Remnant DxD

by Dessel Ordo

When an 11 year old Jaune Arc wandered out into Forever Fall hoping to become Remnants youngest huntsman, that should have been it for the foolish kid. Luckily a passing devil saw potential in him and re-incarnated him. Now, 6 years later House Bael has sent him to attend Beacon Academy to learn more about his homeworld, and establish his own peerage. What could possibly go wrong?

28. Chapter 28: Stormwall

A/N: Yea, so, life kinda put me and MasterPrince713 through the wringer, story of the last year and a half, I know, but we're both back on top and still going strong. Sorry for the delay, heh.

In keeping with my own writing process, and cRWBY, every now and then a charachter, or scene or chapter might have a specific song as a theme, or that served as inspiration for me when writing it. For this chapter, specifically Laceys second scene, I'd recommend queing up Pop Evils 'Footsteps'. And, moving forward, when I do have a song for a character scene or chapter, I'll leave an A/N like this one to let you amazing people know.

All that said, I don't own RWBY, Highschool DxD, or earn a single dang thing of monetary value from this story, please don't sue me!

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Coco Adel is dead tired.

Hell, all of Team CFVY are as good as dead on their feet. "I can't believe we missed the Vytal Dance for that hell." She grouses to no one in particular.

Yats grunts, Velvet whines, and Coco can feel that semi-ominous, 'being watched' sensation of Fox starting to use his Semblance, which then fades, probably as he changes his mind. The Bullhead shudders to a halt on the landing pad. The doors open with a screeching groan, and a far too chipper Professor Peach is gone as soon as she can fit through the door, either having not heard, or cared, about Coco's complaining after exchanging final good-byes with the sophomore team, and hurrying off to write her report for Headmaster Oz. Hmph, fair enough.

A loud clang prompts Coco to wheel around instead of stepping off the transport. Looks like the port door hadn't opened more than a hand-span. "Oh, that's reassuring." She deadpans, noticing the trio of long indents that are probably nasty gashes on the armored outer hull of the ship.

/Just wait until you actually get off the ship./ Fox's voice quips in her head. She suppresses a groan as she turns and trods off the airship, arms hanging loosely at her sides, feeling more like lumps of putty than limbs. She looks back at the Bullhead to see the starboard thruster has a trio of Nevermore feathers driven through it.

Great. They'd almost been stuck out in the wilderness.

A pair of service trucks screech to a halt a few dozen feet from where the transport had set down, a team of mechanics piling out of each. At that moment Coco finally notices that the ship is making some noises that definitely aren't healthy.

One of the jumpsuit-clad grease monkeys jostles her as he jogs past, which really doesn't help with the fact that her arms are still throbbing in time with Gianduja's rate of fire. Despite her minigun having run dry almost an hour before their mission had ended. "Yats, how's Fulcrum lookin'?" she asks, as they start trudging towards the dormhalls.

Focus on acting like a leader. Don't wanna collapse before getting to our dorm room.

"Dull." Yatsuhashi grunts as he limps along between her and Velvet, rubbing at his left wrist. He'd wrenched it pretty badly when he'd got his blade lodged between a pair of inconveniently placed bone spikes on an Ursa Major's back. She'll get him to the clinic to have that checked out before their next class with Goodwitch. But that's for later.

/One of Sharp Retribution's blades is jammed shut, and the other's chipped./ Fox adds. At least she'll have good company when she's stuck in the Armory pressing new shells for her minigun. /Aren't the freshmen supposed to be picking out their first missions today?/ he adds, mentally, to the rest of the team.

Coco shrugs. Well, she gets her left arm up. The right is still more numb than throbbing after holding her weapon up for so long. Doesn't really wanna move. "Not our problem. Maybe something came up while we were gone. Just means less people to deal with. Velv?"

The droop-eared rabbit Faunus pulls Anesidora off her belt, and checks the display on her end of it. "I went through a third of what I had stored up." She mumbles as they cross from the green to the pathway the dormhalls are situated on. A few students are out and about, but none pay the clearly exhausted sophomore team any mind. Not even when Velvet half-stumbles into Yats, luckily against his good side. He wraps his broad arm around her shoulder, propping the girl up. "And there's six teams worth of freshmen that are your problem, Coco."

She waves the bunny girl off. "They're good kids, won't cause no trouble. Sleep." She's too tired to even vocalize that one of the teams of 'kids' in question are actually all their age or older, one of whom had been going out of her way since they had started Pharos Academy to ridicule or call Coco out on her 'bullshit' every chance she got.

Velvet pouts, both Fox and Yatsuhashi nod in agreement, though. They make it to the, thankfully silent, top floor of their building without saying anything else. Or moving much. Elevators are great that way.

As her team shuffles towards their room and glorious sleep, Coco lets out a low groan upon noticing something in the hallway. Two somethings. Two parcels sitting outside two different rooms further down the hallway. She slides her scroll out of her pocket—Oh, great, down to five percent charge, today just gets better and better—and checks the time. Yup, past noon. Now it's up to her to get the packages out of the common area and to their intended recipients.

A messenger tube for Team RWBY addressed to Ruby from the Xiao-Long family—she never really understood why Ruby has a separate surname from Yang, despite them being half-sisters by a shared father—and a mostly unmarked box outside the door at the far end of the hallway. Discreet. Unless you recognize the NaughtyWyvern logo that is. If she weren't so damned tired she'd be dying to know if it's one of those freakishly huge monstrosities they make, or one of the more 'normal' toys they offer.

Whatever. Sleep. Now.

She collects the packages, the tube somehow heavier than the box, and retreats to her room. Yats and Fox are already stripped down to their skivvies by the time she gets back to the dorm room. Not that she cares.

Velvet is hopping around on her left foot struggling with her bodysuit, the outer layers of her huntress attire already off. Now that she does care about. Normally, she'd enjoy that bit of eye candy at least a little, but tired as she is, she focuses her remaining energy on stripping out of her own outer layers. "Everyone just get some rest. We can wash our bedding along with whatever clothes can be salvaged tomorrow."

"Coco, tomorrow's Sunday, it'll take hours to get a single free wash machine. It could take us all day to get all of our things clean" Velvet replies, moments before letting out a startled cry, followed by the sounds of stumbling then that of two bodies hitting a bed. She turns to see Velvet, now half out of her bodysuit, though still clad in her sports bra, and Fox crashed onto Yats' bed, their towering teammate looking down at them with a small, bemused frown on his face. Though he seems to be having trouble holding onto even that.

As Yats sluggishly helps the other two up, Coco sighs and tosses her filthy clothes at her hamper. "Then we'll all take a nap, then shower and do our laundry late tonight." She doesn't spare her team any further attention, climbing into her bed and letting sleep claim her. At least one of them had made a sound that seemed affirmative. Good enough.

Sleep claims her almost immediately.

A while later the sound of something rustling, popping then finally bursting makes just enough noise to rouse Coco from her slumber.

She rolls over. It can wait.

A few minutes later a dog panting and padding about grabs her attention. "Ugh, not now, Saber. Go back to your actual owner's room." She orders without opening her eyes. Something hops up onto her bed. Great, the damn mutt isn't taking the hint today. Something wet and soft traces its way across her cheek. Her eyes bolt open, ready to raise hell. "Saber, you..." The adorable little corgi perched on her bed most certainly isn't Jaune's dog with its annoying angle-hopping Semblance. Mostly black furred, with a white snout bearing an adorable doggy smile is all she can really see of the dog. How it even got in her dorm room is a big enough question that she crawls out from under her blankets to investigate.

The messenger tube is lying open, cans of wet dog food scattered across the floor along with a can opener, leash collar and feeding dishes. She spots a letter mixed in with the dog's supplies, snatches it off the ground and starts reading. It's short, and kind of sweet. Still, all Coco can really do is roll her eyes and crow loudly enough for her team to hear: "Who the hell mails a dog?"

Velvet is the first to rouse. "Coco, what are you going on…?" she trails off when her head peeks above her blankets, and her eyes lock on the diminutive pooch by her feet. The excited squee she lets out on seeing the dog is enough to get Yatsuhashi and Fox back awake. The rabbit Faunus nearly teleports from her bed to the floor by the pooch. Down on her hands and knees petting the little dog. Coco does her best not to be too blatant in checking Velvet out, but the matched crème athletic bra and panties she's in really shouldn't look that good on her either. And the way her backside is waving back and for in excitement drawing her attention to the girl's peach-shaped—

"Where did the dog come from?" Yatsuhashi rumbles from beside her.

Coco jumps to the side a bit. Trust Yats to spoil her fun. Now focused on the dog and the letter, not her adorable teammate, she responds, "Umm, Yang and Ruby's dad was trying to mail him to them."

"People do that?" Fox asks as he carefully makes his way over to Velvet and the dog, Zwei, according to the letter, and tentatively scratches the latter between his ears.

Coco shrugs and looks over at the clock. Nine PM. "At least one person does." She glances down at the pooch, who had rolled over onto his belly to let Velvet, and a now squatting Fox, rub his belly. Coco lets herself smirk at how taken by the dog those two are. "You gotta go potty, bud?" He rolls back over, hops to his feet and lets out a singular bark at that question, before running in a trio of quick circles where he is standing. "Right, you three get showered up and start stripping the beds so we can get our things clean. I'll let the parcel out then do the same. We should be able to have our stuff clean and be back in bed before midnight if we're efficient about this."

They let out a trio of affirmatives and set about getting their things gathered up to shower. Yats leans over her to pet Zwei's head while she's crouched down putting his leash and color on. She looks over at her pajamas, the black silk, amber trimmed pants and button-down top are comfy enough, but a pain to wash. She slips out of her sweat-stained bra and panties, into the garments and collects the dogs leash. She isn't so busty that she needs to worry about falling out of the top, and between the elastic band and loose fit of the pants no one will be able to tell she's commando underneath them. She pauses by the mirror next to their door, and undoes the top few buttons of the top so that a little cleavage is showing. Never know who she might meet, and the weekend's still young. Don't wanna make any bad first impressions by looking shabby or prudish.

She doesn't run into anyone letting Zwei out, thankfully. She catches up with the rest of her team after her shower halfway through stripping their beds to wash the sheets. It takes them less than an hour to get all of their laundry started and return to the common room on their floor of the building. "So, how are we spending the time while we wait?" Velvet asks after a few moments of them standing around awkwardly.

Coco shrugs. "Well, none of us are having trouble in our classes, there aren't any tests coming up and I'm still dead tired. I'll be vegging out on the couch in the common room waiting for someone on Team Ruby to show up so I can get their dog back to them while our stuff's in the wash machine." At that, she struts over to one of the couches, plops down on it, grabs a remote and starts channel surfing. Yatsuhashi plops down on the couch next to her, about a minute later Fox returns from their dorm with his scroll in hand, and a pair of earbuds connected to it. He settles on to the same couch as her and Yats, leaving the hulking guy in the middle, Zwei having claimed a spot on her lap. "Velvet?"

"Went to get a snack at the cafeteria." Fox replies as she settles on a cheesy celebrity talent show. Sure, it's lame, but missing some of it when they have to go switch their stuff over to the dryer either. About half an hour later, just about when they need to go, Saber pops into the room from the corner furthest from the entrance. The bigger dog looks at her, Zwei happily asleep in her lap, and whines.

"Sorry, buddy, first come, first served." She quips at the second technically illicit dog in the building. Who then proceeds to amble over to her, climb up onto the couch, using her gut as a paw-rest, then crawl onto her, resting his head on her left shoulder, and a paw on her right. Zwei, the fuzzy little traitor, just grumbles when the bigger dog displaces him, and curls back up half on her left leg, and half leaning against the arm of the couch.

Yatsuhashi shoots an amused look at her before announcing, "Fox and I will handle the rest of the laundry." By the time they get back, Velvet has returned from getting her snack. Yats had taken the other outside spot on the couch, and Fox is half leaning against her, half-snoozing as he listens to his audiobook. Velvet shrugs, and lays down across the guys, using Jaune's dog as a pillow, angled just enough so that she can watch the stupid buddy cop movie that had started after the talent show had ended. She'd change the channel, but both of her arms are pinned in place, with her buried in teammate and dog.

It is this incredibly inconvenient scene that Jaune finds her in when he pokes his head into the common room clad in a baggy gray pair of sweatpants and loose fitting crimson and gold 'Pumpkin Petes' t-shirt, followed by Pyrrha in that conservative set of tan pajamas she wears when her team is lounging around the dorms. "Say, you haven't seen Team Ruby around today, have you?"

Jaune shrugs, looking a little uneasy. "Haven't talked with them since we got back here from the Infirmary with Weiss and Ruby this morning. Pretty sure they haven't left their room."

"Oh no! What happened? Are they okay?" Velvet asks, shifting a bit more so that she can look at the pair of freshmen. She's wearing one of Yatsuhashi's t-shirts, though it fits the petite rabbit Faunus like a nightgown, and a pair of athletic shorts. The motion has her back brushing against one of Coco's arms, and is just enough for her to realize that the girl doesn't have a bra under the shirt either, though the girl's elbow digging into her thigh keeps her mind from going anywhere with that.

Pyrrha holds up a placatory hand, though her smile is a little brittle. "They're fine. Ruby needed a small blood transfusion, and Weiss was just being kept for observation for her bruised ribs, sprained wrist and having been concussed. Someone broke into the CCT Tower during the dance, they spotted them and tried to intervene."

Jaune nods, a bit of the brittleness fading from his expression. "Pretty sure they decided the rest of today was 'team time' once Ruby and Weiss got back to their dorm."

Velvet slides back down at the red-headed tournament fighter's assurances, not looking entirely satisfied but at least willing to let it go, for now. "So, what are we watching?" Jaune asks as he plops down on one of the rooms loveseats, not mentioning, or even acknowledging that his mutt is using her as a hug pillow, and half-crushing her to death in the process.

"Starshine and Hooch." Yats replies neutrally. Coco silently resigns herself to not getting Ruby and Yang their dog until tomorrow morning, if Yang is half as protective of her sister as Coco suspects, they won't be in much of a position to look after Zwei tonight.

Pyrrha sits down next to Jaune, perhaps a little closer than she needs to. "The remake or the original?" After a moment, she leans into her partners shoulder. Did the dunce of a beefcake finally get the hint then?

"The good one." Velvet answers just as the commercial break ends and the movie starts playing again. Maybe having his master in the same room will be enough to convince the bigger dog to free her and bug someone else. Either that, or it was going to be a long night.

_-*R-DxD*-_

The next morning Jaune and the rest of his team nearly bowl Coco over as they pile out of their dorm.

