She was trying her damned hardest to keep a low profile with this boy, as they sat atop the same terrace quietly drinking coffee. To be blunt, she was still confused as to why the Hoots Trooper had spared her, still confused as to why Ruby hadn't pursued her outside of shooting at her as she left the room…

Ruby…

That girl was still such an anomaly to her, which was strange. The other Hoots Troopers she'd built a sort of rough psyche profile on within a few days of being among them, but Ruby continued to surprise her.

Diamond was practically just a machine. She really didn't have much personality to her outside of being blunt and serious all day every day, being terrifying and having more than enough bite to back her terrifying presence up. Domino she could actually say she found a kinda pleasant person, truth be told. Exempting the kick to the face the other night, she was empathetic, supportive, hell, she'd even happily joked with and helped her on homework a few times, and when it came time to do the job she could get serious, but still seemed human. And then there was Gaz, who just seemed to fall somewhere in between.

But the clone was different. One second she could be completely dead serious and an absolute killjoy, the next she could be a terrifying little ball of happy, murderous energy. Not to mention how whenever sweets or bakeries were involved, her personality would just go wack. Hyper-happy coming to sweets and fresh baked goods, a neigh emotionless monster in combat, a strict and harsh instructor when training, and when at rest she seemed to be some sort of weird mixture of all of those qualities at once. On top of all that, she was utterly unpredictable in her actions.

Thinking of the girl honestly made her brain hurt, but she supposed it really couldn't be helped… and perhaps Yang was right. She honestly hadn't been fair towards the clo… Ruby, and given how much she'd revealed, the fact that she hadn't just outright lashed out on faunas specifically whenever she saw one bamboozled her. She supposed there really was two sides to each argument in this case. By all rights, her distrust and hatred of faunas wasn't unwarranted, given that they'd given themselves that bad rep by wronging her so many times.

She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair before looking up at the boy holding his cup up with his tail. He was giving her a look of some concern, which she found kind, but unnecessary… well…

"So… what's the story with you and those Hoots Troopers?" He asked, setting his cup down. Blake chuckled and took a sip of her own coffee.

"That's… a difficult situation. She's my team leader, and we had a slight falling out last night, not that we were ever really on good terms, but things just kind of… came to a head last night." She said delicately, avoiding mentioning that Ruby was a clone. "She distrusts, and even hates, Faunas like you or I, but as much as I hate to admit it, her hatred isn't unfounded. I slipped up, mentioned that I used to be part of the White Fang, and she tried to remove my head from my shoulders… as much as she is my team leader, she's still a Hoots Trooper, and you, Sun, I doubt you're unaware of them, given your reaction to seeing her."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure every faunas on the planet knows what a Hoots Trooper is. Heard stories from other guys who said they heard it from guys that either were in the Fang or still are, and they're… well, they're terrifying stories." Sun said, a chill creeping down his spine as he continued. "But you said you'd fought Hoots troopers before, when you were talking about the White Fang, so I take it you know what they're capable of first-hand… tell me, is it just exaggeration, or are they really all they're chalked up to be?"

Blake chuckled darkly, before sipping from her mug again and reclining slightly. "If anything, the stories don't do them justice. Gaz, the one with white armor and red markings, killed almost everyone attacking a Schnee train single-handedly. Twenty of the White Fang's greatest warriors, ex-hunters, all dropped like flies. We weren't even able to touch her, and by the time we'd exerted ourselves so hard that just breathing became a difficult task, she was totally unfazed." Blake described, then thought to another event. "Then there's Diamond, who's semblance might just make her the deadliest being on Remnant."

This made Sun nearly choke on his coffee, before recollecting himself and leaning closer. "Really? Well, what is it? If it's so powerful, it must have some sort of drawback, right?"

