The Random Hand of Fate

by TheMightyTeaRex

"Destiny is not set in stone. It only takes one grain of rice to tip a scale, one pebble falling into the sea to start a tidal wave; Every action, no matter how small has an effect on the future. So, tell me... do you believe in destiny?" Real-world SI. First-time fanfic. Rated M for violence, gore, swearing, smut (later on) and alcohol. Warhammer 40K characters in Remnant.

30. Prepare for Battle

Okay, just as I'm finishing this up, I found out from my boss that I may or may not be fired as of today due to some scheduling shenanigans on the part of my manager. Needless to say, I'm wrapping this chapter up where it is wrapping up simply to give a good jump off point for the next chapter, where we finally get back to some proper action. But for now, enjoy~!

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Chapter 30: Prepare for Battle

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The scariest state of quiet is the one just before the chaos of battle, boys. Don't let it get to you. —Commissar Elise von Heldrinsser, 425th Valhallan Firstborn Regiment

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Nothing but darkness.

Darkness. Not even the kind that you felt crushed by, as if in the grasp of a massive fist. This was the kind that was empty of anything. No sensation of any kind to be sensed, no feeling, no sight, no taste, no sound, nothing of any variety. It was as if he was floating in nothingness, a nothingness that ate away at him, clawing for his very essence and seeking to suckle the very life from his body. Even the very act of his skin crawling felt uncomfortable, as if it harbored not an iota of resistance. He was floating in anathema, in a void without life or any of its vestiges. He was well and truly alone.

Or maybe he wasn't.

Even now, he could feel something where he could not feel anything else. Through the numbness of feeling nothing, not even the wind breaking upon him, not a single thing to be felt by his touch. And yet, he felt something caress his back. It was like a lightning bolt of cold was creeping across his back, some raw... energy of some kind that chilled his spine and ate at his very being. It was like hell itself was caressing him, beckoning him away from oblivion and into sensation. He shuddered.

The silence gave way to a great noise, like thunder that rattled his ears. It was like a bomb had gone off, the sound so great that his even now his ears were ringing. He felt his hands reach up to his ears as he grimaced in pain, feeling his eyes squeeze shut. It came in a staccato, like the sound of tank guns firing from behind him. His grip on his own head was a vice as he tried to block out the sound to no avail. He felt his fingers dig in desperately and his palms press his ears to his head, and yet the sound remained a deafening rhythm.

About then something clicked in his head as the sound began to slow but kept its volume. The deafening cacophony sounded less and less like thunder or cannons or anything that of their variety. No, this was a sound from a physical, natural source, something that came from a beast or a man, not a heartbeat or anything like that but a... a...

A laugh. A deep, throaty laugh, like the laughter of a god. Or of a demon.

He turned by some manner of willpower, but with his eyes saw nothing around him. Just an absolute void. But he was still starting to... feel something around him. Some essence was there, some manifestation that he could not see, but could certainly hear and feel. It was fire and ice all in one, an anger tempered with patience, a wrath blessed with cunning and guile, wrapped in the very essence of the word 'ancient'. Its very presence was a towering colossus over him, beyond words and images and still just within the grasp of the human imagination.

And then the laughter turned into a voice.

"Well, well," it said in a baroque, throaty voice that boomed with unnatural authority. "What have we here?"

He felt a gnawing pit in his stomach. Whatever this thing was, power echoed in every syllable.

"I can see your heart, boy," it continued to say, "And I can see your fears. Your fear... yes, yes... I see it now. You fear being what you see yourself as."

"That's not true."

Somehow, he could hear the smirk upon its face. "You are afraid, boy. You bear the fear of being inadequate for them. You fear that you will be the disappointment to them you see yourself as..."

"That's a lie. She believes in me, he believes in me, I'm not letting them down!"

"Your lies to yourself won't hold out, boy. Lest you disappoint her the most."

He felt his fist tighten. "Shut. Up."

"Aahhh... there is the hot button," it said. "It's her you want to please the most." The essence approached him, he could feel it there but couldn't see it. With nothing visual to process, his imagination began to run wild against his will. "She is the first to believe in you. She has trained you, sees you as the leader you want to be. Perhaps... she cares for you in other ways too..."

He let out a growl. The voice laughed in delight.

"By the Four, I do believe I've plucked a nerve. Perhaps you've realized this too?"

"She can do a lot better than me."

The thing seemed to pause, the silence pregnant with ponderance. "Perhaps you are beginning to feel the same thing too. Your defiance and defensiveness is a clear symptom."

"Shut up!"

It laughed. "Search yourself boy. Not that it will matter in the long run, anyway."

He felt a chill. "W-what?"

Suddenly, there was light. He was forced to squint, his eyes burning with the sudden presence of light.

The voice continued speaking. "Your work shall be for naught, boy. Look around you."

He opened his eyes slowly, the light blinding. His blood ran cold.

Bodies. Piles of bodies strewn across the floor, bleeding, eviscerated, twisted in so many ways that it hurt just to look at them. Some were Huntsmen, armed to the teeth and yet still rent apart as if tin foil; others still were Atlas soldiers, tossed about like bowling pins and crushed, their guns turned to scrap metal. It was something out of a nightmare. But as his gaze started traveling farther down, closer to his feet, the faces started getting familiar. He saw General Ironwood, his chest ripped open with massive slashes along his chest. Even from here, they looked almost like claw marks. Headmaster Ozpin was next to him, limp and his hair matted with fresh blood. Port and Oobleck were there too, laying limply back to back, and Professor Goodwitch too, her eyes staring up into the sky void of all life as the same claw marks raked across her torso too, staining her blouse a deep red. He turned in horror and he saw Neptune, impaled through the chest with his own trident and limply leaning into it. Sun and his teammates were there too, all battered and bloodied, their weapons all shattered and laying at their feet. Then he saw CFVY, Coco and Velvet laying together, eyes locked together in a close and loving gaze even in death as they sat in their own blood; Yatsu was sliced in half, his blade sticking out of the ground where his legs were supposed to be, and Fox laid beneath a pile of rubble, his hand sticking limply out from the debris.

His horror kept growing as he looked around, seeing more and more people he recognized. "What... what are you... no! This can't be happening!"

"You might become strong, but you will not become strong enough. You may become wise, but you will never be wise enough. You may become fast, but you will never become fast enough. You shall never be enough to be a hero."

His eyes kept darting around, his heart racing. Now he could smell, and the smell made his stomach curdle; a smell of hot iron and burning ozone, mingling into an odor that roiled his stomach and assaulted his nose. He turned and saw more; Logan, his head rent with a greataxe, Angelos, lying looking up to the sky as his mouth dribbled blood and his chest looked unhealthily compact. Vulkan was burned and charred, rent by a claw as well that left a bright red slash in his burnt, green outfit; Cain was slumped against a rock, his chainsword sticking out from his chest; Titus and Mira sat slumped together, holes in their chests where their hearts had once beat.

He spun in horror, gasping for breath as his heart thundered in his chest.

He saw a flash of white near the base of his vision. He stopped. His head snapped in the direction.

"Oh God! No! NO!"

"And you will never be enough to protect them."

They were all dead. All of them dead near his feet. He hadn't seen them, but now he did, and panic and terror gripped his heart. Weiss stared up into the light with blank eyes and her mouth just ajar, a thin line of blood tracing from her mouth and down her cheek, combining with the fresh blood trail that flowed from her eye scar. She was broken, Myrtenaster shattered in her hands and in her chest, a crude wooden pole embedded there too. Yang lied beside her, an arm gone and her hair flickering with dying embers that danced off the great and terrible gauge down the length of her spine. Blake sat limply, her back against a slab of concrete as he noticed that her bow was gone... and so were her ears... and it looked like she had succumbed to the same claws that killed the General and Professor Goodwitch.

"No! No please!" His heart was hammering now, his breathing sharp and terrified,

He spun in terror, turning to see Ren and Nora, laying in a cadaver's embrace as they bled from great holes in their chests and their throats slit. His head was swimming, his stomach roiling in disgust. "Guys! Please, get up! Someone! Please!"

His foot tapped something. He looked down and was met with dead, silver eyes.

"No! Ruby!" He dropped to his knees, cradling her head. There was no spark there in her eyes, and that fact scared him to death. Blood rolled from both corners of her mouth, her throat slit by something with a razor-sharp blade. "Please, get up... get up! Ruby!"

"You will fail them all. Behold the crux of that failure."

He looked up, and twenty feet away he saw her, kneeling and bent over, her bare shoulders and legs covered in bruises and cuts, her red hair wet with sweat. She was panting as if she were on her last breaths, exhaustion in her every movement. She looked up, and he felt his breath be stolen from his lungs. Her eyes were asymmetrical, one still it's beautiful emerald eyes, and the other one blooded and swollen from a bruise. It tore at his heart.

"Pyrrha! Hang on, I'm coming!" he leapt to his feet and dashed madly towards her, seeking to save her.

He didn't get much farther than half way before he felt fire in his calf tendon. He roared in pain and dropped to his knees, the agony ripping through him. He looked back and saw an arrow in his heel, the offending thing glowing orange-hot as it stuck out from the base of his leg. He turned to look at Pyrrha, so close but still so far away. Ten feet, that's all he needed to move. But for some reason, he couldn't move; his arms felt like iron blocks, stopping him from moving. "Pyrrha! I'm coming, just hang on!"

She looked up, terror in her eyes. "Don't! Save yourself, please!"

"Look upon this one, boy,"the voice called out again. A figure cast in shadows, as tall as a mountain stood behind her, a silhouette of spikes and other features standing out from its back. It was vaguely human in form; a massive clawed hand on its right, and a wicked, briar-like sword in the other hand. It walked up, and the claw came just into the light as it rose, caressing Pyrrha's throat with a sharp, predatory gleam. A trickle of blood dripped from a single spot.

"No! Please! I'll do anything! Just spare her!"

"There is no mercy, boy... only death."

The Talon rose high with a sound like it had cut open the air itself.

"NOOO!"

