We see the general staring out into the distance when suddenly, Goodwitch walked up to him. "Trouble sleeping?" She asked.
"Arm was acting up." He explained, looking over his shoulder and grabbing his left arm slightly (we're gonna need some clarifcation on this in the future. Does he have a metal arm or something? I NEED TO KNOW!)
"Of course. So logically, you got out of bed, dressed yourself completely and decided to stare menacingly into the distance." She said, calling his bluff. "What's wrong?" She asked.
"I've trusted him for years. We both have. It's just... I can't help but feel like he's keeping us in the dark."
"Don't be ridiculous. You know very well that WE are not the ones in the dark."
"Which makes it worse. I refuse to believe that a man I've trusted for so long would act so... passively."
She put a hand on his shoulder at this. "You're a good person, James. You've always done what you think is best for the people. Even against strong protest. It's admirable. But it's high-time you stop talking about trust and started showing it." She said, taking her hand off his shoulder and looking at the distance again. "Ozpin has experience that the rest of us lack. And I think that's something worth remembering." She said.
Back to us...
"Why include that scene? It had nothing to do with us." Draco said.
"Meh. It's still part of the episode." I said, shrugging.
We now see a large beowulf walking through the ruined city, before seeing it through a scope: a big circle with two lines forming an X, the middle being where the bullet would go as Ruby took aim at it with her sniper rifle (I always wondered what the scope/crosshairs of Ruby's gun looked like). It looked up and appeared to have seen her, but ignored her and began to walk away, leaving her sighing in boredom. We look to see the rest of team RWBY apparently sleeping around the fire, my team asleep close to them, Oobleck asleep in the rafters above and Kinshiro and I awake and talking about the shipment. "How could they possibly have stolen the Dragon? All the cargo is ALWAYS watched over directly by one of our siblings or cousins." I said.
"The one time we gave the job to someone else. We should've known it was a bad idea. Still, we gave the task to Riot Shield Man and Knife Man-Guy." Kinshiro replied.
"MY GODS. What kind of monster are we dealing with that could defeat Riot Shield Man and Knife Man-Guy!" I said in shock and disbelief.
"Once we find that base, we're sure as hell gonna find out." He replied.
"You got that right." I said.
Meanwhile, we look at the 3 off-duty members of the all-female team, Yang suddenly opening her eyes. "Blake, are you awake?" She asked.
"Yeah." The cat faunus replied.
"Why do you think he asked us about being huntresses? Like, what was he trying to say?" She asked.
"Maybe he was just curious." The other girl replied.
"You think?" Yang asked, rolling over to face her.
There was a short pause before the dark-haired girl answered. "No."
Yang then turned back to look at the heiress. "Weiss? Are you awake?" She asked.
"Of course I'm awake! You two were talking!" The white-haired girl snapped, to which Yang cringed. "And I think he... When I said I wanted to honor my family's name? I meant it, but it's not what you think. I'm not stupid. I'm fully aware of what my father has done with the Schnee Dust Company. Since he took control, our business has operated in a... moral grey area." She said.
"NO shit." Kinshiro and I said at once.
"That's putting it lightly." Blake said.
Weiss sat directly up at this. "Which is WHY I feel the need to make things right. If I had taken a job in Atlas, it wouldn't have changed anything. My father was not the start of our name and I REFUSE to let him be the end of it." She said, laying back down.
"Yeah, that's the problem when you're family's only greatly known over 2 generations: one could be great and the next could fuck up everything. That's why, after our family's been well known for 19 generations before us, our credit is good." I said.
"And with the last 4 generations making BladeCorp the powerhouse it is today, it's gotten even better." Kinshiro threw in.
Blake spoke up next. "All my life, I fought for what I thought was right. I had a partner named Adam. More of a mentor, really. He always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place. But of course, his idea of a perfect future turned our to be... not perfect for everyone. I joined the academy because I knew that Huntsman and Huntresses were regarded as the most noble warriors in the world. Always fighting for good. But I never really thought past that." She said.