"That's the thing, we really don't know. When she erased the Atlas Branch, apparently her attacks seemed to have no time pass between them. You look one second and everyone around you is alive, and she's in front of you, blink once they all had knives buried in their throat and she'd impaled you through a flagpole twenty feet away, and is already walking away." She explained then tapped her fingers together. "At least that's what the few survivors reported, and panicked reports have to be taken with a grain of salt. I hadn't seen the fighting done myself, but I'd seen the fruits of her labor… unfortunately, none of the survivors who wrote those reports are still alive today. To our knowledge, she essentially pulled a reverse card on the survivors shortly after."

"Crap… and which one is this again?" He inquired.

"Diamond, the Hoots Trooper Commander. She's the one with yellow markings and white armor." She paused for a few minutes, before pushing her now-empty mug aside and leaning closer in. "But there is one Hoots Trooper I've met, it wasn't Weiss or Ruby, but rather the one assigned to Beacon's Freshman year."

She beamed at the thought of her. "Domino is her name! She's what I dub in my head, 'The Good Hoots Trooper.' She cares deeply for her charges, and has often joked with me and even helped me with schoolwork and improving combat form. She's taught me how to use the equipment of a Hoots Trooper and since training with her, my combat effectiveness rating is higher than I ever hoped it could be."

"Wow, really? Hard to believe, but if she's gotten you that good…"

"She has. I used to be 2.3 star rating, and since taking up under her, I've increased to 4.1."

"4.1 Out of a perfect 5?!. That means you're scoring high enough to qualify for Elite Status!" Sun exclaimed, getting a slightly confused look out of Blake. "Oh, right, you've probably not heard of that, heh… Alright, I'll explain: There's two types of Hunter Status, Regular, and Elite. Anything at or below below a 3.75 is automatically regular and get all standard huntsman benefits, but Elite Status Hunters get more dangerous, and profitable, contract offers and bounties, and are more internationally recognized. On top of all that, you'll have more authority and priority resource-wise within the Kingdoms, so you will always have access to much better equipment for each mission."

"Geez!" Blake exclaimed, her eyes widening like saucers as she took all that in. "How can you tell if you're Elite Status?"

"Well, you have to have a combat effectiveness rating high enough, and have to be singled out by someone of high importance, like the headmaster or their vice headmaster. Once that's happened, instead of there being just the oval that your picture is in on your ID, there'll be gold or silver laurels on each side, and a banner across the bottom with the word 'ELITE' in it. After that, they're further identified by their Elite Ranking, which is shown in stars surrounding the portrait and around the laurels. As an example, a three star Elite Hunter would have three stars underneath their portrait, but a nine star might have three on each side except the top."

"Oh… What's the difference between gold and silver colors?"

"Gold is for certified Veteran Huntsmen. All others get Silver." He explained quickly, eliciting a small 'aah' from Blake.

"If that's the case, then Ruby has Elite Status… which doesn't surprise me at all." She droned, reclining back in her chair. She gave a loud, exasperated sigh before pulling up Ruby's profile on her scroll and counting the stars. "Yep… and why am I not surprised by how many stars she has…"

"She has more than one? What's her combat effectiveness rating?"

"Her rating is a perfect 5 out of 5, and she has 20 stars." It was at that time that Sun couldn't control himself and actually spit out his coffee, fortunately away from her.

"T-T-TWENTY!?. That's just five stars off from having the highest possible ranking!"

"Huh. Well, considering just how good she is and how much the Headmaster and Vice Headmaster seem to play favorites with her, it honestly doesn't surprise me. I know Domino, Gaz and Diamond outright do have 25 stars, and it's all in gold." Sun gulped as a pit of dread formed in his gut. Sure, he knew Hoots Troopers were monsters, especially so given a first-hand survivor's account, but their ranking implied that they were practically gods of war on a battlefield.

Sighing, Blake decided it best to switch the subject now. "In any case, I now have two things I must do. First being to see if I can't prove that the White Fang AREN'T behind all these robberies."

"You think it's not them?"

"I know the White Fang have done some bad things, but what could they possibly need with that much dust? What could anyone save an army?" Blake questioned, her face hardening as she put more thought into it. "And second being to see if I can't make amends somehow with Ruby… Don't get me wrong, she and I are by no means friends, and I don't think we ever will be, but it doesn't take a genius to see that getting and staying on a Hoots Trooper's bad side is a really bad idea. If I can at least put us at neutral terms, perhaps some of this damage can be undone..."