"Save yourself!"

It came down.

Pyrrha screamed.

The world became chaos.

---

…

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

Some neuron in his brain forced a wince. He otherwise remained unconscious, despite his heart beating a mile a minute.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

His eyes twitched under his eyelids. His mind was racing, but he was still unconscious.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

"Jacob! Are you there? It's Titus, I need to talk to you."

His eyes forced themselves open, and the shadows lingered just long enough. He felt his heart beating ferociously, the last vestiges of the nightmare pounding in his head. The room was cast in the dim light of early morning, the sun's light almost to the edge of the horizon, the light in the room barely enough to see much of anything.

It reminded him too much of his nightmare. Pyrrha's scream echoed in his mind, chilling his bones.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

"Uh," he said shakily, "h-hang on, Titus, l-let me throw on a shirt." He reached out for a t-shirt, his hand shaking like a leaf as it grabbed the grey shirt. He caught a quick glance at his Scroll's lock screen; it was 5:00 in the morning. He absently pulled it over his head and reached for his Scroll, saying, "You're good. Come in."

There was a sound like a small 'bleep-bleep' as his Scroll unlocked the door his room. In strode the Ultramarine Captain, dressed in his usual attire of a blue polo shirt and tan slacks, the badge of the Ultramarines smiling happily on his pocket. His face was calm but his eyes told of a brain already running a mile a minute. "Are you okay," he said. "You're shaking, and you look like you've seen a ghost."

Jacob grimaced. He took in a deep breath and held it for a second, letting it out slowly as he tried to slow his pulse. "It was just a nightmare, Captain. Nothing more."

"A nightmare on the eve of a major battle. Any soldier worth his badge of office knows that there's something else going on there."

Jacob sighed. "It was... it's a similar nightmare to what I've been getting in the past month or so... but this one was a bit different than most."

Titus' brow rose. Jacob's gaze met the floor. "It was just... Chaos, I'm pretty sure. And it usually taunts me in these, and then it's followed with... something that's supposed to shock me. RWBY dead or the city burning... or Pyrrha dead."

Titus was watching him closely now. "Chaos?"

Jacob shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. The first time it was right after I found out about you Imperials. It was a dream about the Four Gods taunting me with her body. A few days later, one of Nurgle using her for a... plague zombie." He gagged as he remembered that one. "And then there was Khorne a week later doing, well, what he does best, Tzeentch doing his Chaos Spawn shenanigans... I'm not even gonna mention Slaanesh." It didn't escape him how uncomfortable Titus looked now, considering this was his goddaughter that he was talking about. "But then I went about 6 weeks without any and... and now I had another one."

Titus seemed to bristle. "What happened in it?"

"...It was basically an ensemble of everyone from Remnant dead," he said. "Hell, there were a couple of you guys too, but mostly you, Vulkan, Logan, Gabriel and Mira. And... and everyone was dead. But Pyrrha was alive, covered in bruises and such, but still alive."

He shivered as he put two and two together on the ending. "And then she was approached from behind by... by Abaddon the Despoiler. And he... he killed her with the Talon."

The storm of thought in Titus' eyes spoke more volumes than his whole body did by comparison. Something about that image—besides the obvious of his goddaughter dying to the Warmaster of Chaos—didn't sit well with the Ultramarine. Some fact that Jacob was not privy too formed the basis of his malcontent and worry, and Jacob couldn't deny that not knowing made him nervous. Then again, perhaps it was simply the presence of Chaos itself in his nightmares that upset Titus so much, considering his battle with Nemeroth in Space Marine. "I won't lie, that is a hell of a nightmare to have, considering everything you and I both know. Do you want to talk about it any bit?"

Jacob pondered the notion for a few seconds before he shook his head. He stood up and walked over to the window, throwing open the curtains and pulling the blinds up, letting the lamplight and the faintest vestiges of sunlight into the room. "You probably don't need to deal with my mental baggage," he replied. "I wouldn't mind talking about it, but there are more important things to get done today, what with... well, you know."

Titus nodded. "That is actually why I was coming to talk to you, funny enough."

Jacob looked over at him. "Yes?"

"There was a meeting of the Inquisition last night," he replied. "Ozpin requested that you don't attend; he's noticing your loose lips."

Jacob grimaced in thought and ire. "They needed to know Penny was an android," he replied. "It plays into our plans, not necessarily his."

Titus blinked, a look of surprise on his face. Jacob found himself suddenly agreeing with Ozpin's sentiment. "Sorry," the Ultramarine said, "You told them what?"

Jacob groaned. "Never mind, he's got a point. Regardless, now they know and now we can work to help secure more data copies of her hardware and software in case something happens."

Titus looked visibly uncomfortable. "It still bothers me how we are siding with Abomin—sorry, artificial intelligence. She's a sweet girl, but I do find myself wondering if that's just manufactured by James' engineers."

Jacob scratched his chin, letting Titus' faux pas slip away. "Well, you're not wrong, but that doesn't mean that we can't try to safeguard her."

Titus gestured in agreement before sitting down in the chair at the study desk. "Anyway, the meeting last night yielded some progress. We've secured Team RWBY and JNPR as the candidates for the mission to Mountain Glenn, and Mira and I are to be the Huntsman chaperones, alongside Bartholomew."

Jacob gave Titus a concerned look. "That's a hell of a gamble, Titus. JNPR wasn't even supposed to be on that mission; it was supposed to be a single-team mission."

Titus nodded. "Consider your dream for a moment, then."

Jacob put two and two together. "Chaos Marines aren't gonna be a regular threat. Besides, all we've seen is Eliphas."

"Perhaps," Titus replied, "but Chaos has been known to attract followers wherever they go, whether bloodthirsty warriors or deranged psychopaths. Even here on Remnant."

Again, the meaning was not lost on Jacob. "Chaos Cultists?"

Titus nodded.

Jacob felt his heart start to beat harder. The notion of an army of Chaos Cultists descending on Vale put a very ugly image in his head. One too similar to that infernal nightmare. "You think that they're gonna be there with Torchwick's goons and the White Fang?"

Titus shifted, looking down at his feet for a second. "Considering the amount of activity in the Agricultural District," he said, "I wouldn't be surprised. There are Chaos symbols regularly graffitied on the walls of buildings in the town center of Redhearth, murders and assaults are becoming commonplace bearing ritualistic carvings of skulls, flames and boils, and there have been several rapes of both women and men, all of the victims left with a particular brand burned on them somewhere: A sharp-pointed hybrid of the male and female symbols."

Jacob swallowed hard as his mind painted the image. "The Mark of Slaanesh. And those others were the marks of the other three."

"Exactly. The occurrences are becoming so common that Gabriel was considering marching down there himself, Godsplitter and Tartaros armor all to snuff them out, but we convinced him to let them come to us."

"Yeah," he said absentmindedly, "It would be more beneficial if we forced them into a metaphorical killbox rather than force them to come to us, so long as they are as fervent as normal Chaos Cultists. But still," he said as he turned around and began pacing, "Putting JNPR in as well puts them in a dangerous place. It was said by the cast and crew of the show that Pyrrha was originally planned to be killed off during The Breach before they convinced Monty to have her... you know."

Titus grimaced and growled, an action that felt more at home being done by a Space Wolf than an Ultramarine. "Seems like bad decisions were abound with them."

Jacob huffed a breath of agreement. "They supposedly had their reasons," he said, "but whatever they were, they weren't paying off on it yet. I hope they start making it worth it in Volume 5 and onwards."

"Anyhow," Titus continued, "as I said, Mira and I will be aiding Professor Oobleck on this mission, helping him keep tabs on everybody. But Mira and I don't know the overall circumstances for this mission and what we need to have play out, or at least close to what plays out."

Jacob nodded as he reached over for his Terran phone. "It's all yours until you're done with what information we need; after that, I admit I kinda want it back."

Titus chuckled at his joking jab. "It's a bit smaller than a normal Scroll screen, but we shouldn't have particular problems with porting it over to a larger holovision. It seems the jacking ports are the correct variety for Remnant's, all things considered."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Somehow I'm not surprised that the tech matches up," he said with a yawn. He had only gotten at best some six of five hours of sleep before Titus had arrived; today would probably be a day that sported a small nap somewhere, or some lingering drowsiness. "Outside of you guys catching up on the actual RWBY series, what else is there to plan for the day?"

Titus nodded again. "Vulkan wants to have you come down to his shop for a brief bit sometime today," he replied, "said that he had some upgrades he wanted to give Cadia before the mission and the battle. Give it a bit of the Salamander touch and what not, I presume."

Jacob felt his interest pique. He hadn't been to Firedrake Forgeworks in well over two months, and now he was being asked back there for an upgrade to Cadia. "Did he say anything about what kind of upgrade?"

He only got a shake of Titus' head in response.

Jacob hummed in thought. "Interesting. What else for today?"

"Not much else today, outside of a few more spars, classes... uhm, what else. Oh, yes, and I needed to speak with our Valkyrie pilot about arming up in secret, once things get hairy."

Jacob had to clench his jaw to stop it from dropping in shock. "Wait, what? You mean the... the Valkyrie I saw a few days ago..."

"Of course," the Ultramarine replied. "You don't think Remnant has such a craft when they already have the bulbous Bullhead, right?"

Jacob blinked as he remembered how Titus had mentioned that the Inquisitorial Valkyrie that he had left Graia on had managed to arrive with them. "That thing flying overhead had scared the Jesus out of me a few days ago. How's it that Ironwood hasn't clamored to get his hands on the thing?"

"Believe me," Titus replied, "when is he not? I have to keep the keys on me at all times to avoid him confiscating it 'in the name of Atlas and the world.' Remnant does not need something as advanced as an Imperial Valkyrie flying around en masse under James' banner."

Jacob swallowed hard at the idea of a fleet of Valkyries decked out in Atlesian colors flying high through the not-so-friendly skies of Remnant like a great horde of white and black eagles on the hunt. "I can see why you'd do that."