All of them are wearing their Huntsman attire for the delayed start to their mission shadowing a pro, on their way to get breakfast before the headmaster is due to address the gathered freshmen. The R.A. just shrugs and starts knocking on team RWBY's dorm door. The team's leader and namesake opens the door, still wearing her pajamas, looks off to Coco's side and all but screams "ZWEIIII!"

"Please, not so loud." Blake half-croaks from deeper in the room as the little corgi scampers into the room, where Yang and Ruby both immediately drop to the ground to shower him with tickle attacks and head-pats.

Yang looks up from where she's squatting next to her dog and asks, "Erm...So, why'd ya have our dog, Coco?"

"Thanks for taking care of him, by the way!" Ruby chirps at Velvet who is leaning against the wall a bit further down the hallway and smiles genially back at her. However the rabbit Faunus' response is cut off as Coco thrusts a note in the prodigy's face. "Oh, Dad must have sent him before leaving for his mission."

Coco just blinks at the half sisters for a moment before collecting herself. "So, he does things like that regularly?"

Ruby and Yang both nod as Weiss-wearing her combat attire, sans her belt and boots, hair still unbound- ambles over to the group. "Great, and how long are we going to be stuck with this mangy, flea-ridden..." Zwei looks up at her. She looks down at the dog, and Jaune can hear her heart melting. "absowutewy adowable widdle bundle of wove and happiness?"

As the heiress crouches down as well and starts petting, babbling and cooing at the dog in baby-speak. Yang, the only member of her team actually ready for the day and their mission, stands back up and makes her way over to Coco. "Probably until our Old Man gets here for the Vytal Festival. Thanks for the help, Coco." Velvet approaches Ruby, almost certainly to ask after her and Weiss' health in a more private discussion.

The semi-retired model turned Huntress-in-training nods as Blake, still clad in her pajamas like Ruby, lets out a low groan and starts shuffling from her bed towards a dresser. Presumably hers. "Great. We'll be stuck with it for a whole month. It's probably going to have ruined half of my books by then."

Zwei tilts his head at the Faunus, rolls to his feet and trots over to where she is rummaging through her dresser. "What's with her?" Coco asks upon seeing the less than stellar state of the raven-haired girl.

Yang offers an exaggerated shrug. "Someone decided to dig in their heels and be contrary when I pointed out she wasn't hydrating or eating enough to deal with her hangover yesterday." Zwei licks the girl who had been ignoring him's exposed ankle, earning a startled shriek.

Coco snickers as Blake retrieves her usual field-wear and starts heading back towards her bed, focused on her clothes and the dog. "No. Stop it. Leave me alone!" She growls, trying a different command with every step, and pushing the dog away from her with her off foot with each motion. The little canine ignores her, clearly more worried about the in-pain person than what they are saying.

Weiss is still following Zwei, petting and babbling at him.

"Oh, did she get a little too wild after the dance? Or forget to not take the spiked punch?" Coco chirps, still smirking at the show that most of Team RWBY had turned themselves into.

Yang nods eagerly. "She had a date, who got our kitty to finally cut loose some at an afterparty."

"Sounds like you have a story, wanna tell me while we get the rest of your dog's stuff that got sent with him from my room?" Yang nods, and struts off with Coco.

Jaune knocks his fist on the doorframe. "You guys wanna, umm, meet up at the mission boards after Ozpin's speech, in case you don't make it to breakfast? Looks like it'll be a while before you're ready." Ruby shouts an affirmative, before closing the door after Jaune backs away from it.

The Reincarnated King has to jog a bit to catch up with his team, having doubled back to see if team RWBY were going to leave with them. They all easily fit into the elevator along with one of the other teams. Team RSLT, he thinks. He only really knows their leader, Ryse, and that's just because he had come to Jaune and Ruby a few times asking for advice. Not that either of them had that much more experience as leaders than he does. Then again, getting unexpectedly moved into the role days after the mission gone wrong that ended with your old leader's throat bitten out by a Beowolf and your girlfriend's arm ripped off by an Ursa isn't exactly a best case scenario. Or one likely to fill you with confidence.

He leans towards his fellow leader. "You guys ready for this week?"

"I... Yeah. Yeah, we are." The short bleach-blonde replies doing his best to at least sound confident. Team leaders look out for each other, at least at Beacon they do. Sometimes that's a pep-talk, or a shoulder to cry on. Other times it's serving as a sounding board for ideas, or letting someone beat their frustrations into your aura in a one-sided spar. Being a team leader is a big responsibility, after all.

Occasionally, it's a reality check that your peers need. Jaune offers his fellow leader a flat, deadpan look. "Yea, yea your right. It's just, even when we get sent out to the Emerald Forest on our weekend with Goodwitch and whatever pro she's scrounged up looking for easy money, all we're really doing is making sure that none of the chaff get numerous enough to start climbing the Beacon cliffs or going around to swim over to the parts of the Kingdom filled with logging companies and unused space. But now..." He shudders, and Jaune rests a calming hand on his shoulder.

"I, umm, I heard from some of the upperclassmen that there's plenty of missions where you stay inside the kingdom. And the supply-convoy ride-alongs to the outlying settlements always have more than just the one professional." Jaune offers his svelte peer, who starts to calm down a bit at that.

He nods after taking a moment to further collect himself, and they spend the rest of the ride watching Nora, and by extension Ren, tell the rest of their teams her Ursa rug dream again in companionable silence. She's done by the time the elevator reaches the ground floor, and the eight teens pile out and begin heading for the cafeteria. The leaders trailing behind the rest by a half-dozen steps. "What about you, man?" Ryse asks, his handgun and rapier bouncing from their perches on his hips as they walk.

Jaune waves off the inquiry with a grin. "Pfft. Us, yeah, we got this. Ren and Nora wanted to help—"

"Jaune, you know it isn't the mission I was asking about. It's what half the gossips in school haven't been able to shut up about since Friday night." Ryse cuts him off, a half-smirk on his face. Jaune feels kind of glad Ruby had mentioned to him just how lost he had seemed as a leader. She'd tried to give him a pep-talk, apparently, but her direct, sort of clumsy approach had just driven him to find places to hide from her.

He deflates a bit at that. "Honestly? I don't have a clue what to do next, dude. I mean, going to the dance together was great and all, but I don't know if it was just a—"

"First, don't overthink it." Ryse cuts him off again. "Then remember not to rush things, do what feels natural, and go with your gut." Jaune just nods at that. Kind of hard for the guy who's had one maybe-date with the girl he thought was out of his league until his crush had played wingman for her to argue with advice from a guy whose been dating his girl since before Beacon.

Jaune nods, doing his best to ignore the lump of uncertainty sitting somewhere between his heart and gut. "Right. I...Yeah, thanks." Ryse opens his mouth, but his scroll starts bleating out a pop-tune Jaune doesn't recognise.

He fishes the device out of his pocket grins, taps the screen and puts it to his ear. He mouths 'good hunting' to Jaune, before heading off to the side of the Cafeteria's main doors. "Hey, babe, how's it going?"

Giving the other young man a final wave, Jaune rejoins his team. Breakfast is pretty workaday, and uneventful after that. Nora demolishes an almost sickening amount of pancakes. Ren nibbles on fruit and porridge, Pyrrha's plate is a tour of the major food-groups, all in modest portions, and Jaune helps himself to an omelet. They banter and chatter, dump their trays on the return rack and head for the amphitheatre. Pyrrha falls into step beside him, and, after about a minute of walking, he catches her hand with his, interlocking their fingers. A light dusting of pink forms on her cheeks, not that he thinks his face is any better. Pyrrha glances around before leaning into him a bit.

Finding a decent spot isn't too hard, as they'd shown up plenty early. Moments after Professor Goodwitch had called for everyone to quiet, Team RWBY push their way through the crowd, each girl offering a quick wave or silent greeting as the Headmaster takes the stage.

"Before I begin, I feel I must offer all of you an apology. As I am sure you are all well aware, many people, from all across Remnant come together for the Vytal Festival. These individuals, coming from all walks of life, travel to the Kingdom hosting this joyous celebration. Some of those people may have saved up for years to journey to another kingdom, to fully experience their traditions, cuisine and culture. Others make that same journey as a matter of course every year. A select portion of that group, be they captains of industry, nobly born, entertainers, athletes, or simply those thrust into the spotlight of fame, see themselves as superior to their fellows. They give charitably to the Festival, in exchange for preferential treatment, not out of respect for this auspicious celebration." Ozpin pauses, Jaune noticing Weiss had gone rigid, almost bristling in outrage at the very idea, until Ruby places a calming hand on her shoulder.

"I allowed the perceived political need to placate a member of the latter group here early for the Vytal Festival to prevent you all from having a more meaningful beginning to your first mission as Huntsmen and Huntresses. And for that, I am deeply sorry." He pauses again, bowing his head slightly, eyes closed. When he looks up, there is a fire behind his eyes, a hint of the burning passion hidden beneath his calm demeanor. "As much as I wish that it was mere human hubris that caused the lapse in a generations old tradition, that is not so. There exists a third group of individuals on Remnant." If he didn't have Jaune's attention before he certainly did now.

Oz removes his hand from the stand microphone, and gestures to the four gathered groups of students as he continues. "A group who see Mistral, Atlas, Vacuo and Vale gathered together, standing united, and can only see our differences. Who see Human and Faunus, or ethnic ties to lands long dead, or perhaps traditions long laid aside, and rail against our unity and the singular sense of purpose and belonging we find through diversity. A group of those small-minded individuals used the night of the Vytal Dance to infiltrate Vale's CCT Tower. While nothing in the structure was damaged or taken, General Ironwood and I spent the lion's share of yesterday not given over to treating with dignitaries coordinating with Vales police forces to better investigate the break-in. As well as ensuring that the health of two brave individuals who chose to stand between the intruders and their goals–doing this school proud–had been properly seen to." Ozpin meaningfully glances in the direction of Ruby and Weiss, subtly but genuinely proud. Ruby and Weiss respectively puffing up and preening in response to the indirect praise, before the younger girl inexplicably wilts.

The headmaster taps his cane on the stage floor as he takes a breath. "That, more than anything, should prove the importance of all of the missions that you will have to choose from after leaving this room. Even those of you who will be remaining within the walls of the kingdom will be doing work vital to the survival of human and Faunuskind."

The silver-haired man takes another long pause, and a deep breath before settling his left hand over his right, which is clenching his cane in front of him. "Eighty years from yesterday, the largest war in recorded history came to an end. It was a war of ignorance, and greed, and of oppression. A war that was about much more than where borders fell or who traded with who; but about the very idea of individualism itself. We fought for countless reasons. One of which being the destruction of all forms or art and self-expression. And as you are well aware that is something many could not stand for." The headmaster closes his eyes and shakes his head at that. His tone having long shifted from apologetic to one of somber recollection. If Jaune didn't know any better…

"As a result, those who opposed this tyranny began naming their children after one of the core aspects of art itself: color. It was their way to demonstrate, that not only would they not tolerate this oppression, but neither would the generations to come. And it is a trend, that has held to this very day." He pauses again, looking out across the students. He then opens his mouth, closes it again, closes his eyes for a moment and continues. "It is not only yesterday, today, or even the extended weekend many around the world are currently enjoying, that we stand together in unity, but every day of the year. And that bond cannot exist without effort. Which is why on Armistice Day, as the rest of the world celebrates peace, Huntsmen and Huntresses will work to uphold it."

He pauses, his grave tone lifting, as a conspiratorial grin flashes across his face for a moment. "And I am certain that all of you have fond memories of spending your younger years celebrating yesterday with the rest of the world, many of you also remember your parents leaving after the night's reverie had ended, or before you had woken up today, to do the same. It is possible that some of you may even get the chance to work with the relatives of your friends, be they new or old. Know that while you are not participating in the more solemn of our traditions this year, you will be part of one of the most compassionate. Frequently, the missions undertaken the day after Armistice Day are not freshly begun, but are taken over by other Huntsmen and Huntresses. The older generation stepping in to lighten the load of their juniors, or simply those who have not yet had the opportunity to start a family of their own; so that all of us may celebrate the peace we so dearly treasure."

He trails off, and the lights in the room begin to lighten, the spotlight that had been centered on him dimming away to nothingness. "As freshmen, you will be tasked with shadowing a professional Huntsman or Huntress on a mission. Some of you already selected your mission by scroll yesterday. The rest of you may choose one from the boards in this room and outside the building. Be safe, remember your training, and do your very best." The headmaster then strides from the stage as the lights raise the rest of the way, the gathered students milling about aimlessly for a bit before the teams start spreading out to peruse the available missions.

"Does anyone else get the impression that the Headmaster had one speech prepared, but what happened earlier this weekend forced him to improvise a second?" Nora asks idly as the two teams head for the outdoor mission boards. Yang and Ruby both snicker at that, and Pyrrha hides her mouth behind a hand.

Jaune shrugs in a 'what can you do' manner. "I mean, it's not like he could just ignore the fact that this got pushed back a day. It's kind of a big deal, and having a curveball like that come your way probably sucked pretty bad." Ren nods at that, and for a few minutes the group falls silent as they flit from board to board checking out what is available.

Eventually, Yang glances around at the group, a mischievous gleam in her eyes and a smirk on her face. "So, Weiss, you said you saw Ruby getting that blood transfusion, right?" The heiress grimaces but nods, clearly confused at why Yang would bring that up so casually. Same as the rest of them, for that matter. "So, that means you know her secret, and it's really only a matter of time until the rest of us find out."

"Her... secret?"

Ruby freezes for a moment before heatedly locking eyes with the blonde girl. "Yang Xiao Long, you better not—"

The busty blond ignoring her sister, continues. "Little Ruby is such an optimist..."

Ruby actually growls at Yang. "Dearest sister, if you go through with this, I will have no choice but to shoot you."

"Even her blood wants to be positive!" Yang crows, laughing at her own joke.

As the rest of them groan, roll their eyes or shake their heads, Ruby lunges at her sister, roaring—

Only for Weiss to catch her by her collar. The heiress whispers something into the prodigy's ear, and she calms down, a small smile spreading across her face. "Yang...I have recently been reminded that revenge...is a dish best served cold."

Yang reels back dramatically. "Wuh-oh." Evidently, not all that concerned. "I'm feeling the chill already. Oh, wait, that's just Weiss." Ruby only leers at her in a distinctly predatory manner while Weiss looks down her nose at the blonde pun-slinger as she laughs to herself again.

Blake just shakes her head at the antics of the rest of her team. "So, what sort of mission were you guys looking to take?"

Jaune looks over another mission board, mostly Grimm hunts to the north of the kingdom. "Eh, Nora and Ren want to help out one of the settlements outside the Kingdom, and Pyrrha wants to go somewhere she won't immediately get mobbed by fans looking for autographs. So, way out in the boonies somewhere, I guess."

