Ascendancy

by Titanmaster 117

War never changes, merely the adversaries. Jaune Arc's dream was to be a hero, not a soldier. But now, as the Grimm rise up under a new master, he finds that he has little choice in the matter. Darkness will flood over Remnant as the Second Great War begins, and not everyone will live to see the light at the end of the tunnel... (Dark RWBY fic. Minor and major character deaths)

44. Atlas Shrugged part 2: Mantle's Approach

Main theme: Metro Exodus rap by Jt Music, featuring Andrea Storm Kaden
Arc Theme: Atlas Shrugged by Vacuum
Theme: The Truth of Haze from the Re:Zero season 2 soundtrack

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El sol se ha puesto en este viejo día (The sun has set on this old day)
El cielo es rosa y rojo (The sky is pink and red)
Se acerca la noche con su abrazo helado (The night is coming with its chilled embrace)
Ha llegado el momento de descansar (The time has come to rest)

Somos el mundo y el mundo somos nosotros (We are the world and the world is us)
Nacida en y dentro de nuestras almas (Born in and within our souls)
Uno como naturaleza y calor nutrido (One as nature and nurtured warmth)
Nuestro mundo nos hace su peaje (Our world makes us its toll)

Pero ahora el día se convierte en noche (But now the day turns to night)
La luna rota cuelga alto (The shattered moon hangs high)
Los monstruos de las profundidades gritan sus rugidos (The monsters of the deep scream their roars)
Ellas proclaman que nuestros fines están a la vista (They proclaim our ends are in sight)

No llores joven, porque en el abrazo de tu madre (Do no cry young one, for in your mother's embrace)
Nunca conocerás tus miedos (You'll never know your fears)
Solo duerme con tus sueños descansados (Just slumber to your rested dreams)
Porque el final de la noche está cerca (For the end of the night is near)

Untitled translation of lost Faunus lullaby, found in the ruins of the first home of the House of the Winter Shores

---

…

…

…

…

Hello?

Can you hear me?

I know you can hear me.

…

…

…

…

Hey.

It's not your time yet.

That comes later.

Soon, but not too soon.

The chains of destiny are still too strong around you.

You are not yet ready to break them.

…

…

…

…

Now now, calm yourself.

Not now.

Soon.

For now, you have work to do.

…

…

…

…

Go.

Save them.

Be the hero that I know that you can be.

I know that you can that to them.

…

…

…

…

Who are you?

…

…

…

…

Your guardian angel, my king of kings.

---

Jaune woke up in a tank of blue water, and began to scream.

He pounded on the glass tank that he was floating in, screaming through his oxygen mask as the little fish-like droids floating around him- Pausing in their task of pressing his bones back into his body and sowing up his wounds with threads and surgical needles- Scurried away at the panicked movements of the boy that they were tending to.

Through the glass and blue water, he spotted the murky outline of a figure, and against his incessant punching and kicking of the glass around him, they- With a woman's voice- Called out to him, "Jaune! You're alive! It's- It's okay, it's just healing gel! It's healed you! Here, lemme- It'll drain out in a second, so please stop panicking!"

A second later, the little fish droids fluttered up to the surface of the tank, and below him, the blue water- The healing gel- Began to drain out of the bottom of the glass tank, guiding him down to the floor of the tank as it emptied itself, and allowing him to retch off the oxygen mask around his face, and look at the woman on the other side of the emptied glass tank around him.

"Nora?"

The ginger-haired girl nodded, "Yeah," and nearby, Eri- Covered in metal patches and a remote battery pack- Hovered above her and twirled in the air, "Oh! I fixed Eri, by the way! She's- She's all better now, I just had to... Go me, I fixed her. Recharged her. Both of them."

The little drone gave off a happy whirl and buzz in response, hooting out, [BEEP, BEEP, BEEPBEEP], as her reply.

As the glass tank retracted into the ceiling with an automatic whirl, Jaune slumped down onto the ground of the- Was this an infirmary? Yeah, it was that. A stark white infirmary with bright white lights in the ceiling, similar, but empty, glass tanks around them, hospital beds scattered next to the walls, with white panels mottled with pictures and paintings of... What? Warriors? Yes, warriors. Old... Mandarin warriors, yes. Mandarin warriors in black and red, fighting against Grimm wolves, jaguars, and the like. All of them old, all of them... Honourable? Was that the right word?

Jaune didn't know. He was still trying to find his bearings after only just waking up.

Nora looked him up and down, "Oh, um... You might want to... Clean and cover yourself up."

"Huh?"

"Your dongle is showing."

Jaune looked down himself- "AH!" -And then covered his crotch, "Don't look! Please!"

"I looked."

"Why!?"

"Well, excuse me for trying to make sure that nothing was cut off! From what we've been told, we were pulled out of a crashed ship, and I wanted to make sure that you were okay!"

He blinked, and then looked away, "Sorry..."

Nora looked away as well, "It's okay..."

Jaune slowly began to recover himself, bringing one hand away from his crotch to wipe away some of the healing gunk that had found itself on him, before looking around the infirmary, and seeing-

"Pyrrha! Ren! You're okay!"

The two, sitting on the beds nearby, with their gear, clothes, and armour- Dented and scarred, but freshly sealed, sown, and repaired- Laid out next to them as they waved, their bodies underneath their shirts riddled with healing patches, bandages, and fresh scars. Ren began with, "Indeed we are, more or less. We all had to spend a couple of days in and out of those tanks, though. Our hosts have a vested interest in keeping us alive."

He then gestured a thumb to Pyrrha.

"Or her, more specifically."

Pyrrha looked away, and didn't say anything.

Eri looked saddened by this as she let out a little whine, and Nora looked from her to Jaune as she said, "Yeah, our esteemed benefactor has made it clear to us that he only wants to use Pyrrha for her status as a Nikos- A propaganda piece, if you will. The rest of us are only alive because our rescuers were adamant about us being saved as well."

This got Jaune to blink, "Rescuers?"

"She means us."

All members of Team JNPER turned their heads to the open doorway of the infirmary, to see a blue-haired and eyed woman about the same age as them in a black and white dress- Almost like a maid outfit- White stockings on her arms and legs, black heeled shoes, and a pink flower ornament in her hair. In her hands, she held a large bag.

Jaune's eyes widened, "You," he said to her, "You're that same woman that saved us from the soldiers," the others looked at him in confusion, but the woman nodded along to him.

"Yes I am. You're welcome, by the way," the blue-haired woman said as she walked in and dropped the heavy looking bag on the floor next to them, the bag-

{THUD}

-Hitting the ground hard as it fell, "For saving you, I mean. If we hadn't been there, those soldiers and Techions would've cut your heads off," another shrug, "Actually, if anything, you and your friends should be thanking us for shooting down that ship for you."

"What?!" Jaune said to the woman, bewildered, "I'm sorry, but that was you?! Last thing I remember before being gassed to sleep is waking up after having been torn to shreds by the crash! We could've been killed!"

The blue-haired woman cocked her head to the side, "But you weren't, though," she retorted dryly, "Not when you were using your aura to protect you and your friends."

(J)NPER's eyes widened as they looked at him, "That was you?" Ren asked, "You were protecting us?"

"I didn't know I was," Jaune responded, "I only learnt about it when I woke up after the crash. I must've- I must've been doing it unconsciously. Like in the- Like above the Grimm Tidings. I must've been doing it about the Grimm Tidings as well."

"So that's what saved us? That was you as well?"

Pyrrha looked at him with wide eyes of her own, just like Nora and Ren, but still didn't say anything.

"So you saved us there as well..." Nora slowly said, "Wow, that's- Wow."

Before any of them could say anything more, the blue-haired woman stopped them with, "Well, I've heard about the things that happened around the Grimm Tidings in Vale. If you guys are strong enough to survive the Initiation Massacre, then you'll sure as hell do well here."

"You saved us, right?" Jaune asked as he used his free hand to rub the back of his head awkwardly. The girl nodded, and he continued, "Thanks. Thanks a lot for that," he said as if he had just forgotten that she was the one who shot them down in the first place."

"You can thank me and my team by helping us save lives. There's a lot of people out there that need our help, and even without Nikos around as a propaganda piece and extra muscle, we could use all of the help that we could get."

Pyrrha looked away once more as Jaune asked the blue-haired woman, "'Extra help'? What do you mean by that?" he paused, "Actually, better question is: Who are you? Where are we?"

And then, as if on que, a new figure entered the room, and revealed themselves to JNPER and the blue-haired girl.

"Her name is Reza Capri," said the figure with a male voice-

A tall, imposing man dressed in Mandarin armour, coloured in black and red with a white fur coat over himself, and glowing orange patterns covering his chest, arms, and legs, sticking out on him as they travelled down his gauntleted, clawed fingers, and jackboots on his feet. Built in arm-cannons sat on his wrists, and wrist-blades sat underneath them as the lens of the rangefinder antenna sitting on the side of his devil-horned helmet, as well as his T-shaped visor, glowed a haunting orange as well.

-As he strode up next to the blue-haired girl, "And she and her team have been with us just a few days before you arrived, thought they've been a big help, regardless."

He then stepped forwards, and placed a gauntleted hand across his armoured chest.

"I am Ransel Torban, of the House of the Winter Shores. Welcome to Sanctuary, our home."

"'Winter'-"

"Cover up your dongle, boy."

Jaune yelped once again and covered his crotch, before finally recovering himself, "'Winter Shores'?" he narrowed his eyes in thought, before finally coming to a realisation, "Oh, you guys are the Faunus house! The Mandarin Faunus house! So this is-" he looked around, "Wait, then this must be Atlas, right? Or Mantle?"

"Solitas, yes."

"How the hell did we-" he looked around at his teammates, "How the hell did we make it to Solitas?"

"You can blame your kidnappers for that," Ransel said, "From what the tox-reports from our best doctors said, from how much gas they had pumped into you, you can beat it was nothing good," he shook his hands at Jaune's sudden look of suspicion, "And before you say anything, I know how bad it sounds, but we'd received intel from our agent in Atlas that Ella Industries' agents had kidnapped a bunch of first years from the other side of Remnant for some strange reason, and I've already given Reza hell for using the kind of ordnance that she did to bring down a ship filled with hostages."

"Right," Reza looked away from him, and down to Jaune, "Sorry about that."

He waved it off with a confused look, "I'm sorry, but- Why are we here? I don't understand, what is going on?"

"The Second Great War, that's what's going on," Ransel answered for him, "We're in the middle of a war, and our enemy is cruel and merciless to us, and the people that we protect."

"What, against the Ascendant Court?" Jaune asked as he pulled the bag that Rez had dropped closer to him, and looked inside it. His armour and weapons were all in there, sporting fresh nicks and scars and all. None of it had been repaired like the others.

"No."

Ransel fished a scroll from his belt, opened up and pressed pause on a video, and threw it to Jaune. He caught it in his hands, and pressed play.

"Against Atlas."

The video began, and it showed a city block from the perspective of an overhead security camera, flickering in black and white, and swerving from side to side as it looked over the entire street.

Lines of Atlesian vehicles lined the streets, with Atlesian Techions (The same four-armed ones that tried to kill them in the Bullhead crash), Robots, and soldiers breaking into people's houses and running them out of their homes. Families were being forcibly removed from their livelihoods and pulled apart, mothers and fathers being loaded onto transports and trucks, shackled to the walls by electric collars and harnesses, and their children were loaded onto Bullheads and taken away to the floating island kingdom in the sky, screaming and bellowing in tears as their faces turned red from grief, and their arms flailed against their captors, desperate to return to their parents as they were dragged away.

The seemingly undesirables- The crippled and the mentally stunted- Were gathered together into groups, and chained to poles via harnesses and collars. Several four-limbed Techions were gathered together, and handed flamethrowers.

It was trial by fire. The undesirables were burnt alive by the Techions, screaming and crying as they were turned to ash and smoulder, their skins bubbling and smoking under the heat as they died a slow, painful, awful death, their arms reaching outwards, begging for a mercy that would never come.

Jaune threw the scroll down and brought his hands to his mouth, doing his best to suppress the urge to scream and vomit. He looked upwards once more, to Ransel and Reza, his eyes wide and filled with fear.

"That," began Ransel, "That is what we are fighting against."

---

The House of the Winter Shores was the first of the Faunus houses to have ever been created.

