Chapter 5: New Semester
January 12, 2682; 1203 Hours
Ivan sat at a table in the mess hall with Team RWBY and Team JNPR. Ruby had gone off somewhere before they had all sat down to eat. Today was the last day of their two week break from classes, as the second semester of their first year started tomorrow. Ivan greatly needed, and enjoyed, the break. Since Christmas fell on the semester break, he had gone back to the FOB and celebrated with some of the UNSC personnel. He had given his team members some joke gifts he had bought in Vale. It was mostly just small things, but it was fun nevertheless. Merlin had even been kind enough to give his suit's systems a firmware update, making them a slight bit more power efficient. He had actually spent half of his time at the FOB, all under the guise of visiting friends in Atlas.
He and his team of young Huntresses had spent the last week of the break in Vale City, spending time simply walking around the massive urban sprawl or eating at the many restaurants downtown. After the incident between Blake and Weiss, as well as the fight at the Docks against Torchwick and his goons, Team RWBY became an even more cohesive unit. Weiss had actually formally apologized to Ivan and Blake, which made the process of unit cohesion that much easier. Blake actually began taking her bow off when they were in their dorm, and even began talking to people more and more. Over the break, Ivan had even become rather close friends with Velvet, and Cardin mysteriously found his rocket propelled locker twenty miles into the Forever Fall Forest, but Ivan wouldn't know anything about that.
Blake was reading over something in her notebook, but she was interrupted as Yang placed her chin on the Faunus's shoulder. "Whatcha' doing?" Yang asked, causing Blake to jump slightly.
Blake seemed to pause during her response for some reason. "Nothing… just going over notes from last semester." Ivan knew exactly what she was doing. She was running herself ragged. She had started doing this not long after their encounter at the Docks, but the break had gotten her to lighten up a bit. Now that they were back in school, Blake had seemingly gone back to running herself down to fumes.
Yang quickly caught a grape in her mouth that Nora had catapulted in her direction with her plastic spoon, giving Nora a thumbs up. Nora, in typical fashion, giggled as she loaded another. "Lame." Yang said, catching the second grape as well.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ruby slammed a massive binder on the table with a grunt. The binder, easily, contained well over a thousand pages. Ivan scanned over the cover, which was backwards, but he deciphered the handwriting to read: "Best Day Ever Activities." Ivan couldn't help but smile. Ruby spoke up, preceding her speech by clearing her throat theatrically. "Sisters… friends… Weiss…" Ruby began.
"Hey!" Weiss said, but her protests went ignored by Ruby.
"Four-Score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream." Ruby said.
"This oughta be good." Yang whispered to Blake, who smiled slightly.
"I had a dream that one day, the five of us would come together as a team and have the most fun that anyone has ever had… ever!"
"Did you steal my binder?" Weiss asked, inspecting the binder more closely.
"I am not a crook." Ruby said, making a 'peace sign' with her hands. Ivan actually laughed at that, but he doubted that Ruby understood the reference to American History.
"What are you talking about?" Blake asked.
"I'm talking about kicking this semester off with a bang!" Ruby declared, happily.
"I always kick my semesters off with a Yang." Yang said, giving a thumbs up. "Eh? Eh?" She asked. Weiss simply face-palmed, Blake sighed, Ruby cocked an eyebrow, and Ivan actually hit his forehead against the table, sighing. If there was one thing that Yang loved more than her shotgun gauntlets Ember Celica, it was puns.
"Get out." Ivan said, pointing to the door.
Ruby continued on after a tomato from Nora hit Yang in the forehead, followed by a collective 'boo' from Team JNPR. "Look guys, it's been a great two weeks, but between more exchange students coming, classes starting up again, and the tournament at the end of the year, this Semester is going to be really busy… Which is why I scheduled a series of wonderful events for us today."
"I don't know if I should be proud, or scared of what you have in store." Weiss said. As Weiss spoke, Yang threw an apple at Nora, who ducked. The apple wound up hitting the wall in the back of the Mess.
"I think I might sit this one out." Blake said.
"Sit out or not, I think we should spend this last day as a team." Weiss said. "I for one-" Weiss was interrupted as an entire pie hit her in the face. Weiss wiped the cream top from her face, finding Nora to be sitting down, pointing to Ren, who simply sat there with his head in his hands, sighing.
