Chapter 2

Eric van Genus' Audio Journal #2: Freedom of Choice

I believe in the freedom to choose. To choose how to live, how to make a living, and what to do with my life. As I stated from my last recording, I gave my fellow orphans a choice when I killed the cruel and vile adults. The choice was: They get to live out their lives they way they want or they follow me to make a new world. Out of the thirty children at the orphanage, twenty-two of them decided to join me of their own free will. The other eight decided to live out their lives in the normality of their free will. When the last time I saw them, one boy wanted to be a Huntsmen. But his adopted parents wanted him to be a farmer instead because his foster parents are farmers and have been for generations. One girl was adopted by a very religious family and they try to make her into a nun despite that she wanted to be a musician. In other words, a slave to religion. Although why they would put an adopted child to become a member of the cloth is beyond me. Twin boys were adopted by a strict doctor and a failed pianist. One boy was forced to be a doctor and gets beatings when he disobeys. Same for the one who is forced to pick-up the slack where his foster mother failed at and gets beatings when doing something wrong. Reminds me of Your Lie in April when Kousei Arima was forced to play the piano by his strict mother until he gave up because he couldn't hear the notes anymore. Back on topic, one girl was taken in by a politician. She was later found dead in a dumpster two years later and her father was canned. Another girl was taken in by an average family and became a Huntress over in Vacuo. She's still alive of course. The last two I cannot find. Both girls. Either that they've gone into hiding or probably dead.

Either way, people have the freedom to choose, but everyone must take responsibility and face the consequences of their choices. Every action has a reaction as old Newton used to say. Religion doesn't give people the right to choose. You have to stay with it or suffer the consequences. Back in the United States, people are free to practice their religion or be free of it. From someone who lived in a Protestant family, I choose to break free from them. In the eyes of the White Fang, you have to join or be seen as a traitor to all Faunus. At least that's what Adam sees in his mind. You cannot force someone to choose your way. Everyone has the right to choose on what to do. Even if they have to become parasites. Yet here in this valley, everyone chooses to find new paths for themselves rather than being lazy good for nothings like Jerry Smith from Rick & Morty or those who are unable to think for themselves. In this valley, people here are given plenty of opportunity to make their careers ranging from brilliant scientists, great inventors, inspiring artists and much more because of what we teach them. As a matter of fact, we even give the same freedom to our new...people.

Yet the freedom to choose is the foundation for democracy that everyone supports...unless they are bribed, blackmail or manipulated. Free will is NOT an illusion. If scientists tell you so, they are probably brainwashing or using some other means to manipulate the sheep in some sick experiment. Similar to the KGB of the Soviet Union or the teachers of the Nazis to manipulate children into being racist assholes with a sense of bloodlust towards someone different. If a priest or nun tell you otherwise because of some "holy text", then they are outright liars that fleece their flock for power, money and dominance over their weak willed slaves.

End of recording.


Somewhere in Western Anima, High Noon, Before Team RWBY's Initiation...

In the forest west of Mistral, Qrow is doing an investigation job for some concern locals about a stampede of Grimm close to their village. No one has seen it but they can feel the ground tremble. He's in his corvid form as he flies above the treeline in order to find the claimed stampede. He has traveled far close to a few mountains covered in lush green and pretty flowers. However, he stopped when he sees something on the ground. Qrow drops down and changes into his human form. What he sees before him is a huge clearing that stretches for miles as if something gigantic came through and crushed all the trees that were in the way. He kneels down to the ground and noticed some extremely large tire tracks followed by smaller, normal size tire tracks. While examining the ground, he sense someone from behind.

"You can come out now." he says as he looks over his left shoulder.

Behind the trees are eight White Fang members along with Sienna Khan.

"You tracking the same stampede, human?" Sienna asks with a touch of anger.

"Not a stampede." Qrow stands up and looked at the White Fang. "Something else entirely. Whatever caused this, is big."

"A large Grimm?" one of the female White Fang members asked.

"No, some sort of vehicle." Qrow looks at the tracks and point them out. "Take a look."

Some of them are suspicious of Qrow at first, but they decide to take a closer look and see the giant tire tracks among the destroyed flora.

"Looks like you're right." Sienna says as she notices all the tire tracks. "Something big did come through and caused this devastation." She look back at Qrow and notices he is taking a sip from his flask. "Are you...drinking?"

