The Start of Another Story

I don't own RWBY. This Episode is unrelated to any other Episode in the Series. Special mention to Silent Magi who helped quite a bit with the brainstorming.

Qrow was, uncommonly for him, very sober as he made his way to the door of what was first the Team STRQ house, then became Taiyang and Summer's house where he would stay between missions. Now, though…? He supposed it was going to have to be his home again while he retired from working for Ozpin.

He had told them that he should be the one to go on the mission. He'd said that he had a bad feeling about it, that he could handle it and that they could stay home with the kids. It should have been him. That was the only thing that he could keep thinking. Now, all he could do was tell the girls that their mother and father were never coming back, that he was going to look after them from that point onward.

He sighed as he opened the door only to see a single black feather plummet to the ground, and with its fall, his fears grew.

"Kids?" he called out. When he received no answer, he began to rush through the rooms, trying to find any sign of the pair, "Yang?! Ruby?!" He burst into the master bedroom, hoping that they were just playing hide and seek, only to see a note resting on the bed, his name in Raven's handwriting.

"Brother, I heard about Tai and Summer. Whether I like it or not, my daughter needs a parent, one that isn't so close to Ozpin. As for the other one, the one that's their daughter… I couldn't leave her, Qrow. I hope you understand why I did this. For what it's worth, I'm sorry you'll have to find out like this. I will raise them to be able to defend themselves. I'll keep you apprised of their development. Your sister, Raven."

Qrow's legs gave out underneath him by the time he had gotten halfway through the letter. By the time he finished it, he had simply gone numb. He supposed it made sense that this had happened. His bad luck was catching up to him once more. Raven was too smart to keep the camp where he had last seen it after taking the kids. He crushed the letter in his hand as he sat in the empty hallway, reflecting on the past. There used to be laughter here. This house was the last thing he had of happier times in his life, and now it was an empty shell with a bad luck charm in the center of it.

He really needed a drink.


Sienna Khan was not sure what to make of the child. An Atlesian cell of the White Fang had apparently turned to kidnapping, but when their demands were not met, in fact were outright refused, they had presented the white-haired child to her, and now she was expected to determine what they were to do with her.

The situation was intriguing, made more curious by the little girl's neutral expression.

"Why aren't you afraid?" she asked the girl with a slight tilt of her head.

"I won't be going home one way or another," the girl replied freely, "It's easier to just wait for whatever you decide."

"And what makes you say that?" she asked.

"You're probably going to kill me," she shrugged, "You can't let me go, if you don't kill me."

"You're handling this well," Sienna noted.

"Whatever you do, you can't be worse than my father," she replied freely.

Sienna stared blankly at the girl. This situation had now become interesting.

She made a split decision that would change history.

"Well, come on, then," she said, "Like you said, I can't just let you go. I might as well bring you along for the time being."


Raven Branwen was, while not a great mother, focused on treating her daughter and her daughter's sister as she felt they rightly deserved. Yang, her blood daughter, was something of a source of pride to her. It was interesting to her, however, that she was more geared towards fighting like her father than like her, with her fists, rather than with a blade. When it came time for Yang to develop a weapon for herself, it was unsurprising that she had designed bracelets that doubled as shotgun gauntlets. It had taken some of both Yang and, though she would deny it, her take from a few SDC train robberies, but the girl had proven quite proficient in weapons engineering and the effort had been worth it.

Summer and Tai's daughter, Raven decided, would be better suited to scythe usage and to that effect arranged for her to have books on the subject and several practice scythes. Were anyone to ask how she had made this decision, she would not have answered.

Regardless, the girl excelled at the practice, and had even designed a scythe-gun out of her shares (which Raven would similarly deny supplementing with some of her own take), and she was quickly becoming a master to the level of… someone else.

At the age of ten, however, Ruby Rose of the Branwen Tribe was discontented. It took her some time to figure out what it was that made her so, but when she figured it out, she knew exactly what it was that made her feel so. Everything she saw amongst people made her less pleased with the state of the world as she knew it. It was not like the stories that Yang would read to her. People were not like the stories. And that simply would not do.

In the middle of the night, Ruby Rose, no longer of the Branwen Tribe, slipped out into the darkness of a new moon. By the time Raven had realized what had happened and let out a search party, she had already boarded a train to Vale.


Everyone in the White Fang was aware of the one figure other than Adam Taurus that was never seen without their mask. Sienna Khan's right hand was what she was commonly referred to as, which some supposed was because it was practically taboo to mention that she was human, let alone a Schnee, and her mask was one that looked as if it were better suited to a masquerade than a battlefield.

Still, there were very few who could be said to not be relieved that she was on their side, particularly during a heist. Much like her mentor, she was quick on her feet, and very skilled with hit and run tactics. Unlike her mentor, however, the girl used a rapier that doubled as a breach-loading rifle for whatever Dust rounds she had on her bandolier.