Suddenly, the entire cafeteria exploded into activity. Food flew across the entire cafeteria as tables were quickly rearranged to form makeshift cover. The food fight eventually turned into a contest between Team JNPR and Team RWBY, as the other students ran outside to avoid the slaughter. It actually got to the point where Nora knocked Weiss into a pillar, and physically caused the pillar to collapse as she struck it with her makeshift Warhammer. Said Warhammer was actually just a pipe with a watermelon on the end.
Ruby managed to catch Weiss before she fell the thirty foot drop to the hard stone floor, and propped the unconscious heiress up next to Ivan, who was sitting in cover behind a table. Ivan decided to play along and lobbed a head of lettuce at Jaune, striking him in the chest. Yang and Ren were in a hand-to-hand fight, with Yang using cooked turkeys as a replacement for her gauntlets. Ren used a pair of leeks as a replacement for his normal machine pistols. After Ren got knocked back by Yang's brute force, Nora managed to hit Yang with an aggressive up-swing from her makeshift hammer, sending her through the roof. "Jesus Christ…" Ivan thought to himself.
Ruby decided to end this. She used her semblance to propel herself well beyond the speed of sound, causing a whirlwind of dust, cans, and food to follow in her wake. The sheer force of the moving air knocked all of Team JNPR into the wall. They were all struck by food of every type, eventually causing the wall to become little more than a technicolor landscape of dripping soda and food. Once the wind finally subsided, all of team JNPR fell from the wall, coated in soda.
Ivan turned around, spotting Sun and a new person with blue hair, a formerly red jacket, jeans, and a rifle of some kind across his back. The newcomer was caked in grape soda from the waist-up. "I love these guys." Sun said, drawing a scowl from the newcomer.
A moment after, Professor Goodwitch stormed in, waving her wand/blackboard pointer. Using her semblance for Telekinesis, the entire cafeteria reassembled itself incredibly quickly, appearing as if nothing ever happened in the first place. This was the first time Ivan had ever seen Goodwitch use her Semblance, and it honestly terrified him. "Children…" Goodwitch said, obviously angry. "Please do not play with your food."
After everything settled down and Goodwitch's attention was grabbed by Ozpin, whom Ivan could hear clearly. "They're still children, Glynda… let it go. Let them play the part." Ivan joined his team, as well as JNPR, in laughing as they dusted themselves off as best they could.
"Let's go get cleaned up." Ivan said, pulling a piece of aluminum can from his jacket.
XXXXX
January 12, 2682; 1245 Hours
Remnant, Beacon Academy (Library)
After everyone from both teams took a shower, changed clothes, and calmed down a bit, they all met in the library. Ruby brought a board game with her and offered to sit out so Ivan could play. He decided to let her play and watch, so he could learn the rules. Based off what he's seen, he would wager that this game was a mix of the games Risk, Axis and Allies, and an old trading card game. He watched with an amused smile as the girls theatrically played the game, broadcasting their moves and decisions with a very… enthusiastic performance. After Weiss was given a quick rundown of the game, she quickly became one of the best players. She went from being on a near-constant losing streak to being three moves away from conquering Remnant.
Yang decided to use one of her trap cards, effectively disabling Weiss's army of metal miniatures. "I hate this game of emotions we play!" Weiss said, saddened after realizing that she just lost her chance at winning.
"Stay strong, Weiss, we'll get through this together!" Ruby said, hugging Weiss.
"Don't touch me!" Weiss said, hugging Ruby back with a saddened expression on her face.
"Blake, you're up." Yang said, happily.
"Oh… um… I'm not really feeling it right now." Blake said, obviously preoccupied by her thoughts.
"'Sup losers." Sun said, walking over with the blue-haired person in the red jacket that Ivan recognized from the cafeteria. "I never got to introduce you to my old friend here." Sun motioned to the blue-haired man.
"Umm… isn't the Library for reading?" The newcomer asked.
"Thank you!" Ren said, throwing his hands up.
"Shut up, don't be a nerd." Sun said, elbowing the newcomer in the side.
"Ah-ah! Intellectual!" The newcomer corrected. Ivan already liked the dynamic Sun had with this guy, as it reflected his own relationship with his team.
"Either way; Ruby, Yang, Blake, Ivan, Ice Queen…" Sun began.
"Why does everyone keep calling me that?!" Weiss demanded.
"Hi." The newcomer said. "I'm Neptune." Ivan sighed to himself. "Another reference to their own history that they don't even know… it's almost sad."
"So Neptune, where're you from?" Weiss asked.
"I'm from Haven." He replied. "And I don't think I caught your name… snow angel."