"Had a hard life, so don't judge." Qrow put his flask away.

"Anyway, I think a temporary alliance should prove beneficial. But if this is the work of the Schnee Dust Company, stay out of it."

Qrow has his hands up to at chest level, "Hey, I'm just here to investigate all the rumbling. I don't like Jacques as much as you do." Then the ground starts to rumble. "See, that!"

Sienna orders her followers, "Everyone! Take cover!"

Everyone head back towards the trees as the rumbling gets more frequent and the sound of it gets louder. They see the source of the rumblings getting closer and they see a large vehicle that is 226 feet long, 130 feet wide and 91 feet tall with six large tires, covered in armor plating, and has a giant gun at the top. The vehicle follows the path that a previous vehicle made with ten tanks following behind that look similar to the Scorpion Tanks from Halo but given camo to match the area. Everyone notice some troops on top of the tanks riding on the armor on the treks as they appear sleek with matching camo and some of the helmets have different forms. Some look like they are made for animal snouts. Others look like they have horns, tusk, or something else sticking out. Once the coast is clear, everyone came out of hiding and are confuse on what is going on.

One of the male Faunus says in a southern accent, "What the hell was that? Who were those guys?"

"I don't know." Qrow responds while looking at the direction the convoy went. "Whoever they were, they definitely not with Atlas or the Schnee Dust Company. Plus judging by your guys' reaction, not with you either."

Sienna is behind Qrow as she says while looking in the same direction, "No. I never seen anything like that or any uniforms like those either. But they do mean business if they brought tanks."

"Now I'm curious." Qrow says with an interest in this new group. "Whoever they are, they seem to be heading towards an old Dust mine just a few miles from here." Then he says to Sienna, "You can follow me if you like. But just to let you know, my semblance is misfortune and I have no control over it. If you want to follow, best to keep it in a small group."

Sienna thinks about it for a bit and weigh her options. She turn to her followers, "Brothers and sisters of the White Fang! This human and I are gonna follow these tracks! The rest of you try to head towards the opposite direction to find out where they came from!"

"Are you sure?!" one of the male White Fang members asked. "You want to be alone with that...human?!"

"Just go!" Sienna orders in a harsh tone. Then the White Fang headed towards the opposite way where the convoy came from. Sienna looks at Qrow with mistrust, "Better hope you are right about your semblance. If I find out that you are lying and trying to kill me..." Sienna pulls her weapon out and threaten him, "You die."

Qrow just smiles, "Okay, I got it."

The two headed out to find out where the convoy is heading. They travel a few miles across trampled trees, flatten shrubbery and run over stones that have been pulverized. Not to mention that the heat is a bit unbearable and make their trip a little hard. After a long journey, they finally made it to one of the mountains as they noticed an abandoned, overgrown Schnee mining facility that has been reduced to a derelict. While there, they can see the vehicles they saw with more of them close to the entrance of the mine. Yet Sienna can hear something that hurts her tiger ears.

Sienna covers them with her hands and seems to be in pain, "What is that sound?"

Qrow looks at Sienna, "What sound?" Qrow listens carefully and hears something that sounds like terrible emo music. He covers his ears, "Okay, now I hear it."

Sienna suggests, "We should keep our distance and hide."

"Good idea."

The two hid somewhere in the trees with Qrow using his scroll to zoom in to see what is happening. Sienna tries to record with her own scroll, but it is hard when you have to cover your ears from horrible music. While recording, the troops near the entrance at the mine have their rifles aimed at it along with the barrels of their tanks. Behind them are a set of speakers taken from one of the transports that is playing the awful music. Another soldier, wearing red armor and is more bulky with a punk-style graffiti on the chest that is spelled 'PAIN', is carrying some sort of weapon or device that looks like a gattling gun yet the barrel is replaced by something that looks like a laser dish or something and aims while being in the center. A large amount of roaring and snarling can be heard at the entrance with glowing eyes glaring at the troops. The music is turned off and the Grimm started to attack.

