Planet Remnant, 300 kilometers from Atlas - Borg Quarantine Zone

Mantle was a cold and desolate place. The closest equivalent to it on Earth would be Sub-Siberia, with small patches of forest. Every plant was dead, leaves falling off quickly. The area was worthless to life.

This was the sight the away teams beamed into, which Weiss was horrified by.

Larcei's reaction was: "I've seen colder." And she had - her Aunt Ryoko had had to take her along on a trip to Andoria once.

"Nanoprobe infestation is at 24%." Sonja ran her tricorder over a tree. "They're being reconfigured to produce methane, carbon monoxide and fluorine. Lovely. We're going to have to use two torpedoes: one for the underground, one above."

"How can you be so cold?! This is our home, and you're just… emotionlessly stating worthless facts!"

"Look, it's taking every ounce of my control not to just go charging at the Borg screaming like a banshee," Larcei said point blank. "I hate the Borg for what they did to Uncle Ron, and the fact that there's a new collective forming just because someone couldn't leave well enough alone-" there was a pointed glance at Ironwood at this, "-it's… I'm having problems keeping myself in check."

"Do not blame me for this, young woman! If your uncle would have given up his medical records—"

"What medical records? They don't exist here!"

"Uh, guys…" Baird pointed in the distance, where two figures stood. "I think we got company!"

"Perfect. I need to kill something. And I got tired of hearing about the Borg from you guys." Marcus charged the handle of his Lancer.

"Agreed," Larcei remarked. "Let's go massacre some cyborg zombies!"

"Before you idiots start shooting, I'm going to jam their subspace comm; once they lose their link, they'll be stick with pre-programmed instructions." Sonja activated her tricorder, the two drones looking confused before Marcus opened fire with the Lancer, killing the two former Remnant natives.

"That was easy."

"Try fighting a horde of them. Once you run out of ammo, you're screwed."

Team RWBY were understandably shocked at seeing the two drones killed so easily.

Sonja scanned the bodies. "General, who were the research staff?"

"Why?"

"Answer the question."

Ironwood sighed as Sonja scanned the bodies, sweeping them. "324 researchers, all human, plus a few… Faunus workers."

Sonja pulled out her knife, hacking through the exoplating. "That ain't a white lab coat."

Ironwood looked at the exposed clothing. The emblem on it was a cat's snarling head with three claw marks. "Friends of yours?"

"White Fang," Blake informed. "They… used to be a Faunus Rights group, before they came under new management and became a bunch of terrorists."

"Must've attacked the facility after the borg took over." The two bodies then dissolved. "Well, nice to know SOME things don't change."

"You just… disintegrated them!"

Sonja scoffed at Yang's accusations. "The Borg do that all the time. They don't leave the dead." The officer approached the outer wall of the town, finding a single massive hole in it, Grimm keeping a VERY noticeable distance. "You're a lot wiser than we are."

"Wow…" Ruby breathed. "Normally Grimm will just attack any human settlements they come across. For them to be keeping their distance…"

"Oh, they learned." a single grimm was in the town, moaning. The Beowolf looked at Ruby with what could only be called pleading eyes as she noticed it had Borg implants on its' skin, only barely showing. "They… assimilated it?"

"Not completely. That thing's asking you to kill it." Ruby was torn now. Her training as a huntress demanded her to kill that Grimm, yes, but it was suffering. In pain.

How could she feel pity for a Grimm?

She didn't even notice Sonja drop a case to the ground, putting a weapon together. It was a long barreled PTRS-41 anti-material rifle used by the Soviet army.

Originally, Sonja was going to give it to Luna for her birthday, but she figured with the SRS-99 she now used, it was pointless.

There was a loud bang as the weapon discharged, and the Beowolf's head exploded.

"Well, that was more kick then I thought. FUCK!" Four drones looked at them before marching towards them, fully assimilated but missing most of their more developed implants. Sonja didn't care.

She just took aim and opened fire. One, a man, was killed instantly. The second shot removed the torso from a woman, her legs marching forward before they fell down. "Stop that! We're trying to save them!"

"There's no saving these people." Sonja fired again, blowing the head off a former White Fang grunt.

Ruby then took the weapon out of Sonja's hands. "You're nothing but murderers!"

"Then show me how you plan to save them, little girl."