Before the start of the First Great War, the house had begun as a splinter faction of the Mandarin group known as the Revanchists, and desired to preserve and protect as much of the Faunus' old history and culture as they could, whilst the majority of their race was held in slavery and servitude.

Overtime, many separate factions and splinter houses would break off from the Winter Shores, almost all of them shucking off their Mandarin roots as they carved out their own identity into the world. But the House of the Winter Shores would continue to stick to its traditions, collecting relics and notes of the old cultures of the Faunus- Their old empires and traditions- And storing it all away, for safety and security.

(Jaune looked around at the walls surrounding him, and saw that, unlike in the infirmary, these walls were void of any old relics and paintings. Where were they all? Stored away to begin with- If that was the case, then why hang some up in the infirmary?- Or hidden away from looters?)

Sometime before the First Great War, around the time of the Coca War, the House of the Winter Shores cut a deal with Mantle. A mutual defence pact. Mantle would defend them from the Grimm, and in turn, the Winter Shores would protect them from any possible invaders.

As such, when the First Great War came, the Winter Shores defended Mantle time and time again from anyone who would dare invade Solitas, despite the rest of the Faunus houses siding against Mantle and Mistral. And at the war's twilight, when the combined forces of Vale and Vacuo broke down the walls of Solitas and marched down the snowy tundra, the Winter Shores faced them every step of the way, from the beaches of the continent, to the very walls of Mantle itself.

And at the war's end, the house's military power was finally shattered. Their armies of Mandarin warriors broken, their fleet of warships, both air and sea, scattered to the winds. It would take years for the house to recover, but by then, it was reduced from the millions, to the bare few thousands, and the fact that it had sided with the loosing side of the war would leave it on an uphill battle to reclaim its popularity within the Faunus.

As the years passed, and most of the Faunus houses dissolved away into nothingness- Save for the House of the Golden Sun in the settlement of Jewel- The House of the Winter Shore would weather the Colour and Rights Revolution, as well as the formation and emergence of the House of the White Wolves, and would return to its original mission of collecting and preserving as much of Faunus history as they could.

But now? Now, it looked like they were failing in that task.

The walk through the Sanctuary of the House of the Winter Shore was slow, and almost painful. Ransel obviously wanted them to see the sorry state that the refugees of Mantle were currently in- To see how lowly they looked and felt, how battered and worn they were- And it was certainly effective.

The corridors of the Sanctuary were filled with refugees, either from Mantle or from the outlying settlements. The white metal halls were chalked to the brim with families of humans, Faunus, and both, as tent cities (Like the slums of King's Rising in Vale) Populated the once disused halls and galleries of the building that they were in, with almost all of the people within (Even the children) Sporting some kind of war wound, big or small.

Missing ears, cauterised stumps where limbs once were, sometimes even a missing jaw or an eye.

They were all in such a sorry state, and it made Jaune want to cry from the hopelessness of it all.

(In one of the halls, he spotted wrecks and scraps of metal being taken apart and used for spare parts. One of those wrecks he recognised as the remains of the Bullhead that brought them into Solitas.)

JNPER marched together behind Ransel and Reza, weaving their ways through the crowds of people as they walked, all of those that surrounded them looking to them with longings for hope in their hopeless situation.

Or rather, looking to Pyrrha.

She was certainly popular after all.

Jaune continued to carry the heavy bag around his shoulder as he and his team followed their saviours, passing by parentless children and childless mothers and fathers as Ransel was greeted by the salutes of other armoured Faunus Mandarins as they patrolled the halls and corridors.

"We started taking people in about two months ago, at the start of the Second Great War," Ransel told them as they moved, "At first, it was stragglers from destroyed settlements abandoned and ravaged by these new Grimm forces, but then more people from Mantle started to arrive, either fleeing from their conscripted positions, or escaping from the city itself, in response to the SDC and EI's tighter lockdowns and harsher restrictions. Now, around seventy percent of the people that we have sheltered here are from the city of Mantle, with more and more arriving everyday via our underground railroads."

Jaune, now dressed in a loose fitting, pure white hospital gown, walked in front of Nora, Eri, Pyrrha and Ren, and said to Ransel, "Ransel- It's Ransel, right? If you want to fill us in on what's going on, now would be the time."

Ransel looked at him, and Jaune quailed.

"Um, please, I mean- I forgot to add."

Ransel looked back ahead, and Reza spared Jaune a look as this time, it was she who spoke, "In short, when the Second Great War started, and the Grimm revealed themselves to be so much more than a mindless horde, the people of Atlas, and its council, began to panic. What have you heard about Atlas over in Vale?"

Jaune blinked at the question, and so did everyone else, "Er... Not much, I guess. We've kind of been busy with our own problems."

"That's understandable," she nodded, before elaborating, "Because even if you had been paying attention, you wouldn't have heard much about it anyways. Atlas has deemed it in their best interests to try and control every piece of information that gets out of Solitas. Ever since Ironwood was able to petition the council to send so much of their military out to protect the other kingdoms- Citing all sorts of reasons and advantages to make the gears in their heads spin with glee- Atlas has made it their mission to control literally every portion of life within the citizens of Mantle, in order to look out for Grimm sellouts and spies. Of course, this soon gave rise to authoritarianism and paranoia on the part of the council, and they were more than happy to investigate and manipulate every part of the lives of those in Mantle, from Onus Square to Nicholas' Folly."

It was Nora's turn to ask a question, "Wait, so the council turned Mantle into a police state, and the people of Atlas just shrugged and said 'Oh well'?"

"Oh, they were more than happy to give up their rights and freedoms in the name of security, especially when they're the ones not suffering in the slightest," Ransel interrupted with, before shrugging as they walked, "Not that I can entirely blame them, after all. When faced with the sudden threat of extinction, especially at the hands of an enemy that you thought easily predictable, people will sacrifice anything to survive. But it's when these laws trample on your fellow man in the name of your own survival that I find trouble cooperating with."

Ren and Nora nodded slightly, as did Jaune, and Reza then cut in with, "Of course, all of this might've been fixable before EI and the SDC got into the mix and took over."

"EI?" Jaune asked, "What does that mean? And what do you mean by EI?"

"EI. Short for Ella Industries," Reza answered, "They're were originally one of the Schnee Dust Company's many branches before breaking away and forming their own company a year ago, specialising in weapons and technology. Just recently, them and the SDC announced a partnership to, quote unquote, 'Improve and expand the securities and freedoms of Atlas and its people'," she made a pair of quotation marks with her fingers, before pulling out a scroll from one of her dress' pockets, and handing it to Jaune, "And then EI's leading chairman and CEO took over the Atlesian council, and established herself as the First Citizen of Atlas, which we all know as functionally the Queen of the kingdom."

Jaune looked down at the scroll with a frozen video on its screen, and his eyes widened once more. The video had been paused on the face of a woman in a black and gold strapless dress, with amber eyes that seemed to glow like fire, and long hair as black as charcoal.

It was the same woman that ordered their deaths, and presumably their kidnappings as well, seeing as to how she spoke of their potential as hostages, and of hiring Rosa and Argento as well.

"Who..." Jaune looked up to Reza, "Who is this? Who is that?"

"That," began Reza, "Is Cinder Ella, the head of Ella Industries, and right now, the leader of Atlas."

Jaune looked down at the scroll in their hands, and then pressed play on the video. Immediately, the voice of 'Cinder'- As silky and seductively poisonous as he remembered- Rang out with, "Mine fellow Atlesians, allow me to be the one that dissuades your fears. I can assure you, as the First Citizen of Atlas, leading figure of this fine kingdom, and bringer of a new age of power and supremacy for all of us, I will do everything within my power, to ensure not only our survival, but our future prosperity. Mark my words, this day shall be remembered as the beginning of our new kingdom, our new empire, the start of our rise above the damnable, worthless Grimm, and the beginning of our march to our ultimate destiny, as the dominant power on this planet!"

Jaune paused the video, and looked up to Reza in disbelief, "Wow..."

"Yep."

"That was... I'm sorry, that just screams 'I'm a bad guy'."

"Not necessarily, but I will agree: Cinder has painted herself as the bringer of a new age of darkness, and she doesn't care to hide it at all."

"Once more, I ask: The people of Atlas just let this happen?" Nora asked in incredulous disbelief.

"And the council too. They were all positively moved by her speech. Soon afterwards, with the help of her political ally, Jacques Schnee-"

Jaune blinked. Was that Weiss and Winter's father?

"-Cinder soon began drafting conscription laws that only targeted the people of Mantle, leaving Atlas completely out of the fight and free to go about its own business."

"Vale's council implemented conscription laws at the onset of the Second Great War as well," added Ren as they all continued to weave their way through the drudges of people crowding the hallways, "Only it gave way to corruption within Vale's police forces."

"I don't know how bad things were over there for you," Reza continued with, "But for here- For Mantle- It was horrible. You saw the video, Jaune-"

Jaune blinked. How did she know his name? Then he mentally slapped herself. She must've heard it from their previous conversation.

"-You saw how those Atlesian soldiers and robots were treating people. Cinder is separating children from their families, and from what our agents have been told, they've been taken up to Mantle to work in the factories and facilities. Child labour, essentially."

Jaune frowned, "My god..."

"It gets worse. From what our allies in Mantle have told us, the city has been depopulated by sixty percent. Most of those missing numbers were conscripted to work in the mines, or in the military. Ordinarily, that would be understandable on its own, seeing as how desperate the global situation against the Grimm has become, but not when they're burning people with mental and physical disabilities alive, just because they can't work anywhere. Cripples, autistics, Asperger patients, all of them were put to the pyre."

"Not to mention the conditions of these conscripts," Ransel added in with, "From what we've been told, disease is rampant within the mines, living conditions are poor, and people are now more likely to die in those damnable dust mines than leave, which is worse than it ever was before. On top of that, recent 'Shortages of supplies and weapons' within the military, according to Cinder herself, has led to conscripts being literally thrown against the Grimm with nothing but spears and blades. No armour at all. Hell, a lot of our refugees come from former conscripts deserting their positions and coming here in mass."

"I'm sorry, but that last bit: That's just absurd. That's just too much to believe," Jaune interrupted them with a raised voice and hand, "No sane military would never send out their soldiers without any competent weapons. It's tactically inept, and blatantly evil. Seriously, if that's even true, then there would've been a coup against Cinder, and she would've been removed from her position."

"Indeed, that should've been what happened," Ransel said, "And yet it has not, Cinder and Jacques remains in power, and no one has said anything about it. Either Cinder and Atlas are so desperate that they are throwing anything that they can against the Grimm, or they actively want to be feared and seen as evil."

"Something is very wrong in Atlas," Reza said to them as they all stopped outside of a wide door in the middle of a corridor, "Cinder seems to be making all of these blatantly evil decisions and is revelling in them, and we can't contact the outside world because of Atlas' control over the CCTs across Solitas. The SDC and EI have an iron grip over the continent, and we need to break it before we're all crushed in their grasp."

Jaune looked from Reza and Ransel to his teammates, and then back to the Mandarin and the blue-haired girl, and, with narrowed, suspicious eyes, said, "I'm sorry, you two- I mean, I'm thankful that you saved me- But, well, I can't just throw my trust into you guys. Not just like that."

Ransel tilted his head to the side, "Is that so?"

"I've got a bit of bad history with authority figures," he said to them, "I have bad recent experience with people that I'm supposed to put my trust in-"

Someone shifted their feet behind him. He didn't know who.

"-And you too are asking me and my team to- To fight again a kingdom. A legal kingdom with legitimate power behind them. And you're telling us all of these absurd things without actually showing us any proof of them at all. I need to know that I can trust you before you ask me to fight against probably the most powerful kingdom on the planet."

"I am aware of that," Ransel said to him, "Which is why-" he patted the wide door in the wall, "-When you get your armour and weapons fixed up, you're being deployed to Mantle to help out our allies and forces in the city. Once you're there, you'll see what we've been talking about for yourself."

"Wait- Hang on, wait a minute!" Jaune pointed a finger to them in accusation as his eyes narrowed even more, "You can't just- I just said that you can't just order my team about without proving that we can trust you, and yet you decide to do it anyways?"

"I'm sorry to say this, Jaune," Reza began with as she placed her hands to her side, "But you don't exactly have a choice in the matter."