A dazed looking student in an Atlas uniform stumbles closer to them not long after Jaune had replied. "I couldn't help but overhear you. I think that I saw a mission that might work for you. Over there." He points at a mission board off to their right, then staggers off again. Jaune shakes his head. Going on such an advanced mission that high is a recipe for disaster. As much as he wants to report the guy for his own safety, or do something to clear out his system, he also doesn't want to get someone expelled, or have any awkward questions get asked. A voice in the back of Jaune's head, one that sounds disturbingly close to Sairaorg's, unhelpfully points out that, were that kid one of his regular pact customers, he'd clean him up as a matter of course.

Jaune looks around, trying to think of ways to help him out that wouldn't be obvious in such a big crowd, but the guy has already vanished into the press of bodies. "That was...Oddly helpful." Weiss offers, clearly as confused as the rest of them.

"Something seemed kinda off about him though." Nora adds as the group ambles over towards the mission board that he had indicated.

Yang nods. "Yeah, high as a kite. Can't believe anyone would be that stupid today of all days."

Ren makes eye contact with Jaune, a silent question in his eyes. The blonde King shakes his head in a subtle negative, just barely enough for him to notice. Jaune turns back to address their 'sister' team. "So, what were you girls looking for for your mission?"

Ruby shrugs. "Oh, we're not really sure. Just something off to the southeast."

"Ooh! Trying to sneak a visit to the beach for your mission! Good thinking!" Nora chirps back at them, once again connecting dots only she can see, while Jaune reads over the mission board. The settlement of Pendles people are apparently worried about a Grimm surge that the local militia's leadership is too proud to admit they need help dealing with, and things are getting worse every day. Odd way to describe the situation, but it checks out. He pulls out his scroll to do a quick check on the town, which reveals that it is in fact a smaller settlement nestled in the mountain range between Vale and Vacuo famous for its platinum mine and a handful of medically useful plants that only really grow well in the mountain climate, as well as being hard to reach.

Yang shakes her head, smirking wanly at the pink and white-clad girl. "It's...Kinda cold for the beach, Nora."

The orange-haired girl tilts her head and shrugs her shoulders. "What, Pyrrha was still wearing a sundress the other day, and you're...You." She just kind of trails off and gestures at Yang, clad in her midriff-bearing, cleavage-displaying huntress attire.

Yang shrugs back. "True. But I have my Aura up pretty much all the time to wear this getup in late fall and early spring. I've got something else for winter that I think I'll be switching over to after the Vytal Tourney. I'd bet Pyrrha does too."

The redhead nods, adjusting one of her bangles awkwardly. "Oh, I do." She pauses, a strained look on her face at the awkward silence that follows. "You four didn't choose a specific region for your mission because of Blake's... fixation on the White Fang, did you?" She half blurts out, looking guilty almost as soon as the last syllable is off her tongue.

"No?" the Faunus in disguise lamely replies.

Weiss rolls her eyes at that, when suddenly her scroll chimes. After taking it out, her expression quickly sobers before she taps out a reply. "We—All eight of us—need to have a talk, an honest one, once we're all back from our missions." She pointedly stares at Jaune after putting her scroll away.

Er, okay then?

"Uh-huh." Jaune shoots a judgmental gaze at his red-fringed fellow leader for enabling Blake's behavior. Not like he could really expect any different from the girl who became a Huntress-in-training just so she could help people though. Then his own scroll dings, a more in-depth mission brief, and a notice that, apparently, they leave in less than an hour. Crap. He nudges Ren and Pyrrha with an elbow and nods at the mission board. "Yeah, sure thing, Weiss-cream. Stay safe. And good hunting."

"An honest talk, Jaune Arc." Weiss adds as he moves to jog off with his team. "And I don't mean to prattle on about the ordinary Grimm and Gossip everyone else spends their time worrying about. I'm more concerned with some of the secrets you, Rias and Ravel have been keeping between yourselves."

Oh, so that's what she means. Well, shit.

Jaune takes a moment to respond. Apparently Weiss had done more question-asking than society-girl venting with Ravel than he had figured was going on."Well, yeah, when aren't we honest with you guys, and when don't we have talks deeper than ice-breakers?" Weiss levels a look at him that's harsh enough to freeze Mercury, and not the grumpy transfer student. "Yeah, of course. One honest talk about whatever it is that's bugging you, coming up as soon as we're all back at Beacon, safe and whole." Weiss nods, satisfied but not looking entirely pleased by his response. Ruby seems to be glancing between him and Weiss anxiously though. Aw, Hell, did she find out too? Yang and Blake at least just look mildly puzzled, so thank the Brothers for small miracles.

He takes in a deep breath and holds it. Might as well come clean. Half of CFVY already knows. And he knows he can trust RWBY to keep a secret, Weiss has been keeping her knowledge of Devils existence to herself for months now. He lets the breath out, slow and calm. Besides, better they find out from him, than some rogue Fallen Angel looking to spread mistrust or chaos.

Team RWBY all wave and offer them well wishes similar to Jaune's as his team run off to collect their overnight bags and weapons from where everyone had had to check them in the amphitheater. They get to the Bullhead dock that had been specified just as the transport powered up its engines, and at the same time as a tall, grizzled looking older Huntsman. Clad in dark gray pants, a white long sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows tucked in and under and an olive drab tactical vest left hanging open, his weapon – a rifle with a double-headed axe extending from the butt is hanging on the brown haired man's back. His hair is cut into a neat high-and-tight, and he has a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, his right arm is a mass of scars that goes up beyond where his sleeve ends. "So, are you the Huntsman we'll be following?" Nora asks as the five of them climb onto the Bullhead.

The guy shakes his head in a negative. "Nah. I've got family in Pendles, decided I'd lend a hand when I heard they were having trouble. Name's Whit Remmington. From what I heard, the guy you kids are supposed to be meeting up with is coming off of another mission up in Mistral, he'll be meeting us on site."

Jaune, along with the rest of their team make to introduce themselves as the ships bulkheads slide shut as it clears the ground.

_-*R-DxD*-_

((Friday night - Technically Saturday morning))

The first thing Lacey does after being dropped off at the most recent safehouse she'll be staying in is check her things.

She only has a single suitcase now, which had become increasingly overstuffed while she had been shuffled from place to place as her funds had dwindled and her desperation rose. Resonant Chord is travel-locked in its sheath, which is latched onto the outside of the pack. Flicking the latches with practiced ease, she frees first the sheath, then the blade. She draws her weapon to inspect her pride and joy for any damage or wear, checking it for anything that might need maintenance.

Holding the tuning fork sword brings on a rush of emotions and memories. The first time she had used her Semblance, scared senseless, lost and alone in an over-crowded mall for holiday shopping, literally screaming her throat bloody, and nearly leaving herself mute. She hadn't been much older than a toddler then. The incident is one of her oldest memories by far. She doesn't remember what the doctors had told her parents, but while they had talked with them outside her hospital room, the nurse, a scarred, matronly old woman with a limp and a prosthetic hand had told her she had a strong Semblance. That she could be a Huntress, a hero.

Less than an hour later, her parents had informed she could never be one.

Her youngest years spent watching footage of Huntresses fighting Grimm, fight videos, martial arts documentaries, Huntsman interviews and weapons building how-to's. Constantly dodging her parents' ever growing swath of banned sites, search topics and child safety blocks on the family's CCTNet connection. Spending months and months squirreling away her allowance to buy a billet of steel, and having it shipped to a friend's house. Begging that-soon to be former- friends' parents not to tell hers.

Then she'd spent even more weeks loitering at one of the Huntsman 'service centers' nestled in between a quartet of cheap apartments on the edges of a Huntsman neighborhood that catered to recent Beacon graduates. Watching pros spar, and maintain their weapons, and just do all the little unglamorous things that never make it to videos online or documentaries she'd had a harder time getting a hold of by then than porn. They hadn't much cared until she'd finally figured out where the forge was. Half a dozen well meaning adults screaming down a tween over how everything inside that room were dangerous tools, not toys. About how the place would be shut down by insurance claims if she got hurt. About every little thing under the sun that she'd heard her parents and siblings constantly raging at her about for as long as she could remember. Half of them shouting so loud that her never-quite-healed right vocal chords weren't able to make her heard over them.

So she'd raised her hand and snapped. The gaggle of well-meaning Huntsmen and Huntresses surrounding her had been knocked to the ground, and half the glass in the building had shattered. That had gotten everyone's attention. After she spent half an hour half-ranting and half-crying as loudly as she could, she had their support. Showing her how to work the forge. Helping her alloy her blade when the first attempt had just bent in half when she swung it at a tatami mat to see how it turned out. Walked her through all the little things that kids from Huntsman families do that get them a leg up at the Academies.

When she had finally finished Resonant Chord and its sheath, brought it home along with the bag of combat grade clothes some of the Huntresses from the service center had—

Someone knocking on the door snaps her out of her reverie.

With a swish and a flourish she slides her sword back into its sheath, then, after thinking for a moment, clips the sheath to her belt. She strides the few steps from her pack to the front door, not having looked deeper into the little second floor apartment than its entrance/kitchen/dining room.

She opens it. Revealing a pudgy older lady, steel gray hair done in a loose bun, bushy tail of the same color with a white stripe running down its middle wrapped around her waist. A steaming plate of what looks like meatloaf, green beans and a baked potato clutched in her hands.

The older lady, who seems kind of familiar and is probably the landlord–let's herself in. "Now, dearie, I don't know how you fell in with the White Fang, or Mr. Torchwick's people. But everyone he's sent to this apartment has had quite the story, and something they need help with." She sets the plate down on the table pushed against the narrow strip of wall between a closed door and the opening between the front room and what looks like a living room, sits at the spot across from it, and raps her knuckles next to the plate. "I've helped three different young men get clean cold turkey, nursed more gunshot and stab victims back to good health than I care to count, and even helped one young lady carry a baby to term. Getting some meat on your bones while you're in my care shouldn't be as hard as all that though."

Uncertainly, Lacey makes her way over to the little table and sits down. Nearly salivating now that something other than cup ramen, fast food value menu crap, or excess food from a nightclub's line kitchen that legally has to be thrown out after the place shut down for the night is set in front of her. She takes a bite and—Brothers, had it really been half a year since she last got a home cooked meal? She knows that closing her eyes and moaning in delight isn't exactly a great first impression, but from what the older lady had said, it won't be the worst she's gotten. "I... thank you, ma'am."

She waves Lacey off. "Oh, think nothing of it. We can talk later. It's awfully early, and Mr. Torchwick wants to see you first thing tomorrow morning."

"Just like that? You...you're fine working with Vale's most famous thief?" Lacey asks between bites.

The elderly Faunus makes a noncommittal gesture at that. "He pays me better than I could ask a normal person for rent, and his friends and associates are more respectful and less destructive than some of the tenants I've had since I followed my grandson to Vale. But we can talk about our life stories later. Eat." Lacey does as she's been instructed, quickly polishing off the rest of her plate.

The elderly Faunus gives her a brief tour of the apartment turned safehouse once she's done eating. The living room is a bit bigger than the kitchen/dining room, has a little closet, couch and TV. They turn around, walk past the kitchen and through a bathroom, more of a half-bath really but she'll actually have a shower to herself again. The bedroom is probably a bit smaller than the other two rooms, but it's bigger than her old studio apartment and the bolt-hole Crimm had let her stay in. The bed's only a double, but that beats the three level bunk-pallet she had had the displeasure of trying to sleep on during her short but too-long time with the White Fang.

"Now, if you don't mind, I need to go make sure Pewter didn't get into my liquor again. That boy has no self-control once he's drunk, I swear." When—Mrs. Aech, was it?—Well, when the kindly old Faunus totters out of the room, Lacey slings her Field Pack, admitting it isn't a suitcase seems a bit easier now, over her shoulder and troops into the bedroom. She opens it, gathers up all of the uniforms that the White Fang had given her, slings them into the far corner of the room, and starts digging for her pajamas.

No reason to risk the first break she's caught in months, even if it is coming from a criminal.

_-*R-DxD*-_

The Bullhead had gone mostly silent not long after it had taken off.

Nora had tried to talk with Whit, but, the overlap of interests between a guy old enough to be their father and the students, despite all five being Huntsmen, is quite small. The ship had been mostly silent for nearly an hour at this point. The hum of the engines and tinny bleating of whatever music the pilots were listening to in the cockpit a constant background din preventing any true silence.

Right then. He can do this.

"So, Pyrrha..." The red-haired champion turned Reincarnated Devil Queen shifts her head away from her scroll and whatever book she'd been reading on it to look up at him, making an affirmative hum as she does so. She's NOT out of his league. They're actually equals! Kinda-sorta. He knows enough about her by now to know she certainly didn't think herself above him. Mayby? "I...Umm, I know that a lot of people treat going to a formal dance together as a date, and we went to the Vytal Dance together, but we never actually talked about whether it was just that or—"

"If you asked me on another date, I wouldn't say no, Jaune." Pyrrha gently cuts him off, resting her free hand on his shoulder.

Great! That's great.

…

Crap, what will they do on another date? Where will he take her? That's pretty much the guy's job to figure out and he has absolutely no clue where they'll go or what to do and he's a complete idiot for not coming up with something before trying to have this conversation. She's gonna expect him to ask her on a date now and he isn't...

Whhhhyyyyy does Pyrrha look like she still has more to say? Stop. Just, let her talk, Jaune. No need to go shooting his mouth off like an idiot, or panicking himself with what-ifs and hypotheticals. "I just..." She trails off and shakes her head. "I hope you don't mind that we won't get much privacy." She pauses for a moment, the miserable look on her face completely at odds with the gentle, honest happiness that had been on it moments ago. "Ever."

Ohh boy…

"Ehh? Huh? What do you mean by that?" he asks, knowing full well what it is she's worried about. Maybe playing dumb a bit will help her feel better about it?"

Pyrrha's face shifts again, and some of the tension bleeds from her shoulders as she pokes his. "It's the paparazzi, Jaune. They circle us like vultures every time we leave Beacon." they do? How had he not noticed? That... that probably says pretty terrible things about his spatial awareness. "And it's the reason I had barely any real friends before I came to Beacon. Most people, they can't deal with being in the spotlight constantly. They say they can at first, but then they spot themselves on the cover of a tabloid, or on some celebrity news show; or its someone else in their family starts getting followed around, or they just, snap, under the pressure; and then they're gone, and it's just me again." She sounds absolutely miserable, and the way she's curling in on herself is sending a dagger through his heart.

Though, now that he thinks about it, that actually doesn't sound too much different from a high-class Devil's life. At least Pyrrha's past hardships will give her a leg up in that department? Probably shouldn't say that out loud, at least not now. Mentioning that Devil society is probably much worse is likely the only dumber thing he could do right now.

