Chapter 2

The Next Step

"Alright Pyrrha, give it everything you got!" Zander requested.

"Um… are you sure I won't hurt you?" Pyrrha questioned.

Zander gave a smile and said "I can handle a little fire, remember I beat Cinder"

Pyrrha nodded and closed her eyes, when she opened they were glowing with what looked like amberish orange fire surrounding them.

Pyrrha held out her hand and unleashed a massive blast of fire, but as it reached its intended target it stopped and went up as if it had hit an invisible brick wall. When the flames cleared Zander was holding out his hand with a smile.

"Good power and control, keep up the good work" Zander praised.

"Ok...can we call it a day?" Pyrrha requested.

Zander nodded and said "absolutely"

Pyrrha nodded and walked off, leaving Zander alone in Beacon's training room.

Just then Ruby Rose entered, her silver eyes were darker and more somber than usual. Considering her current situation though, Zander couldn't blame her.

Following the attack on Beacon, Team Rwby dissolved, Yang was back home on Patch, an island south of Vale. Her injuries, both physical and mental were too great to continue her Hunteress training.

Blake was MIA, according to her fellow Faunus Sun Wukong, she had run off after making sure her team was safe. Yang and Ruby guessed she was probably headed home to Menagerie, after all, she had offhandedly mentioned she had family there once or twice.

As for Weiss, her father, Jacque Schnee had come and taken her back to Altas, for the "safety of his daughter" but everyone knew it was simply because this was his opportunity to get his daughter back at arm's length for control.

Ruby was the only member of her team left, so acting Headmistress Goodwitch had assigned her as a fifth member of Team JNPR.

Zander's eyes narrowed as the young girl unleashed her frustrations on a nearby punching bag. Ruby wasn't much of a physical fighter, mostly relying on her scythe, but she had needed to blow off steam more often now, and this was her method.

"Make sure not to hurt yourself" Zander warned before walking out, leaving Ruby alone.

High above Vale, two Atlesian airships were departing. General Ironwood had decided to send the Redeemer and Defender back to Atlas. A month of 24-7 repairs had managed to get all three ships airworthy again.

Ironwood's was standing as still as a statue until the two ships disappeared over the horizon. He then turned to the first mate and said "Charles, you have the con"

Even with his personal ship, the Resolute rebuilt and upgraded, Ironwood was far from being in a good mood. Somehow, someone had completely dismantled and taken over state of the art Atlas security code. Turing their robots against them should've been impossible even with a direct upload into the ship's computer systems, but they did it.

As the general arrived at the brig, he was greeted by three individuals. Qrow Branwen and the Mason twins.

"Welcome general" Cassie greeted formally.

Ironwood nodded but gave no reply, it was clear he was not interested in small talk.

Qrow took a swig from his flask and asked "so who's been questioning put two prisoners?"

"I have tried everything, but neither of them has talked, all of our military interrogation methods have yielded no results. Both from me and all of the trained interrogators have failed" Ironwood conceded.

Charlie nodded and said, "that's fine, let me talk to her.."

"No, you two don't have clearance to speak with prisoners of war, nor be included in…" Ironwood was cut off by the feral roar of a Raikou coming from Charlie's vocal cords.

Ironwood sweatdropped and allowed Charlie to enter Emerald's cell, regaining his composure and leaving with what dignity he had left. Despite all his bluster, Ironwood was legitimately terrified of the powers Alpha Team possessed.

Qrow finished another swig and asked, "I take it your brother doesn't like Ironwood?"

Kelly sighed and said "it's a lot more complicated than that, he doesn't like military leaders who restrict people trying to do the right thing simply because of "protocol", but considering our past experiences with someone like Ironwood...I can't blame him"

Qrow gave a curious look but put it aside for late. Kelly's tone alone made it clear she was discussing a rather painful memory.

Charlie entered the cell alone, and as the force field behind him reactivated, he sighed and asked "is all this resistance really about protecting Salem's location?"

A familiar green-haired girl shook her head and said "I'm not telling you anything!"

Emerald Sustari was sitting on the cell's bed staring at the floor. She was wearing a device on her head resembling a headband with glowing lights and wires on it. A shock collar was also on her neck to prevent her from tampering with the device. While the setup seemed excessive in an already reinforced cell, if the headpiece failed for even a second she could fool the guards into letting her out with her signature illusions.

"That's not what I asked, you really are fighting us this much just out of fear of Salem?" Charlie asked again.

Emerald looked the other way and said "yes, and you should be too"

"Your lying, there's something else isn't there" Charlie accused, as part of his espionage training, he had learned to be observant and read emotions. It was easy to tell when someone was lying, and Emerald was no exception.

Emerald was twitching as she said "no, there isn't" she had held up so well under interrogation because all the questions were related to Salem and her circle of followers, no one had asked questions like this, and Charlie could already see the cues of her emotions getting the best of her.

"Wait….let me guess, it has something to do with Cinder?" Charlie questioned, considering how she interacted with Cinder's other goon Mercury during their capture and interrogations, it clearly wasn't related to him.

"SHUT UP!" Emerald screamed with tears streaming down her face.

Charlie nodded and replied "feelings for Cinder, gratitude, maybe love even? It's a shame you cared so much about someone who clearly didn't care about you"

"SHE DID CARE ABOUT ME!" Emerald yelled even louder.

"I legitimately feel bad for you, only because it's kind of pathetic that you cared about her when she was ready to kill you just to finish off two of my teammates" Charlie reminded her.

"THAT'S NOT TRUE, GET OUT!" Emerald demanded, she and Mercury were unconscious for that part of Zander's battle with Cinder, so of course, she didn't believe him...

Charlie shook his head and walked towards the cell door, leaving Emerald with the words "no wonder you're so good at being a thief, lying and deceiving is a lot easier when you're constantly deceiving yourself"

Author's note- Apologies for another setup chapter, next time we'll be starting the Volume 4 tradition of having certain chapters focusing on different characters. Alpha Team will be leaving Beacon for a bit soon, but I'm not rushing it...

1. Thanks for all the favorites, anyone who has favorited or followed should leave a review, even if they have no comment on the current chapter, they should review what they liked about the past story

2. Yea, Team RWBY still broke up, given what causes them to go their separate ways, stopping Beacon from falling probably wouldn't change anything for 3/4s of them

3. Having Ruby being sad and a little less childish is gonna be fun to write, remember that in this timeline she still has lost her team and wasn't there to stop her sister from being maimed, so of course, being the only one left is gonna affect her

4. Changed the story's title since the entirety of my RWBY volumes will be in one story now, the first volume was an experiment, but considering how well received it was, I now plan to loosely follow volumes 4-8 and mix it up completely for the finale.

Leave a review, there's much more to come!