Jaune looked to her, "Really? Why's that?"

"She's right," behind them, Pyrrha finally spoke up, catching their attention, "It's Mandarin honour. They saved our lives, so now we're indebted to them."

"And she's right as well," Ransel said as he turned around to walk away, "We saved your lives. That makes you in our debt, and we need all the help that we can get, so I'm cashing that debt in."

And with that, he walked away, leaving Jaune with one last parting phrase:

"Consider yourselves conscripted."

---

{BANG}

"You don't have to like him."

Jaune looked up from hammering in the last few dents of his armour in the forge, workshop, and armoury around them, and said to Reza, "I never said that I didn't like him. I just said that I needed a good reason to trust him. A better reason to trust him other than the words of what's going on in Atlas and Mantle, without actually seeing it for myself."

"I know, and that's a fair assessment," Reza said as she handed him his helmet- The last piece of his armour to be fixed- "I mean, I wouldn't trust someone on their word alone either, but you have to understand that we're desperate. We need all the help that we can get, and if you happen to be in our debt, then all for us, then," she leaned in closer to him, "I mean, you saw those civilians, right? You saw the people of Mantle and Solitas. You saw the sorry state that they were in."

"I know," Jaune said as he set down his forging hammer, and leaned himself against the wide, round table that they stood on opposite sides at, a single white light overhead as he continued, "I didn't mean to disparage their struggles, I just- Some of those claims that he made... Realistically, they would never happen. Not under any sort of government."

"Remember the Techions that were trying to kill you?"

Jaune looked at her, "Huh?"

"Outside of the Bullhead," Reza began to elaborate, "I know you were awake when me and my team took them out."

Jaune blinked, and then winced uncomfortably at the memory, "Yeah... You really... Tore into those guys."

He remembered a head being turned to wet red gore and splintered bone. He remembered limbs being torn off and bodies being died an ugly red against the snow.

Reza winced and looked away, "Sorry."

"You didn't need to kill them."

This time, she looked at him, and her gaze hardened, "If I hadn't, then they would've reported back to their home base, and then followed us back home. The Winter Shores already had to abandon their last home because of Cinder's men."

It was Jaune's turn to wince, "Sorry," before going, "But you didn't have to kill them so... Violently."

"Yeah... Force of habit," Jaune looked at her with raised eyebrows, "I've had a bad upbringing, alright. I had to learn to survive, and where I came from, I had to learn to survive the hard way. People on the street aren't exactly the nicest."

"Oh... Sorry."

She patted him on the shoulder, "It's fine," before going back to her original question, "But think back, Jaune. When my team brought down the Techions, what escaped from them? What was the thing that came out of them?"

Jaune paused, thinking hard as he tried to recall the events of the tundra, before a look of realisation came over him, and he looked to Reza with wide, clear eyes.

"Black vapour," he said to her, "It was black vapour... Grimm matter."

Reza nodded, and then looked around the armoury around them-

The armoury, workshop, and forge were all commingled together into one room, lit under several white overhead lights, and smothered under a golden and orange glow from the dim fires and forges around them as they were left to cool and dim under the cold air that seeped through the walls from the world outside. Old swords and guns lined the racks of the walls around them, most of them similar and uniform to each other, but some were special and irregular, whilst on the far side of the armoury, away from the wide doors, were lines of Mandarin armoured suits, all of them customised for different Faunus subtypes, such as holes in the back of the waist for tales, or bumps in the helmets for extra ears, all of them coloured in reds and blacks, with white and grey fur linings covering the necks of the uniforms.

-To see if there was anyone else, save for the rest of Jaune's team, in the room with them. Thankfully, there was no one else in the room with them, and Reza looked to him and said, "Yes, there is."

"So the Grimm have infiltrated the city? They're in league with this Cinder woman?"

"It's a very probable theory, yes."

"Why didn't Ransel mention this?"

"Too many people around. Too many civilians in the hallways. They would've heard us and spread the words, and increased the despair and panic that they already feel. And panic brings about the Grimm," Reza looked to the side, "Or at least, we think it does, though we're not sure anymore."

Jaune looked to his teammates lingering around the armoury, and asked them, "Did you know about that?"

"Ransel and Reza informed us whilst you were in the healing tanks," Ren answered for them.

Jaune looked to the side, and put a finger to his chin in deep thought.

"When we found you in the tundra," Reza began to him, "I saw your eyes when you saw those Techions. You looked like... You looked like you had seen them before."

The rest of Team JNPER looked at him, and Jaune said to them and Reza, "I remember in the Sleeping City- In the Choir of Silver's cathedral- When we were going to rescue Ruby... When we found her, she had already defeated Templar and his allies, and the Techion Grimm that Ruby said helped her- The one called Attis... Those Grimm Techions out there are virtually identical to him."

Reza blinked, and the rest of Team JNPER approached him, "You think that the Choir of Silver are inside Atlas?" Nora asked as Eri floated next to her.

"When that ship belonging to the Choir escaped from the Sleeping City, I remember Ruby mentioning someone called 'Hephaestus'... She told me and Melanie- Er, Melanie and I," he corrected automatically in fear of Melanie's distant wrath at his lack of proper pronunciation, "Well, she told us that Hephaestus was the last member of Templar's court, but she never saw him face to face."

"We never found Malcom Croft, either," Ren interjected with, "The one that imprisoned us back in the Sleeping City. We never did find him, so he must've escaped in the ship with this Hephaestus character."

"Exactly," Jaune nodded to him.

"If that is correct, then whoever this Hephaestus person is, they're leading the last of the Choir of Silver to take over Atlas, and are manipulating Cinder into giving them that control," Pyrrha added in with, "Or at least, that's the most likely conclusion."

"It is a strong possibility," Jaune said to her, wincing as they both looked away from each other, before turning his gaze over to Reza, and going, "Is there any chance that we can contact Beacon? Let them know what's going on over here?"

"Weren't you paying attention earlier?" Reza said to him with a raised eyebrow, "Solitas is under a communications blackout. Every transmission coming in and out of the continent are either blocked or controlled by the SDC and EI's forces. Until we can break their lock on them, we won't be able to make contact with anyone outside of the kingdom, and with everyone outside the kingdom preparing for the Grimm's invasion of Anima, we're on our own."

"Well, I-" Jaune did a doubletake as he looked at her, "Wait, what?! The Grimm are invading Anima!"

"Going to invade Anima."

"Dammit, I've got family in Anima!" Jaune went as he picked up the forging hammer and began to hastily hammer out the dents in his helmet, "Hell, my entire family is in Anima! I need to-"

"Woah, Jaune! Calm down!" Reza went as she grabbed Jaune's arms to calm him, "Easy, Jaune, easy."

"Why!? Why should I be 'Easy' when-"

"From what our agents in Atlas have told us, entire portions of upper Anima, including Argus-"

(Why would she highlight that town specifically? Did she know that his sister, Saphron, and her family were living in Argus?)

"-Have already been evacuated. Wherever your family is, I'm sure that they're safe!"

Jaune looked at her coldly for a few moments, before finally taking in a deep breath, and going, "Fine," with a sigh of relief. Luckily his home town of Jewel was in lower Anima, near the coast, so that meant that they would be nowhere near the fighting that would take place, at least for a while. With another sigh, he began to hammer out the dents in his helmet more gently this time, tapping the hammer against the metal and bending it straight, before picking it up and putting it on once more, hearing his HUD light up with life once more as he looked over to his teammates, and went, "Hey... Out of curiosity... How long was I in that healing tank for?"

"Four days," Ren bluntly replied.

Jaune did another doubletake, "Four days?!"

"You got hit the worst in the crash," Ren replied, "At least now we know why."

Pyrrha looked away once more.

"Look, I don't know about all of this 'Choir of Silver' stuff," Reza interrupted them with, "But we've got about half an hour to begin our journey to Mantle, and I'd rather we left sooner than later, so let's shelf this conversation for now, put your gear on, and get a move on, okay?"

The others looked at her, before nodding and slipping their gear on, wrapping long fur coats around themselves-

"This is synthetic, right?" Ren asked Reza.

"Well, yeah. Why?" she answered.

"Oh, good good good. I don't feel particularly comfortable wearing animal skins as clothing."

"Unless it's Grimm fur," Nora shot out with.

"Unless it's Grimm fur, yes."

-And then wading through the corridors of the Sanctuary, and into what seemed to be a wide and tall animal pen, with Mantlian horses and wolves pressed together in different pens, and even-

"Woah," Nora said as she looked at the pens at the far back of the animal shelter, "Are those..."

"Yep," Reza nodded to her, "Lindwurm Dragons."

-Lindwurm Dragons, black serpentine-like Dragons with green and orange bioluminescent patterns and markings covering them, indicating to the internal heating that they used to stave off the biting cold of Solitas, with wide, glowing orange eyes, a long reptilian jaw, and sharpened teeth, blackened by the internal heat of its body. Leather straps and saddles were wrapped around their backs, with seats attached to them through leather and metal bindings.

The Lindwurm Dragons snorted out hot air as Reza and Team JNPER approached them, and Reza opened up one of the pens to allow Jaune and the others to step in, "Here we are. Our rides to Mantle."

They looked to her in confusion, "Are you serious?" Jaune asked her.

"Yep."

"And we can't just use a Bullhead to get to the city?"

"Atlesian forces are patrolling the airways, and we can't use the underground trams in the old tunnels or cars because of their energy signatures. Lindwurm Dragons have a habit of travelling through the underground tunnels to shelter from the cold. The heat from the Lindwurms will mask our own heat signatures. Trust me, this will be the best way to get into the city."

One of the Lindwurm Dragons stood its head up tall above the group, and snorted loudly at them. Or at Jaune in particular.

"Careful," Reza said to them as the Lindwurm fidgeted in place, looking down at them as she continued, "Lindwurms are very prideful creatures. It won't be easy to convince them to-"

Jaune lifted his arm up, and the Lindwurm sunk its large head gently into his hand.

"-Let you... Ride... Them... Well, that is new."

The Lindwurm snorted, and let its head rest against the floor, as did the rest of the serpentine Dragons for the rest of their riders as well.

"How did you do that?" Reza asked as JNPER hesitantly approached their steeds, "Lindwurms are ridiculously prideful," she said this as she approached another Lindwurm, the creature retching its head away from her with a haughty snort, "See? How were you able to convince these Dragons to bow to you, of all things?"

"I-I don't know," Jaune said as he began to climb onto the Lindwurm Dragon that had presented itself to him, "I just... Recently, animals have just liked me, I guess."

Reza blinked, but then nodded, "Alright then," and eventually climbed onto the Lindwurm Dragon before her, taking it by the reigns, and convincing it to listen to her commands.

A few minutes later, Reza contacted Ransel to tell them that they were on their way, and then, they were off.

---

"What's that smell?"

"That would be the various burst sewage pipes."

"Ack! Oh god, everyone breathe through your mouths!"

"Oh god, I can taste it!"

Reza waved her hand to quieten them down as their Lindwurms slithered through the old and rusting tunnels of the abandoned Transcontinental Train Network, the darkness almost blinding if not for the gentle hadean glow of the Lindwurms underneath them, and the light-up sights of Jaune's helmet, and by extension Pyrrha and Nora's as well.

Against the glow of the Lindwurms, Jaune could make out the still functioning and unbroken rails of the tramways underneath her (Most likely repaired and maintained by the Winter Shore's men), Juxtaposed against the shattered and cracked walls and ceiling, rusted metal pipes hanging out of the walls, and limp and dead wires hanging from the ceiling, disused and broken by the wear and tear of time and history, and interrupted by Solitas plants, vines, and flowers that grew from the spilt sludge on the ground and cracks between the walls, some of them even bioluminescent against the darkness of the broken tunnels. At the sides of the walls, several piles of frosted dirt and stone scattered the tunnel, with flowers blooming from the cold soil, and giving way for nature to reclaim the dank tunnels riddled with black ice and dripping puddles of rusty water.

Jaune looked around, and spotted a pair of Lindwurm Dragons slithering down the opposite ends of the tunnel, their gentle glow painting the walls a dim green and orange as they grew closer and closer around the long curve of the tunnels ahead. With a tug of the saddle, his and the other Lindwurms that carried Reza and the rest of JNPER moved to the side of the tunnel, allowing the other Lindwurms to pass them as they moved down the tunnels.