Ruby drew her phaser rifle, made sure the thing was set for stun based on the brief instruction she'd gotten, and then opened fire.

One drone was knocked down, unconscious. She kept firing, one drone falling down as Sonja shook her head. "You have no idea. No idea."

"Shut up!" She fired again, but this time, the bolt impacted a field of energy.

"What the…" She fired again and again, but the three shots did nothing. The drone got within 15 fifteen feet before Sonja took the PTRS up again and fired it, killing the drone.

"Now you know why we're not bothering with phasers. Grow up." she flipped the magazine well open, the enbloc falling to the ground before she put in another magazine, closing the catch before cocking the bolt back.

"Yeah, not something you'd expect, would you?" Larcei asked. "The first few shots, it seems to work just fine, and they can easily be stunned or otherwise taken down. But then… they adapt. It's what they do. Even if you readjust the frequency on your weapon, it only takes another couple of shots before they adapt again. Energy weapons, while good for most things… don't work on Borg with any reliability."

"But we can't just kill them!"

Sonja scoffed. "They were dead the second they got assimilated."

Ruby glared at the engineer, who simply continued firing, joined by Markza fire from that Padik man and Longshot fire from Byrne.

Even Ironwood was horrified by the seemingly callous reactions of the Starfleet people and their allies. They weren't even TRYING.

"Believe me, General…" He looked at Larcei, who took the blunt head of an ax to break the bones of the downed drones to keep them from moving. "If we could help them without getting ourselves killed, we would. Even my uncle said that Rutia took a hell of a risk saving him."

"So… you're speaking from experience when you say…"

"When Jean-Luc Picard was captured by these bastards, 39 starships and 11000 people were killed or assimilated. It took something the Borg had no idea could HAPPEN to stop them from assimilating Earth and save the captain. They've adapted since then. So, when you people understand how to fight them, THEN you can judge our methods. Until then, watch."

A roar was heard before another Grimm, an Ursa Major, ran into the square, covered in Borg implants. "Oh, great."

"I hope Lily gave us a rocket launcher, Jaden," Larcei told her husband. "We're gonna need it."

"Who needs rockets?" Baird pulled out a massive weapon. "Oneshot, one kill, as the COG loves to say!" He planted it on the ground before taking aim at the Grimm, firing the weapon, which impacted and tore off two of its' limbs, but not killing it. "Oh, fuck."

Ruby pulled out Crescent Rose, transforming it to its' scythe state. "Come on, Team RWBY!"

The other three team members drew their weapons and leapt into the fray, giving the Deltas and everyone else who hadn't seen it already a first-hand look at how Remnant Huntresses worked, Ruby darting around like a housefly on crack, Weiss and her glyphs striking out and immobilizing the thing, Blake darting about and striking from the shadows, and Yang simply punching it.

In the end, this would cause RWBY's downfall. For now, though, it succeeded in stopping the Borg-Ursa long enough for Baird to reload the Oneshot and fire once more, decapitating it.

"Fuck yeah!"

Paduk looked at the corpse. "Eh, I could have done better."

"Hey!"

Sam fired off one more shot, killing another Borg. "Hey, where's the entrance to that facility?"

"In a coffee shop, in the back."

Marcus wanted to SHOOT the General now. "A fucking public place?! You were BEGGING for this shit! Give me one reason not to fucking chainsaw your ass!"

Sonja grabbed Marcus' Lancer, forcing it down. "Because the Captain would want him ALIVE."

The group steadily moved forward, taking down any Drones in their way - the Remnant natives focused on the Grimm, while the dimensional travelers focused on the human and Faunus drones.

Marcus had an unlucky encounter with an Ursa, but he fell back on his decade and a half of fighting monsters on Sera.

In short, he chainsawed the fuck out of it, proving that, 40 years old or not, Marcus was a BADASS, as he hacked off one arm after another before chainsawing its' guts out and finally decapitating it. "Fuck you!" A Beowolf rushed at him, but all the Gear did was pull out his handgun and fire a single round into its' head, the 50 cal bouncing around like a pinball inside its' skull.

Ironwood and Winter watched as Marcus approached a larger Beowolf Ultra. "Come and fucking get me."

"Geez, Marcus, save some for the rest of us!" Larcei quipped teasingly - though really, there was plenty for everyone.

