Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.
CHAPTER 2
Team JNPR was studying in the library… Well, Pyrrha was taking the small moment to have fun and read a comic book she confiscated from Jaune, and Nora was sleeping, but Ren and Jaune were studying. Rather intently actually. Jaune knew he wasn't exactly the most combat capable of his team, or even his friends circle. The only person he figured he could take on in a pitched fight and come out the victor was Pale, and that was mostly because the long haired boy, while an amazing shot, (legendary really, Jaune could count on one hand the amount of time's he'd seen or heard of Pale missing his mark) and a better strategist, was slower and weaker than him.
In an effort to curtail that weakness, Jaune started reading up on his history, and unit tactics to better himself as a leader… That and he'd started going to the gym every day with 3rd year professor Harold Warzenegger as his trainer. Three weeks of progress was actually beginning to show, and Professor Warzenegger was actually really chill, at least outside of the classroom… Most of Jaune's reading was inexplicably absent of instructions for group strategies smaller than a platoon, but Jaune learned why that was in his history readings.
Doctrine wise, no standing army in history threw less than 80 soldiers at a problem in rank and file formations, or infantry waves. That was a head scratcher to Jaune. Hunters in training or not, Clayton's team synergized well enough as a four man group covering each other's bases, and had managed to defeat 40 members of the White Fang, where as a platoon of soldiers, even Atlas's finest would have been mowed down by that gun Pale told everyone about… Jaune was starting to question why Atlas hadn't looked into advancing their doctrine alongside their tech since the end of the Great War. In either case, he was putting some serious effort into getting better, even if it meant making up an entirely new way of fighting, or returning to the basics.
Team RWBY and Team SPGL sat only one table away from team JNPR, 6 of the 8 members of the group invested in a board game, World of Remnant. Siniy and Pale sat on the sidelines to assist Weiss. "Yang Xiao Long, prepare your kingdom for battle." Ruby said with a grin.
"Bring it on little sis." Yang said with a smirk.
"I deploy the Atlesian air fleet." Ruby said, showing her card. "Which means I get to fly over your ursa and attack your walls directly." Ruby said, before Clayton added in his bit.
"And with Mantle's production capabilities the attack strength doubles for every factory card I have, in addition to the repair cost only lasting one turn." As the person playing Mantle he was effectively the only ally Ruby had in the game.
"You fiends." Yang said with a smile. "Trap card. Giant Nevermore. 7 or higher and your fleet gets destroyed." Yang said.
"6 or lower your own forces get iced." Pale said from his seat behind Weiss. Yang rolled a 7 exactly and Ruby lost her air fleet.
"Weiss it's your turn." Yang said. Weiss leaned back to get strategic advice from Pale and Siniy. Pale was cheating of course, the brass binding of a book on the shelf behind Yang was shiny enough he could see her cards.
"She has two more trap cards, don't use sandstorm or you run the risk of comms being knocked out, and don't scavenge Ruby's cards with raiders, they'll be blown up… Hit her with the long nines then the war boys… Then take Ruby's tanks from two turns ago." Pale said, whispering in her ear. Siniy nodded as he munched on a jumbo sized popcorn, content with the fact Pale knew what he was doing.
"I deploy Vacuo's navy… 4 or higher and I'm guaranteed a coastal bombardment on your troops." Weiss said.
"That's like the most basic card." Yang said.
"I deploy Vacuo's navy…" Weiss repeated. Yang rolled her eyes then dropped her trap card.
"Your navy is sunk by sea mines, and my troops continue to march. Halcyone smirked from her seat as Menagerie's leader.
"Skip turn." She said, having done that for the 7th time now. Blake chose to trade resources with Halcyone.
Yang deployed her trap card defensively. "Land mines. Have fun."
Weiss gave her a cold look. "I deploy the War Boys"
"And I again massacre your unarmed thugs with land mines." Yang said.
"Skip turn." Halcyone said. Blake again traded with Halcyone. Weiss smirked.
"I deploy Resourceful Raider. Atlas's discarded tanks are now mine, and are deployed right into your formations of ursa. Their machine guns cutting through your ranks and advancing to your kingdom walls." Weiss said. Yang's eyes went wide. "I've defeated you Yang." Weiss said, only for Halcyone to clear her throat, and turn over her first card.
"Right, well while you all were so busy killing each other, I took the time to boost Menagerie's tech level through trade with Vale, and deploy the Cyber Leviathan." Halcyone said.
"Oh come on." Weiss said, as Halcyone turned over all of the tech and resource card's she'd traded attack cards for.
"And with 12 tech and resource cards, you need to roll an exact 12 to kill it with any card. Sorry Weiss, the game is mine." Halcyone said smirking.
"Blake still has her turn." Yang pointed out.
"Sup losers." Sun said, approaching the table.
"Hey Sun." Ruby and Halcyone said.
"Ruby, Clayton, Yang, Blake, Pale, Siniy, Halcyone, Ice Queen." Sun said, rattling off names.
"Why does everyone still call me that?" Weiss asked.
"Would you prefer to still be called racist?" Clayton asked with a smirk. Weiss pouted at him, as Siniy chuckled from behind her.
"I never got to introduce you to my partner." Sun said, as Neptune asked an obvious question.
"Aren't libraries for reading?"