On the passing Lindwurms, Jaune could make out what looked like paramilitary soldiers- Most likely Mantlian militamen- Riding the snake-like Dragons, whilst behind them on the Dragons sat what looked like dozens of civilians outlined against the glow of the Dragons. He couldn't make out what they looked like in the darkness, but he could at least see their outlines. Men, women, children, all of them covered in cloaks, blankets, and fur coats, shivering against the cold, and even crying as against the stinking overgrown swamps of the cold depths of Mantle's tunnels...

Jaune could make out the smell of blood.

"Gods," Jaune muttered to himself as he looked from the escaping families on the passing Lindwurms, "Reza, this is all..."

"It's war," she simply said to him, "These things happen."

"...That's not fair."

Reza looked at him through the darkness.

"That's life."

She looked away, and pointed to the growing spectre of white light at the faraway end of the tunnel.

"Hold up," she raised her hand against the dim light of the tunnel, "We're here."

Pulling a laser pointer from one of her pockets, she lifted it up and let out three blinks of red light.

Three blinks of red light answered her.

With a gesture of the hand, she ordered JNPER off of their Lindwurms, and down onto the ground. Tapping their feet against the puddles and trying not to slip up on the ice beneath them, the group found themselves confronted by a large brute of a Techion with a glowing yellow visor, purple lights across its chest packs and upper legs, and the gear symbol of the Techions glowing purple in the centre of its chest.

"On time as usual," the Techion got out in a very familiar voice (Jaune recognised it as one of the voices that had been there to save them at the crashed Bullhead. He was a member of Reza's team), "Can always trust you ta get shit done, can't I?"

"Are the civilians with you, Brawler?" Reza curtly asked him, cutting off any more attempts at praise.

'Brawler' didn't seem to take it personally, though, and just replied with, "Got them all behind me. Enough to fit on five Lindwurms. Got the guards for them as well," behind him, several Mantlian militiamen stepped forwards, including-

"Oh, hello there," Jaune knelt down to see a childlike figure with long blonde hair, shining blue eyes against the darkness, a black dress made of rags that reached down to her knees, barely fitting black shoes, and-

Oh.

-Long arm blades flowing down from her wrists to her knees.

The child smiled, and waved, "Hi! My names Rui Sara! I like to beat up bad guys, eat apples, and beat up bad guys! How are you?"

Jaune recognised this voice as well. The third member of Reza's team that had rescued them.

He stood up straight and looked at Reza, through the darkness, with narrowed eyes, "You have a child on your team."

"She's a lot more capable than she looks."

"She's a child," he growled to her in a whisper, "Why is there a child on your team?"

Reza looked away, and seemed to quail underneath his gaze (For some reason), "...Circumstances."

"What circumstances?" he hissed quietly at her, "What circumstances were you under to use a child to fight your battles for you?"

"We were brought together. I- Look, can we just-" Reza looked to behind Brawler and Sara, and said, "Look, we've got civilians here that need to get to Sanctuary. Let's just load them up onto the Lindwurms and get to our headquarters. Once we're there, we'll talk it out, okay?"

Jaune grimaced underneath his helmet, but relented to Reza, and soon, he and Team JNPER stood to the side, and allowed the militiamen to lead the dozens of civilians to the Lindwurms, before moving to help them up onto the serpentine Dragons.

Against the white lights of the end of the tunnel, as well as the glow of the Lindwurm Dragons, Jaune could make out the faces and appearances of the people that he was helping to climb onto the Dragons.

Women whom were ragged and bare, some of them pregnant as well.

Men whom were missing limbs and parts, covered in scars and infected cuts.

Old men and women, thin and frail, with wrinkled skin and ragged clothing.

And children, red eyed and cheeked, carrying stuffed toys and trinkets of memory, their eyes mottled with poisoned, and trauma-riddled memories, gnawing and biting away at them.

Some of those children were missing fingers, and covered in bloodied and scabbed burn marks.

Jaune bit his tongue and grimaced at the sight, and as he finished loading the last of them onto the Lindwurms, he looked to Reza next to him, and asked, "The kids... The children... Where did they come from-"

"One of our agents in Atlas was able to send them down. Gave us the location of where they were being held. I-"

Beyond the end of the tunnel, a harsh sound let itself known, soaring over the ends of the tunnel, and outwards into what he assumed to be the rest of the city.

"Quiet," Reza said to them as he gestured to the Lindwurms behind them, and with a tug of the reigns-

{SNORT}

{SLITHER}

-The militiamen rode the Lindwurms away, down the tunnels of the ancient and crumbling train networks, fading away as they rounded the bend, and into darkness.

With another wave of her hand, Reza and her allies, as well as Team JNPER, moved to hug the wall as they began to walk towards the light of the tunnel's end.

Behind him, Jaune could hear the unpowered Eri, now formed into Pyrrha's backpack once more, tapping against the wall as she moved. She was still unused to Eri clinging to her back, it would seem.

As they approached the ends of the tunnel, Jaune allowed his eyes to adjust to the light as it filtered through his helmet, and as he and his team walked through the light at the end of the tunnel, he could see all that there was to see outside of it, in all of its glory.

Or, all of its rusting glory, it would seem.

The city of Mantle was left to ruin and decay, rusting at the edges, and dilapidating from disuse and disrepair. The skyscrapers of Mantle were empty and shattered, their lights turned off, their windows broken open, and draped over by red and blue flags, all of them sporting the logos of the SDC and EI corporations upon them, as spotlights from the walls surrounding the city trained over the old buildings and shacks that made up the dying kingdom. Once white paint flaked and flickered off of the buildings underneath the biting snow and ice of Solitas.

Overhead, the underside of Atlas, the floating city in the sky, hung overhead, blotting out the sun, and casting a wide, oppressive shadow onto the ground below, long and yearning as long, thin towers and cables leeched up from the centre of the smoking, steaming crater in the centre of Mantle, right into the mechanical underbelly of the floating city, thin and many, like the veins within a body, as massive Atlesian battleships- All of them Liberator and Interceptor-Class capital ships, as well as Aequitas-Class frigates, and Saviour-Class carriers- Sporting the grey and blue colours of the home defence fleet, hovered around the barbs that pointed high out of the side of Atlas like a crown, sharp and gleaming with malice for the world and people below. From down on the surface of Mantle, Jaune could see long and jutting barrels of cannons and guns pointing out of the rocky and mechanical underside of Atlas.

All of them pointing downwards to the ground below.

Closer to the surface of Remnant, and hanging over Mantle, long Atlesian ships, like segmented pillars floating through the sky, trained guns and spotlights on the ground below, their engines humming and glowing a tinted blue as they floated across the ghost town of a city, with smaller Bullheads, Dropships, Verity-Class fighters, and Vulture drone helicopters flying in between them as they moved, like insects to their queens as swarms of smaller Dragonfly drones weaved around the ships in the air like flights of bees.

At least they weren't the horseshoe-shaped Vetols of the Grimm, though now, he wasn't so sure if that was the case anymore (Were they really fighting against the Choir of Silver, or the Ascendant Court? Right now, even with their speculating from earlier, with the limited evidence that they had, it was hard to tell).

Reza tapped him on the shoulder, "C'mon," and the seven of them began to move down the empty street before them, out of the tunnels behind them, and then down between the buildings and through the dusty and disused alleyways of the city, weaving around shining spotlights and pointed gun ports, waiting to the side as ships passed overhead, their cannons looking downwards onto the empty streets, occasionally littered with abandoned and blown out cars, rusting and breaking apart in the chilled atmosphere of Solitas.

Around them, the lights of the city were off, from the streetlights to the buildings themselves, leaving Mantle shrouded in a veil of darkness. The only source of light to be found within the city were the harsh white spotlights shining down from above into the streets, and the gigantic television screens hanging on the sides of the buildings, continuously sprouting-

"Atlas stands tall. Atlas stands strong. Under the watch of Ella Industries and the Schnee Dust Company, Atlas will stand forever."

-Atlesian propaganda into the city on repeat, maddeningly and unending, as if it were on a loop that refused to end for anyone.

The streets themselves were cold, and covered in sheets of frost and ice, with icicles dangling high off of the buildings and glistening in the faint light provided to them. The group had to watch each of their steps carefully, as to not slip up on any puddles and sheets of black ice that covered the pavements and roads, as disused cars were either parked on the sides of the roads in neat orders, or abandoned in the middle of the streets, turned to the sides and missing fragments and pieces of themselves, with some of them even carrying frosted over bullet holes in them, all of them coloured a thin greyish-white by the sheets of ice and frost coating them.

The buildings were abandoned and hushed, lights off all around, save for the propaganda screens that continued to blare out reel after reel of Atlesian propaganda, shouting- Almost screaming- Their patriotic calls and wants into the cold and empty world around them, filling the empty city with patriotic music and hammy calls to action.

The group passed by what Jaune assumed to be a local hospice, but momentarily paused as he took in the kicked in door and shattered windows. It looked like a gang, or some other group of people, had broken into the building and stolen all of the medical supplies within, and judging from the cobwebs, smatterings of dust and frost, and conditions of the papers and electronics within, it must've happened more than a week ago.

Huh, at least his internship with Winter had helped for something.

Sparing a look at the posters scattered on the walls and discarded on the floor, wrinkled and withered underneath the wet cold, Jaune raised an eyebrow as he looked over the sheets of plastic and metal, reading the taglines that were scattered over them.

Invest in SchneeCare today, for a healthier future tomorrow!

Ella Ethics believes in protecting your private medical interests!

Atlas Private Medical Firms believe in your safety!

Atlas Private- What? Private medical firms? As in privatised healthcare? What, for all of Atlas? Was that allowed? Was that even legal?

Jaune remembered hearing in the GVMC back in Vale that Atlas had problems with corporations gaining too much power than what should've been legally allowed. Companies like the SDC reaching into almost every market and creating monopolies within them, creating their own private security funds and fleets of airships, even gaining political capital within the council and the upper echelons of Atlas.

Rampant capitalism, that's what they had called it.

Within the shattered atrium of the hospice, a single sign of graffiti had been sprayed over the walls, showcasing a yellow tagline:

Come bury your dead in the lein of Atlas

How... Comforting.

He looked over to the other side of the street. There was what looked like an abandoned primary school. Stapled over it were similar posters purporting the same speel that the hospice posters had been as well: About private schools and education companies, and so on, so forth.

Was this all just the end result of that? That rampant capitalism? Companies like the SDC and EI taking over the kingdom and privatising everything?

Jaune didn't know what to think about that.

Soon, as they moved further through Mantle, the seven of them made their way to an abandoned café next to a four-way intersection where the streets met, Reza connecting her scroll to a hidden panel in the wall, typing in a code, and then unlocking the door to the café as Jaune asked, "Do you own this place? Is that how you knew the code to get in?"

"No," Reza replied as they all stepped into the cold building, weaving past dusty chairs and tables as Pyrrha, in her Mandarin armour, moved to turn on the lights, though Brawler shot that idea down. It would draw too much attention to them.

"So we're breaking and entering, then?" Jaune crossed his arms over himself, his armour grazing past the holstered ML-15A on his chest as he said, "Not exactly helping your case."

"One of our allies own this place," Reza said as she lifted up a nameplate over a dirty cloth, revealing itself to say Hilltop Coffee. Didn't really answer the question, but it seemed to help her, at least. Reza continued, "Trust me, we just need to wait for them here, and then we'll be able to head out on our way."

"That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence," Jaune said to him as he watched Nora and Ren move to upright a table, only for Brawler to stop them as well, "And this place isn't exactly the nicest place to meet up in," he gestured to the long scratch marks along the walls, and the patterns of spiderweb cracks in the boarded up windows, "So you're not exactly doing much for first impressions."

"You don't trust me. That's fine," Reza said to him, "But you need to understand that we're not exactly in the best situation here. We will show your our intention soon. You'll see. But for now, we'll need to-"

"Hey," Nora said as she and Ren looked outside through the wooden and metal panels blocking out the windows of the cafe, "Something's happening outside."

Jaune looked to her, "What is it?"

"A family," she told him, "They're out in the open. They're passing over the intersection."

He blinked, and he and the rest of the group them moved to the window, looking through the cracks and patterns and out into the dark, cold streets outside.