Little did the two faunas know, just a short distance away, one of the very Hoots Troopers that had been mentioned kept her eyes glued to her targets, quietly stalking them in hopes of finding out some more intel.

"Commander, this is Vice Headmistress Goodwitch. Do you have anything to report?"

She grunted, before raising a hand to touch the Comms bead on the side of her helmet. "Hardly. They were just discussing elite status and are now theorizing about the thieves' next move."

"I see." Came the barebones response from the Vice Headmistress. "Have you learned anything about these thieves?"

"Yes, we uncovered the fine details of their plans roughly three weeks ago, and can confirm that their next move is the SDC shipment due tonight. These two you're having me shadow seem to have the same idea." Looking back towards the two, who were finally rising from their seats, she noticed them begin to turn their gaze in her direction.

"Hmmm…" Sun began, "does it ever feel like you're being… watched?"

"Yeah… it does…" Blake replied, before casting her gaze to the side.

For a split second, she could've sworn she'd caught something out of the corner of her eye on the rooftop, though as soon as she'd seen it, it was gone. She didn't even have enough time to distinguish any details, though after just rubbing her eyes she sighed. She's gone the past few days without any sleep, so maybe she was just tired.

She counted down the seconds as she lie in wait to see if either had a response as to her presence, nodding as after five seconds there wasn't any sort of reaction to her presence... then fell to her knees, gasping for air, hacking and sputtering. While her semblance was easily a trump card in combat, she had to be in the right state of mind to use it, or else she knew she'd end up hurting herself, perhaps even fatally. After a few seconds spent recovering, she picked herself back up, and peeked around the corner of her dumpster in the alleyway, watching as the two left the rooftops and made way for the docks, and swiftly made after them, keeping to the shadows as to hide herself from prying eyes...

Ruby wasn't about to question how exactly Diamond found Blake so much sooner than they had, but that didn't matter anyways. Now it simply fell down to getting into position with the rest of her team and Penny, and waiting to spring the trap. They were already at the docks, already aware of what the thieves' plans were, and already aware that they were more than less likely White Fang Terrorists.

The plan was pretty simple, really. Either it was the White Fang, and they'd wait for Blake to show her true colors and act dependant on what's revealed, or it wouldn't be the White Fang, and they'd arrest her for interrogation following the slaughter.

Sure enough, after a few hours, they spotted the duo atop a rooftop south of their position. They knew well enough that their cover was good, that Blake and the monkey wouldn't notice until they revealed themselves.

"Hey… Ruby?" Came Yang's voice, a hushed whisper as she army crawled up beside her. "You don't think she's actually with the Fang right now, do you? Given her actions right now, it looks more like she's lying in wait as much as we are rather than doing recon."

"We don't know for certain what her current motives are, however, from the report obtained from Specters, we do know that she is Ex-White Fang. That being said, that doesn't rule out the possibility of her still doing some work for them." She said monotonously, handing her binoculars to her older… sister. "Observe their positions. They're prone, with a clear line of sight, good cover, and will have the high ground if White Fang do show up. I think I've actually gotten through to her in regards to tactical decision-making, her position, if exposed to an aerial attack, is a very advantageous one for fighting them, or doing effective reconnaissance."

"No kidding. I see she's also got an XA-22A on her, so it's definitely not like she's lacking a more viable ranged option to take advantage of her position. I'd hate to be in that killzone, especially if you put a few more guns up there."

"Agreed, she's got a defensible position, no doubt… but knowing her, she might leave her position to confront them directly, forgoing her advantage. If she's still with us, I'm gonna have to beat that out of her." Ruby groaned, before gesturing for Weiss to move up.

She crawled up beside her on her opposite side, bringing up her own XA-22A and leveling it downrange. "We've established a good crowsnest here. If there is a fight, we won't need to leave this position to fight." Weiss said, rolling her shoulder before looking over at Yang.