There was, however, one person that seemed intent on picking fights with her.

"Schnee," Adam greeted flatly as he approached the door of Sienna Khan's war room, where the fourteen year old was standing guard.

"Taurus," Weiss said coolly, her hand resting lightly on her blade, "In case you weren't aware, there is a meeting with her important lieutenants in progress, and your presence was not requested for it. You will wait here until the meeting is finished."

"I see she left her loyal pet to guard the door," he replied, "I have important information."

"And you do not have permission to enter," she replied as if talking to a small child, "So, the chain of questions is as follows: Is it time sensitive?"

"No," he growled.

"Does it require her immediate attention?" she asked.

"No," he said, and she could see his hand moving towards his blade.

"Does it concern the well-being of the White Fang either your personal cell or as a whole?"

"No," he bit off, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword.

"Then you will wait here," she said, her hand on the hilt of her own sword.

The pair stood tensely, each clearly eager to draw and slay the other where they stood, only to be cut off by the door opening behind Weiss. Both quickly withdrew their hands from their weapons.

"Adam," Sienna greeted as her other lieutenants exited the room, "What do you need to discuss?"

"There's a caravan of Atlesian military equipment headed towards Mistral," he stated, "I would like to take a small team to intercept it."

"Come inside and talk," she said, "Weiss, join us." After a brief moment of thought, she said, "You can come in as well, Blake."

Weiss nodded at Sienna's orders, sharing a courteous nod with the girl she had come to regard as Adam's shadow as she entered. While she did not like the girl's mentor, she had nothing against the last Belladonna to remain a member of the White Fang.


Ruby Rose, late of the Branwen Tribe, lined up her shot and fired. The Grimm were easy to kill, and killing them was exhilarating, but what she was doing was just that much more satisfactory. She lined up her shot with the scope she'd developed on the goggles she wore with a slight smile on her face.

Jacques Schnee was her prey, this time, and he was surprisingly easy once she had bribed a maid. Apparently, he had left his youngest daughter to die at the hands of the White Fang, rather than pay her ransom, and his business practices were particularly unethical, treating the Faunus as practical slaves and having Dust mines built as cheaply as possible.

"By the Light of the Brother of Creation and the Darkness of the Brother of Destruction," she murmured, the shot now perfectly lined up, "You, Jacques Schnee are found wanting. Since they're not handling you, themselves, though…" She pulled the trigger and a very large splatter of blood painted the practically destroyed chest of the man who had been standing at his window with the force of a 50 caliber armor-piercing round. "May the Brothers judge you properly."

Nodding to herself over a good job done well, she pulled up her hood and vanished in a stream of red rose petals.

'People,' she mused, 'Are where the real monsters come from, when you get down to it.'

To her, the Grimm, while flesh-eating demons, were lacking in any direct malice. Sure, they were drawn in by negative emotions, but it wasn't as if they toyed with their victims. If you wanted to see true evil, she believed, you had to look for the right sort of person. So, she hunted those sort of people. It was time to move again. Rumor had it there were some people in Vale that required her special attention.


Raven was perched on the gate of the Tribe's latest base when she saw her daughter sneaking out. Flying down, she turned into her human form and asked, "What are you doing, Yang?"

"I've got a contact that might have a lead on Ruby," Yang said, "I need to check this out."

She stared at her daughter, who had a determined gleam in her eye that was painfully like Tai's eyes when he had an idea in his head. This had been happening more and more frequently, but she could understand what Yang was feeling.

"You have three days to go. I expect you to message me when you've made contact," she said after almost a minute of silence had passed.

Yang nodded quietly before mounting her bike and riding off.


Weiss was quick and quiet as she moved, as were the other members of this particular strike team, aboard a train to Vale. Blake was gone, according to Adam, and Sienna had been too busy with other matters to handle the issue, leaving it as only her, Ilia Amitola, and Adam, with Sienna appointing her strike team leader. She ran her thumb along the grip of Myrtenaster, the sword she had forged with stolen Atlesian steel from the SDC, with its revolving Dust chambers.

"Ilia, go scout ahead," she said to the one she didn't dislike, "Recon only. Do not engage."

Once Ilia had left, she turned towards Adam and said, "Alright. I don't like you, and you don't like me, but if we…" she was cut off by him suddenly ramming the hilt of his blade into her diaphragm, knocking the air out of her lungs.