Nora was right. There was a family outside. A mother, father, and three children, the one in the arms of the mother having Faunus mouse ears. They were peering through the door of a nearby building, looking upwards and to the sides, trying to make sure that there were no Atlesian patrols looking over the streets, before stepping outside, and going to move across the crossways intersection.

"What are they doing?" Ren asked them.

"Bein' big dummies," Rui replied, her mouth opening up and down randomly, showing her sharpened, bladelike teeth within her jaw before she then said, "Seen it before, I have. Big dummies don't hide where it's safe, big dummies not going to hide anymore."

Jaune looked down at the girl- Surprised by her sudden bout of maturity, but still not comfortable with the idea of her being a fighter, her being a child and all- Before looking back out to the family outside, and spotting something about the father in particular.

There was a rusty red prosthetic where his leg was, and he wore a shirt that exposed a mark on his left shoulder, black-red and bubbled, the flesh dried like lava cooling downwards instead of upwards, still red and raging with pain.

"Do you know them?" Jaune asked Reza and the rest of her team.

"Never met 'em before," Brawler said to him, "Shame, really. Seem like nice people."

"I'm more concerned with the mark on his shoulder," Reza said as she pointed it out, drawing Jaune's attention to it once more, peeking his curiosity at what it-

"It's a slave mark."

It surprised Jaune that out of everyone, it was Nora who pointed that out. He looked down at her, and saw that her face was mournful and caked in regret. Jaune opened his mouth to ask a question about it, but Ren seemed to sense what he was about to do and shot him a sharp look, leading him to close his mouth and disregard it.

Not his place to ask.

The family began to cross over the intersection, and that was when the worst case scenario took place.

An Atlesian patrol- Three of the four limbed Techions, four Atlesian soldiers in white and gold armour with a glowing yellow centre in their helmets, and two pot shaped robots in black and silver, segmented into 3 sections as a pair of guns poked out of its midsection, and a bright blue light jutted out of the dome in its head, as well as neon blue lights lining its entire body- Turned around the corner, and spotted them.

The patrol spotted them, and raised their guns.

Jaune's eyes widened, "Get out of there," he quietly hissed, "Get out of there, before-"

{BANG BANG BANG BANG}

The Atlesian patrol opened fire, and most of the family dropped dead to the ground, mother, father, and children all, their blood pooling and collecting together on the ground.

The members of Team JNPER swore loudly, and Nora began to cry, as the child with the mouse ears, now covered in blood, wormed his way out of his dead mother's grip, and screamed at the sight, bawling loudly as he pressed his hands (Covered in burn marks and missing a pinkie finger) To his face, and cried in mourning to his dead family, as-

Jaune tore his teary sight away as he pulled his ML-15LE Wire Rifle from his back, pressed a battery into the stock, and began to charge up a golden energy bolt, but was stopped as Reza quickly grabbed him by the arm and harshly said, "Jaune! I'm sorry, but we have to leave them! We need to stay hidden, and I can't afford you dying here! Besides, there's nothing that we can-"

{BANG BANG BANG}

A trio of bullets went into the mouse eared child. He dropped dead instantly, joining his family in the heaven that was rightfully owed to them.

"We can kill these motherfuckers!" Nora snarled out to her as her helmet formed around her head, but Jaune was already at the door, rage upon his face as he set himself free of Reza's grip, violently kicked the door to the café open, and-

{CHOOM}

-Unleashed the golden bolt of energy into the Atlesian patrol, his mind raging at the atrocity before him as the charged bolt-

{CRACK}

-Impacted with the lead Techion, melting its armour and frying the mechanics within (It had no aura to protect itself with) As its four limbs flailed in panic as it let out a slurred, mechanical cry of pain-

"RAUG- ACK!"

-Right before Jaune dropkicked the Techion in the chest, its softened armour and circuitry collapsing underneath his weight as he forced the four-limbed monster to the ground, raised his rifle to its chest, and-

{BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG}

-Released five rounds into its chest, breaking apart the soft armour and piercing into the organic components within, killing the metal demon.

Black vapour seeped out of the Techion, and faded away into nothing.

So they were indeed Grimm.

The two Attis-impersonators reached out to him as the Atlesian soldiers and pot-like droids behind them raised their gun mussels at him, only for the two Grimm Techions to be lifted up into the air via a black shroud over them, before-

{CRASH}

-Being slammed together underneath this black hue-

{CRUMPLE}

-Then crushed into a giant ball of scrapping metal and sparking mechanics (With black vapour weeping from them), And then-

"TERMINATE- AUGH!"

-Throwing the ball of scrap metal into one of the droids behind them with enough force to utterly destroy the machine in a spark of fire and smoke, the droid slamming into the wall and shattering to pieces, right as-

"YAAAAH!"

-Pyrrha charged past Jaune and planted her armoured boot into the neck of one of the soldiers, forcing him to the ground with a-

{SLAM}

-As she then used her semblance to pick up the other black, silver, and blue droid, and-

{RIIIIIIIIIP}

-Pulled the machine in half, throwing both pieces to the ground as behind them-

{CHOOM CHOOM}

-Twin streams of blue light whizzed past them and into the ground where the rest of the patrol was-

{BOOM}

-Sending Jaune, Pyrrha, and their opponents flying backwards as the shockwave from the blue explosion rippling outwards caught them off guard.

"Dammit, Nora!" Pyrrha growled as she picked herself off of the ground, "Will you watch where you're shooting next time!?"

"What?!" the armoured girl called out behind them, Ren standing to her side with his own guns raised as the cannons on her back continued to glow a violent blue hum and glow, "Like you weren't going to kill them yourself for what they've done, huh!?"

"Well, could you at least watch where you shoot next time!? You almost killed us!"

"Wasn't you I was aiming at!"

"Well try to aim better!"

Jaune held out a hand- "Guys, please!"- But was ignored completely.

"Guys!" Reza called out to them as she, Rui Sara, and Brawler, followed them out of the cafe and into the open streets, "Focus, will you?! We need to get out of the open, before-"

{BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG}

Blue, yellow, and orange-tinged bullets began to fly past them as two more Atlesian patrols- The both of them bigger in size than the previous- Began to fire on them from different sides of the street, forcing the long ranged fighters to duck for cover in the buildings as the fighting began to escalate, the first years and rebels being forced to duck to cover within the buildings as the Atlesians began to advance on their position, bullets bouncing off of the buildings and flying through the boarded-up windows, spraying the ground with shattered glass, wood, and metal as Brawler brought his own twin cannons on his back to bare, and-

{CHOOM CHOOM}

-Unleashing twin streams of purple light into one of the patrols, and-

{BOOM}

-Scattering one of the patrols in an explosion of purple light, and killing most of them, whilst nearby, Jaune and his team, including the now reactivated Eri, poured their fire into the other Atlesian patrol, with another group of Atlesians beginning to approach them as the streets were filled with blood and bullets and fire.

"Dammit, we're taking too much fire!" Reza called out as she ducked to avoid a trio of bullets flying at her, and then, from behind her cover, turned to the young Sara, and went, "Hey, Sara! I need you to release Canaan for us, okay?!"

"Aw, do I have to?" Sara asked innocently, placing a finger on her lips as if oblivious to the chaos around her, "But the mean lady is mean!"

Jaune looked to Reza for a split second, a twitching eye underneath his helmet as he asked, "Reza! What the hell are you-"

"Sara, you need to let her out now-"

"Don't you dare send a child out there to-"

"-Otherwise we're never going to get rid of these guys, they'll summon more reinforcements our way, and they'll be able to identify us with their helmet cams! We need them all taken out, and Canaan is the only one who can do it!"

"-Reza! Are you even listening to-"

"Understood."

Jaune blinked, and then looked down at the rag wearing child next to him, who had just uttered that cold, emotionless word.

Against the chaos of the battle raging around her, Sara had turned so stiff and calm that it was almost alien. Her face was wiped of that childlike wonder and innocence, and was replaced by a stoic professionalism, cold and calculating, and ungodly in its veiled brutality.

Her eyes had turned from blue to red.

It was almost like he was looking at a completely different person.

The blades running down from her wrists shined against the violent flashes of light, and in a flash of her own, she-

Jaune held out a hand to her, "Hey, wait!"

-Charged to the side of the café, weaving around and dodging trails of bullets and blasts, and disappearing through the doors to the side of the dark room that they had taken as their own.

Whilst everyone else was concentrated on the fight at hand, blasting away at the encroaching Atlesian hostiles, Jaune gave a sharp look to Reza as he hissed, "What the fuck, Reza!? Why the fuck are you-"

"Jaune, trust me."

"If you wanted me to trust you, then you wouldn't be using child soldiers! For god's sake, she's a kid!"

"And so are you, and your team! You are children as well! You are willing to give your life, are you not?" Reza hissed back. It wasn't a justification, but a statement of fact.

And in a way, she was right.

Jaune, Ren, Nora, Pyrrha... They were only seventeen years old. Not even adults yet. And yet here they were, fighting on the frontlines of a war that none of them were prepared for, suffering and dying and giving their blood and bones in order to protect Remnant and its people, even though none of them were old enough to even vote.

Now that Jaune thought about it, it was...

Well, it was almost funny, wasn't it?

Here they were, kids. Students. Children who weren't allowed to drink, or vote, or smoke, or even have sex, and so on, so forth, because they were too young for it.

And yet, they were also soldiers, and killers. From what he could tell, most, if not all of his peers and fellow students in Beacon had been training to fight since they were young, with some beginning their training from when they were just five years old.

Some of them had already taken lives. Others had already lost their innocence.

It was both funny and cruel, wasn't it? Here they were, soldiers, warriors, and killers, fighting and giving their lives for the people of Remnant, and yet they were denied the rights of adults, just because they were not considered 'Adults' yet.

But they were adults. Mentally, they were already adults.

They stopped being adults when they had been sent into the Emerald Forest, and were almost all slaughtered (Of which Jaune still held so many regrets).

Hell, some of them had stopped being children a very long time ago.

Arguably, Jaune had stopped being a child when the first Arcadia had been burnt to the ground, and his father had been murdered by the Daughter and her Chimera monsters.

Hell, if he hadn't stopped being a child then, then it would've been when he faked his transcripts to get into Beacon...

…

…

…

…

Heh.

Now wasn't that an interesting though?

Jaune wasn't stupid, he knew that the way that he had got into Beacon was by no means legal. He had cheated his way in Beacon. There was no easy way- No way at all- To work around that.

However- Somehow- He hadn't been caught yet. Ozpin hadn't found him out and expelled him for it.

Or he had, and he didn't care.

Jaune didn't know, but what he did know, was that if he had somehow slipped himself into Beacon without being noticed...

Then so could anyone else.

Hell, he knew a lot of other people that had faked their way in. Melanie, Ren, Nora, and a few others.

He didn't know the others, and that was what worried him.

Jaune was okay with being expelled for faking his way in, if that's what was needed to be done. He would be sad about it- He would definitely be miserable about being kicked out of Beacon- But he couldn't say the same about the others that had faked their way in, including the ones that he didn't know about.

How many people were in Beacon that were worse than him? And in the other academies?

How many people had Ozpin allowed to get into Beacon that truly didn't belong there?

Jaune pushed the thought out of his head, turned himself away from Reza, and refocused himself on the fight at hand. Right now, there were a dozen Atlesian soldiers, droids, and Techions marching on their position. The sooner they-

{CRASH}

-What?

One of the doors to the building nearby burst open in a shower of splitting wood, metal, plastic, and frost, flipping downwards into the collected group of Atlesians and slamming one of them down into the ground. Out of the now opened door, a blonde mass of flesh and rags flew out of the building, and-

"AUGH-ACK!"

{SLICE}

-Severed the head of one of the Atlesian soldiers with its long wrist blades, blood and gore spurting out into the cold air like a fountain and painting the floor red as the mass of blonde hair and rags, without a hint of emotion on her-

Sara! Jaune realised as he peered through his sights and the shattered window.

-Picked up the bloody severed head of the Atlesian soldier, pushed a pulsating shard of energy- Her semblance- Into it, and then tossed it into the middle of the group of Atlesians.

