A Change of Alignments

I don't own RWBY. This Episode is unrelated to any other Episode in the Series.

"And once she had destroyed the wicked wizard, the girl used the relics to recreate the world anew," the Lady recited to the Girl by rote, as she did every night when she tucked her into bed.

"And the world was like the fairy tales, happily ever after?" the silver-eyed six-year-old asked eagerly, despite knowing the entire tale by heart.

"Naturally," she replied kindly as her pale hand ran through the child's hair, "In time, it shall be you who strikes the final blow against the wicked wizard. Rest well, my little Rose."

As the child shut her eyes, Salem left the room, finding a seventeen-year-old young woman leaning against the wall when she shut the door.

"Lady Salem, do we really need the child?" she pressed, "Surely we could move now without her in play."

"Patience, young Cinder," Salem said gently, yet her red eyes had a light glint of menace to them, "Good things come to those who wait. She is important and will play her part, much like you have your part to play. You'll get the power you crave. All you must do is do as I say..."


"You're getting better," the Chief noted, "You've grown in power and have already unlocked your Aura. In time, you will even forge your own weapons. Until that day, you must master the use of blades and unarmed combat."

"Yes, ma'am," the daughter said. Yang was being trained by her mother to eventually lead the tribe.

Raven found her eight year old daughter to be an odd one. Five years ago, after she had heard that Taiyang had died, she had assumed that Summer would have looked after the child, which she apparently had, but she was still a soldier in Ozpin's army, one who had, from what Raven had been told, had lost her own child, barely an infant, to Salem. Raven had no doubt that she would send the girl to Beacon one day, and that was something that Raven could not allow. She couldn't allow the last bit of Tai to be dragged into Ozpin's war.

So, she took her child. It wasn't even all that difficult. Summer, according to the intel she'd gotten, had been applying to teach at Signal. Since Qrow wasn't around that day, going off on some mission for Ozpin, Summer didn't have a babysitter, which meant that she had to drop Yang off at a daycare. From there, there was little to do but make a portal and take her child back.

The only flaw in her plan had been that Yang did not recognize her as her mother, at the start. Raven, for a brief moment, contemplated spinning a web of lies to get her daughter to accept her, but something stopped her before she could even form the words. Instead, she admitted to what she couldn't bring herself to say when she had left. Her fears, her frustrations, and even that she had almost gone back despite it all.

Yang had not been happy with the truth. The girl had raged, tried to leave, even refused to speak to her without using another bandit as a go-between. If Raven were to have spoken of the situation, she would have admitted that it hurt, but she instead kept her opinion quiet. It took a full year before Yang had finally started speaking to her. By the time Yang was six, they were close enough that Raven began to teach her the way of the sword, though they eventually gave up on that when Raven realized that Yang took more after Tai in combat preferences.

When Yang was seven, she had taken to the life like a fish to water and Raven told her that she would become the head of the Tribe someday.

It was, however, not the process that led to this that made Yang an odd one to Raven. She had somehow managed to grow to match Raven's ruthlessness with Tai's analytical mind and Summer's compassion, and yet she was not weakened by the last of the three. In fact, the girl had even managed to bolster the Tribe's strength through that trait. The Spring Maiden, a weak girl named Equinox who was younger than Yang, had stumbled across the Tribe and Raven had taken her in, but the girl had appeared to be too weak to survive in the world.

Yang said otherwise and worked with the girl until she had become confident, ready to test her powers to their limits. The merciful end that Raven had begun to fear she would have to bestow upon the young Maiden was no longer necessary.

Raven felt pride in her daughter, a fact of which she was less reticent than she was regarding her other emotions. Yang was the Tribe's future, and Raven was certain that the future was bright.


Roll a snowball down a mountain, and you can trigger an avalanche.

Those words meant a good deal to Weiss Schnee at the age of ten, more than they had meant when she was five. She knew very little about the two who had taken her almost a year prior, a pair of teenage criminals that had nice clothes that didn't quite suit them, save for his hat and her parasol.

The kidnapping was the snowball. Her getting them to work for her was the avalanche.

It had been a slow, but simple process, all things considered. They had kidnapped her. Unfortunately for their scheme, her father didn't want to pay her ransom, something they had not planned for.

Weiss naturally took it upon herself to criticize their methods and then their attire, followed closely by her insulting their entire methodology. Crime, she had determined, was a business, a business almost identical to the Dust trade as he father had established it, just less reliant on what was practically slave labor. If she looked at it that way, then it was much easier to figure out just how to operate in that system.

They used her as a general consultant at first, but, in time, they started relying on her more and more, particularly once they decided to hit the SDC, itself.