Titus nodded. "Outside of some refurbishments Mira and I performed in secret to make it Dust-compatible, she remains the same vessel. Even the Machine Spirit remains, though even now it squawks in defiance every so often when we load something that isn't Munitorum standard issue."

Jacob returned the nod from earlier. "Well, all of that sounds like a good idea," he said, "considering that we have... what the hell was it?" He turned to look down at his Scroll, spotting the date. August 25th. Two—technically one and three-quarters—days left before the day of the missions. "Considering we have a bit under two days left, we probably need to start making contingents, right?"

"Logan was already thinking that. He's planning to spend his time tomorrow planning out civilian escape routes, firing lines for Huntsman and police, corralling zones based on the old subway centers between Vale's central stations and the Mountain Glenn facilities, so on and so forth. Both Gabriel and Vulkan will be helping him out later this evening, after their tasks have been completed; in theory, that should be enough to get the job done."

Jacob watched Titus as the Ultramarine began to channel Roboute Guilliman, if not directly than by the nature of how analytical that string of words had been. "Considering you guys are the centuries-old tacticians and I'm not even past two decades old, yeah, I'm definitely letting you guys take the wheel."

"Right." Titus stood back up from his seat at Jacob's desk. "Alright, get something to eat and meet us at Firedrake Forgeworks at oh-eight-hundred hours. I asked Oobleck to excuse you for the morning class, so that detail is cleared up."

Jacob grimaced as he stretched, the light in the room gradually growing brighter, though still no shadows of the blinds appeared—Volume 2 animation was starting to bug him quite a bit on those details he missed from home. "I hope they don't start the lessons on The Great War without me, I wanna know just how close this war was to Earth's World Wars."

Titus seemed to light up with curiosity. "You mean the Unification Wars?"

Jacob shook his head. "No, no, little to no info on the Unification Wars exist in Black Library writings back home. I'm talking the World Wars of the 20th Century. It's a bit of a long story, and I can regale you with it another time."

Titus nodded. "Very well. I'll see you over there; I need to talk with Mira first, concerning JNPR."

"Right. I'll see you there."

Titus nodded once, a faint smile on his face as he did so. For a second, Jacob wondered is Titus was seeing him as a student, or more akin to a colleague. "See you there," he said, closing the door behind him with the gentleness of a breeze.

Jacob turned and began to check on everything. A quick shower and dressing later, he was standing in the center of his room, his mind still running the nightmare over and over and over again with a fervor bordering on obsession.

He reached for Cadia, currently resting beside his desk with its teeth facing in towards the wall as he picked it up and cradled it as if it were a relic of an age long past. Even after his desperate scrubbing of it the day after the bomb attack, even in the clunky visual renders of Volume 2 animation, he still saw rings of blood specks here and there along the casing where he had split that Faunus woman's side wide open with Cadia's teeth. It was unnerving that such a detail remained of that.

In his mind, Abaddon was slicing Pyrrha's throat again with the Talon. His grip unconsciously tightened on Cadia's hilt. He shook his head as he spun the chainsword in his hand, flicking his wrist as he finished the motion to transform the sword into its gun form.

He checked his Scroll. 5:45.

"Time to get ready for the day."

---

A few minutes passed and he was walking into the cafeteria, the sun just beginning to peak past the edge of the horizon. Most students didn't wake quite this early by all accounts—a few early mornings like this had taught him the general traffic patterns of the school months prior—but there were a few, though he didn't pay attention to faces. Most, he knew, were kids just about his age, and by most people's mindset more akin to being his peers. But, funny enough, he really didn't consider making any potential allies among their ranks. Sure, a few of those teams were even older and more experienced than Team CFVY, borderline graduates as of the upcoming spring, but most of them would have thought him crazy, not to mention they would have gone to Ozpin the second he spilled the beans.

He grabbed a tray and soon after loaded a quick breakfast of a ham shank, eggs and potatoes and began to make his way towards his usual spot at the end of RWBY and JNPR's table. Of course, it was 6:10 by now, and while most of them were up at a decent hour, rolling them out on a Wednesday morning so early before their big mission, he had his doubts that they were going to be up at this hour in the morning.

His gaze locked on the table, and that notion jumped out the window and fled into the sunrise.

"That sounds like it was awful, Jaune," said Ruby as she hugged herself tightly with her cape.

"Yeah, no kidding," said Nora from his side, eyeing him worriedly. "Did you watch a scary movie while we weren't paying attention last night?"

"I don't recall seeing Mr. Arc leave for any extended enough time to go and view a movie, nor did he access his Scroll while we were conversing."

Jaune wasn't alone when he drew his tired gaze up to their newest—and frankly oddest—member to their merry band of misfits. Jacob felt like rubbing both of his eyes in disbelief as he saw Penny Polendina sitting with them at the head of the table, sandwiched right between Jaune and Ruby as she sat in a makeshift seat just like his own. In fact, he spotted a familiar set of initials on the back of the chair.

He smirked bemusedly through his mental confusion. "Why the blood-soaked Hell are they up so early... and Penny's got the extra chair... This I need to see for myself."

He began walking towards them as they continued chatting, an air of concern swirling around them. At the epicenter was Jaune and Pyrrha, the former in particular; at first glance, he seemed only slightly downtrodden, inciting Jacob to think that his advances had been rejected by Weiss yet again. No, that can't be right, Weiss is right there across from Ren where Blake normally sits, he wouldn't openly sulk in front of her, he thought to himself as he approached. Didn't sleep well or something? It was at this point some fifteen feet out that he noticed faint lines beneath Jaune's eyes, and a general droopiness to his features. Whatever it was had cost him much more sleep than their original retiring hour sometime close to 11:00 that prior evening.

"I take it one or more of you didn't sleep particularly well," he said as he walked up to them, grabbing their attention away from the android girl. "If I'm looking at Jaune correctly, someone clearly was up a little too late in the morning."

There was a collective greeting from everyone, though Penny's stood out as she commented, "Hello, Jacob! I hope you don't mind that I commandeered your fold-up chair."

"Not at all, Penny," he replied. "I'll just grab another—"

"It's alright," she said, "I have no necessity to sit down considering my lack of physical tire." She promptly stood back up and offered him the seat.

Jacob sighed. "Thanks, Penny," he said, "but you should probably avoid looking completely odd to the rest of the school." He punctuated his sentence by point a finger over his shoulder to the other teams in the cafeteria.

Penny blinked before she processed what he was suggesting. "Fair enough," she said. "Ruby, might I sit where Miss Belladonn—Sorry, where Blake normally sits?"

"Oh, yeah! Blake's not here, so nothing really stopping you," Ruby replied sheepishly.

Penny smiled brightly as she zipped around the side of the table and sat down right between Yang and Weiss, a stance of prim and properness as she sat with them. Jacob would have joked about how much sugar he was getting just from being in the presence of her innocent cuteness, but his joke died on his lips as his eyes returned to Jaune. "So, you stay up last night."

Pyrrha interjected on Jaune's behalf. "Jaune had a nightmare last night, and it's been eating at him for most of the morning."

Jacob felt his stomach clench. "Nightmare? Really? What was it about?"

Jaune seemed to hesitate, only for Pyrrha to place a hand over his own. "It involved all of us. And some of our friends and... well—"

"They were all dead, weren't they," Jacob said. In his mind, the Talon of Horus rent through the air on a collision with the girl sitting across from him. "We were all dead."

The table seemed to go quiet as they watched him, revelation crossing each of their faces at their own pace. "You had the same dream," Pyrrha said, her eyes wide with surprise.

"Wow," Nora said, leaning her head on her propped-up arm. "What are those morbid odds?"

Jacob turned to Jaune. "Well, let's be sure here really quick. Fact check: started with pitch black darkness, right? And then... Crowd of the dead?"

He nodded as he said, "Yeah, exactly."

"And Pyrrha was singled out?"

Pyrrha lit up with surprise, a motion that was joined by Jaune, Yang and Ruby. "Me?"

Jaune looked mildly shocked. "Y-yeah," he said. "Something, or more like someone big and evil, and he came with a—"

"With a giant clawed hand," Jacob interrupted. "And a really evil-looking sword, right?"

Jaune shook at the mention of the clawed hand. "Yeah. But I don't understand," he said, "I've never seen those things before. Who was that? Was that even a person?"

"Perhaps you've both seen a movie with that character," Ren offered. "Everyone knows how much you enjoy movies, Jaune."

Jacob held his tongue as he processed Jaune's words. Jaune had received a nightmare, the same as his own, complete with Ezekyle Abaddon, the Warmaster of Chaos. How did that happen?! How did Jaune dream of the Warmaster when he didn't know anything about Warhammer other than what he had told them from that one game all those weeks ago?

"Jacob?"

He looked up at his name being called by Ruby. She, Yang and Pyrrha were offering him worried looks not unlike the one they had given Jaune. This time however, the collective stare seemed to be tinged with something. A sense of wanting to pry a truth from him.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Not gonna lie, that's kinda freaking me out."

"Does... this person sound familiar to you," Pyrrha asked.

Jacob grimaced. Did he tell them here and now about Abaddon? Was Abaddon even a threat at this point? Why did they share that dream of all things?

"It's probably a mental construct they share," offered Penny, a slight tone of urgency to her voice. She was trying to cover for him. "Atlas scientists recently began studies into common dreams and Aura shares; perhaps since Ms. Nikos awakened both of your Auras, it could have something to do with that..."

That only made Jacob's stomach clench further. If that was the case, that only brought further questions that led to potentially horrifying answers of their own.

"But," she began, confused as much as he was, "I've never seen anyone like that, not even with the other students at Sanctum Academy."

That didn't snuff out Jacob's concern. "Still... he sounds familiar now that I think more on it," he lied, his stomach roiling angrily at his decision. "I'll check where I think I've seen him. Unfortunately, it's not right out of the gate; I've got a bit of a busy morning." He swallowed a load of hash browns off his fork, almost absentmindedly. "Titus excused me from Oobleck's class today; Vulkan wanted to have me drop by his forge before our first mission. Show me how to work on my blade, I guess, he didn't say what exactly I'd be doing there."