{BOOM}

The head exploded into a spray of fire, metal, and burning gore, the overpressure sending the other Atlesians flying to the ground as the small girl that was Rui Sara (Rui Canaan?) Quickly leapt between their prone bodies and-

{SLICE}

"AUGH!"

{SLICE}

"ACK!"

{CARVE}

"UGH!"

-Began to sever their heads and limbs, physically disassembling and deconstructing them as she pushed all of her aura into her fists and feet and-

{STOMP}

{SHATTER}

{SQUELCH}

-Crushed the severed soldier heads within her grasp, turning all of the heads into splatters of gore and metal, before picking up the shattered domed head of one of the Atlesian droids, pushing more splitting blue energy into it, and then-

{TOSS}

Throwing it right into the other grouping of Atlesians-

{BOOM}

-The explosion and resulting overpressure scattering some of them, and clouding the rest in smoke.

This time, however, they had been more spread out, and most of them had taken to cover, meaning that less Atlesians were killed from Sara's attack. However, the overpressure and smoke from the blast forced several of them to leave their cover and reposition themselves, allowing for the group to aim down their sights and-

{BANG BANG BANG BANG}

{CHOOM CHOOM}

-Pick them off one by one, with the remaining Atlesians being taken out of commission by Sara as she threw another head, pulsating with freshly unstable energy, into the remaining Atlesians-

{BOOM}

-And forcing them all out of cover, allowing the others to finally finish them off.

The streets calmed down, and smoke and steam bellowed in the air from the fresh fire, juxtaposed against the frost that covered every inch of the city. As Jaune and the others made their way out of their cover- Scanning the streets, buildings, and roofs overhead for anymore hostiles, and keeping to the corners of the street and the pavements- Sara continued her grizzly work of crushing the heads of the soldiers in her grasp and under her boot, and smashing to pieces the optics and internal workings of the dead Grimm Techions and Atlesian robots, turning them all to scrap, before finally turning back to the approaching group, her eyes, once blue, still crimson red.

"All targets eliminated," was her emotionless statement to them, blood splattered all over her, and dripping off of her fists and long blades, pooling on the ground as they began to commingle with the ice and frost on the ground, "All helmet cameras destroyed."

"Good job, Canaan," Reza said to her as she kept her eyes glued to the possible entrances and exits to the street around her, before sparing a glance to 'Canaan'- Not Sara- And asked, "Do you think that you can let out Sara again?"

"Understood," said Canaan, before her eyes closed and she shook rapidly in place, jittering to the sides as her eyes snapped open- Not red, back to blue- And she sagged herself and went, "Aw, what? How'd I get here, an' why am I all sticky and wet?" Canaan- Sara?- Raised one of her arms and looked over the blood covering them, before sticking her tongue out and-

"Sara, please don't do that."

Sara(?) looked to Reza, "Aw," and then lowered her arms and looked around, "Is the mean lady gone?"

"Yeah, Sara," Brawler leaned down to ruffle her hair as Sara giggled, "Mean lady's gone. Good job."

"Reza," Jaune began in a low voice, "What. The hell. Was that?"

"Sara's got multiple personality disorder," Reza began to explain to him, "One personality is a jumpy twelve year old, the other is an emotionless assassin. An emotionless assassin with a semblance that can push excess amounts of explosive energy into separate segregated body parts, preferably when they've been removed from the body," she looked at him, "That's why Ransel put her on my team."

"She's still a kid," Jaune got out to her, "Why isn't she-"

"Jaune, focus," Ren said as he kept his twin guns pointed to the skies, whilst Pyrrha and Nora kept theirs on the grounds around them, "We need to get out of the open once more, and..."

His eyes narrowed as he focused himself on one of the ships up above, and then, they widened.

"Incoming!"

Overhead, a Vulture drone helicopter began to swoop down, its lower Gatling gun spinning in place as it trained its spotlights onto the group below, seeing through the smoke and flame around them, before-

"Get to cover!"

{RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA}

-The drone's Gatling gun opened fire, spraying the ground with round after round of bullets as it flew by. The group swerved down as their aura shielded them from as many blows as possible, before ducking to cover as the bullet storm continued on and on, before finally coming to an end as-

{VWOOSH}

-The drone helicopter flew over them, before finally flipping around in the air, and hovering loudly over them, its spinning rotors deafening and bellowing as the winds slammed against them, buffeting past their cloaks and flowing through the fabric and grooves of their clothes and armour, the gun on the drone's chin scanning over them like a hawk, swerving from left to right as it readied to open fire on them.

"ALL HOSTILES WILL SURRENDER," the mechanical voice of the flying droid droned out to them over the buffeting winds as it began to lower itself between the buildings, "ALL HOSTILES WILL SURRENDER AND AWAIT-"

Two of the windows in the top floors of the nearby buildings shattered, and two people that Jaune had never seen before leapt outwards from them, jumping onto the Vulture helicopter, and-

"-TRANSPOR-" {BTZZZZZZZZZ}

-Began to tear it apart, with one of them launching a chain weapon into the motors of the central rotor, whilst the other sent what Jaune presumed to be dust and aura enhanced arrows from a crossbow on their arm into the vents and exposed components of the Vulture, before latching onto the oversized flying machine as-

{CRUNCH}

{SHATTER}

{BANG}

-Its rotors shattered underneath the meddling of the two people, and it-

{CRASH}

-Dropped like a stone into the ground, slamming into the ground head first and into a nearby car, crushing it underneath its weight, and then resting itself against the ground with a-

{CRUNCH}

-Shattering the gravel and pavement beneath it, spraying tiny fragments of rock and gravel everywhere as the broken helicopter droid rocked back and forth for a few moments as its components whined to a halt and its lights flickered off, and then finally coming to a halt and leaning heavily on its left side, its Gatling gun giving off one last twitch of life, before giving up, and clunking its barrel uselessly on the floor.

Jaune and the others picked themselves up off of the ground, dusting themselves off and brushing off the rock and metal fragments that had gathered over them, and looking to the suddenly now smoking helicopter as the two people who had attacked and brought down the Vulture let go of the machine and leapt down onto the ground, revealing themselves to be a pair of Huntresses. Or at least, he assumed one of them to be a Huntress, at least.

One of them, he knew was certainly a Huntress. Violet eyes, light blonde- Almost white- Hair in a ponytail, tanned skin, black and grey sleeveless coat, brown waist clincher, and red sleeveless vest over a light grey sleeved shirt, olive green scarf, and black boots over brown trousers. He had been forced by Apollo in Jewel to watch so many of Robyn Hill's political speeches (Censored and edited at specific bits by Viola, of course) To forget her.

The other one, he wasn't too sure about, though he suspected her to be a Huntress, at least. An amber-eyed, dark-skinned Faunus with tiger ears atop her head (With an earring in the left one), Short black hair down to her human ears, which themselves had looping gold earrings in them, and a red bead in the centre of her forehead. Underneath a hooded cloak of red fur, she wore a custom combat outfit that covered the entirety of her body underneath her neck, covering her arms and legs, with grey patterns splitting apart the black fabric, a golden belt over her waist with a silver symbol in the middle and black and gold patches attached to it, golden fabric strips that circled around her shoulders and armpits and connected to a golden and red brooch shaped like a diamond in the middle of her chest, and black pieces of armour covering her body, light and sparse enough to allow freedom of movement, but still protective enough to stop a bullet from going through her vital areas, with glowing red lines and circles running along the black armour sections running across her, marking her against the darkness as the silver chain wrapped around her right arm glistening against the orange light around her.

Jaune didn't recognise her, but he did recognise the symbol in the middle of her diamond shaped brooch. The symbol in the shape of a blood red wolf head with three slashes underneath it.

Surprisingly, it was Nora Valkyrie who would fill in the details.

"Sienna Khan!?" Nora cried out as she pointed an angry finger at the Faunus woman, "Why the hell are- Reza, are you telling me that you're seriously working with one of the White Wolves?!"

Ren grabbed her shoulder, "Nora-"

"Ren, she's the leader of the White Wolves! She is the White Wolves! And these people seriously expect us to work with her?!"

"You think I am the House of the White Wolves personified?" 'Sienna' asked Nora mockingly, "Well, thank you for the compliment."

"Don't you start. Nora is right," Jaune found it within himself to push ahead of his team, and stare down the White Wolves leader through his helmet, "You're in charge of the White Wolves, and I read- And seen- Enough of them to know how they operate-"

Sienna crossed her arms in front of her and took a step forward, "Oh really? Tell me then, boy: What do you know about me and my people? I'd very much like to know how badly you hate my kind, like every other human out there."

"'Your kind'? The White Wolves are terrorists. I've met a few of your guys before- Both Wolves and Acolytes- And none of them were exactly friendly people-"

Sienna held up a hand, "Please, don't ever associate me with the Acolytes of the Ascended. I want nothing to do with those psychopaths."

"Whatever. The bottom line is, you and your guys are the bad guys, and no there's no grey morality complication to it, so don't even try to pull that card. Why the hell should we throw our lives down for a bunch of terrorists?"

Sienna growled at Jaune, "In case you didn't notice, boy," she gestured to the smoking helicopter behind her, "I just saved your life-"

"We just saved their lives," Robyn interrupted as she got between Sienna and Jaune. Sienna growled, but didn't say anything as Robyn continued, "And now isn't the time to argue between ourselves. We need to get out of here before more Atlesians show up-"

"No no no, we're not done," it was Nora's turn to cross her arms in front of her, "Why the hell should we trust you, when you're working with an actual terrorist?"

"Because we don't have a choice, and if you stay up here, you will die," Robyn gestured to the smoking drone behind them, "That thing's self-destruct will go off in two minutes, and once that goes off, if any Atlesians hadn't heard the fighting before, they certainly will once it explodes."

"What? Self-destruct?" Jaune asked her.

It was Reza who answered, "Cinder and Jacques have had a lot of the drone models within Atlas' home fleet outfitted with self-destruct mechanisms to prevent them from falling into enemy hands once they go down. And Robyn's right, we need to move now. If the explosion doesn't get you, then the rest of the Atlesian military will."

She then pointed to the dead family in the middle of the street.

"And you know what they'll do to you if you... Do..."

Jaune noticed her trailing off as she looked upwards towards one of the screens placed high onto the skyscrapers of Mantle, and looked upwards with her, "What? What are you... Oh."

On the screens was his own face.

"A reminder that Jaune Arc has been moved to the most wanted of Atlas, and is considered armed, and extremely dangerous," the female voice on the screen droned emotionlessly, with a slight slur to her voice, "A fifty thousand lien bounty shall be rewarded to anyone who may bring this criminal to justice."

And then, if that wasn't enough, the screen then finished with:

"Orders for how to deal with this criminal are to kill on sight."

…

…

…

…

"Fuck."

"Yes, fuck indeed," Reza said as she leant down and pulled a sewer great out of the road beneath them, "You were declared most wanted by Cinder a few hours after we brought you to the Sanctuary a few days ago. If Atlas finds you and your friends, they will kill you. Violently, and painfully."

She looked up at him.

"What else are you going to do?"

"...Fine," it wasn't Jaune who said this, but Nora, as she looked to the side for a moment, and then climbed down into the cold sewers below, "Let's just get this over with."

Jaune didn't say anything in reply, but finally swallowed the bitterness inside himself, and then followed them downwards.

They all climbed into the sewers, and the Vulture exploded in their absence.

---

Before they continued on, though, Sienna and Robyn, as well as Reza and her team, stopped JNPER, and told them that they needed to undergo a test. To prove that they weren't spies for Atlas.

"Pretty sure we should've been asked that back with the Winter Shores," Jaune heard Nora say out loud to them.

"Ransel may trust you, as might Reza and her lot, but we won't. Not immediately," Sienna gestured between Robyn and her, "We'll need more solid proof than what we've been given."

"We're not going to have to kill anyone, are we?" Jaune couldn't help but ask, "Or do drugs or get a gang tattoo, or whatever? I'd rather we didn't do that."

"Oh god no, nothing of the sort," Robyn shook her head as she approached them, "Just a little lie detector test. Just to make sure that you've not been placed on the most wanted list of Atlas for a very good reason.

"How are you going to do that?" Jaune asked curiously.

Robyn held out her hand, "Take it."

"What?"

"Take my hand."

After a moment's pause in confusion, Jaune took her hand. A lilac aura flowed over his arm, as well as Robyn's. Her semblance?