"Hey Weiss, what are your thoughts on all of this?" Yang asked, getting an indifferent shrug out of the girl.

"If she's with us, we welcome her back into the fold after some interrogation, if she's not, this will be her final battle. Simple as that." Weiss droned, before tossing a spare plasma canister over to Yang, who easily caught it. "How are you doing on your accuracy?"

"Ruby's been dragging me out to the firing range a lot these past few months, not that I mind that much, it's actually kinda fun… sorry, getting sidetracked. I currently score a 4.4 out of 5 on the chart." She answered, bringing up her own blaster, a sort of modified XA-22A, painted to match her general color scheme.

Ruby looked over at her and looked her up and down a few times, actually noticing some change in the girl's apparel. For starters, it looked as though she'd integrated and repainted several bits of clone armor, and refitted them to fit her form. It was gauntlets, greaves, a combat belt and shoulder pads, and she also noted a refitted version of the clone scout variant of body armor was being sported by her, with a one-sided pauldron over her right shoulder, and a sort of scarf around her neck. On top of all that, she was wearing a headset with a blue eyepiece over her right eye, and a mic. Aside from those additions, the rest of her outfit remained the same.

"That's a good look for you, Yang. Looks more professional." She complimented lightly, sending her a silent nod of approval.

While she may have not realized it herself, that small gesture was just enough to make Yang beam a bright smile, and make her more confident in what they were doing. With a content sigh, she trained sights downrange, and waited with a confident smirk on her face…

Blake had only needed a moment to observe the docks to find the most advantageous position, Ruby's intense training and harsh lessons shining through. Dislike her as she may, she knew that Ruby was no slouch in tactical acumen. The rooftop she awaited held all the necessary advantages for a good sniper to have a field day. The clear line of sight and absence of notable cover over a wide area would make picking off any would-be fighters a piece of cake, the cover made them both safer from incoming return fire and harder to spot, and the higher elevation would both make her harder to hit, and the enemy easier to hit. It would also allow them to easier identify the thieves, something that she couldn't do this without knowing.

"Hey, I stole you some food!" The voice from Sun came, getting a groan out of her as she rose up slightly out of her prone position.

"Do you always steal things?" She asked, not diverting her attention from downrange.

"Eh. Forgot my wallet in my room." He replied, before taking a prone position next to her. She chuckled lightly, before her ears perked up with the arrival of a few bullheads sweeping over the area.

"Get down before they spot you!" She growled, grabbing Sun by the arm and yanking him down. She kept her eyes trained down her sights as the Bullheads began to land, deploying several figures, each clad in tunics with symbol of the White Fang of their backs, and the masks of Grimm on their faces…

"It's them… You really didn't wanna believe it was them, did you?" He inquired, but Blake just stayed silent. Deep down she knew it was them, she just didn't WANT to believe it.

Sighing, she put her finger on the trigger and leveled her aim with the head of a lieutenant, before exhaling slowly and calmly. She was about to pull the trigger, but halted when another Bullhead dropped in, deploying several dozen more White Fang and a human among them…

"Wait, is that… Torchwick? Why would the White Fang work with Torchwick?" She paused for a moment, before raising a hand, not to high, to signal for Sun to halt. "The White Fang would never ally with a human, much less one like Torchwick… there's more to this we're not seeing. Sun, cover me, I'm hacking into the bullhead's camera feed."

He took the gun and trained his eyes downrange, not firing unless one were to spot him, while Blake rolled onto her back and pulled out a laptop, carefully masking her signature so as to not be detected, and establishing a connection with the camera, getting visual and audio.

"No, no, that's not the right cable you idiot! It's a combined steel cable I need, not a single layer! Honestly, you idiots can't expect to steal all this dust for the benefit of your cause if you can't even use the right lifting equipment! I'm not here as your friend, I'm here because this is a joint business venture, You're benefiting because I'm benefiting!" Came the voice over the laptop.

'Well, that explains things.' Blake thought, shutting down her laptop and stowing it back in her bag, before taking back the gun from Sun. "Alright, Torchwick may be at the head of this op, but I don't think he's the leader at large…" She mused aloud, before looking back into her bag and fishing out a large dart.