The mood of the table seemed to rise as they listened to him. "Interesting that he'd call you out from class," Weiss commented. "Not like you need the studies or anything."

Her snide comment made him chuckle. "Don't think I don't like losing out on today's lesson," he said. "I've been wanting to hear about the Great War for some time; losing out on that's gonna be a bitch."

"You'd figure that every corner of Remnant would have heard the stories of the Great War."

He started at the sudden ringing out of Blake's voice, and the rest of the table did so. He only had a second to dart his gaze about like a laser pointer hyped on coffee before he saw a streak of black past behind RWBY's side of the table. Blake was carrying her tray as she power walked past them, an echo of s scowl across her face, coupled with the smallest signs on deep bags under her eyes.

"Blake," Yang said aloud, scrambling out of her seat to try and stop Blake. "Come on, Blake, what are you doing? Where are you going?"

Blake turned her head, the bags under her eyes giving her a sunken look that made her scowl even more off-putting. "The Library," she said. "I need to check up on the news, see if I can find any leads."

Jacob leaned on his arm, resting his cheek in his palm. "You could always get a newspaper and bring it here," he said dryly. "It's no fun eating alone."

She let out an audible scoff and rolled her eyes as she began to turn around. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I have more important things to deal with than having fun."

Yang seemed to dart forwards as Blake began to walk away. "Blake, stop-"

"No," Blake said harshly, stopping the blonde bruiser in her tracks. "Unless you're going to help me with finding out where they're hiding, I'd much rather work alone. I'll see you guys at class."

No said a word as she quickly walked away, an air of frustration to her very posture. Yang stood quietly, letting her partner walk away unopposed.

"That White Fang attack really hit her hard, didn't it," Jaune said quietly. Jacob only nodded in reply.

"Somebody needs to talk to her," Weiss commented. "We tried, but it never seemed to stick with her, and it's showing; her grade's slipping, she barely sleeps, she's constantly angry, the list goes on."

Ruby seemed to slump in disappointment. "Why won't she just take some time to recover," she moaned disparately. "We can't function as a team if she can't work with us."

Yang stood there, watching the ghost of Blake walking away. Jacob felt his concern rising, the ghost of a dis-armed Yang flashing past his memory. "Well, I know one thing, I don't think I can get through to her," he said with a huff. "I'm the reason this shit happened that's making her like this. There's only one person I think who can get through to her."

No one had a particularly confused look as they turned to the one person who could. Yang turned back to them, a look in her eyes that held a fire.

"Already two steps ahead of you," she said, cracking her knuckles with a concerned grimace.

---

Yang wasn't one for stealthy stuff. Deception was never one of her strong suits, in the sense that while she was okay with it, she didn't like it, nor did she have any skill in it. Considering her fighting style, her tendency to mouth off, so on and so forth, even she was well aware of how much she sucked at being sneaky. As such, she had long since opted to swing in reverse and be the boisterous and bombastic bruiser every saw her as. She didn't pretend that she was any bit anything else; she was always the party girl in the public eye, and she worked that image in her favor.

But the façade, for how true it was, was never the whole story.

She wasn't just a party girl and a floosy blonde like most people thought. The fact that she usually was second best in test scores of her team—third right behind Jacob if he was accounted for—was always something she took pride in. She wasn't as much a party animal as most thought either; She'd been Ruby's big sister and take on some of the same tasks as her mother was supposed to be for her baby sister. She had to grow up somewhat faster than most, but she didn't ignore how much she still enjoyed life like any young adult did.

But she always took pride in that truth that, behind the party girl, she at least had her moments of intellect and... well, a maternal instinct awake from day one.

Now, she was having to put those to use in order.

She was standing behind one of the bookshelves in the Library, hiding as best as she could. The morning sun was almost a decent height into the sky, staring down upon Remnant with a warm morning glow. The Library was cast in warm glows and long shadows, giving her a few places to hide as a result. She poked her head out from the side of the bookshelf, looking around for her Faunus companion.

Damn it, Blake, she thought to herself as she didn't spot her, where did you go?

She growled in annoyance as she spotted a few other familiar faces. Velvet and Coco perusing a selection of Grimm research papers, Aqua and her boyfriend Grenwin being their usual adorable selves—even Yang didn't deny they were cute—but no sign of Blake.

She walked out and continued looking, eyes scanning the room for any sign of a black bow where cut kitty ears should have been. "I should have grabbed someone before I went looking for her alone."

Another five minutes passed, and in those five minutes she continued to stew over her partner's activity as of late. Yang couldn't deny that while Roman and the White Fang were a big threat, she and the team really couldn't afford getting too preoccupied with those guys. They had to focus on school, or their efforts were going to be futile at best, if not counterproductive.

She knew how that sort of thing went all too well.

She glanced towards the lab's Tabletops. She spotted Blake, facing away from her as she sat hunched over the screen. She could spot the home page of the Vale News Network on the screen even from 15 feet or so away, flashing any reports that had come up.

Yang scrambled behind a bookshelf, hoping Blake hadn't heard her. She peaked her head out again. Blake remained fixed on the screen.

Yang felt a pang of worry. She swallowed hard at the sight as she reached into her jacket's breast pocket for something she had asked to borrow from Yatsu.

The silver shape of his laser pointer sat in her hand as she aimed it just right. After all, if Blake seemed to zone out when catnip was around and loved Fish Fridays, surely this would be something that got her attention.

She clicked the end of the light.

A red dot showed up on the screen. Blake stopped.

Yang felt the tiniest grin cross her features. Got it.

She moved it just slightly, a tiny twitch across the screen. Blake's left ear flicked like an annoyed cat's.

Yang didn't stop the grin of satisfaction from growing on her face. She twitched it onto Blake's hand, only to watch Blake's other hand paw at it like it offended her. She heard an annoyed groan.

She moved the dot down to the ground, just at Blake's feet. The Faunus girl growled in annoyance and stood up with a stiff and angry stance to her posture. Yang ducked behind the bookshelf, sticking her hand out just right to keep the laser pointer out where Blake could see the dot. The Faunus girl continued to grumble, the sound of a shoe stamping once as if she were trying to step on the offending light.

The steps grew closer and Yang stood up, backing away and bringing the dot into the bookshelves. Blake followed quickly, not even seeming to notice her partner; it was almost—no, it was—hilarious how she was focused on the dot.

Yang snapped the light off as Blake almost ran into her, barely holding a laugh. She did manage to channel it into a bright and cheery smile. "Hello~!"

Blake started as if reality had snapped back to her. "Wha-what? What are you—!?"

Yang reached out and grabbed her hand. "We need to talk." Before Blake could argue against it, Yang had taken a leaping rush forwards, dragging her along to their destination.

"Wait, Yang," Blake called out, but Yang wasn't having any of it. They zipped through the corridors past students and a few of the teachers, almost running into Professor Port as well. After a minute or two, Yang finally turned into one of the empty classrooms designed for additional staff and students from the other school; for the morning there was no class in this room, leaving it empty and free for Yang to use. Exactly what she needed.

Yang found herself breathing harder than normal as she stopped in the center of the room, Blake doubled over beside her. "Yang," she said through gasps. "What the hell!?"

Yang let out a chuckle, though she ignored it as if it were a rhetorical question. "Easy there, Blake. Like I said, I wanted to talk about some things. About you."

As she leapt up into the lecture table and sat down cross-legged, Blake let out an angry scoff. "Yang, I don't have time to talk, okay? if you're going to tell me to stop, you may as well save your breath."

"I don't want you to stop; I want you to slow down."

Blake began to pace angrily, a scowl across her face. "I don't have the luxury to slow down."

Yang furrowed her brow in annoyance. This starting to become too familiar. "It's not a luxury; it's a necessity."

"The 'necessity' is stopping Torchwick," Blake bit back.

"And we're going to," Yang said in an attempt to calm her partner down, "But first you have to sit down and listen to what I have to say." She motioned for Blake to sit on the table too beside her.

Blake seemed to hesitate, watching Yang as if she would break out laughing in a joke. Finally, she sighed and sat down beside Yang as if she were riding a horse side-saddle.

Yang let out a deep breath, letting her mind wander back to memories of her past. "Ruby and I grew up in Patch, the island off the coast of Vale. You know the one, right?"

Blake nodded. "I saw it when I first arrived in Vale with Adam. Seems like a cozy place to live and grow up on," she said, visibly tensing up at the mention of that name. Yang didn't want to dwell on why she was reacting like that.

"Yeah. Our parents were Huntsmen. Our dad taught at Signal, and our mom took on missions around the kingdom. Her name was Summer Rose, and she was, like... Super-Mom: Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters."

Yang's mind went back to those distant memories; Her and Summer baking up a dozen only to find Ruby licking the spoon eagerly, the three of them playing tag in the yard. Summer had always been such a mother to both of them. But the memories began to grow dark as the rest of the story unfolded. "And then... one day she left for a mission and never came back. It was tough. Ruby was really torn up, but... I think she was still too young to really get what was going on, y'know? And my dad just kind of... shut down. It wasn't long before I learned why."

Blake's left eyebrow shot up in confusion. "I can understand why; that's horrible to imagine losing your spouse like that."

Yang shook her head. "That wasn't all of it. Summer wasn't the first love he lost; she was the second. The first... was my mom."

Blake's brow shot up in surprise. "I... you and Ruby aren't full-blood sisters? I never could have imagined that."

Yang felt that defensive instinct flare up again, but she heeded it no mind for now. "He wouldn't tell me everything, but I learned that the two of them had been on a team together with Summer and my uncle Qrow. Apparently, she'd left me with my dad right after I was born. No one had seen her since."

Blake started to hug herself. "Why did she leave you?"

Yang sighed as she got up from her seat and grabbed a piece of chalk. "That question... Why? I didn't know an answer, but I was determined to find out. It was all I thought about. I would ask anyone I could about what they knew about her."

