummeted over the edge and disappeared into the river a hundred meters below. Gone.

Pyrrha gasped and collapsed, the overwhelming use of her semblance catching up to her.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune yelled and, ignoring the pain in his chest, ran up to his partner. This was wrong…this was all wrong. How many had died? Who was still alive? Who was hurt? "Someone, I need help!"

He grabbed his partner and lifted her from the ground, cradling her body as carefully as possible. "Pyrrha, hang in there! We're going to get you out of this, you hear me? We're all….we're all going to be alright."

She slowly opened her eyes and smiled at him. She looked paler than ever. "Jaune…did we get him?"

"Yes…" he whispered back. "You finished him good. Right over the edge..."

"You need to check on the others."

"But-"

She slowly raised herself and reached for her head with one hand. "Jaune…you are too kind. I'm just very tired…others need your help."

"I don't want to leave you," he told her.

Pyrrha only smiled. "Be a leader, Jaune."

He nodded, understanding what she meant. Nora and Ren had been hurt…he needed to check up on them. See if they were alright.

"I'll be back," he promised.

"You sound like Braunschweiger…" she said, her voice dropping in volume. Jaune gently lowered her body again and stood. The pain in his chest was only getting worse. This wasn't a victory…the cost had been too high. Way too high.

He saw someone stumbling towards him and he couldn't recognize her for a moment.

"Jaune?"

"Grace?" He asked, recognizing the demolitions expert's voice.

"Yeah…who do you got over there?"

"Pyrrha…she's hurt."

Grace walked over to him with a noticeable limp in her stride. "Lisa needs you to find out who needs help the most. Cho's got a mangled leg, but he'll live. We can't find Alessa though…"

"On it," he muttered. He looked around the battlefield and saw more people standing. He saw Ren moving to a fallen Nora, clutching his arm. Jaune immediately headed over to his teammates, hoping that their injuries weren't too severe.

"Hey," he said as he approached Ren, hoping that his voice didn't sound as panicked as he thought it did.

"Hey," replied Ren. He sounded like he was in pain…his arm must be broken.

"How is she?"

Nora groggily rose and groaned softly. "My head…someone smacked me with my own hammer."

She was still in a mood to crack jokes. Good. "How are you, Nora?" Asked Jaune.

"My legs hurt… how are you?"

Jaune chuckled. "Not so bad, considering you two…can you stand?"

The answer was immediate. "Nope."

He sighed. "Ren…do you know how to heal others?"

"No."

"Alright…you two stay here. Ren? Find something to function as a bracer for your arm. Your backpack had a first aid-kit. Nora? Help him take care of his arm when he has the stuff."

"Got it."

As his friends jumped at their assigned task, Jaune looked around again to see who else he could help. He saw Lisa bandaging Cho up with a first aid kit she had taken from her bag. So he wasn't the only one who had thought of that…good.

Then he saw Blake supporting Ruby and attempting to calm her down, but Ruby was too distressed to listen.

"Yang," she cried. "Where's Yang?"

Jaune saw that the blonde sister lay a good eight meters away from him and remembered how she had been taken down. Cold fear gripped his chest and he rushed towards her, ignoring his chest protesting in agony. Will was leaning over Yang and feverishly trying to determine what was wrong with her.

"Will," Jaune yelled as soon as he had approached them. "How is she?"

"She isn't breathing," the soldier replied with no small amount of distress. He sounded like he was completely losing it. "She's got no pulse! Her heart stopped!"

"Alright," Jaune muttered, trying to remember what his mother had taught him about that. "Alright...alright…" Stopped heart…not breathing…heart-massage…CPR.

"What do I do?" the soldier cried out, looking at Jaune with desperation in his eyes. "How do I fix her?"

Jaune couldn't remember how to actually perform cardiac massage, but he knew how it would work in theory. "Resuscitate her, give her a heart massage. But hurry!"

The soldier wasted zero time in getting to work. He bent over Yang, pinched her nose and performed what Jaune recognized as artificial respiration. Then he placed both of his hands at her chest and started pumping. It was strange how he knew exactly what to do, but that he hadn't thought of it on his own. Will had never been one to lose his head in a stressful situation…so why?

"Ruby," Jaune then yelled, "over here! She's over here!"

While Will worked tirelessly to bring Yang back around, Ruby and Blake ran up to Jaune. Ruby immediately dropped down right next to her sister in a desperate gesture, but Blake managed to keep her head just a bit longer.

"How is your team?" She asked him.

"Grace's helping Pyrrha; she's exhausted from semblance overuse. I think Ren has a broken arm and Nora a broken leg, but they are helping each other right now. You?"