As the Grimm try to attack, the tanks fire. However, they aren't firing normal explosive shells. The shells they're firing are blue and when they hit the ground, they produce a large, light blue blast that doesn't kill the Grimm, but freeze them in place as if they got hit by a stasis field. All the Beowolves, Beringels, Imps, Ravagers and King Taijitu are not particularly frozen, but moving at a very, very, very slow pace. The guy in the red armor then pulls the trigger. The weapon the guy is wielding started to charge-up with some sort of yellow energy before firing lightning that chained from one Grimm to another. Ninety-five percent of the Grimm have been reduced to ashes. As for the other five percent, something happened to them. What happened to these Grimm is that they have taken some sort of humanoid appearance with some animal traits to them...to some extent.

The ones that used to be Beowolves are human-like yet have some facial hair, long curving claws, rows of sharp teeth and pointed ears while having some sort of wolf-like visage. Surprisingly, there are women among them that have less pronounced facial features and much less facial hair than their male counterparts, but in exchange, have more fierce-looking facial visages. Others have thick brown fur over their heads and bodies, long canine ears, a dog snout, and razor-sharp teeth. Although part of the fur, there are imprint of hairline that are visible. Others have long, white mane around their face, glowing, bright blue eyes, a canine rhinarium that is dark brown to black in color, and large, black lips. Some of the Ravagers become human-like yet have leathery brown skin, bat-like features, sharp claws, webbed hands, and vicious rows of teeth. Beringels become human-like with ape-like faces and covered in hair. One King Raijitu also became human-like yet has greenish-gray scales and a slight boa-like pattern on them with sharp fangs showing as well as being male. And only three Imps look like humans comprised of jet black igneous rock. They have three digits on their hands and feet and are on fire with only two females.

Qrow lowers his scroll and goes, "What the hell?"

"What are those things?" Sienna asks and is just as confused as Qrow. She look at him, "Di-did they just turn the Grimm into some weird Faunus?"

The soldiers lower their weapons and check on the new people that used to be Grimm.

One shouted, "WE GOT SOME BLUTBADEN, INUGAMIS AND HUNDJAGERS!"

Another one shouted, "WE GOT A LAUSENSCHLANGE!"

Another shouted, "I GOT THREE EXCANDESCOES OVER HERE!"

Then another, "WE GOT MURCIELAGO AND WILDERMANNS! Or is it Wildermenn?"

Pain then says, "Looks like we got thirty-one more Wesen this time."

Sienna's ears twitch a little. "Wesen? What're Wesen?"

Qrow looks at Sienna, "Guessing they must be some new form of Faunus. But turning Grimm into people? Never heard of such a thing. If I haven't seen it..." Qrow is completely puzzled on what is going on. How is it possible for people to turn Grimm into some new race, or races?

Two soldiers help out one of the Blutbaden up and carry him to one of the giant transports. The Blutbad opens his eyes a little to reveal his glowing red eyes and is a bit in a daze.

"Wh-where...am I?" the male Blutbad asks.

The soldier to his left says, "Don't worry, pal. We'll get you to a safe place."

While the Wesen are taken to the transports, Pain aims his weapon at the entrance at the mine and fires. What happens is that the Dust veins are transforming and the crystal traces started to grow like crazy. The ground quakes as all sorts of crystals started to sprout out of the mountain and a huge chunk of them come bursting out in a flash. The huge crystal-like substance is blue, glowing, and is giving a huge amount of energy.

"Wait." says Pain who sounds like he has limited intelligence. "Not Energon."

Coming from the opposite direction, a Bullhead VTOL arrives at the scene and starts to land. Someone hopes out of it. This person seems to be a woman wearing a black long-sleeved, pleated top with gauntlet cuffs that flare in pleats at the wrist, a dark green corset with a black symbol of a skull with a lighting bolt on the front. The young lady's fingernails are painted dark green. Her hair is sticking straight upwards that looks like the Bride of Frankenstein yet the white streaks are colored green. She wears black leggings that has her symbol on both legs while covered by a frilly dark green and black gothic lolita short skirt and black goth boots with seven belts on each side. She wears a black leather belt that seems to hold some collapsible device with a tesla coil at the end and a small satchel. She has stitches on her lower cheeks close to her chin along with one stitching over her right hand that is in a form of a spiral, another on her left in the shape of a cross and one around her neck. All fakes. On her neck look like some nuts and bolts are stabbed in but are fakes like the stitches. This woman in her early twenties has a dark green left eye and a light green right eye.