The Ultra charged, Marcus pulling out a bolo grenade and whipping it around in his hand. "Eat shit and die!" He threw it, firing his Lancer blindly at the Grimm before the grenade stuck to its' head, exploding seconds later, killing the Borg freak.

Winter approached the veteran Gear, who reloaded his weapon. "Where… where did you learn how to fight like that?"

"Fighting men and monsters for 23 years." Another drone approached Marcus, but the man just used the chainsaw to hack it in half. "You bastards ruined my day. I was going to spend my day with my girl, but you assholes pulled me down here! Now you're gonna fucking pay!" The Borg began pulling back, almost running from Marcus alone.

Team RWBY approached the battlezone, finding the sight of Marcus covered in Grimm and human/faunus blood… Well, Marcus made the Borg run away.

That was terrifying.

On the plus side, the coffee shop was in sight now.

"Alright, the second we get inside, we're going to be out of contact until we take out the subspace jammers. And for fuck's sake, people, don't bother with disabling shots. Just kill them. It's no different than fighting those animals."

"Yeah, right."

Marcus took a chainsaw to the door, opening an access point.

"I didn't fight against mutated freaks of nature that carried guns for 16 years to have a blonde brat argue with me about morality. Trust me, these Starfleet people know what they're talking about when it comes to these… cyborg fucks."

"Let's just go already," Ruby said, having reached the point where she didn't want to argue anymore… her worldview had taken a serious hit, and she was trying her best not to think about it.

Weiss looked at Ruby with a discreet worried look. She may have not gotten along with her energetic team leader at first… but she had grown on the heiress - a bit more than she would ever admit to anyone.

Seeing her like this… it wasn't right.

The Gear kicked open a back door, finding dozens of assimilated appliances. All inactive (they'd done their job) so he just ignored them. "Where's the lift?"

"It's behind the freezer. Sometimes the cliches work." Yang just rushed ahead and punched the bulky machine out of the way, finding no lift, but an empty shaft.

"Aww, fuck."

"We can still get down. Just won't be as fun. For most of you."

Paduk laughed. "I did not make a mistake joining you, Damon. This is better than fighting grubs!"

USS Ra Cailum

Ay-li Shen had never operated on a man before.

Though Ron was closer to a machine then a man, he was organic enough to be still be a man.

Still, it had taken a while, but they'd finally managed to reconnect his spine without repairing the Neural Transceiver.

That was a bit of a mistake. "Ladies, while I am used to sleeping on my stomach, I would VERY much like to be able to MOVE MY LIMBS!" Rutia chuckled. "Whoops. Woke him up before we finished." Rutia pulled out a microfusion laser and put the final touches on Ron's spine, reactivating his PSG and giving him full movement again as soon as she sealed up the back of his neck.

The ex-drone rose from the biobed, looking as mad as ever. "What happened? And I want FULL details, Lieutenant!"

Lily blinked at the fact that Ron had just given her a commission, but she said, "Well, sir… that is going to take a while…"

Ron stumbled from the bed, barely having control of his limbs. "Shen, I find it easier to start from the beginning. So… Start."

"Well, the blood that—"

"I get that part. Who's the idiot that allowed a collective to form? I want to rip their head off."

Rutia laughed. "You flailing about like that? The only one you're going to kill is yourself!"

The captain then stood up, now having FULL control. "At least the nanoprobes still respond to my command. Well?"

"General Ironwood of Atlas," Takeshi said, walking in. "Apparently, he was just being uber-paranoid because we were hiding secrets from him, and the fact that we didn't submit medical records and you didn't even submit a blood test was a red flag."

"Well, murder time." He marched out of the surgical bay, back completely open. "Well, for a fat man, he's got a nice ass." Lily stared at Rutia, who laughed at her reaction as Ron pulled out a spare uniform he always kept in the bay, quickly slipping it on. "Wait… I can't access the ship's internal comms. Ok, what the fuck did you do to my spine?"

"We had to shut off your Neural Transceiver," Rutia informed. "They were trying to get information from you, like our location."

"…I'll have the nanoprobes fix it and put in a 'shut-down' option." He strapped his kilij to his hip, grabbing his compression rifle. "I'm going down there."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, boss! Without that thing in your neck, you don't have access to your AG/RATO boot controls, your kit, the remote targeting system—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm restricted to my enhanced strength and my eye. So?"