"Weiss has the same as Pyrrha. Alessa is currently making sure that she won't overexert herself. When we couldn't find Yang…"

"Blackwood did something to her," replied Jaune. "She wasn't breathing."

Behind them, someone exploded into a loud coughing fir. Jaune spun around and saw that Ruby was clinging to her sister like her life depended on it, burying her face in her hair. Yang was sitting upright, her arms wrapped around her chest. Jaune couldn't see her expression, as her long hair concealed her face.

"She's breathing now," Blake said with a smile.

"Yeah," he replied. His relief warmed his chest and eased the pain that he had been feeling. Everyone was alright…nobody had died. Yang lived, Pyrrha lived…everybody lived. A sense of victory overtook him. "We did it!" he said, even as Ruby pulled Yang into a painful-looking hug. "We beat the Brawler…we beat him!"

"Technically, Pyrrha flung him over the edge," Blake replied.

…that's right, Pyrrha! Now that everybody was alright, he had to check up on her!

He wanted to turn around and run towards his partner, but Blake placed a hand on his shoulder and said: "Jaune, we have company."

"Who-?" Jaune looked in the direction that Blake was pointing at and saw that three men had emerged from the treeline on the other side of the cliff. They pointed and yelled something and then ran towards their position. They were unarmed.

"I think we alerted the locals."

"Murph, look!" One of the men yelled at the other one. "There's people here! Actual people!"

"What happened lass?" another one asked Blake, who quickly checked if her bow was still up. These men looked trustworthy enough; simple winter-coats and hats, red and running noses and no weapons at all. They must have come running because of the explosions and violence.

"We uhh…" Jaune couldn't think of an explanation soon enough.

"We ran into a Grimm ambush," Ruby said without missing a beat. She was still holding Yang close in her arms, with Will sitting on the ice a few feet away. He looked detached…staring at a point where nothing important was. Had the encounter with Blackwood shocked him so much?

"Grimm?" shouted one of the men. "Settle 'em up Bob, we're getting out of here! Pearl's just a few miles away."

"Pearl?" asked Blake. "Is that a city?"

"The harbor's beauty, missy. Pearl's the coast-city." His expression turned serious. "Who are you people even? Where did you come from?"

Lisa, supporting Cho, joined them in the conversation. "Students from Beacon, in Vale. Can you get us a ride?"

"A ride? Sure can do miss," the man called 'Bob said while he fixed his hat. "We came here with our trucks when we heard this commotion. Where to?"

Jaune looked at Ruby, who gave him a weak smile. "This Pearl sounds good."

"Good. We're gonna have to make some room; the logs are too heavy to carry."

Logs?

"Are you lumberjacks?" asked Ruby, who had probably gotten the same message.

"Right 'o! When the cold creeps in, we go and get us some good ol' fashion wood to burn. Can you walk with that leg?" Murph, sporting an impressive beard, asked Cho.

"I got him," replied Lisa.

Jaune quickly performed a head count to see if everyone was alright. Ren, with a broken arm, was supporting Nora, who probably had a broken leg. Pyrrha could walk on her own, albeit with a severe limp. Jaune settled for grabbing her by her waist and taking her arm over his shoulders, supporting him as Ren was supporting Nora.

She gave him an odd look, but he smiled at her and she quickly looked away. To her, the thought of being carried by who was probably the least talented person on school might probably be a little embarrassing. But he didn't care; as long as she was fine, he was fine.

LACG fared better than JNPR: Grace and Lisa were battered, bloody and wounded, but they move freely. Alessa only had a few cuts and bruises, while Cho's leg had been carved up pretty badly. His entire leg had been wrapped up tightly with spare clothes and the like to stop the bleeding.

Ruby, having had a severe emotional shock, was walking next to Weiss, helping Blake support her. Weiss had expended all of her energy trying to keep Blackwood down with her glyphs…unsuccessfully so. It seemed that Ruby trusted Will with Yang, as the Operative was carrying the blonde on his arms. His armour was breached at several points and his helmet hung uselessly at his waist. Pyrrha took the whole 'helped-by-a-guy' thing way better than Yang did; the girl looked absolutely ashamed of being held like that, judging by her flushed cheeks and her awkward expression.

Jaune disagreed though. Her heart had been stopped. The Brawler had stopped her most important organ with one single blow and she had very nearly died. Some might even argue that she had actually died for a brief moment. She had every reason to be carried by someone else, though Jaune understood her obvious discomfort. They had just taken massive casualties fending off one Operative and now she was being carried by another one. He wouldn't have trusted Will with that.

