Chapter 9

The attack came fast, team RWBY had failed to even discover the train bourn bomb but once it detonated beacon mobilized quickly. Not as quickly as Junior though. He found that the attacks were surrounding a large number of known white fang hotspots but there was one that was oddly quiet. The rest had fang soldiers coming out of the woodwork to help stop the grimm before the hunters could arrive.

That would earn them some favor from the locals and would set Ironwood on edge. That is it would until Junor made his move. The one spot that was oddly quiet was most likely where everything was being run out of.

Doing a final press check on his pistol Junior headed out making sure not to be too obvious about himself in spite of the chaos it was still a good idea to avoid drawing attention. On his way there he saw that Jaune Arc was leading his team in the city square.

Junior took note of the boy's blatant skills under pressure on display with the way that he was giving orders during the battle. That noted he moved on. The hotspot looked deserted, that was bad. When he took a moment to look further he found several sentries that had been killed. Most had been stabbed but a few had been slashed and some had clearly broken necks.

Worried that he wasn't the only person here for intel Junior thought to screw the superssor onto his pistol. He hoped that he didn't need to use it. If he did then he had already failed but if that happened then he wanted to be ready to kill fast and quiet.

He moved inward slowly and deliberately. He soon found himself on the roof looking down through and open window. That was where he saw the perpetrator of the sentires' demise. She was covered in a helmet and armor but a head of short hair was visible. He had a boy with silver hair pinned under her.

She was recording the planning room and once he pulled out his scroll he was too. He made a fact of not actually listening to the conversation in the room as he needed to keep his focus on the woman. She had who Junior had now confirmed was Mercury Black pinned by a hammerlock and with a knife to his throat he wasn't going to be making much noise.

When she moved he hid from her and thankfully she didn't try to leave the way she came in. in less than an instant Mercury was up and after her, he failed to alert the other most likely to save his pride. Not that it mattered here was a golden chance for Junior to take a prisoner and that was what he was gonna do.

Following them was easy enough. They were playing cat and mouse in the back alleys of Vale but they didn't know this city like him and they also failed to look up. That being said catching the son of Marcus Black unaware without alerting the third party was no mean feat.

A feat that he accomplished when the woman made an attempt to escape. She was going up and Junior saw the route that Mercury was going to take to follow her. He got ahead of the boy and waited on the roof for him.

Just as Mercury cleared the roof Junior pounced. He dove forward tackling the young man through the window one story down on the other side of the alley. They crashed to the floor but Mercury had a much larger man land on him so he had the wind knocked out of him.

While he was still trying to get back to his feet Mercury was cracked with a savage elbow that knocked him into unconsciousness. Throwing the body over his shoulder Junior made sure to travel only using alleyways back to his safehouse.

When Mercury woke up he was tied to a chair and his legs weren't working. "Good morning, you and I need to talk."

When he looked at the speaker he saw a large man with a Balaclava on. Before Mercury could respond he was hit with a spearing left body hook. To say that getting punched in the liver was painful would not be untrue but it would be an understatement.

Had he not been tied to the chair Mercury would have fallen onto the ground writhing in pain. Now he was writhing in pain while tied to a chair. Not a big difference if he were being honest but he still would rather be able to go fetal and protect his liver from further damage.

"Name's, I want them. Who is running this show?" the man asked. Mercury was about to say something when the man hit him with a second body hook this time on the left side of Mercury's body.

It was less painful but still unpleasant. "You took too long, who's in charge?"

Knowing that he was going to break eventually and honestly if this man wanted to go after Cinder he was welcome to her. Mercury had heard of people like her and the sooner he was away from her the better. "Cinder Fall, about five foot seven barefoot maybe a hundred pounds and painfully hot."

His interrogator nodded before he asked. "What's the plan, you have to know it?" Mercury thought about lying but then he remembered how much his liver hurt so he chose to not do so. "We are gonna sabotage the Vytal festival." the more that Mercury thought about it the more he wondered if he was going to be alive in the next few minutes.

"Sooo you're gonna let me go now right?" He asked, his hopes weren't that high but he still had to try.

"Yes actually" wasn't an answer that he was expecting. "But you aren't going to be telling anyone about our chat. If you do I will be paying Ms. Sustari a rather unpleasant

Visit"

Mercury heard Emerald's name and froze, an unnerving chill ran down his spine. He wasn't sure why but the thought of this man doing this to Emerald filled him with an unholy rage and fear.

Seeing the look on his face change the man said "Struck a nerve have I, well that's good to know" he cut the ropes holding Mercury in place and explained. "Your legs will reactivate in about ten minutes. Once that happens return back to your boss and tell her that you ran the intruder off."

With that he walked out of the room and headed back for his safehouse. Once he was inside he used his scroll to call Jaques. "I know when they are planning to attack but I doubt it will plan to hit the Vytal festival. I think they will have to move up their time table after tonight. They don't know that I was involved but they know that they were infiltrated. I think it was one of Ozpin's people, a woman in her late thirties, light build. Not a lot I can say beyond that." his message given he was about to sign off when he said. "When this war leaves Vale I am out, and I want to take two people with me." Jaques' intrigued look told him he needed to go further. "Mercury Black and Emerald Sustari." Jaques nodded in approval before he ended the call.