He needs to do something, say something to make her feel better though. That's what boyfriends do at times like this, right? Know the right thing to say and say it and make her hurt go away? "Umm, no one bothered us that first weekend in Vale when we went to the club with Team Ruby, right? Maybe you could disguise yourself again?"

And now Nora is shooting a look at him, and Ren is pinching the bridge of his nose and looking at the floor. Was that the wrong thing to—?

Hey, he's seen Pyrrha smiling like that before. Well, after he started actually paying attention he has at least. Lots of times! On TV, and magazine covers and...

Aw crap. Crap crap crap. Fix it, you thick-skulled moron!

"Umm, that is—I mean, we don't have to leave Beacon for dates all the time, right? Not many people use the running trails, and some of them have some pretty pretty spots looking out over the Emerald Forest. Maybe we could, umm, do a picnic? I can make a few decent dishes that don't need to be hot to be good, and—"

"That sounds wonderful, Jaune." Pyrrha, thankfully, cuts him off mid ramble, leaning over onto his shoulder and wrapping his hand up in hers.

"Well, ain't that sweet, Jaune." Whit drawls from the far side of the passenger compartment. All of team JNPR turn to glare at the Huntsman. Though Pyrrha doesn't move much to do so. "What?" He asks loudly and unrepentant. "You air your personal lives in front of a complete stranger in a cramped Bullhead on an hours-long ride and expect me to not overhear, or just act like I didn't like some overly-polite Mistrali doormat?"

"I'm sorry?" That got Pyrrha glaring at the older Huntsman in earnest, and the blond King feels his partner deserves a medal or commendation or something for how easily she was able to turn a typically toothless apologetic phrase into an honest-to-Lucifer threat. The Bullhead goes more or less silent again at that, Whit wisely withholding any other witticisms he had in reserve. The sun is closer to setting than its zenith by the time the settlement of Pendles comes into view.

The city is nestled into an amphitheatre-shaped valley with what looks like a decent sized lake, probably spring-fed, at its back. It's a decently sized valley, maybe twenty miles across at its widest point, most of it ungroomed meadow, save for the weird fields near the city proper, the mine biting into and down from the valleys left side, and the narrow forest hugging its right rim. The sole pass leading in and out of it is a narrow one that had probably been carved by the river flowing from the lake. The pass, of course, has a high, thick wall blocking it off that is dotted with heavy gun emplacements and flak cannons, the tiny specs of militiamen patrolling its top visible from the air as they make their approach.

The upper rim of the valley has a dozen watchtowers ringing it. Each looks about big enough to double as a single family home, save for the one above the lake at the valleys back, which is about triple the size of the others, and has a small CCT booster antena rising from its flat top. All twelve have a cable car linking them to the valley below, and what look like decently groomed dirt roads leading from the junction at the valleys floor to the city nestled between the valleys lake and the mountains opposite the mine. "Towers each have a Huntsman family living from them. They're gonna be too busy patrolling the back trails, goat paths and the rest of this stretch of the range to come down into town for anything short of a wall breach." Whit grunts as the Bullhead swoops low, weaving between what looks like a processing plant and an excavator repair-yard to flit over a commercial district and touch down on a landing pad it barely fits on.

The students and Huntsman all pile off as the ships pilot and co-pilot set about shutting down the engines and running post-flight diagnostics. After disembarking, Jaune can see five other landing pads. Each is barely big enough to fit a Bullhead, and only one other is occupied. The other ship, parked on the pad closest to what's probably a dust magazine for refueling airships or a warehouse and opposite side of the combined service road and footpath bisecting the two rows the landing pads are organized in. The old Bullhead is heavily modified, faded paint mostly forest green with streaks of sky blue. Powered down, silent and still as it is, the lone figure leaned against the building with greased back black hair dusted with streaks of gray in a white suit jacket, gray dress shirt black slacks and a bulky blade hitched to the small of his back is far more interesting.

Whit trails behind the students as they move towards whoever is waiting for them. The Huntsman pushes off from the wall when they cross the space between the middle pair of landing pads and the set nearest the building that's half occupied. He is blatantly sizing them up as he starts moving to close the distance between the two groups, right hand loosely resting on his weapon's hilt where it protrudes from the small of his back, left crammed into his dark gray jackets pocket. "Either wear full armor or none, Blondie. The show corset's just gonna chafe and squeeze if a fight goes on long enough, Shortstack. Same goes for those greaves if you stick with the skirt and sash Champ. Not bad, Green." He ambles to a halt as his critique of their gear comes to an end. "Whit. Surprised you came out this way. Figured you'd be buried in paperwork after finally collaring Hemlock." The Huntsman greets his peer in a growling voice half a breath after ripping into JNPR's apparel.

Whit shakes his head. "If only. Dumbass crook got himself killed by —Well, anyway. The kids you're here to babysit were on site. I was off on the far side of town staking out the bastards front business that night. Thought you were still running jobs in Mistral, Qrow."

The now-named Huntsman shrugs nonchalantly. "Oz wanted me on this one. And when a headmaster asks you a favor..." Whit nods in understanding, and Team JNPR, for their part, all act like they get whatever it is he's getting at too.

Well, Team JNPR sans Nora. "Wait, Qrow as in Qrow Branwen, famous globe-trotting Huntsman, formerly part of legendary Beacon-graduated crew, Team Stark? THAT Qrow Branwen?"

The red eyed Huntsman shoots her a smirk. "Got it in one, kiddo. I'm surprised to know a brat like you has heard of me or Team Stark though. Back when we were that big a deal was definitely before your time."

"Pfffft." Nora waves the older man off. "C'mon, I mean, you look pretty good, but there's no way one of the best active Huntsmen alive is some dusty-looking, over-the-hill day drinker." Qrow freezes, the hip flask he had pulled from his jacket halfway to his mouth. "Don't worry, Sir Fan-gramps, I won't tell anyone about your hero worship, or judge you about your bad habits."

Pyrrha nods sagely, earnestly intoning, "And I'm certain you will be more than up to the task of showing us the ropes, regardless of how some of us may have had our skills exaggerated." She tapers off a little bitterly. Getting killed by that Fallen at the start of the year must have done a bigger number on her than Jaune had thought.

Qrow splutters and opens his mouth, likely about to protest, but Whit pokes him in the gut. "You should know better than to fight it when crap like this happens, Qrow. I–" His scroll starts buzzing, he fishes it from his pocket, and, after seeing the screen grins. "I gotta take this. My godson is a Beacon freshman too, and if he's calling me this early, I'd bet his team already finished their mission."

As the other huntsman jogs off, Qrow turns on Nora. "Now, listen here–" He cuts himself off when he takes in the sight of the young Valkyrie's shit-eating grin as she snickers. "Oh ho ho, so that's how it is, huh? Fair warning, kid, Team Stark wasn't a pack of brain-dead meatheads. Summer would've eaten you alive. For breakfast. I picked up more than a few things following her lead, and you better believe I'm gonna get you back if you wanna play it this way."

"Ooh~ I'm shaking, old man."

"You will be." Like a switch flipped, the professional Huntsman goes serious. "Alright, break off by partners and start trying to get a feel for the city. I think I know what's going on here, but we need proof before we do anything. Stay in touch, and let's plan on meeting up at the Militias barracks/training grounds by sunset."

"Umm, what is going on here, sir? The mission said the town was under siege by the Grimm, but..." Pyrrha trails off.

"No need for any formalities, just 'Qrow's' fine." Qrow shakes his head. "The most recent wave got pushed back from the wall about half an hour before you kids got here. As to what's going on, I don't wanna give you a confirmation bias. Time to stretch those investigative legs, kids." At that, the graying Huntsman starts striding off, walking around the building instead of through the arched tunnel cutting through its center.

"Let's split by partners then. Keep one eye on your scroll for updates, and one for trouble. Stay in touch, and safe." Jaune orders, before ambling down the arch Qrow had ignored. Ren nods and heads for the opposite side of the building from the one the older Huntsman had opted to skirt, Nora following on his heels, hands clasped behind her back and grinning.

At first, the town seems pretty normal to Jaune and Pyrrha. A bit depopulated for early evening, but considering the recent Grimm attack on the wall at the mouth of the valley they're situated in, that's probably to be expected. The civilians that are out and about all give the handful of tired looking militiamen–clad in crisp cut, slim fitting olive drab, ocher trimmed uniforms topped with olive drab campaign caps with deep brown cords tied where the hats brim begins, and sporting polished steel greaves and vambraces, sleek black combat rifles slung over their backs with a keen axehead extending down from the gun's butt–a wide berth. Which isn't that odd, considering that a settlement this far from any of the kingdom's militia is bound to be a full time professional force, likely with many of them having unlocked Auras. The people giving them space is about as usual as huntsmen and huntresses being left room to move on the sidewalks of Vale.

A force like this being too proud to call for help seems far fetched. Them being overwhelmed from such a favorable position even more so. "Jaune, I didn't want to give anything away when he could hear us, but I was able to catch who was calling Mr. Remmington before he left earlier." She pauses, glancing around, before continuing: "It was Cardin."

Shit.

Not more than a half dozen steps after Pyrrha had broken the companionable silence they had been walking in and well before Jaune has any proper sort of response to her observation ready to vocalize, a commotion across the street draws their attention. A gaggle of militia soldiers, jackets open, hat armor and weapons absent are sat at a table outside what looks like a diner, empty plates and glasses scattered in front of them. A kid in a waiter's uniform is shrinking away from another member of the militia, fully armed, uniform immaculate with a burnished brass Lieutenant's bar on his lapels and cap, right hand on the handgun resting in a holster on his hip, left pressing a finger into the poor kids chest.

"The hell is this?!" The militia officer barks at the teen.

He blinks and steps back, only for the officer to close the gap again. "T-their bill. Sir."

"Bill." It wasn't a question.

"Yes? They did eat–"

"Are you blind or just retarded?" The belligerent officer drawls at the poor pre-teen, looming over him with a nasty look on his face. One of the soldiers looking absolutely miserable, two with carefully blank faces and two others trying to suppress smirks. Before the waiter can reply the officer continues "Obviously neither, seeing as you have a job, which means you can see the uniforms and know what they mean."

"I-I don't understand, Lieutenant..."

The burly, surly officer rolls his eyes and loosens the handgun in its holster. "You like not being killed by Grimm, right?" The waiter nods. "And you know who it is that's keeping them out of the city, correct?" Another, more hesitant nod. "Well then, obviously whatever these fine young men ordered should be on the house. Or do you want to be Grimm chow this time tomorrow?"

Pyrrha looks ready to jump in to intervene, so Jaune catches her elbow and starts walking away from the diner. She shifts to, rather aggressively, pout at him just as a portly man in a chef's jacket jogs from the inside of the diner, and says, something, that de-escalates the situation. "If that really is the heart of this town's trouble, stopping that fiasco will just tip our hand. Let's meet up with the others."

Roughly an hour of walking, and one more case of a militia officer extorting a civilian later finds the partners standing outside a high walled, pentagonal compound with the rest of their team, and the professional they had been 'shadowing'. "So, what'd we find out?"

"The militia is exploiting the people of this city. Or at least the ones running the restaurants and bars." Pyrrha replies almost as soon as the older man is done speaking.

Nora nods, a scowl on her face. "Yeah. And they don't like it when you stop 'em from stealing from people!"

"Nora, why are you holding a claw hammer behind your back?" Jaune hears himself asking, desperately hoping that his eyes are wrong.

Sheepishly, the girl stops hiding her hands, and slides the construction tool in question through a loop on her belt. "Because Magnhild will pulp legs, not break them?"

The small smile on Ren's face either means she hadn't actually broken one of the militia's knees, or had done it somewhere that wouldn't tip their hand. Hopefully it's the former. "It looks like only the upper officers are exploiting the town. Most of the regular militiamen we saw seemed, conflicted or at least uncomfortable."

Qrow idly reaches to the side to ruffle Nora's hair, grinning grimly. "Yup, kind of what I'd been expecting, and I saw more or less what you kids are reporting. Got us a meeting with the militia leadership inside their barracks in half an hour. Be ready for things to get ugly quickly."

"Um, not to be a pessimist, but, what if they overwhelm us?" Jaune prompts, not really used to having someone else calling the shots after nearly a year leading his Peerage and Team. But he understands the necessity of deferring to the more experienced huntsman. 'Age before beauty' and all that, so he keeps a lid on that almost pouty knot of discomfort in the back of his mind.

Qrow waves a hand at him. "I also let the Huntsmen families watching the valley rim and surrounding area know what's up, and sent a message back to Vale. If we don't check in in an hour after the meeting is slated to start nearly a dozen hardened Huntsmen and Huntresses will come down on the militia HQ like a ten ton hammer, and the Valean Army will have a fully loaded troop transport here by midnight. Welcome to the ugly side of being a Huntsman, kids."

Jaune's mouth thinned in a line of grim acceptance, stifling a twitch of morbid humor. Ugly side...

If he only knew.

_-*R-DxD*-_

Team RWBY is tired. Dead tired. Dr. Oobleck had been working them hard all day, and his pace had been utterly relentless. Lots of Grimm dead, and no sign of the White Fang so far. "Girls, I think we may have something!" The hyperactive scholar whisper shouts just loud enough to startle Ruby out of teasing Zwei, and Weiss from covertly watching the adorable pooch frolic instead of watching for Grimm.

They both turn and dart over to join up with their friends and the professor, rose petals trailing behind the Dolt while Weiss just sweats more. Ruby skids to a halt on her stomach, Crescent Rose in its compact rifle form rested on a convenient chunk of concrete, already looking through her scope and downrange. And Weiss crouches behind her, Myrtenaster held low and ready.

Half a second later Ruby grins and checks her barrel. She pops up, nearly smashing her head into Weiss chin and happily shouts "Jeanne! Le Fay! Why didn't you tell us your team was going to be headed this way?" Honestly, Weiss isn't sure if she is more surprised or worried that the Dolt lied so cleanly. She had seen her ping their recently made friends' new scrolls with their location coordinates several times over the course of the day.

"Hello, Miss Ruby!" Le Fay chirps, waving back.

Arthur, Caliburn held loosely in his hand, his suit remarkably immaculate, offers a mild shrug. "I'm sure you know how it is by now. When you're out hunting down Grimm, you go where they are. Would you five mind sharing a camp with us for the night?"

Oobleck nods as the quartet of 'Heroes' approach. "That you do, and of course we don't. There is safety in numbers, after all. Now, I was just about to propose that we make camp for the night, but seeing as our numbers have just doubled, we can do a proper check of the perimeter instead of simply trusting that whomever is on watch is watchful enough to keep us from being killed in our sleep."

Jeanne nods "Sounds good, me and Connla can take care of that." No nickname, good to know she realizes there's a time and place for such things.