"What's the hold up!?" she asks in a German accent. She approaches Pain, "The facility should've been scrapped hours ago and the new resources harvested!"

Pain responds, "Sorry. Weapon not work. Better now. Turn Grimm to Wesen. Yet crystal strange. Not Energon."

The woman sighs as she pulls out some sort of device that looks similar to a scroll yet a little bit thicker. However, she approach the crystal and scan it. Once the scan is done, she looks at the results. "Hmm?" After checking the readings, she turned to the troops, "This isn't Energon, its Elex!" She starts to sound excited, "Something that is even more amazing than Energon!" But then looks serious, "However! We have a situation. It appears that the White Fang are spying on us. Find them!"

Some of the soldiers take off their helmets to reveal that they are Blutbaden and Hundjagers. They take a whiff with their noses in their air to find any scent that doesn't smell right.

"I think that's our cue to leave." Qrow says as he put his scroll away.

"For that I agree." Sienna put her scroll away as they both jump down from the tree.

Some of the soldiers got a scent and howl. They put their helmets back on and headed straight towards the direction where Sienna and Qrow are at. But when the two were about to leave, they are ambushed by more troops armed with their rifles that look like M4A1 assault rifles. Just like Earth's counterpart, they do fire bullets full of gunpowder.

"Oh shit." Qrow says.

Sienna pulls out her Cerberus Whip and whip them with ice Dust that froze them before one managed to fire two shots and miss. Qrow springs into action with his Harbinger and knockout them both out. Five more fire bullets at the two yet Sienna manages to use her weapon to destroy the rifles and some of their armor. Qrow used Harbinger in sword mode to knock them away. More soldiers start to show-up and continue to fire their guns. Sienna and Qrow moved swiftly and dodge all the bullets fired at them. Qrow then fires a few shots at the soldiers. Yet the Wesen have Auras, too.

One soldier with lieutenant stripes orders, "Initiate personal shields!"

Sienna tries to use ice Dust again as she whips one of the soldiers while up a tree. However, unlike last time, the soldier didn't freeze.

"What?!" Sienna says in surprise.

The lieutenant laughs among all the gunfire, "Nice try! But our shields are a combination of anti-Dust energy shields and kinetic barriers!"

Qrow fires a few shots but they got deflected. "That ain't good." Qrow takes cover behind a boulder.

Sienna jumps down and joins him, "Guess we have to fight them the old fashion way!" She dashes out and tries disarming all he troops with her whip. By that, I mean using fire Dust to melt the barrels. Rendering them useless.

Qrow springs into action by jumping over the boulder and proceeds to power slide to knockdown some troops in a row. But the shield even prevents that.

The soldier he tries to knock down aims at him, "Nighty-night, Qrow!" then pulls the trigger. However, it didn't fire. The troop looks at his gun and noticed it is jammed.

Then Qrow tries punching him in the nuts. Yet that doesn't work as he just harmed himself. "OW! Son of a bitch!" His right fist aches and glows bright red as he nurses it.

Sienna wraps her whip around the right leg of the soldier and cause him to trip. She drops next to Qrow and says, "Just grab their legs and trip them!" then jumps back into the action. "Honestly, how pathetic."

Qrow tries running up to one of the soldiers has he deflects the bullets. Then he power slides between the guys legs and grabs him which causes him to trip. "Guess old fashion martial arts should work to an extent!"

Both of them try their best to destroy their weapons and knockout as many of the mysterious soldiers as they can despite the odds. It is difficult, but some progress has been made. For three minutes, they fought against the troops while under a hail of bullets with a few grazes to them. They continue to fight until as many of the soldiers are knocked down.

"Where the hell are they!?" Sienna says while fighting. She is wondering where the hell are her followers. The White Fang she brought should've ringed by now. Something must be very wrong yet they managed to stop all the regular troops.

"Oh." the woman says as she has her weapon out and approaches along with Pain. "You must mean the White Fang troublemakers that you sent to find the origin of where we came from." She smiles deviously, "I'm afraid they won't come to your rescue."

Pain tosses something, or someone, onto the ground. It is a female member of the White Fang. Dead.

"You bitch!" Sienna is about ready to loose her cool and wants to kill her.

