"Ruby, anything on your end?" Yang asked, checking in from an ice tunnel further in the back of the tomb.

"Nothing." the reaper responded, standing on a catwalk overlooking the sealed Alpha Grimm. From it, she could see Weiss and Winter standing in front of the cell, and Noel, Qrow, and Marron across from her at the command center.

"I'm telling you guys, nobody knows this is even here." Sun commented from an emergency exit behind Ruby's position.

"Trust me, Mister Wukong." Winter spoke up. "If a Fall is leading this attack, they know where this is."

"If you say so." Scarlet announced from his and Sage's position in a hall to the right side of the cavern. "Neptune, what's it like by the ventilation shafts?" he asked, looking for Neptune to check in from the furthest point back from the front entrance: a closet that housed the main vents that took in and warmed air from the outside. "Nep?" the privateer asked again, gaining no response on the intellectual's end.

"I'll go check on him." Yang sighed. "Blake, cover my end until I get back." she called to her partner down the hallway from her, getting a nod in response before she turned on a heel to the vent room. After a few second of walking down the hall carved out of permafrost and ice-cold rock, the brawler reached the door, which was left open a crack. Opening it, Yang found Neptune in front of a large vent with the grate popped off. He was in a fetal position on the floor, spasming and mumbling incoherently about water or something. "Neptune?" Yang asked in surprise. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Not the water...Don't go in..." he answered, still stuck in a nightmare he couldn't awaken from.

"Nep, what's gotten into you?" Yang asked again before she realized it had gotten rather hazy in this room all of a sudden. She waived a hand in front of her to try and fan it away, only to surprise herself: her hand no longer held half of her gauntlets on it. In fact, it seemed like a child's hand. Inspecting herself, it seemed like she was seven-years old again. "What the-" she thought aloud before she heard the familiar growling of a Beowulf. The haze dissipated, replaced with the backdrop of a very familiar, worn-down house on the far side of Patch Island.

"Yang, I'm scared..." She turned to see her much younger sister, Ruby, who had also reverted to a child, whimpered from the wagon behind them.

"What's going on?" Yang thought, the whole situation seeming familiar to her, before she saw a shadow walk past her. She turned to recognize her mother walking to the splintered door on the far end of the hall, where she cast a portal and walked through, leaving it open. "Mom, wait!" she called, running for the portal. Just as she reached it, the portal closed, and two Beowolves lunged at her with gaping maws as she screamed in fear.


"Yang?!" Blake shouted, hearing the scream from where her partner had just went. She ran towards it, rounding the corner as she drew Gambol Shroud in its pistol form. As she turned to face the closet, she immediately noticed the unfamiliar woman in a blue dress turned away from her. From around her, she could make out the legs of Neptune and Yang sprawled out in front of her, only guessing this intruder had incapacitated them. "Freeze!" she ordered, pointing her handgun at the woman.

She didn't respond for a second, turning slowly to face the cat Faunus. "You should be the one doing that." Violet responded, waiving her hand at Blake as a trio of icicles formed from the permafrost walls around them, before they sailed towards her at the speed of a bullet.

"Cinder?" Blake thought aloud before she blocked two icicles, using her semblance to take the third as she lunged forward for an attack.

"Is my resemblance that uncanny?" Violet asked, receiving Blake's attack and countering it with her own rapier, completely made of ice and seemingly drawn from thin air. She blocked the strike, pushing her back as a cloud of fog overtook Blake's vision.

She narrowed her amber eyes as she tried to see trough the haze, trying to figure where Violet would strike next, until she recognized a shadow to her left. Blake turned to intercept it, only for a biting pain to hit her in the abdomen. She cried out in surprise and pain as she fell to her back onto the ground, noticing through the pain that it wasn't as cold as the icy floor she stood on. Instead, she recognized the tile floor of Beacon's cafeteria. She looked down to her injury, seeing a familiar red blade jutting into her stomach. "Wh-What?" she gasped, recognizing Adam standing over her, Wilt jabbing into her middle. "Adam...why?" she asked, over the crackle of flames in the destroyed dining hall.

"You actually thought I wanted to make piece with the Humans?" 'Adam' responded. "Making piece with them is impossible! If only you could see that for yourself. So..." he continued, slowly drawing his katana back out. "..as I set out upon this world to deliver the justice mankind deserves...I will make it my personal mission to destroy everything you love."

Blake was flabbergasted. Why would Adam do this? After everything that they went through, after he defected to help them stop Cinder, he hadn't changed at all. She had to get away, get to her friends and warn them-

"Blake! Where are you?" she heard Yang call.

"I saw her go this way earlier!" Weiss added.

"Let's check the dining hall!" Ruby ordered.

"No..." Blake gasped in fear as she heard her friends' voices.

"Starting with them." Adam coldly glared down on her through his mask, turning away to face the rest of RWBY as they entered, readying their weapons as Adam redrew his blade upon stepping away from Blake as she began to bleed out. She could only lay there, paralyzed in fear and agony as she watched Adam prepare to hack her friends into pieces. All she could do was watch in horror.


"I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry!" Blake mumbled in her comatose state, Violet watching in amusement as she kicked the pair of blades away from the cat Faunus.

"Almost too easy." she sighed, moving down the hall again, both her and Blake ignoring Ruby's calling on her discarded earpiece, knocked off when she hit the ground.


"Blake? What's going on down there?" Ruby asked. "Where are Yang and Neptune?"

"I'm really hoping they're not doing what I think they're doing." Sun deadpanned.