Oobleck looks at the pair of heroes, quirking an eyebrow, before nodding. "Miss Rose, Miss Schnee, please accompany our new allies. It is, after all, common courtesy to spread the burden evenly when meeting, and cooperating with other Huntsman teams you meet in the field. The rest of us will check the warehouse behind me for any grimm, or points of access other than the front door."

Ruby tosses off a lazy, tired half-salute at the professor and trudges off behind the older 'Huntsmen.' Weiss just sighs, loosens Myrtenaster in its sheath and moves to follow. At first, their circuit of the block is, uneventful, and silent, both her and Ruby too worn down to break the silence or do anything other than watch for more grimm.

A low growl draws the quartets attention moments before a lumbering Ursa Major trods out of a side street into the rubble-strewn street to their right. Weiss is gratified to have drawn her blade a split second before Jeanne. Crescent rose is still unfurling when Connla points his right hand at the grim and snaps, a rope of shadow springing forward to wrap around its neck. By the time Ruby's weapon is ready, the grimms head is halfway across the street, its body slumped on the ground, smoke pouring off of it as it disintegrates.

"Hmm. There are at least more of these Grimm outside of the kingdom. Not much of a challenge though." Connla deadpans, not even having broken his stride to dispatch the monster.

Ruby shrugs, resting her weapon on her shoulder and starting to follow him again. "Ehh, Ursai and Beowolves are easily the most common types of Grimm. Unless you're unlucky enough to run across one of the really old ones, or a whole bunch, they don't really pose that much of a threat."

Weiss pinches the bridge of her nose "And it's a mindset like that which will get you hurt, or worse killed, by a Beowolf or Ursa." She turns to look at Connla "You aren't wrong about a single Ursa not being much of a challenge however. That was barely big enough to call an Ursa Major. You will find more rare types of grimm more commonly this far from society, however."

"Speaking of, what happened here?" Jeanne asks, looking around the ruins with an uncharacteristically somber expression on her face. Ruby starts giving the blonde a basic rundown on the attempted expansion project that was Mountain Glenn, the downward spiral as more and more Grimm were drawn to the city. She is just about to start explaining how the evacuation had began when a low trumpeting draws the quartets attention to what had once been a highway. Less than a minute after drawing their attention a pair of lumbering, smooth skinned Grimm pachyderms lumber into view.

"Huh, never seen those kinda Grimm before, let's kill 'em!" And, with that 'plan' spoken with a disturbing amount of gleeful anticipation, Ruby drops Crescent Rose blade first into the concrete and snaps off a pair of shots, one bouncing off the monstrosity's hide, the second piercing ones ear angering, but not wounding it. Each of the beasts dominates half of what had once been a six lane roadway, and stands tall enough that their shoulders nearly level with what had once been low-rise office buildings in this part of the ruins, their heads topping the shorter of the mid-rises scattered throughout the district

How could she not know…? Ah, yes, two year bump up. Weiss rolls her eyes at Ruby's simplistic nature. "Goliaths. You two said you wanted to get a feel for more Grimm, didn't you?" More like calves, but that distinction isn't really an important one right now. As long as there aren't any Elders from their herd around at least.

Grinning, Jeanne turns toward Weiss and Ruby with excitement. "Hey, wanna see something cool?" Before anyone can reply, she launches herself skyward and shouts. "Balance Break!"

She lashes out at the air with her rapier, and as the tip reaches full extension, more swords than Weiss cares to count spring tip-first from the ground, then from each other, a miniature mountain of sharp edges shooting skyward. The swords coalesce into an enormous dragon, its scales matching the hue of the swords the blonde had just conjured, head raised to the sky with a thunderous roar from underneath where the pair of enormous Grimm had stood, both monsters having been torn to ribbons in the blink of an eye."Stake Victim Dragon!"

Weiss stares at the gargantuan metal dragon, as much in shock as she is impressed. A pang of jealousy rises through her initial reaction when she realizes that whatever method Jeanne had summoned the beast, and possibly the sword-dragon itself, is likely similar to her family's hereditary Semblance, yet seems to be much more powerful. The fact that Weiss has yet to conjure so much as a single Beowolf is only salt in the wound.

"A dragon…" Ruby unashamedly ogles the beast, having gone completely still at the sight of the 'Hero's' apparent signature technique. "Weiss, Weiss, Weiss! That's a dragon! A dragon made out of swords! So cool, so cool..." The silver-eyed girl is content to squeal and gush instead of admiring the sight in a more professional manner, but at this point Weiss would be more worried if her partner didn't react in such a manner. To fell a pair of Goliaths, calves or not, with ease is no mean feat. Perhaps there is something to that talk of being Heroes, after all. Jeanne can't be that much older than them.

Honestly though, who goes and shouts out their attacks like that? Rubys excited babbling increases in pitch at, something and Weiss, feeling somewhat guilty, retracts her scorn.

Weiss shakes her head to clear it as the blonde lands on her feet as the colossal construct stomps its way over to her obediently. Smirking, she turns towards the rest of the group, looking very much like a fairytale maiden guarded by her 'pet' dragon. She lifts a hand and snaps her fingers, causing the dragon to shatter into motes of light, which slowly fade away as they drift towards the sky. She opens her mouth to say something when a series of bestial howls echo from all around them. A small horde of Beowolves appearing around their group, with half a dozen surrounding Jeanne.

Jeannes first reaction is to turn to size the Grimm up. She tenses mid-motion and glances back over her shoulder just as five more Beowolves leap at her from a side-alley. To her credit, she nimbly and effortlessly dances around the first four but the fifth, an Alpha, moves just quickly enough to rake its claws across her exposed thigh in the same motion that allows her to shift to its side and plunge her blade through its neck.

By the time Weiss has the half-dozen anti-gravity Glyphs that will close the distance between her and the isolated member of their scouting party, Ruby has already taken her first shot with Crescent Rose. Weis kicks off, and the world is reduced to a dim gray-purple blur in the evening light as the Glyphs propel her forwards, Crescent Rose cracking out three more times before she reaches her target. Her last glyph bounces her up from the street, blade-first into one of the Beowolves. Myrtenaster pierces up through the underside of the beast's throat and out the back of its skull as the tunnel of light the world had become for her resolves back to reality. Her momentum is enough that the dying Grimm serves as a fulcrum, allowing her to land in a neat three-point stance behind the corpse just as its head tears free.

She spins her weapons dust cartridge revolver as she draws it free of the dead grimm and behind her back as Ruby ejects the empty magazine from Crescent Rose, slamming a full one home in the same motion. Weiss sweeps her rapier forward, hammering on the trigger a half dozen times as she does so, firing off a flurry of fireballs and felling two more Beowolves. A third is knocked into the path of Ruby's first shot from her reloaded weapon by Weiss' barrage.

Jeanne then lashes out with enough force that Weiss can feel the older girl's blade pulling wind behind it when it whisks past her head and into another Grimm. At the same moment, Connla throws his arms out, and bladed lengths of shadow extend across all of the alleyways feeding into the road they had been walking down.

Panting, Weiss stands back up as her partner shifts her weapon into its compact rifle form, snapping to her right and left, before shifting to face the same direction Weiss and the still tense Jeanne are, herding Connla back towards the rest of the group with her body as she backpedals towards Weiss and Jeanne. "What...? Since when do Grimm actually plan ambushes like that?" the blonde asks, not panting like the Beacon students, but her eyes are a bit wide.

"Since you left the Kingdom." Ruby unhelpfully replies, treating the foreign duo's combat aptitude as general experience. An understandable lapse, though not one that is acceptable of a Huntress leader. Well, she is more than happy to cover for her friend's gaffes while she learns.

Weiss lets out a breath before turning to address the blonde. "Grimm inside the kingdom rarely get old enough to be anything more than spiteful beings of instinct and malice. Out here, they grow and learn, if an old enough–Jeanne, you're bleeding!"

The girl in question tilts her head. "Well, yeah, that one werewolf Grimm did sneak up on me. It's not that bad. Heck, I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't brought it up." Ruby and Connla reach the rest of the group as she finishes speaking.

"Beowolf." Weiss idly corrects her as her brain catches up with what she's seeing. "You-you shouldn't be bleeding, though." She chides the girl for her nonchalance, almost swearing aloud that she's as bad as Ruby. Still trying to reconcile seeing blood on a Grimm hunt without a comrade now missing a limb, or worse dead. "Your cover is a Huntress, which means an unlocked Aura and well-trained Semblance." She pauses to pant, and check her own Aura level on her scroll.

Not good. Certainly not sufficient to unlock another's Aura.

"Ruby, I'm…" She wrestles with the thought. Do they dare? Not that they have any other options to consider. If Professor-ahem-Doctor Oobleck noticed, never mind Yang or Blake, that could lead to another incredibly uncomfortable conversation on top of the one she forced with Team JNPR before leaving for this mission. This is too important to leave to chance. "Can you unlock Jeanne's–?"

Her partner–Her younger, less trained and experienced partner who is supposed to have less Aura to spare because of that, offers her a smile, sheathes her weapon and ambles over to Jeanne. Connla and Jeanne are both still on edge, but the pack is clearly either dead or has moved on in search of easier prey. Weiss slips Myrtenaster back into its sheath on her right hip, and presses her palms into her knees, focusing on recovering her energy. "I'm going to unlock your Aura now, Jeanne. That'll close up the wound on your leg. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt or anything, I mean, it might feel a bit tingly, but..."

Jeanne offers Ruby a smirk, and motions at her to continue. "Well hey, go ahead! We're always open to new things!" The prodigy rests her right hand on Jeanne's left shoulder, closes her eyes and recites the aria. The same aria that has been repeated for generations of Huntsman and Huntresses in training since before the Great War. That...that reassures Weiss. They might be from another world. They might be cryptic and after their own barely defined goals, but, well, everyone knows that different groups, with different core beliefs each have their own arias for unlocking a person's Aura.

And everyone knows that even though you speak the words, it isn't conscious thought that drives the words falling from your mouth when you are unlocking the power of a person's soul. Ruby finishes the aria, and steps back out of the other girls personal space. She glows golden for a brief moment, then the trio of gashes on her thigh close, leaving only the blood that had seeped from the wounds visible. "Really, that's it?" The older girl asks after a few moments of puzzled silence.

Ruby nods. "Yup." Popping the p as she steps back to stand next to Weiss. "I mean, you still gotta train and figure out your Semblance, but well, that's how you unlock someone's Aura the easy way. You put your hand on their shoulder, or, well, touch them, and flare your Aura and focus it on them and think about their aura and say the words and they have their Aura."

"That seems almost ridiculously simple. No offense." Connla deadpans as he offers Jeanne a scrap of cloth to wipe her leg clean with. It isn't exactly clean, but it isn't so dirty that it will make that stretch of the blondes skin stand out when they get back to camp.

"None taken. Jeanne does have a soul, which is the only real requirement for having an Aura. And the Aria isn't so much something you have to memorize as words that come from your mouth when you choose to unlock someone else's Aura; more than a few White Fang instigators trying to disguise themselves as Huntsmen or huntresses have been found out and captured because their Aria isn't the same as the one used by modern Huntsmen and Huntresses." Connla nods at that, and Jeanne seems more drawn into looking at her hands and formerly wounded leg than watching for more Grimm.

At that, he turns down a side alley and starts walking away from the group! "See you back at the camp. Thanks for the Grimm tips." To his credit, he didn't sound dismissive or ungrateful. Without any warning or further words, he transforms into a small wispy shadow on the ground and zips away. Gone and out of sight before anyone can react, let alone stop the fight-happy Fool!

"H-hey! Connla, what are you—" Jeanne rests her hand on Ruby's shoulder, cutting the younger girl off.

She shakes her head. "Just let the grump go. He's probably upset about getting caught out by monsters, he needs to vent or he'll be insufferable for the rest of the week. He'll probably be back around the same time we make it back to camp."

Weiss can feel her eyebrow twitch incredulously at that. "Ambushes like that are exactly why Huntresses travel in groups, and stick together though! When one person rushes ahead or drops back they end up being singled out by smarter Grimm."

Jeanne shrugs apologetically. "Can't unlock your Balance Breaker without hard fights, though. He'll be fine."

"Erm, okay." Ruby blinks owlishly at the taller blonde as they start walking again, Weiss lets out a put-upon huff and reluctantly follows suit. "Yeah, so, I was kind of wondering, what did you mean when you shouted 'Balance Break' earlier. You were kind of in the air and, you know, not off balance or anything."

Giggling, Jeanne launches into her own explanation. Sacred Gears–Pieces of divine power born into humans–evening the playing field between mankind and the monsters of the different worlds. The rumors of artificial imitations of those mighty weapons had clearly caught Ruby's attention, weapons fanatic that she is. Finding more of those gifted with one, and furthering their training on how to use their individual powers seems to be one of the Heroes' main objectives as an organization and individuals. Which, of course means pursuing ever greater challenges, like facing down Creatures of Grimm alone.

Ruby tilts her head inquisitively "And what's yours?"

"Blade Blacksmith." Jeanne proudly preens, "Basically I can create swords with different quirks. I don't really use that part of my Sacred Gear that much though. Takes too much thinking and focusing to be much good in a fight."

Ruby, true to form, doesn't make any connections beyond what plays into her obsession, the wider picture forgotten entirely as she goes into a daze. "Swords. Constant swords. And that dragon was…?

Jeanne runs a finger across her nose. "Made out of swords, yep."

Ruby presses herself against Weiss, leaning into her melodramatically gripping her arm. "Ohh, Weiss hold me, I'm gonna cry!"

Weiss pries Ruby off her arm before pushing her away. "Ruby, get off...Pull yourself together! You're embarrassing me."

"Told ya you'd like what I can do!" Jeanne brags, grinning cattily and winking at them conspiratorially.

Weiss scoffs and rolls her eyes before these two can build up too much steam. "Weapons bestowed by a god, I'm sorry but that sounds a bit much, don't you think? Actual Gods? Do you have any proof?"

Jeanne tilts her head and looks over her shoulder at Weiss "You mean you don't know?" passing under a desiccated street-lamp, still valiantly flickering in the dark after years of disuse and enduring nature's wrath.

"Huh? Know what?" Ruby asks, looking back and forth between the girls. A voice in the back of Weiss' head that sounds distinctly like Winter is scolding her that none of them are watching for Grimm right now, but it feels like something larger and more important is going on currently.

Now it's Jeanne's turn to seem shocked, and if that is a touch of pity mixed into her features, Weiss has decided that she will be ignoring it. "The Grimm–They're divine constructs of some kind. It's very faint, but it was one of the first things we noticed about them. It must be one heck of a powerful god to be able to keep pouring them out like this, though. And they must really, really, REALLY hate humanity..."

What...?