"Oh, come on!" Ivan heard Jaune say, distraught at just how easily Neptune could talk to the heiress.
"Pleasure to meet you." Weiss responded. "I'm Weiss."
"Never took you as the board game type." Sun said, leaning down to talk with Blake.
"Actually… I think I'm gonna get going… I'll see you guys later." Blake said, getting up and walking away.
As she left, Nora sat up, looking around. "Pfft… women." Nora scoffed, drawing a wide smile from Ivan. He had grown to love the redhead's spunky, excessively eccentric personality.
XXXXX
January 12, 2681; 1600 Hours
Remnant, Beacon Academy (Team RWBY Dormitory)
After a few hours of playing the game, everyone walked back into their dorm room, happily talking. "Ugh… we never should've let him play!" Yang said, angrily.
"You're just mad because the new guy beat you." Ruby taunted.
Weiss noticed that Blake was attempting to sneak out. "Stop!" Weiss said. "Lately you've been antisocial, quiet, and moody."
"Umm… have you met Blake?" Yang asked from her bed.
"Which I get, is kinda your thing." Weiss conceded. "But you've been doing it more and more. You made a promise to me and the rest of this team that you'd let us know if something was wrong. So Blake… what's wrong?"
"I… I just can't get how everyone can be so calm."
"Still worried about Torchwick?" Ruby asked.
"Torchwick, the White Fang, all of it!" Blake exclaimed.
"Ozpin told us all not to worry, between the police and the Huntsmen, I'm sure they can handle it." Yang said.
"Well I'm not!" Blake said. "They don't know the White Fang like I do."
"Let me be the voice of reason." Weiss said. "We're students! We're not ready to handle this kind of situation."
"I agree with Weiss, I don't think we should act right now." Ivan added. "We're not even close to having enough information to be ready."
"And we may never be ready!" Blake exclaimed. "Our enemies aren't just gonna sit around until graduation day. They're out there somewhere planning their next move, and none of us know what it is, but it's coming!"
"Alright…" Ruby began, taking a deep breath. "All those in favor of becoming the youngest Huntsmen in history and singlehandedly bringing down a corrupt organization, say aye!"
"Yes!" Yang exclaimed. "I love it when you're feisty."
"Well… I guess it could be fun." Weiss said.
Ivan shrugged. "Sure, what the hell?"
"None of you said aye…" Ruby said under her breath. "But, let's hatch a plan!"
"Let's do it!" Yang agreed.
"I'll get the cork board and the red string." Ivan joked.
XXXXX
January 13, 2681; 1604 Hours
Remnant, Vale (Classroom 201)
Ivan sat next to the rest of his team in Professor Port's Grimm Anatomy class, half asleep while the mustached professor went off on another tangential story. He saw Jaune attempt to ask Weiss out to the upcoming Festival Dance. "So Weiss, I was thinking… After this, maybe we could go grab a bite to eat? And I've got two tickets to that new Spruce Willis movie if you wanna make the trip to Vale, I hear it's awesome. And then maybe after that we could… study together?" Weiss ignored his questions, until he was finally stopped by the bell. "Weiss, did you hear me?"
"Spruce Willis?" Ivan thought to himself "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Weiss stood up, grabbed her books, and spoke up. "No, No, No, Yes."
Jaune sighed dejectedly, planting his forehead against the desk as the rest of Team RWBY walked by. Yang, being the last one of the group, patted Jaune on the back of his yellow-haired head. "One day." Yang said, continuing to walk.
Team RWBY walked into their dorm and quickly changed out of their school uniforms, and into street clothes. Yang elected to wear a tan shirt and black retention bra along with black pants, Blake wore her normal clothes without the black overshirt, Ruby wore a grey shirt with black overalls, Weiss wore a normal white dress with a white coat over it. Ivan wore a long grey jacket, a black shirt, black slacks, and a pair of rather nice combat boots. He had a set of soft body armor that was issued to ONI Field Agents on underneath the shirt and coat, just in case. "I thought that class would never end." Blake said, saying what everyone was thinking.
"Well everyone, day one of the Investigation begins!" Ruby declared happily, jumping from her bunk onto the floor.
"Glad to see we're taking this seriously." Weiss joked.
"I mean… we've got a basic plan." Ivan said as he slid his concealed handgun into his waistband holster. "That's moderately serious."
"Everyone remember their roles?" Ruby asked.
"You and I will head to the Cross-continental Communication Tower and check the Schnee records for any other Dust robberies of inconsistencies." Weiss explained. "Since I'm in the family, it shouldn't be an issue."