"You and me both." Weiss spoke up, not wanting to think about her crush with her own teammate.

"Sage, let's go check on them." Scarlet suggested as he turned towards the back hallways, the towering swordsman right behind him. Just as the two went to go through the passage , they were both encased in a cone of ice up to their necks. "What the bloody hell?" he cried out as he found himself encompassed in ice.

Everyone else turned to face their position, watching as their intruder vaulted over the two incapacitated Huntsmen and towards the control center.

"Stop her!" Noel ordered as the remaining Huntsmen and Huntresses each moved to attack Violet.

Ruby didn't even think twice as she flicked off the safety of Crescent Rose and began firing at the intruder, while Weiss and Winter got up close to her, each aiming precise slashes towards her. Violet showed her prowess as she deflected each strike, as well as simply batted away the sniper rounds aimed at her with a simple wave of her hand. She might have been outnumbered, but here in an ice cavern, she was deep within her element. She used her energy to levitate more snow and ice around her hands as they compacted together, taking the shape of a dueling saber much like the one Winter wielded.

"Weiss, support me with glyph blasts!" Winter ordered as she dug her sword into the frosted floor, a pair of glyphs appearing next to her that each spawned a stark white Beowolf with blue eyes. Howling, both charged alongside Winter at Violet as Weiss stood back, summoning glyphs of her own as blasts of ice and wind fired from them.

Violet sidestepped the first volley from the younger Schnee's glyphs as she intercepted the first strike from one of Winter's Beowolves. With a flick of her wrist, she cut through its paw and slashed across its neck, causing the summoned beast to disappear in a cloud of white mist as it was defeated.

With one of her beasts down, Winter and her second Grimm attacked in tandem, Winter drawing her parrying blade from the hilt of her saber. Each slash or stab was blocked as Violet looked as though she had barely even broken a sweat. "I knew from the start you weren't fully on board with us." she said as the two locked blades, using her free hand to summon a set of icicles and impale her other Beowolf.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not exactly a fan of anarchy." Winter responded, putting more pressure on the close range duel as she drove her pommel towards Violet's chest, only for the Fall sister to catch it at the last possible moment.

Smirking, Violet put more of her strength into lifting Winter, then pulsing her Aura into throwing her back across the room, where she collided rather hard against the wall near the main entrance to the initiative's hideout.

"Winter!" Weiss called, ready to rush forward and check on her sister, who was slow to rise back to her feet. She was blocked as Violet caught her with a slash that the younger heiress nearly missed defending herself from.

In her place, Marron and Noel left their nearby post to check on their friend and daughter respectively, Qrow following to cover them as he kept an eye on the Fall sister. "You okay, Winter?" Marron asked as she pulled the Schnee to her feet.

"I'll live." Winter groaned, rubbing the back of her head, only to jump in surprise as the main entrance doors were blown off their hinges. Out from it poured a dozen or so White Fang grunts and disgruntled prisoners armed with shanks, shivs, or whatever they scavenged from incapacitated or dead guards. Among them as well, Chains sauntered to the front, revving his chainstaff as he glared down his two former comrades.

"I'll leave you three to catch up." Violet commented to the White Fang commander, waiving a hand across her view in front of the older Huntsmen and the White Fang as a wall of ice cut the two groups off from each other.

"Damn!" Qrow growled as he slammed a fist against the ice monolith around them. "We're sealed in."

"You have bigger problems than that, Human." Chains commented before he turned back to his old teammates. "And you two. It's unfortunate to see you again under these circumstances."

"Spare me the manners, Chad." Winter spat, drawing her blade as Marron readied Aurum Wing beside her.

"If you really were sorry, you wouldn't have joined up with a bunch of murderers." Marron glared at her and Winter's former team leader. "Is this what your family would have wanted?" she asked, trying to spark some empathy in her old friend.

Chains' eyes went to the floor. "I wouldn't know what they wanted." he said in a low tone. "When I went home to Menagerie after Beacon, I found out Huntsmen like you killed them, mistaking them for anarchists! That's something I can't forgive, especially after years of training to be one like them!"

Winter and Marron shared a look at each other as they learned of what had actually happened to their team leader from their days at the academy to after graduation. "Chad, if we had any idea..." Winter started to apologize.

"It would've changed nothing." Chains growled. "They're still gone, and Huntsmen are still going around getting off scott free for assaulting my people. If you weren't on the other side, maybe I wouldn't have to do this." With that said, he revved his weapon's motor, the rotating chains glistening in the faint light.

"We don't want to fight you, Chad." Winter glared, standing her ground as she, Marron, Qrow, and Noel readied their weapons.

"Neither do I." was his reply as the two sides charged each other.


Surprise! This fic isn't dead!

I figured I'd surprise you all before Christmas with a chapter. Sorry it took so long, but I really had to focus on my college work so I didn't fail this semester. I'm now only a few credits away from earning my degree, so the more time I spent on that, the better. Anyway, let's see what I've missed covering since then: RWBY Volume 4 revealed some new stuff canon-wise, Tyrian pretty much confirms insectoid Faunus are a thing, Lindsey and Michael Jones are having a kid, Anna Hullum got hurt, Jaune's hoodie went on the RT Store and sold out before I could get one, I still haven't seen Rogue One, and Team STRM has their own profiles on the RWBY Fanon Wiki now!

I think that's everything, so leave a follow or a comment if you've been enjoying the story so far and haven't done either of those yet, I'll see you lads and lasses next time, and Happy Holidays!

P.S., FUCK 2016