Return to Mountain Glenn
Ruby took a deep breath while looking at Pyrrha in the elevator. "Remember, don't share more than necessary. We'll also need to share that the enemy is at Mountain Glenn." she explained to Pyrrha.
"Right. I suppose I can leave the talking to you." Pyrrha nodded.
Soon enough, the elevator door opened and on the other side of it was Ironwood, Ozpin, and Glynda.
"H-Hello everyone." Ruby politely greeted as Ironwood walked over to the pair of girls who sat themselves down in front of Ozpin's desk on the set out chairs.
"I just want you both to know that what you did is commendable."
"Have you looked into the CCT's systems?" Ruby asked. "What if whoever that was put a virus or stole important data?"
"I have my people looking into it." Ironwood assured. "But I can't imagine anyone would be able to get into a system as advanced as the CCT easily."
Ruby wanted to roll her eyes at that statement, given that the exact thing happened as far as she remembered.
"So what were you able to learn about our intruder?" Ozpin asked.
"She mentioned something about Mountain Glenn." Ruby crossed her arms. "Something about an operation going on there. I couldn't gleam more than that before she saw us and we fought."
"I owe Ruby my life." Pyrrha nodded.
"What you both did was incredibly reckless." Glynda shook her head. "But now that we're aware of the matter we'll figure out how to act accordingly, isn't that right, James." she glared at him.
"Of course." Ironwood nodded. "We'll do our best to ensure that the intruder who attacked you both is dealt with promptly and swiftly."
"You're dismissed now." Ozpin nodded before picking his mug up.
Ruby made eye contact with him for a moment and he raised an eyebrow while the girl walked away.
On the lift down, Ruby took her scroll out. "I think Ozpin might be onto us."
"Should we just be transparent with him then?" Pyrrha asked.
"Not with Ironwood breathing down his neck."
"So we're gonna deal with Mountain Glenn now?" Yang asked Ruby while petting Zwei's head as he sat on her lap.
"Of course." Ruby smiled. "We're going to stop the train before it has a chance to take off like it did before."
"We'll apprehend Roman Torchwick and hopefully Neo there too." Weiss added.
"Provided Neo hasn't already accounted for us." Ruby crossed her arms.
"Well we can't just sit back and let it happen as they plan it to." Blake argued.
Weiss sighed. "You're right, but we need to think carefully. Altering this might make Cinder change her plans."
"In what way?"
"Well…" Weiss paused for a moment in thought about what she could recall of past events. "When the Breach happened it caused a spike in Atlas military presence in Vale, don't you remember all the extra security, and my sister arriving?"
"So you're saying if we prevent the Breach from happening, we cripple Ironwood's forces for when Cinder initiates her attack?" Yang points out.
"Forces that are likely to give us more trouble than help when whatever virus implanted into the system makes the robots turn on us." Blake sat herself down on the bed next to Yang, still glaring at Zwei.
"So it's a good thing?" Ruby asked.
Blake began to polish Gambol Shroud with a Whetstone. "It pretty much changes nothing. It leaves our fighting odds at just about the same if you account for Ironwood's human soldiers helping us and the robots that turn on everyone."
"So she won't change her plan then." Ruby glanced at Weiss.
"We don't know that for sure. But we should be ready for anything when it comes to changing events like this. It might keep tensions between the rest of the world and Atlas at a low, which I guess is a positive." Weiss affirmed.
Yang finally sat up, Zwei jumping off of her lap. "Then let's do it!"
"Yes… I know it isn't like me to call for assistance like this…" Cinder spoke into her scroll. "But I need assistance. The girl with silver eyes… She knows how to use them. They nearly activated when I encountered her in the CCT."
"That does sound troubling…" the voice of Arthur Watts spoke on the other end. "Was my virus compromised?"
"No, they likely won't know it's in there until it's too late." Cinder assured him.
"Good, then I don't see the cause for concern with this issue. I'll put the request through to Salem. Is there any other complications I might need to know about?" he asked.
"None."
"Good, then we'll take our first step towards victory at the Vytal Festival." Watts hung up.
Cinder scoffed and walked to the window. "Emerald, are you certain that the girl wasn't onto us?"
"Not as far as I'm concerned." she shook her head. "Why are you asking so aggressively all of a sudden?"