"Uhhh… what are you gonna do with that?" Sun asked, just as she was affixing it just below the barrel.

"Shoot him with the dart, track his location. He'll take the dart out, but it'll be in long enough to inject a nanobot that can track him. We'll use him to lead us to others… I've mixed some poison in with it, so he'll think we'll have poisoned him, and take an antidote. He won't expect to be being tracked, though." She explained. Though was cut off from some laughter over her earpiece…

"I see you are with us, then. Welcome back to the fold." The voice came, and she instantly recognized it was Ruby. Looking left and right, she couldn't pick out where exactly the girl was, not that that surprised her. She was the better one when it came to finding a position with all the advantages and additional benefits that someone with a normal mind wouldn't be able to pick out.

"Ruby… where are you?"

"That isn't relevant, however, I see that you've been listening to my lessons more intently than I'd originally thought. Good position, but you've left yourself open to a potential aerial assault, and I don't see any aerial denial weapons on your person or with you at all for that matter. Tsk tsk." Oh. Of course. She'd honestly forgotten about that angle, and considering the presence of the bullheads, it was a major oversight.

"Oh… Crap."

"We've got aerial denial equipment on us, so we can deal with that. However, once this is all said and done, we're taking you in for interrogation. There will be no arguments on this." She said in finality. Blake gulped as a bit of dread formed itself in her gut, but pushed it aside as she refocused on what she was here for.

Training her eyes down sight and her sights on her target, Blake gave a few seconds to calculate for distance, wind speed, elevation, and the angle of fire, before firing off the dart. Torchwick gasped as the dart stuck into his leg, biting deep and injecting the poison and the nanobot into his system just before he could pull it out and heal with his aura.

Nodding in satisfaction, she retrained her sights on one of the White Fang terrorists, and fired. The bolt struck the boy in the chest, bringing him down to earth in a second, the bolt of plasma burning a hole straight through his heart.

Then, in answer to her first strike, the sound of three more blasters echoed out from the rest of her team's now disclosed position, each bolt claiming another life. Blake smiled, even if the White Fang here wouldn't all survive, she realized that this was war now. When she took that first shot into Torchwick's leg, that was the declaration of war. The return fire was controllable, thanks to the cover on both attacking parties' ends, but for the White Fang thieves below, they learned just what kind of a huge mistake they'd made in the ground they'd chosen.

Sun was shocked to see Blake opening fire without restraint, but then redirected his gaze towards where the rest of the blaster fire was coming from. He slapped his forehead in the realization of the fact that Blake's leader was a Hoots Trooper, so of course she'd be trained to be merciless in combat…

Up in their position, the three girls mercilessly layed down sniper fire on the many Faunas that had so foolishly left themselves exposed. Every second there was at least one or two flashes from the guns they leveled down over their prey, each flash accompanied by a body dropping to the floor or a burn mark left on the concrete floor they stood upon.

Roman and the Lieutenant had tried to stand their ground for a few seconds, but ultimately turned tail back into their bullhead and retreated after all their attempts at retaliation were in vain. More and more of their forces died with each passing second, and now stood the only sensible decision to flee. Besides, whatever that dart had pumped into him, he was sure it would be fatal if he didn't get an antidote into his system soon.

Listening as she heard him call in reinforcements, Ruby chuckled darkly under her breath. Really, it was child's play hacking into his equipment, so nothing he said and did with that scroll of his would escape her attention. She waited for a few seconds, still firing down on the few Fangs that remained on the ground when she heard the telltale noises of approaching bullheads.

'Bullheads, sounds like V.14 twin engines. Given engine usage, likely armament is a 20mm Winchester Arms Auto Cannon. Primitive in comparison to a blaster cannon, but it carries more than enough stopping power to tear us to ribbons, not that it'll get the chance. Now would be the part where Penny comes into play.' Ruby thought on a dime, before raising her hand and snapping loudly, giving the signal for Penny to begin her work.