"Well, it is a good start." Nicolas said supportively.
"But when I leave the academy, how can I... How can I undo so many years of hate?" She asked.
"I don't know, but I'll be there to help you every step of the way." Nicolas said.
"We all will." I said supportively.
"You'll figure it out. You're not one to back away from a challenge, Blake." Yang said in a friendly tone.
"But I am! I do it all the time! When you learned I was a faunus, I didn't know what to do, so I ran! When I realized my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my semblance! I was born with the ability to leave behind a shadow of myself. An empty copy that takes the hit while I run away." She said.
"You ever heard of Double Team or the Shadow Clone Jutsu? You're not the only one that does it and, compared to those two, yours is pretty lax." I said.
"Right? Double team makes AT LEAST a dozen clones." Draco agreed.
"And I think the MINIMUM of clones Naruto normally throws out is 3." Damion added.
"So, yeah, compared to you, those techniques make people the biggest cowards." Nicolas said, putting a hand on her arm.
She still remained silent at this. The silence continued for a couple more seconds before Yang spoke up. "At least you all have something that drives you. I've just kind of always gone with the flow, you know? And that's fine, I mean, that's who I am! But how long can I really do that for? I wanna be a huntress, not really because I wanna be a hero, but because I want the adventure. I want a life where I don't know what tomorrow will bring. And that'll be a good thing. Being a huntress just happens to line up with that." She said.
"That's still far from the worst reason someone could have to do this. Everyone always wants and needs a little uncertainty in their lives. This is the best way to get that." Damion said (man, this is REALLY deep for me, since a lot of changes are going on in my life now).
"I'm not like Ruby. She's always wanted to be a huntress. It's like she said, ever since she was a kid, she dreamed of being being the heroes in the books. Helping people and saving the day. And never asking for anything else in return. Even when she couldn't fight, she KNEW that's what she wanted to do." Yang said.
"That's kind of like us, only we don't really NEED to ask for anything else." I said.
"That's why she trained SO HARD to get where she is today." Yang continued.
"Well, she's still just a kid." Weiss said.
"You got 2 years on her, so don't be talking like you're so much more grown than her. You're the same height and the same build as her." I said.
"Exactly. We're all kids." Blake agreed.
"But some of us have been through experiences that ruined any sense of us EVER being kids." Damion said.
"And look where we are now. In the middle of a war zone and armed to the teeth?" Yang added.
"It's the life we chose." Blake said.
"It's a JOB." Weiss retorted. "We all had this romanticized vision of being huntresses and huntmen in our heads, but at the end of the day, it's a JOB to protect the people. And whatever we want will HAVE to come second." She said, Oobleck smiling up in the rafters.
"That's why you need to just enjoy it, do whatever you can to make the job fun, keep it exciting, make sure the adrenaline stays flowing. It's the best way to make it in this line of work." Kinshiro said simply.
"Pretty wise words for a guy missing a good portion of his face." Damion said in a considerate tone.
"I like to think I have my moments. That's how me and Sai are. We're the more relaxed members of our clan, but when we need to be, we're as serious as death." Kinshiro replied, to which I nodded.
Later that night...
Ruby was asleep as Yang took over the watch, Zwei waking up beside her and walking off. She yawned and woke up, looking back at the Corgi. "Zwei, it's late. Go back to bed." She said, laying her head down, but the dog took off. "Zwei! Zwei!" She called after him as he ran out of the building. She groaned and grabbed her weapon, taking off after her pet. She peeked around a corner, looking around for the dog. "Zwei? Zwei, where are you?! ZWEI!" She called in a whisper, looking around and seeing him peeing on the support beam of a destroyed building. "Huh? Zwei, this is a wasteland. You literally could've done that anywhere!" She said, walking up as the Corgi returned to her. He barked a couple times as she picked him up. But suddenly...
"What was that?" A voice rang out, Ruby hiding behind a corner. She peeked out to see two White Fang members around the corner.