"Thank you!" Ren said from the other table, rousing Nora from her sleep.
Sun tapped Neptune in the chest. "Don't be a nerd." He said. Neptune held a hand to his chest and corrected his friend.
"Intellectual, thank you. I'm Neptune." The bluenet said to the table.
Siniy hummed with amusement. "Men who call themselves smart are usually not as smart as they think." Siniy said in Cyrillic. Weiss looked up at him with curiosity. She had no clue what he was saying sometimes. It certainly wasn't Vytal, that had been the standard language across all of Remnant ever since the end of the Great War and the CCT towers were constructed. It wasn't Old Atlasian either, she learned how to speak it fluently from her grandfather before he passed away, and it wasn't any dialect from Anima, way too aggressive sounding.
Shaking the thought off for later, Weiss looked up at the handsome blue haired boy in front of her. "So, Neptune, where are you from?" Weiss asked.
"Haven, and I don't believe I caught your name, Snow Angel." Neptune said, confidently putting the moves on Weiss as best he could.
Pale faked a long and hard sneeze. Everyone looked at him oddly. "I'm sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit." Pale explained. Only for Yang to punch his arm. "What? She's Weiss Schnee. Everyone in the room knows who she is." Pale said.
"Didn't have to block me bro." Neptune said.
"Mask your shot better." Pale returned.
"Forgive him, Pale is, as the saying goes, full of vinegar." Siniy said, slapping Pale in the back as gently as he could.
"Much the same could be said about Weiss." Pale said with a shrug.
"Yes, but she at least is not also full of salt." Siniy said, grabbing up his teammate to give him a noogie. Sun rolled his eyes at their antics.
"So Blake, never took you for the board game type." Sun said, trying to shift focus away from his friend's general misfortune.
"Right… I think I'm done playing actually, see you guys later." Blake said, standing up and leaving. Sun just shrugged as everyone gave him a look, and Siniy chuckled as he let go of his smaller friend.
"She is upset. Perhaps we should ask what is wrong like normal people do, yes?" Siniy suggested.
In truth, Siniy was plagued by his own demons. He was, as his faunus nature indicated, a sleeping bear. When undisturbed he was gentle, soft, kind… But when poked, when prodded hard enough, Siniy was the monster many humans thought him to be. The night he fought the White Fang with his friends, he had been so angry. They tried to kill his friends, tried to kill Blake, one of their own because she gave up on their radical ideals, and that was the last straw. But still he'd demonstrated that even with all his power, he was willing to show mercy. Siniy suspected Blake was having a dilemma not too dissimilar to his. Her former allies had turned on her, hurt her. She needed to be shown the way.
The door to Team RWBY's room opened up and Ruby, Weiss, Yang, Clayton, Pale, Siniy, and Halcyone came through the door. Not in that order though, Siniy came in last, and even then he was really just slouched over in the doorframe. Beacon only had about 3 doors he could fit through without hunching over and squeezing his arms in, and it was becoming a real nuisance. On top of that, the room was already packed with the normally sized members of the two teams.
"Intervention." Ruby said, holding Blake's arms as she made to pass by everyone.
"What?" Blake asked, narrowing her eye's at her leader.
"We're holding an intervention. Something's clearly got you off kilter, and we want to know what." Clayton said.
"We get that being moody, anti-social and distant is kind of your thing, but you've been more of that than usual, and it shows." Weiss said.
"So what's wrong?" Halcyone asked.
Blake sighed before she answered. "I... I have to make right on the chance you've all given me. Between Torchwick, the White Fang, and Atlas showing up with it's entire Army for the festival, I'm half panicked right now, and nobody else seems to be worried about any of it." Blake said.
"Oh come on Blake, I'm sure the VPD and the local huntsman can handle it." Yang said. Blake just shook her head.
"I don't think they can. Half of the police are taking bribes, and something big is going on, yet nobody but us seems to be noticing it. Nobody… Nobody knows the White Fang like I do…" Blake said. A few looks were passed around before Weiss spoke up.
"I'm sure between all of us, we have some rather impressive feats of grandeur that make us all confident enough to go out and apprehend these nerdowells. But allow me to be the voice of reason, and remind everyone, we're students. We're not ready." Weiss said.
Pale scoffed. "Speak for yourself Weiss, I've been solo fightin' the White Fang wherever I roamed for the past two years. It's not that hard to hit 'em where it hurts. NCOs and officers are the ones with the plans and passion, and they stick out like sore thumbs." Pale said.
"Assassinating a few insurgent middlemen does not dismantle the organization they fight for. If there is something big going on, we should let the professionals handle it." Weiss said.
Siniy shook his head at that. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." Siniy said in Cyrillic. "I am a good man, and I will not do nothing. Blake if you are going to destroy the White Fang, I stand with you." Siniy said.
Pale looked back at the polar bear faunus. "Same here. My war with them ain't done." He nodded.
"Alright. All in favor of becoming the youngest huntsmen and huntresses to single handedly take down a corrupt organization conspiring to cause the downfall of the Kingdom of Vale, say aye." Ruby said in one long breath. A rousing sound-off of "Aye!" came from everyone except for Weiss and Pale.
Pale gave off a resounding "YeeYee!"
Weiss on the otherhand, sighed. "I suppose it could be fun." She muttered with a smirk she hid from her friends.