"Why do you sound like you're defending her?" Cinder glared now with a glowing yellow eye that made Emerald sit back down on her bed nervously.
"I'm not! Look, she's an honest kid who's likely in over her head. I'm sure once your plan goes off, she'll drop the hero act and give up." Emerald looked her in the eyes.
That was oddly enough to calm her down and she took a deep breath. "You better hope you're right, Emerald. You of all people should know how little I like dishonest relationships."
Ruby input her team's name for the Mountain Glenn mission on the select board but, like in the original timeline they were denied.
That was until Ozpin stepped up. "Right on cue." Ruby silently chuckled to herself before turning around. "Professor-"
"I know that something odd is going on with you four and Team JNPR. I've decided to let you act freely on this matter and will bypass the system block on this mission for you, since I have a feeling a mission like this is something you're more than ready for." Ozpin explained as he did so.
"Thank you, sir. We won't let you down." Ruby nodded.
"I'm sure you won't. Just remember to stick with your assigned huntsman. No matter how experienced you may think yourselves to be, unexpected factors can happen at any point, especially around a ruined city like Mountain Glenn."
Ozpin tapped his cane down before looking at his scroll and smiling. "Right on time for once."
As team RWBY made their way down the air strip after seeing off team CFVY they all seemed eager to get started. "So, what answers do you have for Oobleck's huntress question?" Yang asked.
"I'm not telling. It's definitely not the same one I had before if you were wondering." Weiss admitted.
"Right, well I'm sure that whatever the case is, we'll impress Oobleck with our new skill-" Ruby froze when she stared off towards the bullhead they were to be riding.
"What is it?-" Yang was about to ask when she paused as well.
Standing right in front of their airship wasn't Dr. Oobleck, no… Instead it was none other than Qrow Branwen.
"Hey there kids." he greeted with a wave while tucking his flask away.
"UNCLE QROW!" Ruby and Yang ran over to him, giving him hugs.
"So you're our assigned huntsman?!" Weiss was surprised to see him, but of course, she also had to play it off like this was her first time meeting him.
"Yep, It was gonna be Oobleck, but it turned out Ozpin had another task for Barty." Qrow leaned back. "I'm not going to be getting directly involved too much with this mission. I'm going to hang back while you girls do your work. You don't need an old guy like me cramping your style."
Looking away, Ruby knew exactly why he wanted to distance himself from them, especially in an environment as unstable as Mountain Glenn.
Upon their arrival in the ruined city, the team was fast to get started. They knew what they were looking for, but they needed the right entrance.
Qrow transformed into his avian form just out of their sight and kept watch of them while in that form.
Weiss fired out shards of icicles at a pack of beowolves that spotted her before she rounded a corner.
As the remaining beowolves rounded the same corner, they were promptly cut apart by Weiss's waiting Arma gigas. "This sector's clear." she spoke into her ear piece.
"Say where'd Qrow go?" Blake asked while stepping over the fading corpse of a boarbatusk that Yang killed.
"Where do you think?" Yang pointed to the crow perched atop a street light.
"Ah." Blake knelt down in front of some greenery. "Hmm… No sign of people here."
Ruby pushed open the door of a building and found a stairwell that went down, unfortunately it was blocked off by a large amount of rubble and she sighed in annoyance, kicking a pebble while walking away from that door. "I actually wouldn't mind falling through the pavement to get down."
"Doing what now, squirt?" Qrow suddenly approached from around the corner. "What do you think is going on here?"
They were in a wide enough area, although the ground they were standing on definitely caught Qrow's attention. "How about we walk somewhere more stable to stand?" he suggested.
"Sure." Ruby smiled as the two found themselves near a safe enough grassy clearing.
"So my theory is that the group we're looking for are holed up right underneath us." Ruby pointed down.
"Mountain Glenn's underground city? Clever spot for a secret hideout. You might be onto something. Especially if there is a way underground that isn't blocked off. I'll start searching around for other entrances. But after we've found one, we'll report this to Ozpin and I'm sure Jimmy can take it from there."
Qrow began to walk away but then Ruby took a step towards him. "Wait, Uncle Qrow!" she called out to him, which made him stop. "I just wanted to know something…"
A smile formed on the man's face. "Sure."
"Why did you want to become a huntsman?"