"Are you working for Atlas?"

Jaune blinked, "What? No! Gods no!"

The aura around their arms flashed green.

A lie detector. That was what her semblance was. If he had to guess, if green was for telling the truth, then it must be red for a lie. At least, he assumed that it might be red.

"Do you know why there are Grimm inside those Techion suits?"

Starting to get the hang of it, he said truthfully, "I-I don't know, but I might have an idea or two as to who's behind this all."

Another flash of green.

"Is that why your face is all over the screens and the local CCTnet?" a personal question aimed at him.

"I don't know. As of now, I don't know."

As the aura flashed green, Pyrrha looked like she wanted to say something, but relented. Thankfully, no one else noticed.

"Do you know why Cinder wants you dead?"

"No."

Green.

"Do you know why Cinder would want you at all?"

"No."

Green.

"And are you ever going to entertain the possibility of selling us out to Atlas?"

Jaune couldn't help it. He had to tell them the truth, "If I find out that you're lying to us and actually are the bad guys of this story... Then I don't know. Maybe."

Green.

"Reza," Sienna whispered to the blue-haired girl as the rest of Team JNPER shifted uncomfortably in response to Jaune's honest answer, "Stay close to him, and make sure he doesn't do anything rash."

"Got it."

"So then," Robyn began her last question, "Am I to take that as you're planning on selling out the innocents under our protection?"

"Wha- No! I'm not going to sell them out, and I wouldn't want any harm to come to them."

Green.

"And are you spying on us for anyone?"

"No! I'm no one's spy. I'm just a student at Beacon."

Green.

Robyn took a step away from Jaune, and seemed to mentally note down his responses. All truthful. She moved on, and repeated the process with the rest of his teammates, asking them questions to ensure that they weren't spies for Atlas-

He noted that she was asking if they were spies for Atlas, not anyone else. That was just him. It seemed like she trusted him as much as he trusted her, what with his face being all over the walls and all that

-And then being satisfied that they weren't.

"By the way," Reza said as she pulled out four pairs of blindfolds from her pocket, Robyn moving away as the blue-haired maid approached JNPER "You're going to need to shut down the drone and wear these."

JNPER looked to the blindfolds, and then to her.

"For security reasons. Can't have you revealing yourselves as spies and giving away our base of operations, can we?"

"...Are those chiffon fabric blindfolds?" Nora asked, "Because they give me a rash."

"They are."

"Aw crap."

---

Jaune looked through the one-way windows of the hidden building dug into the walls, and out towards the city within the city.

Nicholas' Folly.

It reminded him so much of the King's Rising slums back in Vale. Streets and paths made out of colourful tents and shacks, painted over by graffiti and children's paintings. Entire shipping containers had been placed in neat orders between the stores, coloured white to red to green to pink and so on, all of them rusting in the wet cold and flaking their paint as the doors welded into them swung uselessly against the gentle winds of the cold. Collapsed tents dotted the streets like ugly pimples on skin, with veils of cloth caught on rows of frozen trees and bent lampposts, fluttering in the breeze as ice frozen them solid. In the cracks and groves of the streets, where the ground had been split open by combat and decay, plants and flowers (Planted? Naturally grown?) Grew in the rock and icy soil between these cracks, the winter flowers painting the blank white world in pretty yellows and purples, like splatters of colourful paint on a blank page. Electronic lamps and LED lights on strings swung against the wind and grew icicles on them, like knives and daggers shining and glistening against the cold winter nights.

The difference between Nicholas' Folly and King's Rising, however, was in the people.

Or at least, the former's lack of them.

Nicholas' Folly was abandoned. Nothing more than a ghost town. One that he swore was filled by real ghosts (Though he knew it to be Robyn and Sienna's supporters running between cover, away from the harsh spotlights of Cinder's aerial thugs above). Shoulders of repurposed homes and containers sagging to the side and turned to slag as the occasional stone and metal buildings between them were covered in what looked like fresh blast marks and potholes within the walls. Craters, big and small, littered the streets, filled with ice and rock and snow as the spotlights of the ships above shone down onto the slum city and gave it its only source of real light. None of the lamps and lights of the city below were turned on, leaving the rest of Nicholas' Folly wrapped in blinding darkness.

It looked like a very recent war had been waging within these streets.

How had someone like General Ironwood, or anyone else outside of the continent not know about this?

Or did they?

That was a very dangerous way of thinking, but he couldn't just discredit the notion. Not when he didn't have any evidence to either support or deny it. Reza had said to him that Atlas (Or was it the SDC and EI?) Had been controlling all of the information coming in and out of the continent of Solitas, so they might've been feeding the rest of their military false information to suppress their suspicions, so really, people like James Ironwood, Winter Schnee, the Ace Ops and so on... They might not actually know what's going on in Mantle. If they did, then he doubted that this Cinder woman would've stayed in power for as long as she has, which he assumed to have been around the beginning of the Second Great War, around more than two months ago.

After all, no one with a decent moral compass would ever allow such evil to persist as much as this.

And yet... He had seen Atlesian soldiers working with Grimm cyborgs.

Did they know that the Grimm were hiding within those metal shells?

And if so, then why work with them? And if they didn't... Then why were they gunning down families and children?

Why were they taking part in this horror?

What did they gain from all of this?

Jaune peered upwards, towards the skies choked with the ships of the Atlesian Home Defence Fleet, polluting the skies with their unnatural shapes as they kept their guns trained on the world below, ready to rain down fire onto the world below.

Did all of the Atlesian military in Atlas know what was going on?

Were there a hundred thousand Harriet Brees and worse running around those ships, poised to kill all those whom went against the word of Cinder and Atlas?

And was the rest of the Atlesian military, Ironwood and Schnee and all, compliant and accepting of the horrors that were taking place within this kingdom?

Jaune turned his gaze away from the cold, dark sky, and towards the imposing skyscrapers of Mantle, his name and face once more flashing over the screens strapped onto them as a kill order repeated over the speakers, ordering the soldiers to terminate him on sight.

Most wanted... He was the most wanted criminal of an entire kingdom.

With orders to kill him on sight to every single soldier in said kingdom.

How the fuck had he managed that?

If what Reza had said not too long ago was actually true, then he had been made most wanted in Atlas the same day that his team had been brought to Solitas. How the- No, why the hell would this Cinder woman declare him the biggest, and thereby most dangerous criminal in all of Atlas? He hadn't even know that she existed before seeing her hologram when their kidnappers had crashed into the tundra and her minions had tried to kill them.

Nothing about this made sense, and to top it all of, he still didn't know wherever the Choir of Silver were manipulating this Cinder Ella woman, or if she was in league with them. Hell, he still didn't know if they were even up against the Choir of Silver. As much as it seemingly made sense to be the Choir and that missing Hephaestus guy, for all he knew, they could be going up against the Ascendant Court, or some other Grimm faction that they'd never met before. Hell, maybe that Salem woman that Ruby had told him and Melanie about when they sent Curio and his pack on their way was finally making her own moves.

It certainly seemed like the day for it.

Jaune had to push all of these thoughts to the side as he refocused himself on the situation around him. Speculation could come later. Right now, he needed to figure out who he could trust.

Both on his team, and in this resistance movement.

He needed to know how badly he was being lied to.

He wouldn't repeat that mistake a third time, that's for sure.

---

And yet, in the near future, when he was staring down the face of death, itself with a bloodied sword in hand, he realised that he had.

It was a betrayal that he should've seen coming.

---

Unfortunately, right now- As he looked away from the one-way mirror to the outside world, and back into the meeting room of this combined resistance movement, all of them gathered around a holographic table under a blue glow and a naked white light- The 'Leadership' were currently in the middle of their own war.

One between themselves.

"I don't see why we had to risk our lives for these children, Capri," Sienna Khan pointed to Reza as she spoke to all of them-

Including Eri, as her electronic signature would be too small, and therefore too difficult for the Altesians to pick up within their hidey-hole, which apparently was filled with energy dampeners, once more stolen from Atlas.

-Before the leader of the White Wolves gestured to Team JNPER, and said, "The Nikos woman, I can understand- The Mantlians can use a morale boost, for as much as a propaganda piece of a human can bring-"

Pyrrha frowned- "Oi"- But Sienna ignored her.

"-But the rest of them? A wet blanket leader, a violent ape, and-"

"And nothing!" Nora slammed her hands down on the holotable- The 3D image of Mantle underneath Atlas flickering at the impact- As she herself (After spending a moment to rub the rash on her face from the chiffon blindfolds) pointed to Sienna, and said to Robyn on the other side of the table, "I thought that you were meant to be the good guys?"

Robyn frowned, "We are."

"Then why the hell are you working with terrorists?" Nora blared her teeth at the politician, "If you give them any ground within your group, then you'll just be giving Atlas more ammunition for their propaganda campaigns!"

"Oh?" Sienna raised an eyebrow at Nora's words, "And pray tell, little ape: If that all you have to say about me and my people?"

"They aren't your people, Khan. The Faunus aren't your people. From what I've seen, you're just another tyrant casting herself as the white knight, like so many other thugs throughout history."

Sienna blared her own teeth, pointed and sharp, and Brawler- Himself and Sara standing guard at the door to the meeting room- Had to grab her wrist to prevent her from marching over and slugging Nora in the head. Ren, meanwhile, forced Nora back by himself, and Pyrrha stood forward to glare at the Faunus woman.

Jaune did nothing. He didn't know what to do, and he could feel Reza next to him glaring at him for it.

"Enough," Robyn put a hand out to stop the fight before it even began, "If we keep this up, then we won't need Atlas to tear ourselves apart. We'll be the ones to do that for them."

"Miss Hill," Ren began as he raised his hand in curiosity, "Ransel Torban of the House of the Winter Shores-"

Sienna frowned at the mention of the other Faunus house.

"-As well as Reza Capri have explained some things about the situation here, but if you have any more information that we should know, now would be the time to explain."

Robyn sighed, and then said, "In short, when the Second Great War began over two months ago, Atlas' people panicked, and began willingly selling away their freedoms for safety."

"To the SDC and EI?" Pyrrha asked.

"Only Jacques and the Schnee Dust Company, at first. Since they were the highest bidders, that allowed him to begin capitalising on every aspect of life in order to boost his profits," she lazily gestured a thumb to the one-way window outside, "Schools, hospitals, and so on, so forth. Anything with a possible price tag on it, he brought it up and stamped his face and logo all over it."

Pyrrha blinked, "And so, in response, everyone in Atlas and Mantle just shrugged and said, 'Oh well'?"

"The people of Atlas did, because they were not the ones suffering. Not really," Robyn began to explain, "But the people of Mantle did speak out against it, and Atlas did nothing."

"Of course they didn't. Atlas won't do anything unless it's them paying the price," Sienna growled out, "Not Atlas, not the Schnees, not anyone."

Robyn looked to the woman, "Sienna-"

"Oh, shut up, Robyn. You know that it's the truth," Sienna said to her, before sighing and looking to JNPER, "Though, to be fair to Atlas, the Schnees have the biggest monopoly on dust across the entire world, and has ties into every single market on the planet. Not only that, but they have contracts with the Atlesian military itself, in no part due to their mercenaries in SchneeFall. Of course no one in Atlas would ever go against them. When the biggest company on the planet are the ones supplying your armies with dust and resources, especially in the middle of a war, I doubt that everyone would be willing to go against them, though like I said, as long as it's not them facing the consequences."

"The SDC are known for their malpractices against the Faunus," Robyn added for Sienna. Jaune nodded at this. He knew about that. He had read about it during his internship with Winter back in Vale. Robyn continued, "That's why Sienna originally came to Mantle."

"I came here with two hundred of my best warriors to help rally the White Wolf chapter in Mantle, being a thousand strong-" Jaune was shocked by those numbers, if Sienna's claims about it were even true. How bad were things in Mantle to allow the Wolves to gain such a following here?- "And then found myself bogged down in a conflict that I wanted no part in."

"Because you might've been hurt in it, and not just your followers?" Nora narrowed her eyes.

"Don't you start with me, girl," Sienna retorted, "I might've come here to help just the Faunus, but now I'm staying to help everyone, Faunus or not, even if I don't want to. Can you say the same?"

Nora glared at her, but didn't say anything.

Sienna leaned back, "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Sienna!" Robyn shouted to her, "Let's not antagonise our guests."