And within but a moment, a barrage of rockets roared out from behind Blake, much to the girl's surprise. The sudden noise nearly made the poor girl jump out of her skin, but that being irrelevant, the rockets flew true, each one slamming head-on with a Bullhead and blasting it to smithereens. The burning husks fell, crashing into the water with a terrible roar, before letting the area fall into silence…

About an hour passed, with the police eventually arriving at the scene for clean up (much to their chagrin). The Police Chief attempted to apprehend Blake and Sun, as they were the only ones not clearly with the Hoots Troopers, but Ruby's intervention placed Blake under her own charge, and clarified that Sun hadn't had any part in the fighting.

For whatever reason, he seemed to not take the que and leave. In fact, he seemed rather adamant about staying beside Blake for whatever reason, not that she cared. She knew well enough he wasn't brave enough to stand up for her if she confronted her teammate directly, though supposed that given the outcome of the night, she hadn't much reason to be too upset.

Approaching her raven-haired teammate, the girl she could see was sweating bullets as she approached, and her complexion had paled several shades. She decided about two meters was an agreeable distance, giving the girl enough space to breathe as she crossed her arms and stared down at her…

"I'm disappointed, Blake." She began, chuckling as she heard the girl gulp. "After all, your accuracy rating is a 4.8, and Yang was shooting better than you."

She gave a dumbfounded look, before shaking her head and standing upright to meet her leader at eye-level. "I-I'm sorry, what? You're not..?"

"Upset? No, no I'm not." Ruby said smugly, taking off her helmet and tucking it under her side. "Did you handle the situation in an amateur way? Yes. Was there better ways you could've led us to this same outcome? Definitely. Was there better ways I could've handled our little argument a few nights ago? Well, now you see why I'm not very social." She chuckled at the end, before reaching into her pocket and fishing out four small cigars. She easily tossed one to both Yang and Weiss, before putting one in her own mouth and handing Blake the last.

"Uhh… what's this for?" Blake inquired, getting a nod from Yang in agreement.

"Simply a tradition among Hoots Troopers. You may not be Hoots Troopers, and while the execution of this whole affair could've been much better, I can't argue with the results. Miss Goodwitch has already notified me of the nanobot tracking him's ping, and he'll lead us to the rest of our prey. Good thinking on your end, you've delivered us a notable advantage… now, remember, don't inhale the smoke." Ruby said easily, tossing the girl a lighter after lighting her own. "It's tradition to smoke one after a well-earned victory. You're still coming back with us for interrogation by the Headmaster, but aside from that, I'd say this was well earned."

"But… You're not angry with me? I was in the White Fang, and-"

"Tell me this, Belladonna." She cut her off. "Are you in the White Fang?"

"N-no, I left several-"

"Then it's simple as that. Oh, but don't get me wrong, I still hate your kind. Oh no, that hatred will never fade, but as long as you're willing to overlook my status as a Hoots Trooper and a Clone, then I'm just as willing to overlook your heritage and past for the sake of getting along and working as a team. Deal?" Ruby said, puffing out some smoke, before placing the cigar back in place and extending her hand.

Blake was shook for a moment, looking back and forth from the girl's hands and back to her eyes and back again, before collecting herself, and extending her hand to meet Ruby's, taking it in a firm shake…

Aaaaand immediately regret it, as she immediately felt like the girl was grounding her bones to dust. "But let me make something clear…" She said in a low voice, "you will never, ever show such insubordination as you've recently shown again. You got that?"

She nodded furiously, and the girl immediately loosened her grip, putting it back into a normal shake, before making an about face and puffing out a cloud of smoke again, taking in the sight of Yang tentatively trying her own and Weiss leaning against a crate and casually blowing out rings of smoke up into the air.

"Alright team, pack it up, I'm calling in a gunship to pick us up. We're heading home." Ruby said, smiling with satisfaction as the entirety of her team snapped to attention, Blake's salute signaling the completion of this phase of Team RWBY...

A/N: Made a thing to categorize hunters in this story. Will be making a thing for that eventually for expansion upon the lore. idk, probably a google site or something...