The idea had naturally been hers. Dust was a better currency than lien in some places, and the SDC cornered the market. That meant that under-the-table dealings would make a killing. The pair were brilliant thieves, with the boy, who called himself 'Torchwick,' as the face and the girl, who Weiss learned was called 'Neo,' was the muscle. She, as it turned out, was the perfect addition to the pair, as she could run the numbers to the point that profits were constantly soaring, knew how the SDC operated, and was generally familiar with the habits and fancies of the wealthy, making her important enough that they officially put her in charge of running the business side of things.

It was, to her, a good deal more pleasant than the life she had been living in the manor.


Blake Belladonna was ruthless. By the age of twelve, she had determined she would remain in the White Fang, even after her father had left due to their increasingly cutthroat methods of petitioning for better treatment of the Faunus. She was, however, an anomaly. She was officially Sienna Khan's prized protege, a warrior willing to fight with all she had to support the cause. She was also well-known for another reason.

She had personally killed Adam Taurus.

When she had been presented before the Great Leader, herself, to explain what she had done, she explained both the disgusting nature of the man who had been her mentor and the fact that he had crueler intentions for humanity than the White Fang had. With figurative fire in her amber eyes, the girl had stated plainly that, if the White Fang were to make the world a better place, they needed to be held to the highest of standards.

In a voice that was held more conviction than any who had been at her trial would have been able to muster, she stated that she would personally ensure that any who crossed the line in the sand that she had drawn in this regard would be dealt with by her personally. There was a chill in the air at those words, and Sienna Khan took an interest in the girl's development. She suspected that, if she were to fall before the White Fang had accomplished her goals, the girl would be appointed her replacement.

Sienna was the Leader. Blake was her sword. That was the ranking on paper, at least. Were one to ask, Blake, herself, would have referred to herself as the Sword of the White Fang. Were she to be pressed further, she would explain that, to her, the power structure meant very little. If anyone went against the ideals of the White Fang, she would kill them with no remorse.


Cinder Fall was the picture of a powerful woman at the age of 24. She was rapidly becoming the most important piece that her mistress had on the board. All that stood in her way, unfortunately, was her mistress's favorite.

"Cinder!" The Rose said happily, "And you brought your little doll."

Despite herself, Cinder felt her eyes narrow slightly even as Emerald almost reached for her weapons at that description.

"You got a new action figure?! Nice!" the thirteen-year-old mused as she examined Cinder's latest recruit, "Nice legs! Watts's work, right? Can this one do anything interesting?"

"Can you get to why you're here of all places?" Cinder glared.

"It was on the way, so I thought I'd pop by and see how you were doing!" she replied cheerfully, "I'm headed off to Atlas to look into something that might help when Her plans." She smiled cheerfully as she said, "Want me to pick anything for you while I'm there?"

Were anyone to ask Cinder, she would not have been able to properly describe The Rose as a person, largely because she wasn't sure how much of her personality was an actual, sincere personality. The girl had been raised by Salem, which meant that she should have been ruthless, determined, and ready to kill at a moment's notice. She was, at the very least, a very skilled killer, but Cinder was always thrown off by the girl's obsession with acting like a child. The girl had to know the nature of the things that she was doing. No one could be that innocent, yet she never seemed to drop the facade. As such, Cinder knew not to trust her, regardless of how friendly she was.

"What did you hear about?" Cinder found herself asking.

"A doll!" she said cheerfully, before she paused, as if in thought, "Or maybe a Maiden. If it's a doll, it's mine, since you already have one. You can have the Maiden if that's what it is. I know you really want to be one."

A quick, subtle gesture from Cinder kept Emerald from trying to attack The Rose. Cinder had more important business to handle anyway.


"My sisters and I were sent here to do our usual business," the blonde bandit in the Nevermore mask noted in a reasonable tone, "We don't have any plans on fighting the White Fang. If you want the Dust, take it and go in peace. We're here for something else."

"How do we know you won't shoot us in the back?" Blake asked.

"First," she said, "if I wanted to shoot you, your two goons, and your shadow hanging out behind my older sister, I would have put one between your beautiful eyes. Second, I don't shoot people in the back. Third, we really don't need the Dust weighing us down. And fourth? I don't shoot people in the back. Now, if you're done insulting me, I'd actually like to make a proposition."

"I'm not the one you'd be making a deal with if you tried, and I tend not to make deals with someone wearing a mask, anyway."

"You're the head of a strike team that includes a girl wearing a mask," the blonde said, I'm sure you talk to someone that can kick it up to the boss if I have to meet with them.

"... What kind of proposition?" Blake asked cautiously.

"The White Fang have operatives in Vale, don't they?" she asked.

"We might."

"Vacuo?"

"Let's assume that we potentially have members in every kingdom."