"Hold on." the woman says as she kneels close to the corpse. She presses her right index finger onto the White Fang's nose as she says, "Boop." with some green static electricity being sparked upon contact.

The corpse started to shake like crazy with the eye holes of the mask glowing bright green. The corpse then start to moan and groan as it started to move on its own, to get up on its own, and stands on its own. The woman then snaps her fingers as the VTOL is hovering between the two sides with its door opening to reveal more zombie-like White Fang as they stumble off onto the ground. Sienna watches in shock and horror to see her former followers now turned into undead monsters. Qrow is also disturbed by what he sees the undead getting back on their feet with the VTOL heading back to the site.

Sienna, in all her rage screams, "YOU FUCKING BITCH!" In her fury, she uses Cerberus Whip with fire Dust to incinerate her fallen compatriots that have become undead soldiers. She got them all in one attack and destroy the bodies.

Qrow finally snaps out of it and aim his Harbinger in gun-form at the woman and Pain.

The woman claps her hands, "So you destroyed your fallen with no hesitation. Very good." She acts all smug while patronizing Sienna. The woman then grabs her weapon and it is extended to look like some sort of shock baton with a tesla coil on it.

Qrow fire a few shots but got deflected before the shock baton turns into a whip as she uses it to yank Qrow's harbinger. Sienna uses her whip to yank it back until it turned into a tug of war. Pain charges at Qrow to attack, but Qrow dodges by jumping out of the way while Pain's punch left a huge hole in the ground. The woman and Sienna are still tugging over Harbinger until the woman presses the button of her weapon to send electricity through Harbinger, through Cerberus Whip, and shock Sienna. While stun, the woman punches Sienna and sends her flying to a tree.

Pain jumps while screaming, "FAUNUS PILE!" and lands on Sienna. Nearly crushing the tiger Faunus with his weight.

The woman wraps Qrow with both her whip and Sienna's to tie him up. "Now then." she says to Qrow, "You have a choice: Surrender and live another day, or be one of my undead puppets. If you choose one, you might learn something. What will you choose?"

The soldiers are getting back-up and want to beat-up both Qrow and Sienna as payback as the odds are looking grim for them. For that, Qrow only has one choice to make.

"I give." Qrow smiles and shrugs. "You got me."


Atlas, Two Hours Later...

Over in Atlas, Jacques Schnee is riding in his limo and is completely nervous and has bags under his eyes. The reasons being is because of the wanted poster about him, the fact that he had an illegitimate child, the questionable practices being conducted, sabotages to his competition, unfair pay to Faunus workforce and many other things that are causing him to loose his mind. Not to mention drinking more heavily to not just loosing his reputation, but also the money being lost from riots that are keeping the majority of the Dust for themselves to support their own kingdoms. Even worse, his best scientist, engineers and other bright minds have disappeared. It's not just the company's, it is the entire Kingdom of Atlas. Not just eggheads. Lawyers, judges, artists, doctors, bankers, anyone. Even members of the Atlas Military are disappearing. Anyone with a bright mind has disappeared from the kingdom with their families. Some even left behind some sort of message with one common theme: 'Who is John Gulch?' Others are more like: 'YOU CAN HAVE IT THE WAY I FOUND IT! TAKE IT! IT'S YOURS!' or 'I'M DONE DANCING TO ATLAS' TUNE! THE KINGDOM CAN GO TO HELL!' or 'I AM ON STRIKE!' with many of the places either bombed, burned or just completely left to rot.

While in the back and scared for his life, he thought to himself, 'How? How did this all happened?' He drinks from his glass full of whiskey. 'That child and his mother should be dead! How did he survived!? Is HE responsible for all of this? Is he the reason?!'

The limo immediately stopped and caused Jacques to spill his drink.

"WATCH WHAT YOU'RE DRIVING!" Jacques angrily shout at his driver.

The driver says, "We have a bit of a problem."

Jacques look at what is blocking the road and sees a huge collection of news vans, reporters and journalists in the way. Jacques gets extremely nervous as the car is surrounded.

One of the reporters asks behind the limo's window, "JACQUES SCHNEE! IS IT TRUE THAT YOU HAVE A FORTH CHILD!?"

A female reporter asks, "IS IT TRUE THAT YOU GIVE FAUNUS LESS PAY THAN HUMAN WORKERS?! AND IS IT TRUE THAT MANY WORKERS HAVE RIOTED AND STARTED RUNNING THEIR OWN DUST BUSINESSES!?"