"Look, even if we were to believe you, that some of the most ancient, obscure folklore, stuff half forgotten and probably mis-translated that might be hinting that the Grimm were made by...Wait–You mean that...The Brother of Destruction is REAL?!" Weiss half gasps as her mind races, for what feels like the millionth time since she tried a printed off summoning circle alone in her dorm room on a seemingly foolish whim.

Admittedly the details on him and the Brother of Creation are scarce, and what is known for sure doesn't provide an encouraging description. Certainly not one that showed the Brothers as beings worthy of worship, to logical people at least. If the Brother of Destruction is real, Remnant is in serious trouble. This...This is bigger than anything she had expected to come across when she left for Beacon to get out from under her Fathers control and influence.

"Apparently so." Jeanne shrugs nonchalantly as she destroys what Weiss had thought was a core facet of reality. The blonde 'Hero' then gives the pair a cute wink while reaching out to tenderly feather Ruby's head, and is rewarded with the youngest girl giggling. "But don't you worry your pretty little heads. Once Cao Cao gets here, he'll take care of everything. He's always got plenty of plans for every little detail and possibility. As soon as we've got enough info about Remnant, he'll take care of your dark god problem, no problem."

"Cao Cao." Ruby utters thoughtfully. It was an...Uncommon name, to be sure, but that is the least of Weiss's concerns.

"And how does he intend to stop a god?"

Jeanne giggles mischievously. "Heheheh. Because his Sacred Gear is a Longinus class." She pauses, probably waiting for them to react, before realizing that that meant nothing to them. "Longinus is the class of Sacred Gear so powerful they can kill even a god. Or are rumored to be able to in some cases."

"WHAAAAT!?" Ruby and Weiss shriek.

"In fact, we Heroes have two others with the same capacity in our ranks. Cao Cao's just happens to be the most powerful, the True Longinus. The Spear of Destiny, the Holy Spear of the Setting Sun—"

Ruby is practically salivating as she leans in to listen more more closely, but Weiss can't help but massage her now throbbing temple. It's all just— "Okay, okay, stop, please, just...Please, this is all a lot to take in, even more so than what you explained to us back at Beacon. We've barely had a day to wrap our heads around even that scrap of information."

"Don't listen to her! Tell me more, tell me EVERYTHING!" Ruby all but shouts, bolting over to latch on to Jeanne's side, an almost manic gleam in her eyes and a wide grin on her face. The blonde 'Hero' wraps an arm around the younger girl's shoulders with a wide smile of her own.

Leaving the Dolt to her maddened frenzy, Weiss is left alone in her mind. As she turns the concepts explained to her in her head, she glances warily over at Jeanne as she breezily bandied more words with Ruby. Sacred Gears, Phoenix Tears, and now supposed God-killing supernatural weapons!? She desperately hopes she and Ruby did the right thing by teaching members of such a powerful group with such a nebulous mission statement how to unlock one's Aura and eventually their Semblance. But then again—Strong people seeking to protect humanity from Grimm, and whatever other beasts are lurking in the shadows and small corners of the word on principle, not a desire for power or wealth—A group like that couldn't possibly be something to worry about.

Right?

_-*R-DxD*-_

Lacey looks herself over in the mirror above the dresser in the bedroom she had just finished what was essentially an extended nap in.

It had only been a few hours since she had been dropped off here, but Mr. Torchwick had wanted her starting her job for him before dawn, apparently. The girl staring back at her in the mirror looks mostly familiar. Her hazelnut hair had been chin length when she'd applied for Beacon, and had hung loose, now it's tied into a low slinky tail that reaches her shoulder-blades, her once plane bangs now picked out into a loose fringe. In all the old pictures of her there had been an openness to her face, trust in her deep blue eyes, which are slightly narrowed and picking her apart for deception in the mirror. The vole ears that had always stood out proudly from her head are laying flat against her skull now.

She's leaner and more muscular now, the months of short meals having burnt the excess baby fat from her face, making her freckled cheekbones more pronounced and nose seem more pointed than button-like. Her black bandanna, tied around her neck like a scarf, the Mistrali Adder raised to strike picked out in red and gold positioned directly below her pointed chin is a new addition. Learning at the Serpent Strike Combat School had been good for her, though. The frills on her white, shoulderless blouse seem a bit frivolous to her now, the tan vest at least has an abundance of pouches inside it. She knows her emblem–a stylized vole face vertically bisected by an uneven tuning fork–is on the vests back, not that she can see it there. The brushed bronze belt buckle shaped into her emblem however, is easily visible, standing out starkly from her light tops, the dark brown belt, and faded cutoff denim shorts she is wearing. Well, the shorts look like denim, none of the clothes a huntress buys for field work are cut from the same flimsy fabrics civilians wear. Her black leather combat boots end just below her knees, and Resonant Chord's uneven sheath–done in the same color leather–is resting on her right hip, the blade's right prong a full six inches longer than its left.

The last time she had wore this outfit, she'd been a girl playing at being a huntress, her weapons sheathe protruding from between her vest and blouse, where drawing it would be awkward and slow, and she'd cared more about how her outfit accentuated her modest curves and femininity. Now, now she thinks she's ready, focussed on the job and efficiency, not looks and impressing others. She takes a deep breath, and strides out of the bedroom, and the second floor apartment into the pre-sunrise gloom. It doesn't take her long to cross the street and walk into the walled and gated parking lot Torchwick apparently owns. She slides the door to it open and shut, before striding over to the well-dressed ginger thief and his diminutive heterochromatic mute of an assistant. The pair is standing in front of...

Is that an oversized Beacon rocket-locker?

Roman lets out a low whistle. "Well, at least you look the part kid." She isn't sure if she should take that as a compliment, or bristle at the implied insult, so she keeps her features as carefully neutral as possible. Neopolitan, clad in sneakers for some—

Torchwick's right hand bounds over to stand next to her, resting a hand on the top of her own head, before skimming it over Lacey's, just barely touching her hair with the bottom of her digits. The Faunus mentally shrugs, not seeing the big deal about being fun-sized.

Roman snorts out a laugh. "I suppose you weren't lying after all, Neo." The human girl bristles and stomps at that, but Roman ignores his partner's antics. "Right, any questions before we get on with the show? I've got a Bullhead flight out of the kingdom in less than an hour."

Lacey nods. "Questions, yes. First: Not that I'm complaining, but, how did you get my things to the safehouse before me?"

Torchwick scoffs at that. "You don't honestly think you and Pewter are the only Faunus on my payroll, do you, SnakeSnack?"

"What? But at that rally you were so..." She trails off, trying to find a polite way to say blatantly racist without pissing off her current 'boss.'

The thief shakes his head. "It's called reading a room and playing a role, kid. Useful skills to have, and not just for a thief." He pauses to twirl his cane, and starts walking towards the locker sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty lot. "I get up on that stage, act like my usual, charming, funny self and all those angry, racist, violent terrorists would have torn me to bits. Maybe they'd decide that I didn't take their cause seriously enough, maybe it'd be that I was looking for a chance to betray them, or that humans don't have any place at a gathering for Faunus." He raps his can on the side of the locker, and it springs open, hinging up instead of to the side, revealing... a padded crash couch with a heavy-duty safety harness?

"So, I got up on stage, and I played it up. I was every last terrible thing they'd ever been told about humans, or come up with brooding and stewing in all that anger. I'm just another scumbag human, looking for my share of the loot when they finally take back what's theirs and get revenge. I'm not a target then, I'm useful. After all, what's a few thousand lien against finally making those humans suffer like they've been?" Beside her, Neo rolls her eyes, raises her left hand and starts pantomiming a talking head with it.

Lacey nods, not necessarily getting what he's saying, but understanding his logic and the fact that it had worked. "I see. So, what did you need me for? And, well, why me?"

Grinning, the thief leans against the open locker. "Part of why I need you is your insanity." He must have seen her reaction to that and cuts her off preemptively. "Up-bu-bu-bup. Yes, you're crazy! Not even eighteen yet, and you wanted to learn how to go hunt down Grimm outside the safety of the kingdom. You know, a profession with a one in three mortality rate between graduation day and turning forty? You willingly signed up for that, kid. Something's not right in your head." Lacey deflates, from Torchwick's perspective it would look like that, she supposes, before deciding to just save her breath and let him think what he wants. "Secondly, as a favor. See, me and your teacher go way back. Used to be this park sandwiched between the trailer park a certain charming red-headed thief came up in, and a gated community packed with yuppies like sardines in a can. No one really used it, except for me, when my old lady was in her bedroom tweaking or working; and Jaundice when his stepdad was drunk and looking for someone to tear down, or having another fight with his mom over some stupid shit. One day, both happened at the same time. I was miserable, he was miserable, you know how it goes."

Neo signs something at Roman who sighs at her. "Oh, don't give me that bullshit, Neo, better the truth from me than a spin from someone else, even if she is only with us for the one job." He shifts a bit so that he is fully facing Lacey again before continuing. "Anyhow, the two of us got along famously, the rich kid and the trailer trash. Share a few changes of clothes, cover for any social gaffes, and I could run in his neighborhood when mom was faking it for lien with unwashed druggies, and L could make an escape when he got tired of getting screamed at for breathing wrong or whatever it was his moms sugar daddy was fixed on that day."

As the infamous thief continues to prattle on, Lacey starts to feel increasingly dirty just for having been born and grown up in the same city as the man. More out of disgust at the city's metaphorical dirty laundry than the man himself. A person can't really do much about the situation they're born into. "That's... nice, but what does it have to do with me?"

Roman offers her a grin, and lifts the lapel of his suit-jacket, revealing a color-inverse version of the snake on her bandanna. "Our teacher was a cold hearted bastard, but he toughened us up. So when L told me the star pupil of his hare-brained scheme to open up the old combat school up again–without the abuse and jackass mentality this time–is out on the street at best, I took note. Gotta watch out for our own after all."

Lacey nods. Still not sold, but at least partly reassured. If the orange stripe on the cap is anything to go by, more than half the thugs she'd been in sparring class with had been Romans. "Alright, so, what do you need me to do?"

Roman nods, and pulls a scroll from one of his suit-jackets inside pockets tossing it her way without even a hint of hesitation "Strap yourself in and hit the green button." Lacey catches the scroll, pockets it in her vest and moves closer to the locker. The green button is in the shape of an upwards pointing arrow and is labeled 'Oh Fuck'. Reassuring. "Now, if everything works out you'll touch down at the first of a dozen spots outside the kingdom one of my other underlings scouted from the air. You hit the red button—" This one, equally reassuringly labeled 'Not Dead' "And hop out, find a good vantage point and run the only app on that scroll. Run it a few times for each spot from different angles if you can manage it. Rinse, repeat and the thirteenth time you hit the green button, you'll touch down back in this lot."

Lacey nods, and walks over to the locker. "That seems...simple enough. I, umm, I take it my pay is staying at your safehouse until Beacon's next school year starts."

Roman nods. "That, and an opportunity to do more work with my organization." She glares morosely at the ginger thief. "Oh don't look at me like that, attending Beacon isn't cheap, and banking your hope on a scholarship is moronic at best. You wouldn't be the first crook of necessity I've worked with, and I can promise you that I wont ask for anything too damning or drastic if you do manage to get yourself pinched." He pauses arms held out expressively, until her expression softens. "Now, I know this is one of those 'offer you can't refuse' moments, but I do like to at least maintain the appearance of all my associates being willing employees, so we should at least go through the motions. You in?"

Lacey sighs. She supposes she had already made that decision when she slept in the safehouse he provided for her instead of running off into the night. And he is certainly better than the White Fang from what she's experienced so far. Roman Torchwick at least doesn't kill people often, or on purpose, in his high-profile heists. Not quite a household name, but a Valean who hadn't heard of his exploits by now is a rare one to meet. His tendency to cause more damage than the pursuit is worth having spared him from the sort of bounties most other criminals with a similar level of renown get slapped with. Maybe if she's successful enough working for him she'll be told what exactly is going on between him and the White Fang?

One step at a time, Lacey. One step at a time. "Yeah, I'm in. Let's do this."

"Great! Now, hop in the screaming metal deathtrap, do a good job and we'll see about you earning some Lien between now and Beacon's first semester next year." Lacey is only halfway listening to him as she climbs into the modified rocket-locker. "And remember, if anyone not in my organization asks you, I wasn't professional, polite or courteous when we talked today. I was the same terrible, racist egotist those brain-dead zealots in the White Fang all think I am. Racist isn't the worst reputation I've had to recover from, but there's no coming back from 'dead."

"Racist isn't the worst thing you've been called?" Lacey quips as she begins strapping herself in.

Torchwick tilts his head at her. "What? You already forgot our little heart-to-heart earlier? I grew up trailer-trash with a druggie whore of a mother. Doesn't get much worse than that for a start."

"That was less of a heart to heart and more of an exposition, boss." Lacey shoots back, tentatively trying out the cliched term for a criminal to call their employer by. Feels weird, but not as bad as abusing military ranks while speaking with racist terrorists.

Roman snorts, grinning at her. "That would be worse than messing up the fake reputation if you went around telling people I exposed myself to a teenage girl. Now shut up and get to work, can't properly act like a surly racist ass coming off of banter with my newest Faunus hire. Chop chop!" He turns to start ambling out of the parking lot. "Keep from messing up, and I think you just might be one of my favorite goons, kid. Don't die out there." Part of Lacey feels like she should keep bantering, but she's pretty sure that's either her logic or sanity sternly protesting at the thought of strapping herself into a heavily modified rocket-locker, on purpose to go to a dozen different places she's never seen before, all chosen by an infamous criminal to do something nebulous and undefined for him.

She reaches out, grasps the handle on the open door and pulls in. It closes with a reverberating thunk. Gears whir and tumblers click and clack, until all falls silent again and a small green LED flares to light above the green arrow. "Here goes nothing." She psyches herself up, before slapping the button, to nervous to—

Her head bounces off of the cushion behind her and she can feel the weight of gravity spike as she is pressed down. The engines roaring and hurting her hears as everything gets darker and darker. It's getting hard to breathe. Hard to think.

But she does, and flares her Aura to life just as the thrusters cut out and a weightless sensation overtakes her. She keeps her Aura up, and does her best to ignore the sensation of tipping over backwards as the locker continues along its parabolic arc. Then, she doesn't hear so much as feel a smaller, tamer version of the bone-shaking thrum that was never enough to annoy, but utterly inescapable when she had been on the Amity Colosseum for the Vytal Festival with her family as a kid the last time it was in Vale.

The smooth, unsettling arc is replaced by wild tumbling. If it weren't for the restraints she'd probably be concussed three times over and have a dozen different broken bones by the time her flight evens out. Which is just in time for all of the small hairs on her body stand straight out, and the thrum gets so all-encompassing that it feels like her skull is going to explode and her bones are going to shake out of her body. Then it all cuts out, and she can feel the entire thing just hanging there in the air for a moment before it thumps down onto the ground.