Almost absentmindedly, she began to draw, her mind closing in on the memory of that one particular day. She remembered being seven when it happened, a little girl with blonde pigtails and lilac eyes in a pair of shorts and a brown and yellow shirt.

"Then, one day... I found something. What I thought was a clue that could lead me to answers, or maybe even my mother."

Her memory was becoming more and more clear the closer she got to that moment; she could remember the little details now, albeit sparingly. She continued to draw. "I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must've walked for hours. I had cuts and bruises, I was totally exhausted, but I wasn't gonna let anything stop me."

She was starting to get lost in her memories, the little red wagon clear as day now with her baby sister sleeping in it as seven-year old Yang dragged it along through briars and brambles for hours and hours. The day began to turn into evening as the forest began to die off, the fall weather stripping the leaves from the trees and leaving a mass of skeletal hands threatening her younger self; this was a time before she had no control of her fear, so her little mind began to race with fears of monsters rising up out of the thicket and eating her before she could get to Mom.

"When we finally got there, I could barely stand, but I didn't care; I had made it."

A rickety old building, made of splintering wood and cracked windows, a dry husk that had once held life of some manner, but was long since abandoned.

"And then I saw them. "

A growl from the woods. She turned as she felt fear grip her heart and numb her mind on top of the exhaustion.

"Those burning red eyes..."

She couldn't move, every nerve in her legs burning from the long walk, her heart hammering from exhaustion and terror, her eyes wide and a scream on her lips that died before it could pass her teeth.

"There we were: A toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter."

Her grip was ironclad by now, the chalk taking the full brunt of her fingers' strength.

The Beowolves jumped, teeth flashing in the rising moonlight. She had waited for the inevitable, shutting her eyes the moment their bodies had begun flying forwards, all the while her little girl mind conjuring up every terrified prayer she could muster, every verbal curse about herself that a seven-year-old girl would know.

She waited for them to land on her, to hear her baby sister scream in horror as she was awoken to the last sight of a Beowolf standing over her—

SCHWING!

Yang started from her memories with a simple blink. She stared up at the chalk drawing she had made; it was a Beowolf, white skull on its face and all, being sliced in half by silhouette with spiky hair and a massive scythe.

She shook her head. "But, as luck would have it, our uncle showed up just in time. Ruby and I always looked up to him so much, especially after that despite his... well, self-destructive tendencies, but..."

Yang didn't like saying what she always thought about that day. It hung too close to her, the memory of her little toddler sister sleeping soundly in the back of that wagon as the Beowolves closed in.

Her voice was quiet like a whisper on the wind. "But, truth be told... my stubbornness should've gotten us killed that night."

The room became silent as the grave. She didn't look back to see what Blake's face looked like at the moment.

"Yang... I'm sorry that happened to you, and I understand what you're trying to tell me," Blake said, "but this is different. I'm not a child, and this isn't just a search for answers! I can't just—"

Yang felt a stir of anger in her chest. She clenched her fists on instinct, the motion second nature. "I told you: I'm not telling you to stop! I haven't!" She glanced back for but a second behind her, a furrow on her brow. Her partner was now back on her feet, right behind her as a matter of fact. "To this day, I still want to know what happened to my mother and why she left me, but I will never let that search control me. We're going to find the answers we're looking for, Blake. But if we destroy ourselves in the process, what good are we?"

"You don't understand! I'm the only one who can do this!"

Now the anger came ringing back, biting at the front of her mind like a starving animal. She felt her eyes turn red—that brief heat in her eyes that signaled the change. "No, you don't understand!" She pointed to the doorway. "If Roman or this Adam guy walked through that door, what would you do?!"

Blake gave her an angry grimace, though Yang could see the tinge of fear in her eyes from that last name. "I'd fight them!"

Yang scoffed. "You'd lose," she shouted, punctuating her point by shoving Blake back into the table.

Blake shoved back, only to fail to even muster enough inertia to move Yang. "I can stop Roman at least!"

Yang was getting very angry now. She shoved again. "You can't even stop me!"

Blake landed against the table, bracing herself as she desperately tried to get back up. Yang felt her anger abate, replaced by tire and that same maternal instinct resurging from earlier. She walked up to Blake, the Faunus girl's head downturned as if she were about to cry, her bangs hiding her eyes.

Yang felt that pang of horrid guilt for just a second as she watched her partner sit there, looking defeated and beaten. She didn't stop her body as it went in for a hug. Her eyes were closed, but she still felt Blake recoil a smidge in evident surprise.

"I'm not asking you to stop," she said so quietly, barely above a coo of a dove; even to her this was really unusual. "Just please... get some rest. Not just for you, but for the people you care about."

She kept the hug going, letting Blake soak in the hug. She worried in the back of her mind that perhaps she was over-stepping her bounds, that considering how Blake was she might recoil or double down on her reactions.

She felt arms around her lower back. Yang started and opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Blake said, barely above a whisper. "I just... I don't want people getting hurt."

Yang felt her heart beat a little faster. She squeezed just a little harder. "I know, Blake... but we can't run ourselves ragged trying to find them. Besides," she said, "I'd been meaning to tell you this before you left the cafeteria; I think we found something courtesy of one of the Professors."

Blake did a double take. "Wait, what!?"

"Pyrrha overheard Professor Ultramar and Ms. Ultramar at breakfast," she said. "Something she had heard about White Fang and Eightfold Path activity in the southeast outside the city."

Blake seemed to take a legitimate minute processing this information, holding her chin and beginning to pace. "That would put them in the area of Mountain Glenn," she deduced after a minute of ponderance. "Why would they meet there? There's nothing of value in that town."

Mountain Glenn. Yang had heard the stories told by survivors and Huntsmen, and each one chilled her heart. No one would dare venture there unless they were mad or suicidal.

"A perfect place to hide," Yang thought aloud with a shrug. "Just before I left to get you, Jacob started talking about the idea of putting in for a mission in that area," she said. "I only caught that and JNPR offering to join in before I went for you."

Blake sighed, halfway between tire, relief and annoyance. "That still doesn't explain why, though."

Yang nodded. "And we'll figure out why when we go on that mission." She put a hand on Blake's shoulder. "But for now, let's just get through class today and rest up."

Blake's eyes darted about in thought, visibly weighing her options. In the back of her mind, Yang hoped that her words would get through to Blake. If anything, this info should have put her at some ease... right?

A tired sigh from Blake was her answer. "You're right. Rest up, finish class for today, and then deal with the mission when it arrives."

Yang smiled, the worried weight lifting from her heart. She patted Blake's shoulder. "Good," she said. "We should probably get back to the gang."

Blake smiled. "Right. I need to apologize to Jacob for snapping at him like I did."

Yang felt levity begin to rise in her heart. "Just him? What about me," she said, feigning a snobby socialite's voice as she rested a daintily-posed hand on the point where her cups met, "Your comment was most uncouth of such a fine lady as you!"

Blake rose a brow and giggled. "A 'fine lady' like me, is it?"

Yang felt her stomach drop "Uhhh... let me rephrase that."

Blake broke out in laughter. Her partner's laughter built the urge in her throat with ease, leading her into her own burst of laughter.

The orange light began to fade, replaced with the bright light of a normal day. Everything felt just right.

---

"You see what I mean, right: Not too hot, not too cold—"

"The temperature is just right."

"Exactly."

The boy shook his head, a laugh squeezing past his mouth. Vulkan turned his head and glanced at him. "What's so funny?"

Jacob turned to look at him, only flinching a bit halfway through as a cinder sparked and flew past him. "It's nothing, Vulkan. Just old memories."

Vulkan hummed in understanding. He wasn't unfamiliar with that kind of memory. He turned his attention back to his prized forge, the great maw of the firedrake cast in concrete and iron and the great fire roaring in its mouth. "The flame is perfect temperature now," he said, grabbing a poker from the side and thrusting the steel rod in to stoke the embers some more, "and the steel should begin melting here in a minute or so."

Jacob hummed, a look of worry in his eyes. "Remind me again why we're melting steel and gold for a cosmetic upgrade when we have less than 48 hours until the big mission?"

Vulkan laughed. "One is cosmetic," he said, "and the other is functional."

Jacob sighed. "And I thought the Dark Angels tended to love secrets."

There was that comment again about the First Legion. Vulkan grimaced slightly; he didn't care much for them, but he did still respect their efforts in the name of the Imperium. "Abashing the First Legion is something not many of us condone, Mr. Muller, especially since there are none of their rank here that can speak in their defense."

Jacob shook his head. "Well, here's the thing," he said as he stepped a bit closer, running his arm across his brow as the fire cast him in yellows and reds. "The Dark Angels are probably the second coolest of the 'Deviant' Codices out there for Loyalist Marines. Where my little brother adores the Blood Angels—and I myself do like them a lot too—I can't help but get a laugh at the Dark Angels' ridiculous grimness; the war cries, the aesthetic, the fact that their highest members are named for angels and devils of Christianity."

Vulkan felt a brow raise. "Christianity? Is that the religion of mankind in the Age of Terra?"

Jacob shook his head. "One of them," he said. "And it was still around in some form or another by the time of the Great Crusade. Ollanius Pius called it Catherism while he was around, but most people who've read that story believe he was talking about Catholicism, the biggest of the branches."

Vulkan kept his surprise off his face, letting it sit in his mind to digest later. "Interesting. But that doesn't excuse the jabs at the Dark Angels."

Jacob sighed. "So, then, I take it none of you have read the Codex for them, huh?"

Vulkan shook his head. "It has been the least of our concerns, honestly."

"Fair enough. I suppose I should at least give you the lowdown before I go and tell the rest of our little coven too."

Vulkan rose a brow at that.

Jacob rolled his eyes, almost as if he was hesitant to say anything. "Should we find a Dark Angel running around Remnant, you didn't here this from me, but the reason for their weird habits is... well... they're kinda embarrassed—hell, embarrassed is putting it lightly—ashamed, that's the better word, of what happened with their Legion during the Heresy."