"You'll need backup at least, Ron," Takeshi said. "Luna and I will go with you."

"No."

"We are NOT letting you kill yourself, brother. You will either let us help or you're not going down there!"

Ron looked at Luna and her husband. "I will note in my log that I highly object. Fine, get your weapons and meet me in transporter room one. And bring something that ISN'T a sniper rifle. You're not going to need it."

"Right," Luna replied. "I should be able to find something."

Ron sighed. "Rutia, is- RON!" He glanced back before blinked as a blur crashed into him. It took him a moment to realize the figure being none other than Annette "You're alright!"

"Ms. Durand, PLEASE get off me." Annette got off of Ron, though she was VERY giddy. "Stop jumping like that; it's fucking creepy. Is there something you need?"

Annette deflated, almost depressed. "Sorry, Captain…"

"It's fine, just… stop. I'm taking Takeshi and Luna down to the surface to deal with the Borg issue."

"I'll head down with you,"

"Huh?"

"Way I see it, we're gonna need all the help we can get down there," Annette informed. "And I'm not letting those freaks get inside your head again - it was a royal bitch for me to get them out the first time."

Ron blinked. "What do you-"

"She used her Psionics to get inside your head," Takeshi answered. "Managed to disrupt the Borg long enough for us to disable the transceiver and save the ship."

"Yeah… sorry," Annette said, scratching her head sheepishly. "I… know you don't like it when people go inside your head… but I didn't see much other choice, so… sorry…"

Ron sputtered for a few seconds before throwing up his hands. "Gah, I'll deal with that later! Get a weapon and meet us in transporter room one! I have to go get shit for the ground team."

"Like?"

"Bullets. LOTS of bullets."

Borg 'hive' - 685 meters underground below the assimilated settlement

Ruby finally let go of the cable that normally would have allowed elevators to come up and down the facility's entrance, though without the car, they had to use climbing gear to get down there.

Yang grabbed her sister and got her down on the ground, wincing at the sight of the formerly white walls being… converted. Black and dark green metals lined the corridors with electricity sparking across them.

"Freaky… " She muttered, before suddenly a Borg drone began to approach them. She prepared to fire, but Jaden grabbed her.

"Shh… wait," he whispered, as the Drone approached them… and walked right past them.

"…what the fuck?"

"The Borg won't attack unless they see us as an immediate threat," He informed, "Meaning… if we move quickly and silently, we can walk past at least half of the Borg here. "

"Follow the ants." Sonja gestured them to follow the drone, most of them not getting the ant ref. Two drones entered alcoves, standing straight as they began regenerating. Yang and Paduk waved in front of a drone's face, but they didn't react. "That's kinda fucked up. They can't even see us."

"Oh, they can see you. They just don't care." Sonja gestured the two to follow the group.

"Huh?" Yang blinked.

"They aim to assimilate civilizations - not individuals," Jaden informed. "So long as you don't shoot them, or do anything that will get you noticed, we'll be fine. This way we can conserve ammo until we get deeper inside."

The entered a larger corridor, finding dozens of people, all in varying states of assimilation: one man was missing his eye and was covered in exoplating while another still had the uniform of the White Fang covering his body, though the mask and helmet had been removed.

"This is freaky."

"Yeah, White Fang and humans in the same place, just… standing there. If they weren't Borg, I'd be wondering what the hell is going on." Ironwood pointed at a hatch at the far end. "That's the entrance to the main research labs. I have the access codes—"

"Trust me, they've been changed by now."

"So any chance we can force it open without getting the Borg to finally recognize us as a threat?" Jaden asked.

Sonja smirked. "Not a problem. If I can force the hydraulics to cycle, the door will open." She opened up her toolkit, pulling out several tools before approaching the hatch, opening a maintenance panel. "Manual release is online."

Blake blinked. "What?" Sonja shrugged. "Joke." She activated the laser torch, opening an access circuit before she crossed the wires. After a few seconds of sparking, nothing happened.

Ruby looked around, eyeing everyone. "Maybe we should just knock?"

Everyone looked at Ruby with a deadpan… but Jaden just shrugged. "Eh, why not?" He asked, as he knocked on the door twice… and the doors flung open as a Borg Drone stepped through.