A journalist holding a wanted poster of Adam Taurus, both masked and unmasked, against the window, "CARE TO EXPLAIN THIS?! CARE TO EXPLAIN WHY A MEMBER OF THE WHITE FANG HAS HIS FACE BRANDED WITH THE SDC LOGO!?"

Another asks, "DO YOU HAVE ANY CRIMINAL CONNECTIONS?!"

"DO YOU KNOW WHO JOHN GULCH IS?!"

"WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS ON THE DUST SHORTAGE?!"

"ARE YOU PLANNING TO CANCEL YOUR CAMPAIGN FOR THE SEAT OF THE COUNCIL?!"

"WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON DAISY TAGGART?! DO YOU FEEL THREATEN BY HER CHARITIES?!"

"ARE YOU ALSO IN LEAGUE WITH ROBYN HILL'S RAID ON SUPPLIES FOR SETTLEMENTS OUTSIDE THE CITIES?!"

"IS IT TRUE YOUR SECOND DAUGHTER IS ATTENDING BEACON?!"

Jacques starts to get frustrated and panics with all these news groups that want answers to the point that he angrily screams. He lashes out at the reporters, " SHUUT UP! ALL OF YOU JACKALS, LEAVE ME ALONE!" Bad move on his part. He just made everything worse.


Voice Recording of Andrew Raiden

I am Andrew Raiden. Tell me, is a person entitled to the sweat of their brows. "No!" says the people of Atlas Kingdom, "It belongs to the military and to the corrupted rich in the high city." "No!" says the people of Vacuo Kingdom, "It belongs to the strongest among us all." "No!" says the people of Vale Kingdom, "It belongs to all." "No!" says people the Mistral Kingdom, "It belongs to the underworld and the spoiled rich." "No!" says the White Fang, "It belongs to all Faunus and Faunus only." "No!" says the communists, "It belongs to everyone." "No!" says the fascist, "It belongs to the racial elite." "No!" says all the religions of the world, "It belongs to the gods." "No!" says Jacques Schnee of the Schnee Dust Company, "It belongs to me!" "No!" says the Grimm, "It needs to be destroyed."

I rejected all of these answers. Instead, I chose something different. A place where everyone is entitled to the sweat of their brows and be free from all of these things. A place where they can compete, go from rags to riches, find a way to benefit each other and be free to express themselves. I chose, Enlighten Valley! A large valley where the artist are free to express themselves and not fear being censored. Where the scientist would not be bound by the the philosophies of the world, the will of the people or state, or being forced to follow someone else's morals and practices. Where anyone, no matter their race, gender, profession or class; can rise. A place where anyone is free from the Grimm, the iron grip of the Atlesian Military or any immoral practices. As long as you stay true to yourself, use your own strength and brain, be responsible for yourself, and follow your own morals; Enlighten Valley can be your home as well as long as you take the oath at the Gulch Forest. But this isn't the only place you get to live and won't be the last. Yet you are free to choose.


AN: Hey! Hope you guys enjoy the chapter. It maybe early, but I was lucky to get some shit done. Now for one question that is in the reviews.

Guest01: Erica is one of the personas of the leader. Erica is the female version of Eric. Eric can manipulate his body to take on different appearances to hide his true form. (But that's not his real semblance. Just an application of it.) Plus the names are based on different characters yet given color names due to color name rule of RWBY. Such as John Gulch who is based on the anti-villain, John Galt from Atlas Shrugged. Gulch means a narrow steppe ravine which usually comes in a variety of colors such as the color of rocks, trees, rivers, and other such things. Nya Dran refers to the author of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. Nya is short for Nyaneng which is an African name used in Australia mean ocean which is blue or blue-green while Dran has some meaning, but I prefer it being a slang word meaning "drawn" which means art which means a lot of colors. Andrew Raiden is based-off of Andrew Ryan from BioShock and Raiden is a lighting and thunder god in Japan which refers to blue and white, the color of natural lighting. Hank Steelden is a character based-off of Hank Rearden, who is also from Atlas Shrugged who made a new alloy that is used to make new railways and trains and we all know what color steel is. He has many other faces but that's for later.