Wait a minute…where was Mantis?

As the three teams followed the trio of lumberjacks to where their 'trucks' were parked, Jaune asked Pyrrha if she had seen Mantis.

"Mantis lost consciousness two-thirds into the fight," explained Pyrrha. "Alessa is supporting her."

Mantis must not weigh a lot of Alessa could carry her. The girl always looked rather frail, despite her choice of combat obviously being up close and personal. Jaune had seen the girl only once or twice during the fight, as she and Blake had shown up just in time to help them. She must have not been very successful with her claws, as not even high-caliber bullets and explosives had killed Blackwood. Didn't her blindfold get in the way at all? Did she have some sort of way to see, like actual blind people could feel? Was it some sixth sense, like echo-location? The girl was as much an enigma as the two Operatives were.

But Jaune would take what he could get. They had all survived, Pyrrha had killed the Brawler and they were going to get out of that accursed field of ice. These three men from Pearl had been a gift from above; they might be weird with their carefree behaviour and odd accents, but if they were so kind as to transport fourteen hurt and exhausted teens all the way to the city, they were better than the majority of people out there.

Though Jaune wondered how they were going to fit inside of the cars, he did not voice his worries. He was glad enough to be close to Pyrrha, holding her as they walked through the thick forest. He had a lot of things to think about, but none of them were important at the moment.

"You were magnificent out there," he told her.

"I was unable to best him."

"But you did! At the end, you totally kicked his ass with metal and flung him into the river. You killed Operative Blackwood."

"I did not defeat him, Jaune. His technique was better than mine…even without a weapon. I had to resort to using every ounce of my power to take him down…had I made a mistake, I would have died."

"You don't make mistakes, remember? Both Mantis as Greystone couldn't do what you did."

"I did not mean to kill him. I just wanted to stop him."

"There was nothing lost with him. The guy was a monster."

"We did not even understand his motives, Jaune."

"Ehm…Pyrrha? That's not what I meant. Think about it: he was said to have been chasing Mantis for three days at and end, right?"

"Yes?"

"So before he fought us, he had already been hunting for three days. And barely anything we did hurt him."

"He did bleed."

"During the first few moments, yes. After that, he just kept going. He just wouldn't die. Not even that regenerating Grimm-thing could have won against us…yet he shrugged off everything."

"Perhaps his Semblance is healing?"

"No, he-"

"We're here!" said Bob, gesturing at a large tree.

"Ehm…what?" asked Ruby, who was still clinging to a pale Weiss. "I don't…I don't see it?"

"Oh shit," muttered Lisa. "I think I do."

"What?" exclaimed Jaune. "Where? I don't see it."

"Jaune," Pyrrha said as she pointed at a point past the tree. "Look."

He did as she said and then something clicked in place in his mind. What he had first taken for a fallen tree, was in fact the trunk of a massive car. It was completely white, fitting in perfectly with the background. The tires alone were larger than a full-grown man and the back of the truck was large enough to fit at least half a dozen trees. Hell, the truck alone was large enough to transport a Death-Stalker on its own. And there were two of the things!

The reactions varied among the teams, but everyone seemed to agree that they had reached the end of their destination. They were safe now.

"Hop along people, we got a schedule to follow!" called one of the men.

Pyrrha grinned at Jaune. "We made it Jaune!"

"I know! We can head out to the North today! Man…I thought we'd never make it."

"Hey Cho?" Lisa said as she carried her teammate to the truck. "Do you think this thing was designed with Blackwood in mind as driver?"

Cho looked down at his torn-up leg, its wounds inflected by the same weapon as Lisa had, before staring at her with a very blank expression. Jaune could easily picture him thinking how best to drown her in snow.

"Too soon."

"Yeah," Lisa replied with a grin. "Too soon."

---

ALERT: ACTIVITY FLARE LOCATED IN NORTHERN CONTINENT. COORDINATES {REDACTED}.

WARNING: PRID-ID CONFIRMED AS KIA. UPDATING TO MIA. ATTEMPTING TO CONTACT VIVITATION-LABORATORY.

ERROR: VIVITATION-LABORATORY NON-RESPONDING. VALUABLE RESEARCH DATA CONFIRMED.

"BUT WILL THE REBELLIOUS PROFESSOR BE WILLING?"

WARNING: ROGUE SEPERATION SUGGESTS LETHAL COURSE OF ACTION.

"SUBJECT MIDNIGHT WILL SUFFICE."

CONFIRMED: COMMAND-THEMELUESI

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Next time: one will be confronted with harsh reality and one will start to lose it. One discover feelings and one will get violent.