"The White Fang holds regular faction meetings to recruit new members and give out orders." Blake said. "If I can get in, then I can know what they're planning."
"I have an old friend on the shady side of town who typically knows everything going on in Vale." Yang said. "Getting information out of him shouldn't be too hard."
"I stick with Ruby and Weiss, and get in touch with some old friends in Atlas." Ivan said.
"Alright, we'll meet up with Yang at the rendezvous point and go over what we found… let's do it!"
"Alright, let's do it." Sun said, dangling from a lamppost on the side of the dorm building. He hung upside down in front of the window.
Everyone jumped back slightly. "Sun!" Yang declared. "How'd you get up there?"
"Ah, it's easy! I do it all the time." Sun explained
"You do what?" Weiss asked, terrified by the insinuation.
"I climb trees all the time." Sun explained. "So, are we finally getting back at that Torchwick guy?"
"We're going to investigate these robberies… as a team." Blake said.
"Sorry Sun, we don't want to get friends involved if we don't have to." Ivan said.
Sun scoffed. "That's dumb, you should always get friends involved. That's why I brought Neptune." Sun pointed out the window.
All of Team RWBY looked out of the window at the same time, finding Neptune to be standing on the small ledge on the side of the building. "'Sup…" Neptune said.
"How did you get up there?" Yang asked.
"I have my ways." Neptune said, calmly. "But seriously, can I come in? We're really high up right now."
Ivan helped Neptune into the dorm, and Ruby motioned for everyone to form a circle. "Alright, Sun you can go with Blake."
"I can go with Weiss." Neptune said.
Weiss looked rather embarrassed for a moment. "Actually… you should probably go with Yang, since she doesn't have a partner."
Neptune seemed distraught for a moment, but he nodded. "Alright, I'm ready."
"Alright, let's roll out!" Ruby said, happily.
XXXXX
January 13, 2681; 1648 Hours
Remnant, Beacon Academy (CCT Tower)
Ivan followed behind Ruby and Weiss, the massive CCT coming into view. The central tower was the second-tallest structure in Beacon, only shadowed by Ozpin's office, which sat at the top of the massive spire in the center of the campus. As they arrived, Ivan ran into Velvet, the shy rabbit Faunus that Cardin had mercilessly picked on for almost all of first semester. Over the past two months, Ivan had become rather close with her, which also caused Cardin to keep away. He greatly enjoyed the company of the Faunus girl, and she seemed to enjoy his.
Not long after Velvet had excused herself to go meet up with the rest of Team CFVY, Ruby saw Penny for the first time in three weeks. She followed after Penny as she attempted to leave, leaving Weiss alone with Ivan. Ivan followed Weiss into the CCT, up the elevator, and into the communications room. He waited near the elevator, watching Weiss talk to the receptionist at Schnee Company Headquarters in Atlas.
As Weiss began talking, he keyed into his Neural Implant and established a secure connection with the Avalon, which had just returned from delivering another shipment of research materials to Reach. "Go ahead, SPARTAN." Merlin answered.
Ivan made sure to communicate only through his implant. It was a relatively new technology that had only been issued to select special forces units, ONI, and the SPARTAN-IVs. He was very thankful that he didn't need his armor or a datpad to communicate with his ship. "Merlin, I need you to give me any information you can find on Roman Torchwick." Ivan explained.
Merlin hummed. "Alright, give me a moment." The comms remained silent for a moment, then Merlin's voice returned. "Well, I don't have much for you. All I can find on him would be security footage from various Dust shops he's robbed. Beyond that, the man's a ghost."
"Keep digging, let me know what you find." Ivan sighed. He was afraid of something like this. If he could manage to hide from a Smart A.I. digging through Remnant's databanks, he could only imagine who might be backing his operations.
"Copy that, SPARTAN." Merlin acknowledged.
As Ivan closed down the secure communication, he found his attention caught by a television broadcast that was playing on a wall-mounted screen to his right. He watched an Atlesian General by the name of Ironwood discuss new Atlesian military units. His attention was really grabbed by the mechanized battlesuit, which was celled a Paladin. It vaguely resembled the design of a Mantis exoskeleton system, but seemed much bulkier and stockier. The autonomous android soldiers also amazed him, but that was relatively old news. After a few minutes of watching the broadcast, he found Weiss to be heading in his direction.
"Any luck?" Ivan asked, looking over from the broadcast.