"What was WHAT?" The other member asked angrily.
"I thought I heard a beowulf or something." The first one said, looking around.
The other one simply grumbled at this. "Let's just finish our patrol and get back to base. This place gives me the creeps." He said as they walked off.
Ruby quickly followed them, traversing between hiding spots while she continued to tail them. Eventually, they rounded a corner. She started to until she stopped, realizing there was no more cover, flailing around after she started to drop her weapon and quickly getting back behind the corner, she held Zwei out just enough for the Corgi's head to poke out. "Did they go in yet? One bark means yes." She whispered. We hear the sound of a door opening and closing, at which point the dog barked. "Oh, this is it! This is it!" She said excitedly, grabbing her scroll and trying to call both teams, but unfortunately, the signal was too low. "Oh, man! Come on, we've gotta get the others!" She said, walking off, Zwei following closely behind. Unfortunately, they stepped on a weak patch of ground and it caved it, causing Ruby to lose Crescent Rose a couple feet away and grab onto the ledge with one hand, grabbing Zwei as he fell down the pit with the other. She threw him back over the ledge and began to pull herself back up, but the ledge also gave way and she fell. Zwei barked a couple times and whines a bit when he got no response.
Back with us...
As she slept beside me, Kira's ear twitched and she lifted herself up, looking around. Seeing Ruby was nowhere to be seen, she let out a roar, waking up everyone, who noticed the same thing. "Ruby's gone! So is Zwei!" Yang said.
"We have to find them." I said. Kira let out another small roar and quickly took off out the door. "Come on, she wants us to follow her." I said, taking off after my massive feline.
"Everyone, gear up. Grab your guns and other assorted weapons." Kinshiro said, on his feet in an instant.
"Excellent idea. Your leader and fellow student may be in danger." Oobleck agreed.
Back with Ruby...
She fell and landed hard on her back, clearly inside the hideout. She got up and looked around, seeing an entire fully built city system. Suddenly a door opened and two White Fang members came out. "Freeze!" One said. "You're a long way from home, little girl." He said as they both walked up to her. She took a couple steps back, but found she was on the edge of a ledge. She reached back for Crescent Rose, but found it wasn't there. The first one came up and grabbed her left arm. "Hey, hands off!" She said, pulling her arm back. She punched him in the stomach, but her clearly didn't feel a thing, punching her in the face and knocking her down (what a dick! He punched a little girl! And wow, strength is going right out the window in Ruby's Character Breakdown).
As she started to fade out of consciousness, the two discussed what to do with her." The boss is gonna wanna see this one." One of them said as the first one stomped on her head, knocking her out (that motherfucker's gonna die!).
They dragged her off somewhere as she regained consciousness and looked around, seeing giant containers of dust and a large number of Paladins as she was dragged along. "Hey, be careful!" Another member called, Ruby looking over to see two members having been carrying a large bomb, but one had dropped his end.
They reached their destination apparently, as they suddenly stopped. "Hey, boss! We found something you might want to see!" The one on Ruby's left called.
"Is it good or bad, Perry? Because let me tell ya, I have had a day." We hear Torchwick's voice as he is inside another train car.
"Uh... It's a little girl?" Perry replied almost as if it were a question.
Torchwick then came about halfway out of the train car, looking as, although he couldn't see Ruby's face, after their handful of encounters, she was fairly recognizable to him. "That would be bad." He said, tapping the ash off the end of his cigar.
Back with us...
Zwei and Kira leading the way, we found... "Ruby's scythe!" Yang said as we walked up to the hole in the ground.
"Oh, no." Blake said.
"Yeah, that's definitely not great." I said as I picked up the scythe, putting it away in my coat pocket so I could HOPEFULLY return it to her later on.
"Do you think she fell?" Weiss asked, walking to the edge of the hole (pause?).
"Fell?!" Oobleck said as he zoomed up beside her.
"Down there." Weiss said, looking down the hole (THAT'S a pause).