"This you already mentioned during our interrupted lunch," Vulkan pointed out, stoking the flames again.

"Right. Well," Jacob began, rubbing his hands together, "The reason for that embarrassment is that, well... they found themselves in a bit of an inter-Legion civil war between Loyalists and Traitors that spilled out into open conflict. And it kinda cost them Caliban... and almost the Lion himself as well."

Vulkan found himself doing a double take. "Really? A full civil war?"

"Yeah," the boy replied. "Luther and his men sided their loyalties with Horus and the rest of the Traitors, while El' Jonson and his flock stuck to their guns with the Imperium, despite The Lion's regular commentary about The Big E's method of rulership. They started a resistance on Caliban and it boiled over until someone set off some kind of doomsday device buried in the core of the planet."

Vulkan blinked in surprise. "Why would they seek to keep that a secret in the first place? All of the Legions had both Loyalists and Traitors alike in their ranks."

"Pride drives men to do stupid things, Forgemaster," the boy responded, looking down at his watch. "It doesn't help that this event led to the Lion's disappearance and the formation of their greatest obsession: The Fallen."

At the mention of the First Primarch's disappearance, Vulkan found himself frowning in confusion. "But The Lion was present on Terra in the aftermath of the Siege and the Scouring," he said. "The archived pictures from the aftermath confirm it. How could it have been during the Heresy?"

Jacob turned to Vulkan, a confused look on his face as well. "Huh. I'm probably the one mistaken."

Vulkan hummed as he turned an eye to the gold. "So, tell me, why were the Fallen their obsession? Who are The Fallen anyhow?"

"Survivors from Luther's faction," Jacob replied, leaning towards the flames slightly. Vulkan shot a hand out and gently nudged him to retract that lean. He looked up, a glint of embarrassment to his eyes. "Sorry. Anyhow, the Dark Angels see them as a constant reminder of their failures and that horrid betrayal. It's a black mark on their reputation, and it haunts them daily, especially considering how superstitious the Imperium is nowadays."

Vulkan didn't need to think particularly hard about that connotation. "They would have been seen as traitors and cast out of the Imperium," he deduced. "Excommunicate Traitoris. At least, that's what they fear." Vulkan glanced inside the forge, spotting the gold; it was starting to glow a bit. He grabbed a pair of tongs and reached in for the gold-filled crucible, gingerly pulling it out.

"When they're not seeing it as a stain on their pride, and that's considering only their elite forces" Jacob added. "The only Angels who know about the truth are the First Company and most times the Captains and Chaplains of the Chapter and its successors. The rest don't know the full truth about their Legion history. The call it the Inner Circle, funny enough."

Vulkan laughed. "Small galaxy, all things considered. So all of the Chapters of Dark Angel lineage know the truth? Interesting that they haven't been found out. The Lion would be proud."

"Funny thing about that," he said "When he finally wakes up, they'll probably find he's gonna be proud of their hunt but will probably still berate them a smidge for it."

Vulkan was setting the crucible down as he heard that sentence. "What do you mean 'when he finally wakes up'? There's never been anything to indicate the Lion is still alive."

Jacob rocked on his heels. "That's because of the Angels' little alien servants, the Watchers in the Dark, have been keeping secrets from even them."

Vulkan looked up in surprise, his lone heart jumping at the implication.

Jacob continued. "While the Dark Angels managed to successfully capture and imprison Luther, keeping him locked away in the deepest, darkest cell of The Rock where their Interrogator-Chaplains practice and earn their stripes... there's a cell that not even the Chapter Master and the Reclusiam know about."

Vulkan felt his jaw drop and his heart skip a beat. "Lion El' Jonson?... is alive?"

Jacob nodded as he kept his eye on the steel. "Alive, but comatose inside The Rock. The Watchers have been tending to him in secret since he was spat out by the Warp, tending to his wounds both physical and psychic if I remember right. Problem is that not even they know how to wake him up."

Vulkan took his free hand and ran it over his bald head, taking in that detail. Some part of him dared to ask another question he hadn't considered until now. "What of the other missing Primarchs? Has there been any word?"

Jacob grimaced. "Corvus is still lost in the Warp; most people think Leman's chasing Magnus through the Empyrean; uh, some people think Dorn's still alive and in hiding somewhere on Terra, and a few are wondering if Jaghatai Khan is currently imprisoned in Commorragh."

Vulkan He'Stan shuddered at the mention of that accursed name; even into the 41st Millennium it was not uncommon for the Drukhari to invade and capture natives of Nocturne for their slave pits and torture chambers. "And what of my namesake? What of the Firedrake?"

His heart sank with his gaze as Jacob shook his head with closed eyes. "No word on the Primarch Vulkan," he replied. "Some theorize he's residing on some planet in the Warp awaiting the call of his sons for his aid. Others still believe that, due to a quote from a recent novel, he's sitting inside of Trazyn the Infinite's collection—"

Vulkan's head snapped up. For the first time in ages he had heard that name, and he felt his blood start to boil. "Trazyn!?"

Jacob leapt like a startled cat. "Y-yeah, the Necron Lord—"

Vulkan raised a hand, stopping the sentence in its tracks. He began to massage his forehead. "I know who Trazyn is, Jacob," he said in nearly a rumbling voice. "Because of him, the Salamanders were beset in a ten-year long war for a Relic of Vulkan that he didn't even have."

Jacob's eyes went wide. "You're joking."

"I wish I was."

"That absolute mechanical cunt!"

Vulkan felt his grip tighten on his nose bridge. "Do you know for a fact that my gene-father is the one that sits in his collection?"

Jacob was quiet for a few moments, the only sound that he made was a hard gulp. "Uh... no. The only thing we know is that this person is massive and wears 'baroque power armor.' outside of that... no, we don't know."

Vulkan felt the pressure growing in his brow peak and begin to rapidly drop off. "I suppose that is better than a pure confirmation that it is," he said. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that; Trazyn is the one being in our Galaxy that truly boils my blood on a personal level. Even more so than that traitor Nihilan."

Jacob said nothing, though it was evident that he was still on edge. There was a redness to his cheeks, though Vulkan couldn't tell if it was from the heat or embarrassment. "Looks like, uh, the steel's looking close to melting. I'll, uh, I'll pull it out."

Vulkan raised a hand to stop him. "Let me see here really quickly if it is ready." He stood back up at his full height, letting the grip on his bridge drop off as he turned to observe the metal. Sure enough, it was nearly white-hot and the form was starting to warp from the heat. The Salamander nodded and reached in with the tongs, pulling the metal out and setting it on the anvil across from the forge.

Jacob let out a sigh. "Sorry about pushing those buttons, Vulkan. I didn't know that you and Trazyn had history."

He'Stan sighed in reply, nodding his head. "I wouldn't be surprised that you didn't know. I doubt those events were actively recorded in your version of the Black Library." He turned back to give Jacob a reassuring look. "There's nothing to apologize for, Jacob."

Jacob nodded, his eyes denoting his lost-in-thought status. "Right... fair enough." He blinked once, twice, three times and joined the Forgemaster by the anvil, staring at the glowing piece of metal. Even in the dim red and orange light of the forge, the metal glowed a white hot edged with the yellows of a sun.

"Perfect," Vulkan said with a relieved sigh. "I was worried that we were going to pull it too late."

Jacob made a small sound as if he were about to say something. "So, if the gold is for cosmetics," he said with a questioning tone, "What practical measure did we need the steel for again?"

Vulkan smiled just slightly, leaving a ghost of a smile on his face. He reached over and grabbed Jacob's chainsword, Cadia, feeling the basic steel and carbon fiber grip that gave it a grasping surface for the boy to work off of. He grimaced as he felt the grip and looked over at Jacob's hand resting on the point of the anvil. The hilt had been designed for a medium or average-sized hand, not one so small as Jacob's. The Forgemaster shook his head slightly as he replied, "We need the steel because I need an exterior conduit and the steel shall work excellently for the outside part of what I want to add."

Jacob cocked a brow with a tone of confusion. "Uh... an exterior conduit?"

Vulkan smirked. "You'll see. But first, I'll need some copper tubing, a soldering torch, my metallurgy tweezers and my drill bits."

Jacob's brow remained up in confusion for a few seconds. Suddenly, the other eyebrow rose to meet it. "You're not..."

Vulkan smiled. "Now you're catching on."

Jacob set to retrieving the tools and materials asked, all the while Vulkan worked his magic, pointing out locations as he measured out the needed sizes on the blade and began fashioning the steel to the shapes he needed. The primary conduit rod, the nodule, the insertion ring, all of the necessary parts. But unlike most Imperial versions of this tiny piece, he and other Salamanders tended to make intricate carvings on this piece. Some saw it as pedantic, but to Salamanders it was further proof of their skill at the forge and as craftsmen. However, he left it blank for the moment. Meanwhile, the gold remained in its molten form, his crucibles designed to hold the heat for as long as possible while he began to mentally map out the outer frame of the chainsword.

His attention then turned to the pommel and its carbon fiber grip. "Has the handle been suitable for you, Jacob," he said over his hammering on the steel.

"Uh, a smidge uncomfortable," Jacob replied, an audible. "But I figured I'd get used to it."

"Never a good thing for a weapon to be uncomfortable in your grip," Vulkan replied. "Over by that cabinet on your left, there's some leather straps and anchoring studs in the top right cubby. Grab some of your preference and grab the hand dremel as well."

Jacob looked over. "Okay," he said hesitantly.

He was halfway through dipping the cooling steel in oil when the table next to the anvil rattled with materials being dropped on it. "That should be everything," Jacob said with a sigh of relief. "So... do you want to do the gold first or deal with the power upgrade?"

The Salamander smiled, putting aside the steel. "The gold will be simple enough. First, a little coloration for the metal. Tell me, what design do you like?"

Jacob looked down at the weapon. "Well," he said as he scratched his jaw, "I've always been partial to a blue on par with the main color of the Crimson Fists. Maybe a little lighter, like halfway to Ultramarine blue?"