"The Branwen Tribe like some extra eyes kept open," she replied, "Private business, for the time being. In exchange for information and the occasional crate of Dust, we'd get you supplies and anything else you need from us."

"Why would we trust your tribe?" she pressed.

"Well, for one, we don't discriminate between Faunus and humans. My little sister over here's a fox Faunus, for example" The shorter girl with orange hair sighed tiredly before waving a fox tail behind herself before the blond removed her mask and continued, lavender eyes locked onto golden eyes, "All the tribe cares about is your skills and your strengths, traits that the White Fang are said to value, as well. For another thing, we're just trying to survive, same as everyone else. We don't get anything out of messing with someone we're willing to make a deal with unless they push us first. You play fair with us, we play fair with you."

She handed Blake a card, "If your boss wants to deal, call here. We'll get in touch."

"What are you taking, anyway?" Blake asked in confusion, before the blonde grinned, ripping the arm off of an Atlesian Knight 130 while her older sister began to dismantle another's torso.

"Scrap," she grinned, "Nox, take the heads. There might be some salvageable goods in there... This is some top shelf metal. Oh, Atlas, you really do make the best steel..."


The Rose smiled as she ran her hand along the cheek a robotic face that was flawless in its imitation of human skin. The eyes were a lifeless green, but The Rose knew that the only reason that was the case was because the angel the body belonged to wasn't in there at the time. Sadly, she couldn't wait there to see the angel wake up. There had been another project, one that Watts had his eye on even more than the one gave birth to the angel.

Reluctantly, she left the angel be and shut the door behind her. Two doors down, she approached the next door. She made quick work of the door's security system before making her way inside. Watts had been right. They really didn't have security cameras anywhere, which she considered particularly stupid. Still, it made her job easier.

She knocked on the glass of the room containing the doll. "Hello," she smiled amiably, "How much do you like being in this lab?"

"I don't know," the doll admitted, her shouting muffled, "I haven't been here long."

The Rose peered at the files on the scroll Watts had given her. "You'd think mass-produced dolls would be cheaper to make than that..." she mused, before speaking louder so the doll would hear her. "What do you know about the study of transferring consciousness from one body to another?"

"That it's science fiction."

The Rose queued up three video files labeled 1, 7, and 13. When she turned the scroll to face the doll, she watched her expression as she saw herself get killed three times, each tie more ruthlessly than the last.

"I've got ten more of those on here," she noted, "Now, do you want me to get you out of here before it becomes fourteen?"

"Why are you helping me?" she asked suspiciously.

"My mother's head scientist wants to know more about the technology that made you," The Rose replied, jamming her scroll into the console before her, allowing it to download all the information on the project, "You won't be killed with us... He will probably clone you once he figures out how to make the machine, but I personally promise you that you won't be experimented on."

"And what makes you so sure?" she pressed just when the files completed the transfer and she pocketed the scroll, drawing her scythe with her other hand.

"If he broke my promise, he would be killed painfully," she replied freely as she unlocked the door, "Now, come on. We're going to make the world a better place, but first, we have to save your neighbor from this place, too. She'll be in her body soon, according to their schedule, and I want to get you both to freedom."

The Rose smiled at the doll nodded firmly, ready to help in the fight for a better world. She was looking forward to seeing the wonderful future they would all create together.


Weiss stood confidently in front of her chart as she spoke to her elegantly dressed top lieutenants.

"We did well, this quarter," she said, "but we've started to over-saturate the market with our stolen Dust. We're going to need to diversify in this next quarter. At the moment, scrolls are hot-ticket items, so we'll want to get our hands on some of those. More importantly, we need to get more invested in weapons technology. There is one more topic on the agenda."

"And that is?" Torchwick pressed, while Neo gestured for a continuation.

"I think that we should start some aggressive expansion," she said, "Vale's apparently looking nice this time of year, and they don't have a steadying hand to guide them. So many thugs and middle managers. They don't even have a board of directors, let alone a CEO. It's just begging for a hostile takeover. Naturally, I'd rather know if the rest of the board agree with me before we move the head office."

"Obviously I'd be happy to join in on this action," Torchwick said, tilting his hat down over his eyes, "Acquisitions is in."

Beside him, Neo nodded determinedly, a sadistic smile on her face as she toyed with the handle of her umbrella. That meant that Public Relations was in.

"And you?" Weiss asked the fourth member of her 'board of directors.'

"I think that it'll be a lot of work," Ilia Amitola mused, "But we need to be smart about this. Intelligence is in."

"Then it's unanimous," Weiss smiled, "It'll take a while to get them ready for us, but my strategy, with whatever tweaking everyone's efforts require, will give us a serious advantage in Vale's underworld by the end of next quarter."