Kinshiro stepped up, his robotic eye turning from red to green as he engulfed the eye's area of vision with a green light similar to night vision. "There's an entire underground system down there." He said.
"I think I said that a couple paragraphs ago." I said.
"Oh, my. Of course. Of course, OF COURSE, OF COURSE!" Oobleck shouted, clearly on about something.
"Of course!" Bison said as I played a clip from the Street Fighter movie.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"How could I be so stupid!?" Oobleck pacing back and forth.
"With all due respect professor, you're acting MORE stupid by not telling us what you're rambling about." Damion said.
"Yeah, let's just calm down, have a cup of tea- NOT coffee- and let's talk about this." Draco said.
"Or just spit it out to save a lot of time." Nicolas agreed.
"Professor Oobleck, what's wrong!?" Yang asked.
He was in her face in a second. "Mountain Glen! Yes!" He continued, talking too fast for me to keep track of, so I pulled out a remote to rewind the speech and slow it down to half speed. "An expansion of Vale that was inevitably destroyed by creatures of Grimm." He said, then swapped to getting in Blake's face. "Previously home to THOUSANDS of people!" He explained, counting with his fingers for a second, getting back in Yang's face. "Working people commuting to the city, the main city." He explained, going back to Blake. "Developed a subway system to the inner city!" He said, going to Weiss. "Grimm's attacks increased!Population in danger, now desperately searching for shelter!" He went on, making a small bar graph of Grimm attacks with his hands, zooming back in front of Blake... Wow, I paused at a weird moment, the placement of Oobleck's hands make it look his he's about to grope Blake. *shudders* Ugh! Luckily he moved his hands outward. "City evacuates into Metro tunnels and what do they find?!" He asked, turning away from us with his arms out, turning around, getting in Zwei's face and putting a finger up to the dog's nose. "The Southeast quadrant of Vale is known for wild wars and deep caves!" He explained.
"You just explained the most important part to A DOG." Team BDSS and our Huntsman said at the same time.
"And we still don't know what you're saying!" Yang said.
He was now in her face again with his hands on her shoulders. "My dear, we're not just looking for an underground crime network! We're looking for an UNDERGROUND crime network!" He finally explained, zooming back in front of us.
"They're working in caves?!" Blake asked.
"No, no, Mountain Glen was Vale's first serious attempt at expansion! It worked for a short period of time, they start an aggressive perimeter defense, a unique transportation! The city developed an elaborate subway systems to carry citizens safely from the new territory into the main kingdom! Sadly without the many natural barriers Vale had to protect its borders, Mountain Glen was doomed from the start!" He explained.
"I think my information intake is about to explode." Kinshiro said, holding his head.
"So much to take in in about 10 seconds." I said, looking like I was knocked out in Mortal Kombat and about to be hit with a fatality.
"Calgon, take me away." Draco agreed.
"As the end drew near, citizens of the territory made one last attempt at survival and took up shelter beneath the city in massive caves they had cleared out for the subway and they had cut themselves off from the surface." He said and as my team struggled not to pass out from brain overloads, Yang summed everything up in a single second.
"An underground village?!" She asked in disbelief.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. A safe haven. Until... An explosion opened the mouth of another cavern, filled with subterranean Grimm. After that, the kingdom officially sealed off the tunnels, creating the world's largest tomb." He finished sadly as Weiss and Blake looked into the massive hole (pause).
Meanwhile, Draco was the only remaining member of my team still conscious, the rest of us passed out from taking in so much knowledge at once. "Too... Much... Exposition...!" He cried out weakly before he too faded into unconsciousness.
"If Ruby is down there..." He said, pulling out his coffee mug, which then turned into what looked like a club with some form of spout at the end, indicating some form of spraying weapon, such as a water cannon or a flamethrower.
"HOW IN THE HELL!?" My whole team said in disbelief upon seeing that.
"We must find her." He said.
"Hell yeah!" My team and Huntsman said, all of them ready to fight again as I got on Kira's back and made her rear up on her hind legs like people always do with horses to be dramatic.