"…you have GOT to be fucking kidding me…" Sonja muttered, everyone watching as the Borg just walked past them.

Jaden quickly got between the doors - using his Spartan Strength and armor to hold it open. "If it works, don't ask questions," he grunted. "Come on, one at a time…"

The doors groaned before red lights came on all around them. "Uh, the Borg are waking up!"

"Ok, fuck stealth; open fire!" The Gears and Alpha Team opened up, bullets flying in every direction, killing Borg as quickly as they got out of the alcoves.

Weiss fired off several lightning dust rounds from Myrtenaster, but after three bolts, the Borg's infuriating EM shields adapted. "Oh, COME ON!"

"Switch to another element!" Larcei told her. "They might be adapting to the lightning because it's closest to the energy weapons we use! Try fire or ice!"

Made sense. Weiss switched Dust types, firing ice at two drones, who were frozen in place. "We're getting surrounded!"

Ironwood fired his revolver at a former White Fang drone, then found something. "Follow me!"

The group immediately began following Ironwood as he made his way toward what he had found, shooting any Borg in their way. Though there were a lot of Borg, and Yang and Blake found themselves at the rear and facing the most drones.

One grabbed Blake, attempting to hold her still long enough to inject her. "Yang!"

Yang broke a former human's neck with a single punch before looking back at Blake, eyes turning red. "Blake!" She rushed back, punching the Borg in the face before they fell into another corridor, where an armored bulkhead dropped behind them, sealing them off.

"YANG!"

"Forget it, they're on their own!"

"I'M NOT LEAVING THEM!"

Larcei took out a tricorder. "I don't think we have a choice," she said as she scanned it. "They must have managed to find a way to synthesize some of our materials - that's a three-foot-thick layer of duranium, and while we could cut through it with energy weapons, it's thick enough that it could take hours."

"We can't just leave them!" Weiss had to grab Ruby to drag her back, away from the Borg. "Yang! YANG!"

Yang fired at another drone, killing it. "Get the fuck away from my partner!" Blake groaned as she got to her feet, clutching her head. "Are you ok, Blake?"

"I think so," she said, checking herself over. "No sign that they managed to hit me with any of those nanoprobe things, at any rate." She looked up. "Looks like we're cut off from the others, though."

Yang grinned. "Yeah, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Though not as hard as me!"

"Hard-headed, you mean." Hissing was heard around them, making Yang rack her weapons.

"Do not worry. You will not be harmed."

"Who the hell are you?!"

"I am all. All that is, all that will be."

"Okay, that's not totally creepy," Blake remarked. Given that the voice they were hearing was female, it had to be this 'Borg Queen' they'd heard about.

"Come. They will not touch you." The few drones in the corridor entered regeneration alcoves, closing their eyes as they locked in place.

"You know, this is getting fucking creepy."

"Yang, we don't have a choice. We have limited ammunition as is. And if that's the Queen… we have a chance to strike at the heart of the collective. We can end this."

Blake had a point. Yang didn't like it.

Blake didn't, either, but she also knew this was the best chance they had.

And so, the pair advanced down the corridor.

The group piled into a storeroom, Marcus and Cole slamming it shut. "Fuck! I thought the Locust were bad! THese freaks are worse!"

Baird pulled out a welding torch and sealed the door, keeping the Borg from just opening it. "Get anything metal: tables, chairs, whatever; just get them in front of his door!"

Jaden shoved a table in place, and Baird got to welding. "You know they'll cut through."

"Yeah, well, it'll give us time to reload! Better than nothing!"

Weiss, meanwhile, was still holding onto Ruby, but now that they had managed to at least get a brief respite, she'd adjusted her grip so she was actually holding Ruby, in what she hoped looked like a friendly, comforting embrace. "They'll be fine, Ruby…" she said. "You know how strong they are."

"But… Yang…"

"They'll be fine, kid!" Ruby looked at Marcus, who pulled out a secondary weapon, which looked like the Lancer, but with a big blade. "Your sister's as tough as a goddamn Gear. Hell, if she were born on Sera, she'd BE a Gear."

Banging was heard on the door. "The bastards are here."

"Keep welding! The longer we hold out, the better we'll be!"

"Jaden, Larcei, you still have my big bags?"