Vulkan hummed and nodded, walking over to one of his other stations. Dust crystals and dyes stood aside one another, the crystals glowing faintly as they emanated their power.

Vulkan reached in for a yellow-tinged crystal of Lightning Dust and a pair of blue bottles of dye, quickly taking them over to the table beside the anvil. He was like the very lightning that emanated from the crystal, mixing the two bottles together at the right amounts before pouring the resulting dye over the steel and iron-lined casing of the blade. Without blinking, he grabbed the Lightning Dust in his hand and dragged it along the frame, the bolts of lightning cascading off the crystal and striking the ink. Wherever it passed, the dye suddenly began to stick and dry out, levelling out as if flattened by an invisible hand. After a solid minute, the dye was completely applied, the casing now in a candied, dark royal blue the color of a pre-sunrise morning sky.

"...How the hell did you do that," Jacob asked, his brow as high as it probably could go.

"The dyes are made of both standard organic pigments and metallic fragments," Vulkan replied. With an application of Lightning Dust, the frame and the pigment can be charged with a short burst of electricity to create a quick magnetic burst that evens and spreads the pigment across the surface. Then the heat of the lightning itself dries it out quickly."

Jacob looked at him with a look of bafflement. "I'm pretty sure that's not how electromagnets work," he said, "but whatever; frankly, it's awesome."

Vulkan smiled with a laugh. "Now for the gold. Any design you want?"

Jacob looked down. "Uhh... the standard vine pattern you sometimes see on some artwork—no, better, uhm... a Celtic knot? No, maybe a line of diamond shapes or... Huh. I don't actually know."

Vulkan's smile grew bigger. "Let's give each a try, shall we?" With that, he poured half of the molten gold from the crucible onto the blade as he activated his Aura. It wasn't much, enough for a layer a millimeter thick, but it was still pretty hot.

"Jesus H. Christ, Vulkan!"

Vulkan payed it no mind, reaching out with his Aura into the blade. His soul began to reach into the blade, letting it reach to him as well. "It is said that every weapon holds a piece of its wielder's soul, that it becomes a part of him that may live on should they perish before the weapon is destroyed. You have used it enough by now, that I imagine a part of you has latched onto the weapon."

Even while Jacob replied, Vulkan was not concentrating on that. Instead, he was reaching out with one hand, feeling the metal that now coursed over the surface of the sword and gun through his Aura. He concentrated closely, feeling the weapon.

He tensed his hand. He felt the gold stop flowing as his eyes were closed. He twitched his fingers.

"Holy shit," Jacob replied.

Vulkan smiled as he felt the gold's heat and flow, letting his fingers dance. He felt the gold move to his soul's whims. He opened one of his eyes and was met with a sight that made him smile.

The mass of gold was now gone, replaced with an elaborate design in the shape of diamonds along the frame, each one sculpted with the detail of a computer or a servitor's hand back home.

"You have... but that..." Jacob was struggling to get the words out. "You have Pyrrha's Semblance too?! Magnetism?"

Vulkan let out a great bellowing laugh. "Metallokinesis," he replied. "Different from polarity; hers only works to a minor degree and gives her the ability to bend metal forms she can touch. Mine is the manipulation of the metal's structure in and of itself and can weave it with detail. Think a hammer blow versus a scalpel's cut."

Jacob looked at him with a befuddled look. "That's still the same thing, Vulkan. You're just saying you have more control over it than she does."

Vulkan cocked a brow. "Perhaps. The difference is that she actively uses hers on a macrocosmic scale for battle; mine is more useful in preparation and tactical flexibility."

Jacob swung his hands into the air in exasperation. "Whatever. So, this was how you were planning to do this."

Vulkan nodded. "And the fragment of your soul that has latched onto the blade can say what it truly wants."

Jacob shrugged. "Well, what does it say?"

Vulkan nodded and reached back in. He felt for that essence, finding it quickly as it rested in the engine of the blade, where the most energy manifested.

Vulkan smiled at the answer it received. "How very human of you, Jacob."

Jacob grinned. "Well," he said with a shrug, "Whatever my soul wants is free game. So... Uhm, let's do it in that case." He then began to pace, as if there were a thought on his mind. Vulkan could see it in his eyes, a hesitant storm of confusion.

"Something else you wish to say," Vulkan asked.

"Huh? Oh," he replied, "it's nothing. I was... just thinking about the discussion about the Primarchs. There's one I forgot to mention... and for good reason."

Vulkan's brow furrowed as he counted them off. Vulkan, The Wolf King, the Great Khan, the Protector of Terra, The Lord of Ravens, the Iron King, The Blood Angel...

That's when it hit him. "What has happened to Roboute Guilliman," he asked with an unintended dangerous edge to his voice.

Jacob grimaced. "Okay, since the mission is coming up and I don't want him getting too focused on it... promise you won't tell Titus until I think it's good to tell him?"

Vulkan bit back a grimace of his own. As much as Jacob was a good man, Titus was his partner and teammate as a Huntsman; Vulkan would decide whether or not his friend needed to know something about his gene-father. "Promise," he lied.

Jacob took a deep breath. "Well... he isn't dead, for starters. But he's not in stasis anymore, thanks to some Craftworld fuckery and Mechanicus bullshit from Belisarius Cawl."

Vulkan didn't need to spell it out to put two and two together. He felt the blood rush from his face in shock. "You mean...?"

Jacob nodded.

Vulkan's fingers relaxed as his mind became occupied with this new revelation. "Tell me everything, Jacob."

---

"I will deploy... Atlesian Paladin and activate Mantlean Blizzard. Do you have any counter-efforts to use, Nora?"

A sigh. "Nope."

"Jaune?"

"Zilch."

"Lie?"

"Please, Penny, I prefer to go by my last name, Ren. And unfortunately, no."

Turquoise-blue eyes met emerald green eyes. "Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha looked back down at her hand, seeing if there was anything that she could use to counteract the oncoming modifier. Let's see... Ironclad Warrior, Prophets of the Sons, Bombard Airfleet... shoot, I used my Mountain Pass earlier. She shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Penny."

Penny beamed. "Then I shall roll for success. One d6, a four or higher to succeed."

Pyrrha nodded as she looked up around them. The library was practically abandoned by now, even though the midday sun beamed down gently onto the floor below for perfect reading light. The burgundy rugs and wood flooring were cast in various patterns and shades by the shadows and sunlight coming down through the skylights.

Penny picked up the lone die with a quick flourish and shook them, her eyes focused on her hands with the sharpness of an eagle's eyes.

"You're not scanning the die with your eyes so you can cheat a roll, are you," Nora said half-teasingly. "Right?"

"To perhaps a mild extent," she said. "I only scan based on the motions of the die against my hands and calculate out the probabilities of success based on the frequency and general algebraic probability equations. Once the die leaves my hand, though," she said as she let the die loose, the white and black piece tumbling across the board like a stone falling down a mountain.

It landed on the three.

"It is all up to random chance," she said, shrugging robotically.

Nora jumped up and cheered, only for Pyrrha to glance over at her and gently nudge her. "Sorry," the little redhead replied, sitting back down and rubbing the back of her head.

"A shame that failed," she said, "but that is how random chance plays out. Your turn, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha nodded and smiled. "I'll draw my card..." She looked down as she flipped the card upright. She was rewarded with the sight of an angry pack of peasants armed with pitchforks and torches.

Her smile softened a smidge, but she was still able to make this work. "I will activate Farmers' Riot," she said, laying the card down gently on the table as she pointed it towards Ren, "And engage Ren's invading army. I will also activate Prophets of the Sons and apply them to the Riot."

"Ooh," Jaune said with a smile. "Good one, Pyrrha."

"That's a really good combo," Ren replied, "But I don't think it's enough to stop my Desert Raiders."

"The Sons grant a plus-three to damage output," replied Penny, "And she is in her home territory, which conveys a plus-one to combat skill."

Pyrrha noticed Ren starting to nod. "And the Riot causes four d6 attacks with any rolls of a six adding an additional d6. I still don't think it will be enough, admittedly."

Pyrrha felt the challenge come from a mile away. "Let's see how it works out," she said, smiling. She grabbed the four dice and rattled them, smiling as the table took sides.

"Come on Ren," Nora said, zipping up onto her feet and running around to Ren's back, rubbing his shoulders. "You can take out a bunch of measly peasants! Do it for your Queen!"

"Come on, Pyrrha," Jaune said, leaning in and almost knocking his figures over.

"The numbers are even," Penny said. "I'm rooting for you, Pyrrha!"

Pyrrha beamed bemusedly. "Here we go," she said, letting them fly.

After a few seconds the die finished tumbling. Two sixes, a three and a two.

There was a collective gasp around the table. Pyrrha was laughing in delighted shock, covering her mouth. "Oh-hoh-oh my gods!"

"Wow," Ren replied with a low whistle. "Good roll."

Pyrrha picked another two up and rolled them. A five and a one stared back at her.

"Twenty-three hits," Penny rattled off. "I would call that an excellent roll, Pyrrha!"

Pyrrha beamed. "Alright, Ren. Now you roll for fails."

Ren nodded, grabbing four dice and rolling them. He rolled only twelve fails. He sighed resolutely. "And my Desert Raiders are removed from play. Well played."

Pyrrha nodded. "Don't count yourself out just yet, Ren," she replied. "You still have the upper hand on Jaune."

"I've got a strategy," Jaune countered defensively. "Sorta. Kinda. Okay, not much, but it's a start!"

Pyrrha chuckled at her partner. "Gods, I forgot how much I loved this game," she said through her laughter. "I'm glad we've gotten the chance to play it before the big mission."

"Actually, speaking of that," Penny said, "I wanted to ask you, since Jacob has let me in on RWBY's plan, how do you feel about this new development?"

The levity of the moment was swayed by the oncoming rush of seriousness. Pyrrha felt her laugh die off. "You mean my godfath—sorry, Professor Ultramar's?"

Penny nodded.