"Nothing…" Weiss sighed. "All of the robberies seem to be completely random. There's no rhyme or reason to it. What about your friends from Atlas?"
"A whole lot of nothing." Ivan shrugged.
Weiss groaned. "Gah… this is harder than I thought."
"It might help if Torchwick wasn't a ghost…"
"What do you mean?" Weiss asked.
"I've looked through every database I can find, and he doesn't appear in any of them. The only proof that he exists is the news footage and security camera footage." Ivan explained. "He's either very good at covering his tracks, or someone big is backing him."
Their conversation was quickly cut short as their scrolls went off, with Blake and Sun's voices coming over them. "Big freakin' Atlas mech thing, Torchwick has one!" Sun shouted. "Highway one twelve!"
Ivan nodded to Weiss, who ran into the elevator behind him. Ivan suddenly realized that there was very little chance of him damaging the Paladin with just an M6.
"Not gonna lie." Ivan said, waiting as the elevator descended towards the ground floor. "I'm not gonna be able to do much against this thing." He tapped his side, where his magnum was concealed.
Weiss chuckled. "Oh, sure. Leave it all to us."
"Would you prefer I run back to the dorm, grab my rifle, and get there when you guys have already killed the thing?" Ivan asked, smirking.
"I suppose not…" Weiss shrugged. "I guess you can handle the light work." A small smirk crossed her face as the elevator slid open, and she took off running, Ivan managing to keep up with the heiress' Semblance-assisted speed thanks to his augmentations.
Ivan was finally able to let his augmentations come out in their full glory. He was running along the side of the street, managing to keep up with Weiss as she used her glyphs to propel herself forward. He was easily running at fifty kilometers an hour. "Is that your Semblance too?" Weiss asked.
"Maybe." Ivan replied, a small smirk on his face.
"A man of many talents." Weiss responded. "Please do try and make yourself useful with that pistol of yours."
"Bite me, Schnee." Ivan snarked back. "Let me just walk around the campus with six guns strapped to me."
As they were running, they saw Ruby, Yang, Blake, Sun, and Neptune being chased across an empty, under-construction highway overpass. "Hold on." Weiss said, using her glyph semblance to propel her and Ivan upwards. Both landed on their feet and Ivan got a clear look at what he was going up against. The Paladin looked to be more heavily armored than most UNSC tanks, but it was bipedal. "Aim for the legs!" Ivan shouted, sprinting ahead with Weiss.
Ruby and Yang quickly coordinated to cut the mech off, while Blake managed to trip it up with her flashing semblance. As she confused the mech, Ruby and Yang sent a quick series of shots into the knee joint, causing one of the legs to buckle. Neptune and Sun fired their respective weapons into the thin armor on its back, actually managing to pierce the hull a few times. Ivan simply fired his pistol, hoping to at least look like he was contributing to the fight.
Once Ruby and Yang finally managed to take out the leg, Weiss used the light blue dust which was loaded into the revolving cylinder on her rapier to start freezing the mech, weakening the metallic armor. Yang, after taking a few hits, allowed her Semblance to flare up. Her eyes shifted from lilac to a fiery red as she became much stronger, and much angrier. Ivan was surprised to see Yang's Semblance give her a sudden boost to speed and agility as she punched the mech's weakened front with her gauntlet, the explosive round she had loaded causing the already buckled and frozen plating to shatter. As they looked around, they found that the mech was empty. "They're autonomous?" Ivan asked, looking around. Everyone spotted an airship, where Torchwick was standing in the passenger area, waving at them as the aircraft flew off. Ivan drew his sidearm and attempted to put a few rounds downrange at Torchwick, but the slow pistol rounds bounced off his Aura. The Bullhead veered off, its engines tilting back and entering its flight mode. "God, I hate that guy." Ivan said, dropping the now-empty magazine from the grip of his magnum and sliding a new one into place.
Ruby sighed, collapsing Crescent Rose back down into its compact form. "What did we all find out?"
"Schnee Records show that there's definitely a spike in Dust robberies here in Vale, but there's no pattern to them… they're just random." Weiss said.
"You just killed what we found." Sun said. "White Fang somehow managed to get their hands on some new toys."
"Torchwick hired some of my friend's goons, they never came back." Yang said.
"What about you, Ivan?" Ruby asked, looking to the SPARTAN.
Ivan shrugged. "I couldn't find much on Torchwick. Just security footage and newsreels."
Ruby sighed. "Crap…" She muttered.