"We do, yes," Larcei said as she held up the bags in question.

Sonja grabbed the two heavy bags, setting them down with a loud thud before removing a tripod from one of them.

"Wait, is that—"

"Fuck yeah." A moment or so passed before she assembled and placed an old DShK, the Russian answer to the M2 browning, on the tripod, screwing it into place. "You two were carrying this monster. I figured we'd need to hold the line at one point."

"You had us carrying a fucking DShK the ENTIRE TIME?!"

"Well, it's not like we could carry a Dillon M1D Minigun around all that easily," Larcei remarked to her husband. "The DShK may require a fixed position, but it's a bit more portable."

"Meh, I don't care." Jaden said, as there was loud banging from the door. "If it kills Borg, I'd carry it across a volcanic wasteland."

She pulled the 50 cal rounds into the receiver before closing it and pulling back the bolt. If they got through… they'd have a hell of a fight.

Ruby tried to move, but Weiss held her tightly. "Ruby, I want you to promise me something."

"Weiss?"

"Promise me you won't take crazy risks to try and find Yang. Promise me you'll be careful." Tears began to water in Weiss' eyes. "If… if something were to happen to you… I don't know what I'd do."

Ruby blinked, looking into Weiss's pleading eyes… she gulped. "I… I promise."

"Th… thank you, Ruby…" Weiss said, before she finally gave into the impulse of the moment and pulled Ruby closer, bringing their lips together.

Ruby's eyes widened at the sudden kiss… but she didn't want it to stop exactly… and before she knew it, she found herself returning the kiss.

"Okay, I-" Jaden turned around, before seeing the two - before turning right back around. "-I'll… give you two a moment…"

Yang and Blake moved through the corridors, finding nothing but Borg.

"It's like they're all nothing but statues."

"You could say they're stone cold."

Blake wanted to roll her eyes. Even now, Yang was punning. But that was something she was doing to keep away the tension.

"There is no fighting. No conflict." Two drones exited their alcoves, Blake cocking Gambol Shroud before the two simply began working on the corridor. "Once, they were enemies: an Atlesian soldier and a member of the White Fang. Now, they work in harmony. We are peace. Perfection. We are what you aspire to, Blake Belladonna."

"Only problem with that is they aren't individuals anymore," Yang pointed out. "You may bring people together in 'peace' and 'perfection', but at the cost of the concept of individuality."

"You do not understand. But you will." The alcoves hummed with power as more drones emerged.

"I think… she wants us to go on."

"Yeah, let's not piss off her majesty." The latter half of Team RWBY moved on, finding more and more 'full' Borg as they continued.

"Your greatest ally is worse than we are. His Federation assimilates just as we do. The only difference is that we tell you the truth. They lie, never informing you of their intentions. Eventually, you will be assimilated. By them, if not us. But with us, you endure. Your way of life is preserved for eternity."

Neither of them responded to this, but Blake honestly figured that she'd rather lose her way of life than her individuality. Remnant wasn't the nicest place to live, and not just because of the Grimm.

The Borg… she could honestly say she hated them. They took away the one thing that the Starfleet people were giving.

A choice. Sure, the Federation may swallow you up, but they give you the CHOICE to join them or not: the Gears said Ron gave them the choice to stay on Sera, but they chose to come with them.

The Colonials, as well, but the most damning weapon against the Borg was XCOM. They had a home, but they volunteered to join the Ra Cailum.

So, yeah, The Federation may 'assimilate' people into their culture, but at least those people had a choice, unlike with the Borg.

"You will not win."

"We shall see."

Above ground, four showers of light deposited Ron, Luna, Takeshi and Annette in the woods outside the settlement.

Ron had his G36E/AG36 plus the Buzzsaws and his personal favorite anti-Borg weapon: a goddamn Scorcher flamethrower.

"Ok, WHY did you bring the flamethrower?"

"I want to BURN things. BURN."

Takeshi chuckled. "Yeah, that would be cathartic," he admitted. "I wonder if there's a way to mount a close-range flame projector into the Lancer. Can you imagine tearing into things with an actual flaming chainsaw?"

"Sonja's working on it. There's a fuel problem she's trying to work out."

Takeshi cackled at the news of that.

"Men and their toys."

"This coming from the woman who wants a super-powered sniper rifle."

