AN: The new "World of Remnant" video provides more insight into how hunters act in Remnant. The description of Mantle as "now defunct" is interesting as so far, there has been no explanation.

Chapter 43 - Virtus Unitor Fortior

"So...should we go after her?" asked Pyrrha.

"Nah, we'll stage an intervention later," said Yang.

With the resolution of that problem postponed, everyone returned to what they were doing, with team RWBY resuming their game, Pyrrha and Ren studying, Nora to sleeping, and Markus to his research. For the Lone Courier, there was always more to do.

The big news was,of course, the arrival of Atlas forces en masse. It was totally impossible to miss the hovering ships that had virtually occupied the area. The big question of course, was why they were there. The Courier knew that this was impressive show of power even by pre-war standards. The hundreds of aircraft would be entirely capable of conquering a region without even needing to deploy ground troops.

However, all information available to him indicated that it was currently a time of peace, with the last major war having taken place eighty years ago. As far as he knew, there was nothing in the area that warranted such a force. The White Fang were hardly a military threat, what with their spree of dust robberies and occasional attacks that affected a dozen people at most. Nothing they had done would necessitate the use of fleet in pacifying them..

Similarly, the Grimm were not threatening enough for this amount of force to be justified. This was a show of power reminiscent of either a coup d'état or a Cold War. This was a fleet ready for war. And since no ongoing war was apparent to the Lone Courier, it was clear that one was imminent. The only question was, between who?

This lack of knowledge troubled him as he hacked through Atlas files. It was further troubling when he found no information on why the fleet was here, not even in the classified memos he had found access to. Eventually he resorted to going through personal messages. It was then he found something, a message from General Ironwood, leader of Atlas forces, to Ozpin. The message itself used a cypher. An complex one as well.

While the Lone Courier had acquired many skills in his travels, advanced code breaking was not one of them. Besides, that kind of thing typically required either a team of specialists or a supercomputer-neither of which he had access to at the moment. While he was reasonably sure that with the resources that he had here and his own intelligence, he could decypher the message, he was unwilling to invest so much time into something that had no guaranteed-or even likely-payoff. The presence of the message told him enough. It meant that there were things going on that he did not know about on a high level. And that, was something that needed rectifying. He could not take sides in a conflict in which he did not know all the facts.

As time went on, team RWBY's game ended and they slowly ambled back to their room. As it was getting dark, Markus and his team did the same not long after. The thing with Nora was that she was extremely energetic but she tired quickly. By this point in the day her hyperactivity had typically faded dramatically. Unfortunately for the rest of the team, she had been napping during the day meaning that she was incredibly hyper this evening.

Markus, Pyrrha, and Ren watched in despair as Nora continued to bounce on her mattress. They had long prior given up trying to get anything done due to the incessant, rhythmic noise the action made. Her prior discovery and subsequent consumption of Ren's syrup supply had only made the already bad situation worse. She was babbling and giggling almost incoherently in between rapid jumps from various almost non-sensical statements about random topics.

They were saved from this fresh hell by the most unlikely of saviors: shouting in the room across the hall. Evidently team RWBY's intervention was not going well. How ironic that they would need to intervene in an intervention. Well, it was an excuse to do something and more importantly, a way to get away from Nora.

"Pyrrha, should we try to help?" asked Markus, creating the excuse to leave.

"Um…yes, we should investigate and see what is wrong," said Pyrrha.

The two were nearly a blur as they abandoned Ren to deal with Nora, almost slamming the door behind them. Now that they had escaped, the Lone Courier felt like facepalming at how awkward Pyrrha was. You would think she had never had a conversation in her life.

They felt a little bit bad for abandoning Ren to his partner but they were partners, they both independently rationalized, it was his job. On both counts, the rationalizing was ineffective, though the relief they felt masked the feeling that they had just throw Ren under the proverbial bus.

"We really need to work on your lying," said Markus as they stood outside of the entrance of team RWBY's room. Pyrrha cheeks colored slightly but before she could respond, they heard another heated exclamation, this time with the Courier distinctly hearing the words "Torchwick" and "White Fang". This gave him more than enough reason to be interested. Or worried. This could easily be another disagreement (to put it mildly) between White and Blake. Still, if it meant doing something interesting, it was worth it.

"Ready?" he said, his hand on the door knob. Pyrrha nodded. He turned the knob and entered, bracing for another argument.

Instead, what he got was a manic looking Ruby, looking gesturing randomly, with the entire room staring at her.

"Okay, all in favor of becoming the youngest Huntresses to single-handedly taking down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale... say aye," said Ruby.

"Aye," said Markus immediately. He figured it was as good an introduction as any.

Everyone turned to look at them. Ruby snapped out of whatever...whatever she was in.

"Uhh. Why are you here?" she asked.

"We heard shouting, and words like "White Fang" and "Torchwick" and decided to investigate," he paused for emphasis,"before someone less friendly did."

"Besides," said Pyrrha, you didn't think you were going to do this without us did you?" There was no answer other than a silence which confirmed the obvious fact that team RWBY had, in fact, intended to do this without them. Pyrrha was surprisingly good at accidentally guilt tripping an entire room.

"We're not asking you to do this," said Blake seriously.

"Neither are we," returned Markus.

"Let's hatch a plan!" said Ruby, as excited as ever.

"Yeah!" said her sister.

Ruby gasped and said, "I left my board game at the library!"

"What a start," said the Courier with his typical cynicism.

"We're doomed," White said as she facepalmed.

Yang snickered.

"I'll be right back!" yelled Ruby, running into the hall. As the rest of the group devolved into idle conversation, the Lone Courier turned his attention to a conversation in the hall that only he(and possibly Blake) could hear.

"Um, I'm Ruby! Are you new?"

"New students?" thought the Courier, "Ah, the Vytal Festival."

"Visiting from Haven, actually," an unfamiliar voice said. The voice was female and a subdued kind of sinister. While the Courier knew he was probably reading too much into it, these students were not above suspicion, no matter how paranoid he seemed.

There was a long pause before: "Oooooh! You're here for the festival!" said Ruby, not too far behind his own train of thought.

"OH, but exchange students have their own dormitory."

"Well I guess we just got turned around," said another, this time male, voice. This one's tone was even more suspicion than the other's. He sounded almost sarcastic. The Lone Courier paranoia was acting up further. He was becoming increasingly convinced that they were working for someone. In the Wasteland, if you weren't suspicious enough, you died. His paranoia was acutely developed because, typically, there were people constantly trying to kill him. Now that there weren't, it took effort for him not to fidget when in sight of a large window, trying to shake snipers.

"Don't worry," said Ruby, "happens all the time! Uh, your building is just east of here!"

A male and female walked past the open door to team RWBY's room, the opposite direction they should be going. The voice of the original speaker showed that there were at least three of them and that the green haired girl was not infact the one who had spoken.

"Thanks. Maybe we'll see you around."

"Yeah, maybe!" said Ruby.

The Courier swore that Ruby's good nature would get her killed one day.

"Oh! and welcome to Beacon!"

Markus would certainly be keeping Maria loaded tonight.

AN: Season two largely neglected team JNPR for no real reason. Therefore, at least Pyrrha and Markus are involved, partly by chance and partly because Markus is intending to use RWBY's conflict with the White Fang for his own benefit.

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