Jaune hummed. "That's maybe a bit too close to home for my taste," he replied. "I've got some family in Redhearth that I regularly visited as a kid, right in the outskirts of town." His face became downtrodden as he shuffled his cards. "I hope they're alright."

Pyrrha felt her heart sink. "I know what it's like to have a parent regularly in the line of danger," she said. "It's part of what inspired me to become a Huntress in the first place; I wanted to follow in his footsteps. Keep people safe."

Jaune nodded, soon followed by the rest of her team. Penny seemed to develop just the slightest hint of what seemed to Pyrrha to be a look of forlornness.

"Reminds me of Ruby," Jaune said. "A lot more noble a purpose than mine; I'm the guy wanting to prove himself to be as good as the rest of his family."

Pyrrha felt sick when he started beating himself up about his purpose. "Jaune," she said, "there's nothing wrong with that kind of purpose. You deserve the chance to be as great as your forbearers." She put a hand on his shoulder, little more than a gentle caress, but it was enough to get her intent across.

He sighed in response. "I guess," he replied. "But it's still nothing like yours, Pyrrha."

Across the way, Nora was cocking a brow and smiling at both of them. Pyrrha could read the thoughts in her mind without even needing to be a telepath: just kiss already, you two.

Apparently, Jaune knew what she was thinking too. "Nora," he said as he blushed. "Don't go there."

"What," she said, "you two would make a cute couple."

Now it was Pyrrha's turn to blush. "Uhh... w-well, I suppose—"

"Perhaps we should consider what we are to do for the big mission," Ren said, interjecting quickly. Pyrrha had to remember to thank him for that save.

"Agreed," Penny said as she tapped the side of her head. Her eyes began to glow brightly, as if her eyes had been ignited with an internal fire. She was quiet, eyes focused as if she were staring at a single speck in front of her. "A mission has been added to the roster already," she replied. "Requires two teams... southeast region of Vale Territory, possible entrance into Mountain Glenn..."

Pyrrha rose a brow. This was too good to be true.

Penny's brow furrowed. "Drat. Not available for first-years," She said. "Perhaps we might be able to convince Professor Ozpin to lift that."

"What about you, Penny," Jaune asked. "Since you're...well, you know?"

Penny began to tap her cheek in thought. "I don't have a proper partner yet, and the General has been adamant about me avoiding revealing myself to the general public until the Tournament. I suppose I will not be part of these missions."

"Aww," Nora said dejectedly. "I was looking forwards to us having some fun kicking Grimm teeth in together!"

Penny nodded. "Perhaps another time, Nora. I would love to show you some ideas I have for your grenade combinations." She turned to Pyrrha, smiling. "Regardless, I believe that this mission was set up in this manner for a reason."

Pyrrha nodded. "You were thinking the same thing too: the professors want us on that mission."

Penny returned the nod. "RWBY's continuous confrontations with the White Fang are not a state secret," she replied. "And neither is Jacob's either. General Ironwood even said that where they and you go, he follows eagerly."

"They think we can root out the White Fang," Pyrrha deduced. "They want us as scouts?"

Jaune was starting to look nervous. "But... we're first-years," he replied, bringing his hands onto the table as he leaned forwards. "They've got to have better candidates for this mission. Team CFVY is twice our skill level, or there's the Senior teams. Why us?"

His anxiety was palpable. She reached out a hand for his hand now resting on the table. He didn't look directly at her, but he did seem to tense and then immediately relax at her touch. She didn't deny the butterflies that fluttered for a brief second in her stomach. "I don't really think there's a necessary 'why', Jaune," she replied. "It seems to be... random luck, I suppose."

Nora was grinning ear-to-ear, practically leaping out of and into a standing pose on her feet. "Well, I think the danger will just make our success even better! Think about it; we go in, hunt some Grimm, find the White Fang, report back to the professors and let them and Atlas' army take them out! We'll be heroes!"

Ren began to raise a finger in reply, only to stop his sentence cold-turkey in his throat. He shook his head and let the finger drop, only saying, "Heroes by-proxy, Nora."

"Pfft, whatever. Still heroes," she said as she jumped back into her seat with a solid-sounding plop.

Penny smiled. "Knowing the combat efficiency of Ruby's team and yours as well, I predict there is only a four percent chance of failure when comparing recorded actions by the White Fang," she replied. "And with Professor Ultramar, Ms. Ultramar and Professor Oobleck, that probability drops by an additional three-point-four-two percent."

"Numbers and calculations don't mean everything, Penny," Jaune replied. "I just hope that I'm wrong this time."

Pyrrha nodded, her heart torn in this matter; this was her first mission, and to take on such a huge task was an honor, if it even was supposed to be theirs. But so far from the city, away from most other Huntsmen, as well as any support from Atlas soldiers, she didn't deny that the risks were huge should things get out of hand.

"True," Penny replied. "It is indeed a gamble. But... that being said, when has anything not been a gamble? Was your unqualified entry into Beacon not a gamble, Jaune?"

Pyrrha and Jaune, almost synchronously, immediately jumped up and tried shushing her, waving their hands in distress. "Not so loud, Penny," Pyrrha whispered.

"Oops," Penny said, covering her mouth with a wide-eyed look on her face. "I'm sorry, friends."

"No, no," Jaune said, shrugging in agreement, "You're... you're not entirely wrong."

The android girl beamed. "You see what I mean, yes?"

"Well, yeah, I guess. But—"

"And you know as well as I do that Ruby and her team will be taking the fight there with or without Headmaster Ozpin's permission," she added. "Heck, I doubt that any of the professors will outright oppose them going on this mission; why else would Mr. and Mrs. Ultramar—two senior Huntsmen with personal ties to Pyrrha—be also accompanying Professor Oobleck on this mission."

"That part I consider highly coincidental," Ren piped up. "I do see your point, however; it would be incredibly coincidental if this wasn't outright planned."

"So," Nora said exictedly, as if she had swiped a cup of coffee from Oobleck's thermos, "does that mean we're going with RWBY on the big mission?"

Pyrrha and Jaune shared a look. Normally, Jaune tended to let her take te lead on a decision, and it made her worry that he would never come into his own as their team leader. Before he could say anything, she said, "Perhaps this should be our team leader's decision. Wht do you think, Jaune?"

Jaune made a confused 'uhh' in response as he looked around at the rest of the table. Penny was giving him a beaming smile, With Nora doing the same right next to her; Pyrrha was now starting to wonder if Penny had been designed off of Nora by some strange twist of fate. Ren gave Jaune a quizzical eyebrow, simply awaiting his decision. Pyrrha herself made no face to sway him in either direction, wanting to see what he finally decided on. His eyes were squinted in thought, his brow furrowed as he rattled the ideas around his head. Ten seconds ticked by on the clock over the Grimm Studies shelves behind Penny. Then another ten. And then another.

Jaune sighed, dropping his head before he looked back up. Pyrrha felt her heart beat just a little faster as he locked eyes with her, brilliant sapphires practically glowing with the hints of determination, tempered by wariness. "Let's do it."

Nora cheered loudly with Penny. Both were quickly shushed by a student across the way, an act that made them sheepishly sit back down. "Excellent," Penny said quietly. "I'll let Ruby and Jacob know when I next see them. In the meantime, arm up with as much Dust as you can and be ready for a difficult mission." She stood up, acting as if stretching even though she made no difference to her voice as she stretched like most people did. "I'm glad Ruby has such good friends as you; it would be a lot to be her only friend."

Pyrrha giggled. "As far as I am concerned, you're one of our merry band of misfits, right guys?"

Nora sprung up onto her feet. "Oh yeah! Welcome to the Crew," she said as she wrapped an arm around Penny, beaming brightly.

Suddenly, the dynamic swapped as Penny turned and scooped Nora up in a tight hug that left Nora shouting in surprise. "Hooray! New friends!"

The next strangled words out of Nora's mouth were terrifying to Pyrrha. "Oh my gods, you have a stronger grip than I do!"

Jaune, Ren and Pyrrha shared a look of shock mixed with worry. Jaune spoke up. "Someone... has a stronger grip than... Nora?"

"I might need to find some proper armor before I go in for a hug with Penny," Ren replied.

Penny giggled as she hugged Nora for a few more seconds before she abruptly unbound the girl, dropping her as Nora let out a cry of surprise. "This will be fantastic to send to my father when I go up to the CCT tomorrow. I just know he will love seeing my socialization progress!"

"Your father? You mean your inventor," asked Ren.

Penny nodded. "He always enjoys hearing about my socialization input than any combat simulations I attempt. I usually have to encrypt my memory files to send to him directly, so it will take some time; I should probably head over there now to check and see when I am clear to upload."

Pyrrha nodded and smiled. Penny's exuberance was so innocent and lively that it was practically contagious. She couldn't lie, it was almost like...

"Celly, wait for me!"

"Come on, Pyrrha, we're gonna miss Delia's party... Huh?"

"What was that?"

"It sounded like... growling?"

Pyrrha shook her head as the memories began to grow a darker shade. She wasn't in the mood to be reminded of past mistakes and much older friends.

They had a mission to plan for.

---

Huzzah, now we get to the good stuff next chapter! Sorry for the meandering that this story's going through at the moment; I've been trying to get some proper character interactions and not every one of them can be a battle, sadly (though it never hurts when the interactions are a fight, though.) This next chapter is gonna skip that final day, albeit for the last few hours before the characters go to sleep and then wake up for the mission and then go from there.

Basically, next episode: Jacob and Delia have a quick heart-to-heart before The Breach, Teams RWBY, JNPR and Jacob go off on a hunt for the White Fang and get a mouthful of Chaos with it, and... A servant of the Blood God makes his appearance.

Review, critique, follow, favorite, comment, whatever you please, I always appreciate what you guys have to say and I do hope to see some that point out any glaring transgressions for storytelling that I've made; I always want to be improving and your input is so helpful for refining myself. Anyways, hope to hear from you all, and if the next chapter doesn't get out before the holidays proper, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and/or Winter Solstice, and as always I will see you all in the next Chapter. Bye~!