Ron tapped the ground, eventually touching metal. "Finally. This should be an air vent leading into the facility."

Luna, holding a BR55, shook her head. "It can't be that easy."

"The facility's the size of the Ra Cailum; the vents have to be fucking MASSIVE to supply fresh air. Problem is, this is a straight down drop, and from here it looks like there's razor wire, tough enough to hack apart bears. I'll drop down first and break them." Ron pulled out his phaser, looking over both shoulders.

"You ok?"

"No. I usually have a link to my tricorder, warning me about incoming contacts. Now? I've got nothing."

Takeshi nodded. "Gotcha, I can understand what that feels like." The purple glow of his eyes briefly intensified. "I'm not sure, but I THINK we might have someone following us. There's an echo of a mind nearby, but I can't tell for sure. Annette?"

"I believe someone is out there, but… I am not sure. I've never used my psionics to pick up people on approach."

"And now you understand why I want to get out of the open." Ron fired his phaser at the vent, hacking through the lock and flipping it open. "I'll jump down. After two minutes, follow me down. It's a straight drop, 300 meters, so you'll need your RATO/AG boots to rappel down."

"Gotcha," Takeshi replied. He was clad in MACO armor, and had a control system for his boots in his left gauntlet. "Want one of us tethered to you to make your descent a little slower?"

"No." He dropped down, snapping wire as he fell.

"Those shields of his better hold."

"His shields are the same strength, no matter if his transceiver's active or not. He'll be fine."

Two minutes passed, and then the three activated their boots and dropped down, not noticing the black-haired woman with the Grimm mask who came up to the hole after they went down.

"Something is wrong with them. And I intend to find out what."

She jumped down, following them down.

Jaden peaked down the hallway. "I think you go e'm," He said, as the hallway before them was littered with the corpses of Borg Drones, as Sonja's DShK muzzle smoked after finally releasing the trigger. "Wait, he's twitching."

RATATATATATAATATATATATAATATATATATATATATATATATATA.

"…now they're all dead."

Deeper in the room, Weiss smiled a little nervously as her lips parted from Ruby's, as she continued to hold her partner. "I… I know we didn't have the… best of first meetings, Ruby…" she began. "But… I… I've come to the point where I can't see myself without you now… I… I think I've fallen in love with you, Ruby…"

Ruby blinked. Weiss was saying she was in love. With her?

She was a klutz, though in combat she was a master with Crescent Rose. Weiss was… Well.

Weiss was Weiss. Pretty, confident…

And her family were assholes.

She knew that. They ALL knew that. They weren't the helpful type of asshole like Professor… Or was that Captain Pinkerton?

He was trying to help them. But the Schnee family were cold and concerned only with profit. Weiss was nicer.

And… and she'd become an important part of Ruby's life. As irreplaceable as Yang… no, even more so than Yang, if that was possible.

The redhead decided to, unintentionally, pull a Ron.

'Oh, fuck it.'

She grabbed Weiss and kissed her again.

Weiss' eyes were wide, but she was happy, so she leaned in and moaned happily.

"If you two are done making out, we could use some help!"

Takeshi Yamato: And White Rose is an official pairing in this story. I may not have seen RWBY itself past Season 1 Episode 8, but I've read a decent number of RWBY fanfics, and Ruby/Weiss is one of my favorite pairings.

Ron the True Fan: If this is not real canon, RT needs to be whipped.

Ruby: Yup!

Weiss: Why do you like pairing us together?

Ron The True Fan: We're romantics.

Takeshi Yamato: Yeah - and while you did have a bit of a rocky start, you two do seem to mesh pretty well - just like Blake and Yang.

117Jorn: People like the pairing, and I don't see you two complaining.

Ron the True Fan: Especially us. Also, readers, in case you're wondering, Team RWBY will not be leaving the author's notes. Ever.

Ruby: Why us?

Ron the True Fan: Because you deserve it? Although we SHOULD warn Yang after she gets out of the hospital. I had no IDEA a Lancer could do that.

117Jorn: You're gonna regret that you know…

Ron the True Fan: Eh, I can always fend her off. Unless she unleashes Necronomicon ex Mortis, then we're ALL fucked.

117Jorn: Don't tempt her. But either way, until next time…

Everyone: Ja Ne!