Junior sat down on the end of his bed and almost called his daughters. He was worried about them, they would be fine of course but that had no bearing on whether or not he worried about them. It wasn't easy but he closed his scroll and went to bed.

It was time for his little girls to live without their father standing behind them watching their backs. He knew it, they knew it, but that did little to lessen the sting of what he was getting ready to do.

He was going to have to leave them for a lot longer than he was first thinking.

…

Team JNPR was having lunch with team SNOW and it wasn't lost on anyone that Jaune and Pyrrha were holding hands. They were still missing team RWBY when their seats were taken by a team of four boys, the apparent leader of which was now doing his level best to flirt with Noami who seemed to want no part of him.

Or at least she was trying to tell him that. Her team noted that she was also turning to face him more. This combined with the way she had shifted her voice to a slightly high pitch queued them in to the fact that she was trying to make him work for it.

It also made Oliva roll her eyes in frustration. "Stop playing hard to get or he'll just give up!" she groaned causing the leader of the other team to light up with enthusiasm and Naomi to start glaring at her partner.

"So uhm there's the big vytal festival coming up, are you gonna be fighting in that?" he asked. Before anyone could answer there was a loud siren that was recognized as the call to arms. There was a major Grimm attack inside of Beacon's perimeter so the students were being mobilized.

The odds of a first year team being sent into high risk zones were low but they were still required to get involved in the battle wherever they could. This was a simple matter for most but in cases of Jaune and Pyrrha there were a few more steps.

Jaune needed to get his armor fitted and while Pyrrha didn't have as much armor to wear she did still need to put it on. The rest of them could fight in their uniforms. So as Jaune and Pyrrha ran for the armory everyone else went for the bullhead bay.

Their lockers were launched and waiting for them with their birds which made deployment that much faster. The team of boys headed out immediately with team SNOW but Ren and Nora waited for their team leader.

It wasn't a long wait and they made up for their late entry by jumping from their Bullhead in order to make a faster arrival. Along with making an amazing entrance they also arrived before team SNOW.

They got to work with Jaune giving orders and the rest of his team obeying. It doesn't take long for them to contain the city square. Team SNOW arrived soon after and got to work cleaning up the Grimm inside the city square.

Once that had begun Jaune got word that team CFVY was taking care of the six block radius to their west. With that in mind Jaune used his new armor's comms system to be patched into Coco's bluetooth.

"Hello, I'm kinda busy, what do you need, kid?" her question was muffled slightly by the sound of gunfire from her minigun but she was still intelligible.

" I have a small cluster of Grimm to your east. Mind if we drive them into your area on our way to assist with your objective?" he hoped that his request was going to be well received. This was his first time interacting with the second year team but he knew that if Coco Adele didn't like you then life at Beacon could get challenging.

"Go for it pretty boy, I'll meet you at the corner of 5th street and 19th ave. just make sure that all of your people are off the street." the response was just as drowned as the first but thankfully it was just as understandable.

Switching back to group comms he began giving orders and hoping that Shiro didn't mind too much. ""Shiro I need you at the north east corner of the square, Willow, south east. We need to push the Grimm to my position. Nora, you and Ren need to get onto the roof of the dinner and hide. Ren I need you to conceal Nora from the Grimm. Everyone else keep going but push the grimm to me."

He heard a few affirmative responses from his team and after a few seconds Shiro shot back. "Alright, I'm trusting you on this. You heard the man let's do this."

Shrio began to use his sword to send out arcs of fire dust to back up the Grimm while Willow used her semblance to project her blade out several more feet achieving the same thing. Looking Shiro saw that Jaune was standing next to the building that Nora had just carried Ren onto. Once the Grimm had moved in Jaune's direction the Arc warrior took off his helmet and … roared. Or at least that was what it sounded like he did. He would need to ask about that later but for now it had worked. The Grimm seemed personally offended or at least as personally offended as the embodiment of malice can a the notion that they were being challenged. This led them to all charge Jaune and when he ran down the street they followed.

Just as the last grimm had made its way into the street Jaune put on his helmet and said. "Nora nothing gets past you,"

Shiro heard a sound that was most likely Nora laughing at the fact that she was being given permission to use her grenade launcher with reckless abandon followed by the sound of her using her grenade launcher with reckless abandon.

…

Coco was waiting for Jaune to bring her the Grimm when she saw him running at her down the street being followed by almost fifty Grimm. She also saw one of his teammates on the roof of a nearby building with what seemed to be a rotary grenade launcher. She was still trying to fully catch the plan while spooling up her minigun when she realized that the building across the street from the girl with the grenade launcher had just been blown up and crumbled blocking the street.

Jaune had also dropped prone and that opened up a clean shot for Coco who shredded the grimm in record time. Once Jaune stood up he looked around and tried not to seem surprised that his plan worked.

"Good work kid," She offered. "We cleaned up our area and from the sounds of the group comms the battle is over. Let's head back first rounds on me."