In order to get the ball rolling once more, Jaune found it within himself to finally ask, "So, the SDC took over a bunch of stuff, and then things slipped into civil war?"

"There's more to it than that," Reza added, looking to Robyn and Sienna, and going, "I haven't been around for long- Not long before you guys showed up- But I do know that Jacques and the SDC were reasonable back then, and could be talked to."

"So what changed?" Jaune couldn't help but ask, before coming to a conclusion of his own, "Cinder?"

"Bingo. Cinder already had a seat on the council by the time that the Second Great War started, but it was only when her organisation, Ella Industries, teamed up with the Schnee Dust Company that things started going to hell."

"Suddenly, the rest of the Atlesian council stepped back and allowed Cinder Ella to become the 'First Citizen of Atlas'," Robyn added the quotation marks for free, "With Jacques as her right hand man. That was around a month ago. A day after her crowning, those machines-"

"The Grimm Techions?" Ren asked.

"-Yeah, them. Suddenly, hundreds of them were walking the streets of Mantle with the Atlesian military police- Ella must've had their bodies mass-produced before her takeover- And began rounding up entire families, couples, and everyone else, in order to supplement the numbers in the minds and in the armies within Solitas, as everyone else were being sent out across the three other kingdoms. They started splitting children from their parents, taking them up to Atlas, god knows what they're doing with them. Ella started making new laws- Annexing and privatising everything that she could get her hands on. Law enforcement, public hospitals, the works- And people protested. Riots broke out."

"And that's when things started going to hell for everyone, Faunus and human alike," Sienna tapped the controls to the holotable, and switched it to a recorded feed from the perspective of a security camera, overlooking a street divided by two crowds. One was a pack of rioters and protesters, the other were lines of Alteisan riot droids, soldiers, and Techions.

After a few seconds, the Atlesians raised their guns, and poured bullet after bullet into the crowd, turning the streets into a slurry of blood and gore and fire.

Before JNPER could voice their reactions, Sienna continued, "People protested against the unfair conscription laws- Only Mantle's people were being taken, not Atlas- They protested against the unfair privatisation and the political and economical power that EI and the SDC were gaining without any restrictions, and Cinder responded by shoving the heel of her jackboot against Mantle's throat. Riots were forcefully supressed, entire city blocks were depopulated, and the entire city transformed from the equivalent of a slums to a third-world kingdom tin pot tyranny. Anyone who the Atlesians see fit to serve in the mines or the army as disposables are stolen away, sometimes without any kind of protection against the Grimm. Just meat shields to the slaughter. Everyone else are either being killed or sneaking them away to safety. We're the ones sneaking that have been sneaking them to the Winter Shores for safety- Right after Atlas attacked and raided their first home for prisoners and salvage."

"Atlas and Mantle are currently locked in the middle of a civil war, no one outside of the continent is aware of this, and we don't know why," Robyn finished with, "I mean, Cinder has a clampdown on all communications, sure, but even with almost all of the SDC's freighters being automated now, they're still bringing shipments in and out of the continent. Someone must've slipped out on one of these ships and escaped, and yet we don't know if anyone's said anything outside of the continent."

"No one has," Ren said to them, "We didn't even know that this civil war was raging when we were brought to Atlas."

"And the people of Atlas are just okay with this all?" it was a good question, before Pyrrha quickly swapped it out for a better one, "Do they even know what's going on?"

"We don't know. We have agents, but-"

"Robyn," Sienna hissed. That was clearly meant to be a secret.

"It's a good question, Sienna," Robyn said to her, "And if we want to earn their trust, this is the best way to do it."

"They should be earning our trust, not the other way around," the Faunus responded with, before looking over to JNPER, and continuing on with what she had been saying before, "Reza put in a good word for you all, but I still don't see it. As far as I can see, the most of you are faint help at best, and dead weight at worst."

"And you're a liability," Nora muttered. Sienna heard her and growled, and Nora retorted with, "Oh it's the truth. How are we supposed to know you and the rest of your thugs won't go kill crazy and jeopardise all of us, you know, like you and your Wolves always do?"

Sienna growled again, and once more, Brawler and Ren had to hold the two back from attacking each other, either verbally or physically.

Jaune could do nothing (to his limited knowledge) but furrow his brows in confusion. Why did Nora hate the White Wolves so much? They were terrorists, sure, but...

What had they done against her to earn such hatred against them?

Robyn looked to Jaune in order to break up the already hostile tensions brewing, "Arc," she said to him, "You might not know why your face is plastered on the screens on the walls above," she was, of course, referring to the lie detector test that she had put him under earlier, "But you said that you might know what's going on with the Grimm Techions. You want to explain."

She took his hand, and they were both overcome with a lilac glow.

Jaune frowned- He wasn't allowed to wear his helmet inside the building. Fears of helmet cameras, and all- But didn't allow that to stop him as he spoke, "Over a week ago, the first years and I fought against a rogue faction of Grimm known as the Choir of Silver. Long story short, most of the Choir were killed, the rest scattered, but a single ship- A cruiser that they called the Pilgrim's Flight- Escaped, with presumably one of the Choir's leaders, a Grimm called Hephaestus, as well as human collaborator called Malcom Croft. The fact that there are Grimm Techions in the form of one of the Choir's former, now dead members, certainly helps that."

All green, all truth.

"Then again, it's only a theory. We know that the Grimm are manipulating everything that is going on in Atlas, if the Techions are anything to go by, but I don't know who's behind all of this. It could be Cinder behind all of this, or she could just be a pawn. It could be the Choir of Silver and Hephaestus behind all of this, it could be a new Grimm faction, or it could be the Daughter and the Ascendant Court that are manipulating things from behind the scenes.

As the aura flashed green, Robyn asked him, "The Daughter?"

"The woman in charge of the Ascendant Court," Jaune answered truthfully, "We've met before."

Nora rubbed her stomach nervously, "That's putting it lightly..."

Robyn raised an eyebrow, "If this Daughter is the one in charge of what's going on in Atlas, then could she be the one that wants you dead so badly?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, she didn't want me dead before, I think."

A green flash, Sienna narrowed her eyes, and Robyn asked, "And why is that?"

"I don't know," a green flash, "And I don't want to know," a green flash, "She burnt down my first home and murdered my father. I want nothing to do with her," a green flash.

Robyn frowned. Despite all of this, she wasn't convinced, and for good reason, "How do we know that we can trust you?"

Instead of an answer, Jaune instead asked, "How do I know if I can trust you? For all I know, you've been doing nothing but lying to me- Us."

"You saw that family being massacred by the Atlesians," Reza interrupted with, "That can't be justified."

"I know, but you wouldn't be the first figures of authority that have lied to me before."

A green flash.

Suddenly, Eri floated over to his side, and let out a series of whirls and chirps. Not understanding her, Jaune went to say something, but stopped as Eri plugged herself into the holotable, and began to show him timetables, notes, pictures, and statistics.

Jaune, of course, didn't understand it all, but Ren quickly answered his unspoken question with, "The Winter Shores brought the Bullhead that we were kidnapped in back to their Sanctuary for salvage-" oh yeah, Jaune remembered seeing them taking it apart as they were walking through their base. "-And Eri took her time in scanning the logs of the ship, as well as any other outlets and available information within the local CCT. Or at least, the ones not being blanket bombed by Atlesian propaganda and false information. We didn't know about the Wolves, we didn't know about the complete state of Atlas, and we didn't know about a lot of the things going on in the city, but Eri was able to pull out just enough information to collaborate with their stories."

"Cinder had ordered Argento and Rosa to kidnap us specifically, and bring them into Atlas," Pyrrha finished Ren's sentence with, "I don't know why she's focusing on just you in the broadcasts, and I don't know why she wanted to take us in particular, but we're here now, and personally, upon my honour as a warrior and as a Mandarin, I trust them, and I shall fight with them."

"I don't, and I won't," Nora leant back to look at Sienna, "I don't care if you're Mantlian or Winter Shores: If you guys are working with the White Wolves, then I want no part of it. I won't dirty myself with working with terrorists that give their own race a bad name."

She then looked to Ren, and sighed.

"That being said... If Ren wants to stay and fight- And I know that he will- Then I'll stay... If only for them, but for him."

She chuckled. For once, her laugh lacked any humour behind it.

"And as Weirdo Club President, that is my decree."

Ren just gave a nod.

Jaune looked at them with wide eyes, his mind blaring from left to right, forwards and back, front and centre, trying to come to a conclusion.

On the one hand, his team wanted to stay behind, and he really couldn't do anything to stop them. Plus, if there really were people here that needed his help, then he was under an obligation by both his conscience and basic human decency to help them.

He had sworn to Viola and himself that he was going to make up for those who had died for him, and he would be damned if he somehow didn't find a way to pay that debt to them, and honour his betters who had died for him.

(And if he died doing it, then he would've fulfiled that debt, and his death would be good.

He was okay with dying for this cause.)

But then again, what if they were lying? What if he would just get them killed by leading them into a slaughter (Like he always did) And failed everyone (Like he always did)?

What if he failed, couldn't save anyone, and prove Miltia wrong in believing in him?

…

…

…

…

He didn't know (He never knew), And that was terrifying to him.

Eventually, after an excruciatingly long silence, he took Robyn's hand into his own, and answered.

"Fine... I'll help you. But only because it'll help save innocent people."

A green flash.

Robyn looked down at him, "Do you think that you can do that?"

"...Yes."

A red flash.

---

Reviewer response time:

Richy1991: Thanks for the long review, man! Or woman! I don't know. I get how you feel about Ironwood and Blake, though, and I'm glad that you feel that way about my story.

N-Lorin: Yeah, I feel that way as well. It's not to say that their concerns aren't justified, but I think that when they blow it out of proportion that it gets annoying.

avatarlopes: You know, seeing your long reviews really does bring a smile to my face. Just thought that I'd let you know that. For Jaune, though, one of my biggest worries is creating a sort of inconsistency when it comes to his leadership (Like how he is confident in some parts of the story, and how he is a wet blanket in others) And in this arc and the next, I am going to make it my mission to address them, and allow him some proper character development. And I'm sorry to hear that about your father. I hope that you guys are doing better now than before.

Cszar: Yeah, those are some good points about the RWBY fandom and criticism. I'm pretty sure I said last chapter that I know that RWBY's current state has its flaws, though I guess that I should've made that clearer. But aside from all of that, your nitpick does actually seem like a valid point. I probably should've thought about that when writing it. I'll see about addressing that in a later chapter, which reminds me: I haven't talked about Altas Academy yet. I'll make sure to do that next chapter.

Guest: Three volumes, my dude?! Crap, you better catch up, then! And yes, Jaune did use 1% of his true power! Or maybe more than that! Who knows?

---

Wow, it's been a real hot minute since I last got to this, hasn't it?

Yeah, sorry for the long wait, guys! I've been going through a lot of stuff, recently. I won't go into too much detail about it, but I've just suffered through a long period of anxiety, and my mental health wasn't exactly in the best state to be writing in. On top of that, I had online university work to do, and only today did I finish one of my assignments (That's three down, one more to go!) And I just needed to take a long break from writing my stories in order to recover.

Essentially, I was suffering from a minor mental breakdown, and I needed time to heal.

The good news is that I'm on the mend to recovery now, and I'm feeling a lot better than I was before, if my two recent posts on Cult of Silver and my Idea Pool are anything to go by, and since my university is going to end in about two weeks until September, then that means that I won't have to stress out anymore about it, meaning that I will be able to devote myself entirely to my fanfiction stories for the next few months from the week after next.

If all goes to plan, of course.

Of course, through writing this, there is one fear that I have found when constructing my storyline:

As of now, Jaune's character arc.

Believe me, this is a lot harder than I thought. I know what I want to write, and I don't want to construct Jaune as just this blank emotionless slate from which the story revolves around (Because he isn't the only character of extreme significance and importance to the story, of which shall revealed later on {COUGHIliaCOUGH}), But at the same time, I really don't want to make his character seem wildly inconsistent. I have a character arc in mind, but I don't know if translating it from my head onto the page is going to go as well as I think.

If you guys could leave some tips on how to do that, it would be greatly appreciated.

Anyways, with all of that said and done, leave a review, follow and favourite, and I shall see you all next time!