For a few heartbeats, all Lacey can do is sit there in the locker, panting, as her heart-rate slows back to something approaching normal. {Life signs detected} a chipper robotic voice quips. A bright yellow smiley face light blinks to life below the red 'Not Dead' button, and Lacey glares at it, and the 'Oh Fuck' one above it before slapping the lower of the two.

She waits grumpily as the door unlocks itself and swings up and open. She undoes the safety harness, and after sliding it off her shoulders, a small compartment clicks open, revealing a dozen palm-sized hypo-guns. Above them, a small placard labels them as 'Auric Boosters'. Great, the desperate Huntress' answer to soldiers having access to Pervitin. She slides her scroll half out of the vest pocket it's in, eighty five percent aura still. No need to play with that fire.

She pushes herself out of the death-trap—can't really call it a 'screaming metal' death trap if she'd kept her mouth shut—and looks around. It's a pretty big clearing in what looks like an old-growth forest. There's a few blackened, charred logs and stumps scattered around the otherwise level, even space. Shrugging, she makes her way towards the closest edge of the clearing, a towering redwood should give her enough height to do, whatever it is she's here for.

She is nearly to the tree she had picked out, still grumbling to herself, when a sinister growl forces her focus back on her surroundings. A quartet of Beowolves are stalking out of the treeline towards her, two circling around to her left, the other pair moving to her right. Just as she draws Resonant Chord a larger, grizzled, armored and scarred Beowolf steps into the clearing directly ahead of her.

An Alpha.

With a wordless cry, she swings her sword at the pair on the right. She pulls the trigger worked into the base of its basket-hilt, setting the weapon ringing, and letting her Semblance take that noise and turn it into a keening, almost visible bow wave of solid sound. The closer of the pair is launched into the one that had been trailing it, but neither will stay down for long from that. She lets her momentum carry her through a spin, facing the other flanking pair just in time for her to duck under the leading Grimm's slash and bury her blade where the kidney would be on a person.

The Grimm snarls at her. Lacey squeezes her blade's trigger three times and lets her Semblance work its magic on the noise as she yanks it clear of the Grimm, whose side explodes in a shower of viscous Grimm stuff as it is launched away from her. The tip of Resonant Chord just barely cuts the chest of the second monster, but the blade is still letting out a resonant rumble in the form of a blade of sound. What would have been a shallow slice is torn open in the wake of her weapon, and the Grimm is sent tumbling backwards into a stout oak with a resounding crack before it falls to the forest floor, smoking and dead.

She slaps her blade with her off hand, stopping its tonal vibrations as she shifts to deal with the recovered pair of flankers. She tanks an overhand slash from the lead of that pair so she can slip under its guard and sever its left leg at the knee. As it falls she dances away from its partners lunge she can hear the heavier footfalls of the Alpha rushing her. She flows to face it side-one, and catches its almost-punch of a swipe at the wrist with both of her hands. With a pivot and a heave she flips the over-sized grimm onto its back. It grunts, and that's all the more it can manage.

The maneuver had left Resonant Chord perfectly positioned to slit the Grimms throat.

She stands back upright and walks back to the one-legged Grimm to deliver a coup-de-grace. She lets Resonant Chord's tip trail along the ground behind her as she walks from the now headless Beowolf towards the last one standing in the clearing. The monster rushes her, and she slashes her blade skyward, pulling the trigger and reflexively amplifying the keening ring with her Semblance. The vertical bow-wave of sound is still growing when it hits the Beowolf, the top edge of it impacting the Grimms chin, sending it skyward and snapping its neck with a sickening crack.

She can do this.

She might not be an Academy Student—yet. And maybe no one will believe her if she tells the story, or pay her for missions or any of the other things that other people think matter. But she's a Huntress now. She left the kingdom, all on her own, and killed Grimm. Made it safer for others, for the helpless civilians that can't fight.

There's another half-dozen Beowolves in the pack, but she makes short work of them as well.

After sheathing her sword, she climbs the tree she'd picked after landing, and fishes out Torchwick's scroll. Like he said, only one app. Stock gear image to open it, creatively titled , bare bones, but if it's just one part of a bigger operation their farming out to an unknown, she supposes that makes sense.

She raises the scroll, looks at the screen, and nearly falls from her perch at the top of the tree. Projected on the screen in the clearing is a near-perfect rendition of an airship everyone on Remnant knows by sight.

The Pride of Solitas.

Is he actually going to…? Sure, great. Why not?

Nothing too dangerous or damning if she gets caught. She'd just become an accessory to stealing the most storied warship on Remnant, the flagship and pride of the Atlesian Airfleet out from under the nose of the supreme commander of the Atlas' Armed Forces.

No big deal. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that, or come back to bite her in the rear. Nothing at all.

She wants to gripe, and complain and bitch and moan. But if she's going to do this, she may as well do it right, and there's a few other tall trees she can check this clearing from to make sure the damned dreadnought will actually fit here before she moves on to the next spot.

Definitely not trying to put as much space between her 'flights' as possible. Totally not that.

_-*R-DxD*-_

The inside of Pendles' militia base is...Generic.

Jaune is behind Qrow and to his right, with Pyrrha on Jaune's own right, while Ren and Nora are off to the professional Huntsman's left. The wall isn't much taller than the rest of the small city's buildings, and none of them are more than five floors tall, with only a handful at four stories. The lawn is well groomed, there is an empty outdoor sparring field off to the left, a parking lot with a pair of big military transports, and a handful of heavily modified off-road trucks. The uniform paint-jobs attempt to create a sense of professionalism is ruined by the facts that none of the vehicles are the same make or model, that one is up on blocks and half of them are shot through with rust.

Past that is a shooting range with a bullet trap that at least looks like it can stop rifle rounds, and a series of bunkhouses across the single road inside the compound leading towards what looks to be the main office. "Right, you're students, so let's make this at least a little educational. Any idea how many they got in this town's militia?"

Nora shrugs carelessly, Pyrrha's face scrunches up in concentration, Ren glances to the right, incidentally making it look like he's inspecting the ammo bunker off on the far side of the complex. Jaune decides to take one for the team. "No clue. That's gonna be a problem, isn't it?"

Qrow nods. "Yup. Now, it's commonly accepted that a settlement outside the kingdoms needs right around fifty professional militiamen for every thousand inhabitants. 'S'why most settlements only have volunteer militias. Kinda rare for a place to get that big."

Jaune frowns, as one of the bullet points on the brief that had been sent to their scrolls after accepting this mission drifts to the front of his mind. "We can't take two hundred and fifty people." Well, technically, his peerage could take that many base humans if they cut loose. It wouldn't be pretty, though. Sometimes he really wished he had Rias' Power of Destruction.

Ren shakes his head at Jaune's observation. "We won't need to. A lot of the people here look terrified."

Qrow nods again in agreement. "That'd be the ones that aren't guilty, probably just wanted to defend their homes, not this exploitative, Grimm baiting crap their brass has them up to. We will need someone to watch the door to their HQ for us, though. Don't need any of the morons who like doing things this way stopping us from clearing this up."

Pyrrha, smiling almost predatorily, nudges Jaune's shoulder. "Jaune, you did get a good look at their uniforms, right?"

He shoots her a knowing smirk. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. You're fine on rear-guard then?"

She nods. "It isn't often I get to cut loose with my Semblance." Naturally. Jaune knows that her training as a Huntress had focused on Grimm more than people, at least during the 'optimistic years' of Combat School. Pyrrha's additional training as a tournament fighter had been more focussed on flashy spectacle, and the illusion of fairness; using her control of polarity to pull weapons from hands and launch her foes around the arena before beating them down is the opposite of both of her traditional schools of training. As a Devil Queen, in a world brimming with numerous and varied enemies who frequently wear and wield metal arms and armor, often crafted from alloys and ores that make simple steel seem like waste ore, training as if Grimm are the worst, or even the most common foe to be expected would have been beyond suicidal. For all of team JNPR. So Pyrrha, in the months since her reincarnation had, with his, Nora and Ren's help–while returning the favor herself–pushed both the limits of her Semblance and Sacred Gear during their nightly training sessions in the heart of Jaune's desecrated grounds in the Emerald Forest.

"Right, you kids follow my lead when we get to wherever the morons running this city into the ground are waiting. They probably know we're in town by now so be ready for a fight." By the time Qrow finishes talking, they've reached the main entrance of the militia's headquarters. Pyrrha slings Miló off her back and leans against the wall, letting her xiphos' tip rest on the ground. Qrow offers her a nod as he leads the rest of the team of Devils in disguise into the building.

The lobby is empty save for a single, nervous-looking guy in the militia's uniform sitting behind a desk. Qrow saunters up to the deck, fishing his wallet out of his pocket as he does so. He flops the piece of black leather open and onto the desk, looming over the seated, pale faced soldier. "So, mind telling me whose idea it was to turn your cities militia into a protection racket, and where I can find the bastard?"

"I, umm, I don't know what you're—" Qrow taps the open strip of leather on the desk. Jaune peers over his shoulder, spotting the emblem of all four Kingdoms, trimmed in gold at the bottom of the Huntsman ID on display, denoting special dispensation in each of the nations. The guy goes still, and even paler. "It-its the Major. Him and five of his Captains." The words pour from his mouth in an unpredictable cadence shifting fast to slow to stuttering staccato at random and seemingly unbidden and unstoppable. "None ofus really know what happened, h-he he just–just came back from inspecting the wall lastmonth andthenhe said that things were going t-to change and thenthe next day some–some of the other guys started acting strangetoo and it isn't allofus trying to steal fromthe cityso please don't—"

"I don't care about the "how." Your replacement officers can worry about that, along with which people out of your rank and file are guilty or innocent. Where are the ringleaders holed up, and will you have any officers left after we deal with this?" Qrow cuts the panicked soldier off.

The younger man blinks, and shakes his head a bit. "They're in the conference room down the hall, have been since your Bullhead landed." He pauses, looking more than a little nervous as he indicates one of the three halls extending from the entrance to the building. "And, CAptain Remi didn't fall into step with the others, but no one has seen her since, well..."

Qrow jerks his head toward the entrance. "We left a guard outside the front door, turn yourself over to her. If you have any handcuffs bring 'em, unless you wanna get secured the hard way until this blows over." At that, he turns to stride down the hallway the receptionist had indicated, leaving the pale-faced, slack-jawed soldier behind. Jaune moves to follow the professional Huntsman down the plain gray walled corridor, fluorescent lights almost painfully bright, and white, black-flecked composite tiles uniform in their randomness making the corridor seem painfully generic. Ren jerks his head towards the door, getting the receptionist moving before setting off behind the rest of the quartet.

Only one room has light shining through the window set in it's door, and is situated at the far end of the hallway. Qrow doesn't look like he's slamming the door open, nor is he doing anything so drastic as to kick it. But the small motion with his off-hand has to have been Aura-enhanced, as the slab of wood bounces off of the opposite wall with enough force to shatter the glass of the window set in it. The half dozen men sitting at the sole table in the conference room all turn to look up far more calmly than they should after such a dynamic entry. And all six are Fallen Angels. The wings might not be on display, but the effort they had been putting into staying hidden has clearly been abandoned now.

Crap.

"Oh, Qrow Branwen? We weren't expecting such a high-profile Huntsman to be the one they sent after us." The leader of the group, a lanky middle-aged looking man with a dark brown high-and tight haircut, and glimmering silver–probably platinum actually–Majors's star on both shoulders.

Qrow loosens his weapon in its sheath along its waist. "Of course I'm the one they sent. Only half a dozen platinum mines still workable on Remnant after the Great War; and Pendles is the second biggest. Modern society can't afford for it to fall to the Grimm. Even if Vale hadn't sent me to deal with what's nominally their problem, one of the other kingdoms probably would have. You're practically in my backyard."

The Major nods, rising to his feet, arms held wide. "Which is why we intend to stage our own deaths and let things return to normal after we've taken out the trash you were most unfortunately saddled with. It's a shame a man such as yourself will need to fall as collateral, but that is the nature of war."

"War? What are you on about, we haven't had one of those for generations?" Branwen presses, though it looks like he already knows how the Militias commander will respond. No, that can't be right...

"You are so, so very close to learning just how wrong you are Sir Branwen, though corpses can do very little with knowledge, no matter how momentous it may be." Two pairs of black-feathered wings spring from his back, and his outstretched palms are encased in over-sized citrine talons of light that, on closer inspection are formed from segments of repeating and copied bits of a short sword.

Double crap.

"Don't hold back, we can deal with Qrow's memory after the fight." Jaune instructs his peerage, letting his own wings spring free, and Crocea Mors true form reveals itself as he draws it. He really had been hoping his first fight with the still nameless gauntlet Ruby had helped him make weighing down his sword arm would be less dire, but he can't afford to hold back now.

"Excuse you, deal with my—? What the actual hell!?" Qrow has enough time to turn to look at the 'students' he had brought with him in confusion–which shifts to shock as he notices the wings on their backs–before the Devils and Fallen Angels, wings spread wide, magic circles forming and blades of light in hand, spring at each other.

Nora is the first to reach the Fallen arrayed before them, having stomped her heel into the concrete, and slammed Magnhild into the rough wall of ice she had formed with the action to launch herself at them. Jaune tilts Crocea Mors to rest on his shield arms wrist, stabilizing the limb as he rushes their foes. Grinning, he twitches his blade arms pointer finger three times, the shock-dust tipped darts–hopefully enhanced by his own Underworld Runes–striking home between his teammate and Rook's shoulder-blades. By the time the insane net of electricity has cleared her shoulders it's shifted from white-yellow to vibrant pink.

Magnhild impacts the bulky blonde brute of a Fallen with a sickening, wheezing squelch. The Fallen is launched back–through the conference table–and into the wall, which he forms a small crater with a spider-web of cracks extending out from it. The body slides to the ground, utterly limp and still while Nora tries to catch another Fallen with the follow-through.

Her sloppy blow is easily dodged, but Jaune misses what happens next as he catches a glowing umber arming sword on his shield. The block had all but killed his momentum. He draws his blade-arm back just enough to clear his still in use shield, and with a quick flick of his wrist is able to send an upwards slash at his current Fallen foe. The swarthy mulleted fighter dismisses his sword of light, unbalancing Jaune and sending him stumbling forward and away from his target even as Crocea Mors is caught on a perfect replica of the blade that had just disappeared catches his own sword.

He stays on his feet. Barely.

"Mind filling me in on whatever you've been holding back, kid?" Qrow grunts out, Harbringer grinding against an azure claymore of light in the base configuration the globe-trotting Huntsman typically carries it in.