"I'm not taking orders from a human, whether or not you are Sienna Khan's little pet," he said, taking Myrtenaster as she fought to bet air back in her lungs, "It's a shame that you were captured by some guard bots. I tried to help you, but you told me to run and get Ilia out." He pulled an alarm and tossed Myrtenaster into the next compartment, which contained two security spider bots, then shoved her in after, slamming the door shut behind her. Grabbing Myrtenaster, she began to fight for her life, forming what glyphs came to her instinctively. Had she been raised in the family manor, she would have had access to books on the topic, but she had instead grown with the few she knew by nature. Now, she was going to have to make the most of them.


Ruby Rose was intrigued by the pair that approached her, who she watched through the black lenses of her goggles.

"You're a hard woman to find," the taller, a black haired woman with gleaming amber eyes, noted, "But then, I expected no less from someone with your reputation?"

"My reputation?" Ruby asked mildly. She knew that she did not like this woman, but she would at the very least see what the woman wanted from her.

"Everyone's heard about the Red Death," she replied, "The Assassin's Assassin. They say that if you, personally want someone dead, they will be dead in time."

"Why are you looking for me?" Ruby asked, examining the shorter, a dark-skinned girl with green hair and red eyes.

"I'm looking for people who want to change the world," the woman said in a silky voice, "People with the skills necessary for it. We're in the same business, you and I."

"Nope," Ruby replied, "Not interested in remaking the world in your image."

"You don't seem to understand," the woman said, seeming unconcerned, "You are exactly what I'm looking for. A killer of your abilities is invaluable. Surely we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"You disgust me, Cinder Fall," she replied, causing the woman to pause in surprise, "You're… unsightly. You kill, manipulate, and torture for power, like all the rest of the monsters in human skin."

"That sounds like you're refusing," the woman said darkly, a bow made of glass forming in her hand, "Are you sure you want to try that?"

A single shot blasted the weapon out of Cinder's hands, a second round, this one Fire Dust, burned one of her eyes and a third would have killed her if the green-haired one had not leapt into the path of the bullet. When Cinder tried to summon the Grimm attached to her to deal with the nuisance, however, Ruby fired another round, causing the creature to retreat. Cinder, for her part, lifted a Fire Dust crystal and lit it ablaze with her fire, causing an explosion that she used to flee, leaving Emerald to die of her injury as Ruby retreated with the bleeding.

"Cinder…" she called out brokenly, reaching for where the woman had been standing.

"You're not going to die," Ruby said, "You proved you're a real person. I won't let you die for a monster."


Weiss panted after all that effort had finally paid off. She had destroyed the sentries, leaving her with only a quarter of her mask shattered and a bloody cut over her eye that mirrored where the mask had broken. This settled it for her. Adam Taurus was going to die. Clearly, he only cared about the revolution as a means of gaining power.

Idly, she wondered if he had killed Blake Belladonna, but her thoughts were stopped when she a score of Atlesian soldiers waiting outside of the train as she tried to slip into the shadows. As they all raised their rifles at her to show that she could not escape, she offered a smirk before holding up her index finger in a "one second" gesture before taking out her personal scroll, typed out a message, sent it, then tossed the scroll into the air, shooting it with three perfectly-aimed rounds from the dagger on her hip that she had modeled after Myrtenaster's predecessor, destroying it utterly.

"Drop your weapons, Faunus!" the one taking the lead demanded.

"Human, actually," she replied, sheathing her dagger before quickly drawing Myrtenaster, "Unfortunately, I do have places to be, so…"

She tossed a smoke grenade into the crowd and tried to make good her escape, only to be stopped by a drunken man in a tattered red cape who was clearly not one of the soldiers, going both by his attire and the fact that he was holding a colossal scythe, who had a tired look in his eye as he said, "Weiss Schnee… I owe your sister a favor so, lucky you, I'm getting you out of here." When the soldiers arrived, he turned towards them with his scroll and said, "S'all right, guys. Official Valean Huntsman business. This is my apprentice, who ran off ahead of me. Kids…"

The leader narrowed his eyes, before glancing at his own scroll for anything on the drunk. After a moment, he said, "Men, inspect the train. We don't know what those White Fang riffraff did."

Once they had gotten away from the group, Weiss asked, "Who are you, and what are Atlesian soldiers doing in Vale?"

"Qrow Branwen," he replied, "Unofficially Semi-Retired Professional Huntsman. And you would be Weiss Schnee, who's apparently moonlighting as a member of the White Fang. And I thought I had family problems. I've gotta ask: Were you the one who did Jacques? I'm not against it having been done. I'm just curious."

Weiss paused and turned to look at him as she asked, "He's finally dead?"

"Not many people can take a fifty-cal to the chest and live. But I'm guessing that wasn't you. Come on. Your sister's in town, luckily, so we can talk all about this when you see her."

Weiss followed numbly, trying to process just what had happened that evening. She knew that it wasn't a White Fang attack that had taken him, at least, as she was certain that Sienna would have told her, but that left the question of who had killed him and exactly why they did so.