Jaune parries a quick trio of overhand slashes, and is halfway through shifting the final block into a riposte, only for his current foe's free hand to come up, magic circle spinning on its flat palm. A blunt tipped bar of umber light smashes into his sternum, ruining his counter and buying the less skilled fighter a moment to recover. "I'm a little preoccupied at the moment!" Jaune grunts, glancing to his right to see Ren deftly dodging and weaving around a near constant rain of blows from a set of fallen twins, both smirking at the magenta-eyed Huntsman in training. He rolls under a wide arcing slash, dragging StormFlower's left blade across the other Fallen's right greave, and sliding it across the tan Angels thigh, only for the Fallen's grinning mirror to rap his own blade off of Ren's Aura, sending him sprawling—Again.

"Don't give me that, you're handling your's just fine. And don't think you'll be getting away with whatever you think you're going to do about my memory either, bub."

Jaune flexes the middle finger of his gauntlet twice, the first dart missing its mark, the second striking Jaunes target in his boot, icing his foot in place. And Qrow isn't wrong, at least not entirely. The Fallen Jaune is squaring off against is doing just good enough to survive and buy time. Jaune smashes his shield into the mulleted Fallen Angel, bowling him over. Jaune can hear Nora letting out a frustrated growl, and glances to his left to see the four winged fallen inside her guard, raining blows on her with his oversized talons of light, her form flaring pink with every hit. Every attempt she makes at hitting back either clumsy and easily avoided, or slapped aside. "We'll talk about that later!" They probably wouldn't. "But for now, we really need to—!"

Jaune's reply is cut off as a hailstorm of rifle rounds crack against his Aura. He turns to face the newcomer to see their supposed 'extra help' Whit Remmington striding into the room, rifle-axe tightly shouldered, and a smirk on his face.

The resounding crack of a low gauge shotgun being cooked off grabs Jaune's attention as he shifts to shelter from the rifle rounds behind his shield. He glances behind him in time to see the Fallen the pro had been fighting crumple to the ground, his left side a gaping, bleeding wreck, as Qrow launches himself towards the rest of the fight. Jaune plants a kick into his foe's kidney, spilling him the rest of the way to the ground and allowing Jaune to freeze him there with a few more ice dust darts.

He almost isn't able to process everything that happens as he moves to follow Qrow back into the fight proper.

The four-winged Fallen's right talon shattering Nora's Aura, tearing into her gut and launching her across the room.

One of the pair that had been tag-teaming Ren shifting away from the beleaguered Devil to intercept Qrow's meteoric rush. Executing a masterful riposte that shifts Qrow's momentum and rotates both of them so that Qrow is facing away from the other professional Huntsman, who had been his clear intended target. It also gives him a perfect view of the now grievously wounded ginger's form sliding across the floor and towards him.

As Jaune breaks into a sprint, shouting in denial, the Fallen still fighting Ren manifests dozens of blades of light, all of them angled at Ren, who has finally managed to push himself up into a three point stance, nearly ready to return to his feet properly. The Bishop throws out his right arm as the weapons start lancing towards him, a large magic circle that looks nothing like anything Jaune has seen before springing to life in front of him. All of the blades dissolve as they impact the circle, radiant gold shifting to bright pink and flowing into the crouched Devil.

As the assault continues Ren starts glowing with the power, which quickly starts pouring from his eyes and mouth, before the magic circle explodes with a deafening, impossibly silent noise- launching the Fallen away from Ren.

As Ren rises, looking almost pained from the power coursing through him, Whit steps forward, lowering his weapon, and resting his left hand on the base of Qrow's neck. "Well isn't this just terrible luck for you, Branwen? G'night." At that, a flow of cinnamon Aura passes from the brunette Huntsman into the raven haired one, the later crumpling like a sack of potatoes. Ren lets out a pained, wordless scream, before lashing out with his left arm, and a deafening roar of white noise heralding a beam of raw power erupting from the outstretched limb, knocking the Fallen looming over Qrow to the ground before slamming into Whit, sending him stumbling as his Aura gives out.

Jaune's rush is interrupted just as Ren's attack peters out by the four-winged Fallen. Jaune catches the right talon on his shield, and reverses his grip on his blade to catch the left talon. "Just how many people were you planning on killing to try to catch us in this trap?" Jaune growls at the Fallen as they strain into one another, faces inches apart.

"Oh, if it hadn't worked the first time, Suriel would have went after Ozpin to have him assign you Devils this mission. He may be impressive, but he is just a human, after all." Jaune barely registers the burly Fallen's words though. Whit had staggered over to where Nora had skidded to a halt. He's standing perpendicular to Jaune's Rook and friend, axe raised above his head both hands on its hilt and body extended, ready to decapitate the girl with a single blow. With a shout of exertion Jaune presses his gauntlet up to rest under the Fallen Angel's chin, and begins rapidly twitching his little finger, a deluge of armor-piercing darts making a ruin of the top of the Fallen's skull.

He's going to be too late. Whit's axe is already arcing towards Nora's neck.

Ren isn't.

In a blur of black white and green he flits past the Huntsman, shouldering him back after StormFlower's leading blade had opened up his throat from ear to ear. Arterial spray paints Ren in red, but not so much as a drop gets on Nora.

Jaune surges over the crumpling corpse as Ren turns to face the prone Fallen Angel next to the unconscious Huntsman. Eyes wide and pupils dilated the usually reserved teen lets out a furious, pained bellow as he leaps over Qrow, and lands with a knee to either side of the mostly prone black winged angel's chest. He drives both of StormFlower's blades into the Angel's eye sockets before going still, breath coming in ragged, halting gasps, shoulders rising and falling in broken time with them.

Jaune surges past the leader of this band of Fallen's dropping corpse, shifting his shield back to its sheath form and clipping it to his belt as he reverts his grip on Crocea Mors back to what is traditional. He shifts sideways as the stunned Fallen lurches a sloppy chop at him, bodily avoiding the blow and bashing the blade of light in and away from himself, free hand wrapped around his gauntlet adding strength to the blow. The Fallen dismisses his blade, and Jaune starts to stumble until Crocea Mors bites into the black winged Angel's bicep.

Jaune's left hand slips from his gauntlet and onto the elbow of the unnamed fallen, and the momentum of two bodies, no longer guided by the brains they contain, makes things interesting. Jaune's next step falls abortively short and harmlessly throws Crocea Mors off to the side of both of them. Then the Fallen's momentum lurches Jaune around so that he is standing roughly behind the bald Fallen Angel.

Seeking to right his balance, he reflexively shifts his weight to his right side and moves to fix his stance in the same moment that the Fallen surges away from him. Jaune starts heaving on the Fallens left elbow in a further attempt to right his own precarious balance in the same moment that his sword arm hooks in to draw back to a basic guard.

The Fallen Angel's neck, however, is now in the way.

Crocea Mors meets no resistance until it strikes vertebra. Again, reflex takes control and Jaunes left arm pulls as he shifts his weight to the right as that foot steps out and back. Subconsciously he opens his left hand and the corpse tumbles away from him, another gout of arterial spray painting the now trashed conference room.

With a not insignificant exertion of will, a heat haze shimmers over Crocea Mors, leaving Jaune holding a plain but bloodied arming sword. The tugging at the back of his mind, the pull on his soul, however, has gone quiet.

By the time Jaune has wiped his sword clean and sheathed it, Ren is already cradling Nora in his arms. "Nora, Nora! Please. Please, say something—!"

"Owwwwww." She cuts him off with a hoarse moan, eliciting a shuddered sigh of relief from her partner.

Jaune kneels next to his friend and Bishop, resting a bloodied hand on his shoulder. "Ren, she's alive. I can heal her and we can all carry on like today went off without a hitch. Keep the Team and the Peerage one and the same, not split up by a few month's healing from wounds that should be fixable overnight. I need you to bandage her up tight enough that she looks fine when we move her to whatever hotel Beacon was going to put us all up at while we deal with what they thought the problem was."

Ren nods slowly as he begins to calm. "O-of course. Do we have any bandages?"

Jaune glances around until he remembers that, along with his Evil Piece case, he has a first aid kit hanging from his belt. It's basic as hell, but the roll of gauze bandages in it should do the trick.

Using his magic to spoof what surveillance cameras had survived the fight is easy enough. As is making sure all of the downed Fallen–none of whom have the same faces or forms that they had at the fights onset now–are going to stay down, as well as ensuring that Qrow is just unconscious, which he is. Good man, strong Huntsman, but a few hours working with someone is not enough of a litmus to decide to trust them with the secret of the Supernatural. Fixing his memory is rote for Jaune, having been a Devil since he was eleven, and he adds a few of his own, well, what he hopes will be his own tricks to make the modification last longer. You never can tell how long it will take for a strong-willed person's mind to start fighting back against memory modification. Keeping it maintained is going to be a pain.

He stomps over to the sole surviving Fallen and, after firing a few more ice darts to immobilize him, crouches down so that he can loom over the pasty would-be killer. "So, are you gonna hide the wings, and act like this was plain old corruption and greed, or am I gonna have to make one more corpse yet today?" The wings retract, and the Fallen spits in Jaune's face. Rolling his eyes, the blonde King wipes it away, and knocks the Fallen unconscious. Breaking the bastard's nose with his new gauntlet in the same blow was an honest accident. Honest.

Shaking his head to clear it, he walks back to where Ren has been murmuring reassurances to Nora for, a while, now. "Ren, I'm gonna need you to move Qrow, and hang back with Pyrrha while I move Nora to whatever hotel we're supposed to be staying at. Qrow's scroll was locked so the local Huntsmen will be here soon, and the Valean army not long after that."

Ren doesn't seem to have heard him, still hunched protectively over his partner.

Jaune rests a calming, he hopes, hand on Ren's shoulder. "Ren, I can heal her up overnight so that the Team and Peerage can stay the same group" He reiterates to the hopefully now more cognizant Ren, "And you and Pyrrha are better at talking with new people and making them like or believe you than I am." Ren squeezes his eyes shut and takes in a long, ragged breath and holds for nearly a minute before letting it back out. When he does, he opens his eyes, and the pale-faced, trembling Nora nods encouragingly up at him.

Considering what the future could hold, Jaune's sure that Nora's insistence on professional behavior is a good sign. He lifts his wounded Rook into his arms and leads the way from the ruined conference room towards the buildings exit.

When Jaune nudges the door out of the Headquarters and into the larger complex, Nora held in his arms in a 'traditional' princess carry, it is to the sight of a few dozen unconscious militiamen scattered around the central buildings entrance, Pyrrha still leaning in the same spot she had claimed when they entered, a beatific smile on her face. Off to the right, roughly triple that number of locals in their uniforms are milling about in handcuffed clusters murmuring amongst themselves. Some look angry, others resigned, but most seem relieved. To the Invincible Girls left lies a stand of rifle-axe pyramids, rifle buts down, barrels crossed. Ren follows him out of the building, Qrow slung across his back in a fireman's carry with a grunt.

"They'll be fine in the morning. Their Auras are already working on dealing with the lingering wounds." Jaune quickly reassures Pyrrha, when he spots the fear and worry shooting through her features regarding Qrow and Nora's conditions.

As she moves over to help Ren carry Qrow, Jaune asks after his Queen. "Do you know what hotel Beacon put us up at for this mission?"

Pyrrha shifts to their left, where the pasty officer that had been at the reception desk earlier. She cocks her right eyebrow and rests her left hand on her hip expectantly "Well, Master Sergeant Cole?"

The now named officer winces and glances to the side, an awkward expression on his face. Before he can get a word out, however—

"The Celebrant Motel a few blocks south of here." A new, firm but grizzled voice answers from the direction of the compound's gate. The team turn to see a gray-haired, tough looking old goat of a Huntsman striding their way, his right ram horn curled off to the side of his face, left snapped off roughly at the middle of its length, a ragged scar runs from his forehead, over the ruin of his empty right eye-socket and down into the neatly trimmed beard on his chin. Clad in dirty denim pants, a wide, plain buckled black belt and a threadbare, buttoned up and tucked in red flannel shirt. A bastard sword is hanging from his back, and there is a confidence to his gait that belies his years as much as the corded muscles covered but not hidden by his plain clothes and wrinkled skin. "Now do you kids mind telling me what in the name of the Brothers happened here?"

"Hello there!" Pyrrha offers the elder huntsman an honest smile, and the sort of finger-twiddling wave with her free hand that had driven her fan-boys wild in interviews and the arena. The newcomer only has an amused scoff and a half-grin to give that response.

Jaune resists the urge to sigh, wondering if he'll ever be able to get people to ease up that effortlessly, and replies. "Imposters replaced the Militia's upper officers using an illusory Semblance of some sort. They went straight for lethal force when we confronted them with Qrow Branwen, who got hit by Whit Remmington's Semblance, and is alive, but..."

The old man groans. "I suppose that's good news for the whippersnapper, he can't be woken up until his body is fully rested now. Unless he's changed a lot from when he was your age, he probably needs a lot with how he treats his body." He tilts his head so that his good horn juts out at Nora. "What about your teammate?"

"We're pretty sure it's just some shallow slashes across her gut from a hard-light weapon, but, well, I'm our team's field medic and the Leader, so..."

The old man rolls his eye. "Take the girl and keep watch, make sure she doesn't need to go to the clinic. I take it the rest of your team are good enough with people to be useful when the rest of the circus shows up?" Jaune nods, and gets one in return. "Great, boys, get our casualties to the hotel, I don't need to know anything else about the situation." He starts striding towards the cuffed militiamen "Get over here Champ. You made this mess, and you're gonna help me sort through it for which ones we can get back on the wall before the Grimm surge your little dust-up caused hits." A positively ancient looking flip-scroll in a thick leather pouch on his belt vibrates, violently, before he snatches it up and flips it open. Before scowling, closing it and jamming it back into the pouch he'd pulled it from with a grunt. "Goat paths and mountain trails are already starting to get hit. Times wastin'!"

All in all, Team JNPR's first encounter with a whole squad of Fallen could have gone much, much worse. As they continue onward, Jaune glances between his teammates and even does a once over of Qrow. He's sure they'll do better next time, but for their first stint following a professional it was passable. Here's hoping, with Weiss and Ruby apparently sniffing around for more clues about the supernatural, that Team RWBY will actually keep out of trouble for once.

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A/N: Well, that all just happened. I'd planned to get a bit closer to the Breach with this chapter, but it had already gotten pretty damn long, and I'd missed my 'end of the month' soft deadline. Sorry again about that. But hey, the next chapter is gonna be a lot quicker to write, heh. As usual, a huge shout-out to my awesome beta-reader MasterPrince713, and all of you amazing motherfuckers for reading this!

Love it? Hate it? Are also a MotherLover getting ready to bang your best friends mom? Drop me a review, I love reviews!