He froze up for a moment in pause. He knew he couldn't be honest with her about this, but he also didn't want to lie. "I'll… Tell you another time, right now we need to focus on the mission."
What a cop out. Ruby pouted as he walked off. But she did remember the fact that he and Raven were bandits. Maybe that had something to do with what was going on.
As night fell over Mountain Glenn the four girls gathered together. "Maybe I should have taken Zwei…" Ruby admitted.
"And put him at risk? Not on my watch." Weiss glared. "You can fool me once, Ruby Rose. But you can't fool me twice." she shook her head while Ruby just groaned.
"We should set up camp for the night." Blake suggested.
It was then that an idea snapped into Ruby's mind. "Camp. That's it! Where we set up camp originally! That's where we'll find our way down. Because it wasn't too far from there!"
"It only took us most of a day to come to that." Yang grunted. "Maybe we should rest before doing this."
"We can take a couple of hours, but we really shouldn't waste our time." Weiss yawned.
Now that their plan was set, the four girls had set up camp in the building they had originally. "Even if we resolve this all tonight. We'll still have to wait till tomorrow for a pick up." Yang groaned.
"Don't remind me." Blake buried her face into her sleeping bag.
Ruby was making sure her weapon was ready for what was likely to be a long night of fighting. "Remember… Roman has to live."
"So Neo gets off our case? Just being here likely puts us on her list." Yang pointed out while loading ammunition into her weapon.
"Well then we'll have to get off of it." Ruby countered. "And we do that by bringing Roman in and ideally keeping him locked away in a Vale prison rather than Ironwood's ship where he can cause more trouble."
"There's no way Ironwood doesn't take custody of him." Weiss sighed.
"We'll work on those details later." Blake assured now while standing herself up and stretching. "I'm ready to go."
The two White Fang grunts on patrol were predictably where they had been originally and were likely following the same route that was gonna lead the team to Mountain Glenn's underground.
"That door…" Ruby stated as she watched from her sniper scope.
"Hey, has anyone seen Qrow around here?" Yang asked. "I feel like we shouldn't go into this without him."
"He's likely watching from a distance like he's been doing all day." Ruby assured while preparing her weapon. "He'll know where we are."
The stairwell felt almost haunting as the team descended further into darkness, the last bit of light from the night sky leaving them as they descended down the second set of stairs.
Blake wound up having to be the one to lead the group due to her natural night vision allowing her to spot any hazards along the way.
Coming to a stop, Blake put her hand right over a doorway that had the White Fang's signature 3 claw marks on it. "This is it."
The faunus was first to push the door open, revealing the sprawling underground city to the team now. There were a few cracks of moonlight that did give a slight illumination to the city.
"Whoa…" Ruby took a step forward now and marveled at the ruined and decaying architecture before her. "I never really had a chance to appreciate it like this." she admitted.
"It is kind of beautiful in a ruined city sense." Yang scanned around the area.
"Well let's find that train." Ruby instructed her team and Blake nodded, approaching a marked building support pillar.
"These marks are our map to their hideout." Blake explained as she was again leading.
They walked around one building that was nothing more than a pile of rubble, and crossed through a ruined restaurant.
While they approached a town square statue that had another White Fang marking under it, Blake came to a halt.
The sound of distant movement alerted her to something coming their way.
Unsheathing Gambol Shroud was enough to alert the rest of team RWBY to the impending danger.
"Grimm?" Ruby asked her.
"Did the White Fang find us?" Weiss inquired, readying her guard.
"Is it Uncle Qrow?" Yang hoped that was the answer.
But it was none of those as from through the wall of a building crashed Tyrian Callows, who flew right towards Ruby…
His attack was thankfully blocked by Yang who narrowed her eyes at the deranged faunus. "Get the hell away from my sister!" Yang threatened as she tried to punch him but he jumped back.
"Greetings ladies! Lovely night to be venturing underground!" Tyrian greeted them with a bow. "I'm here for the little flower, so if you would kindly move aside, I'd be more than happy to let you continue playing huntress!"
The four members of the team looked among themselves in confusion. Why was he here?! There was no way Salem knew of their plans, right? There were so many questions up in the air with the arrival of Tyrian, but those questions would all have to wait…
Closing her eyes, Ruby took a step forward. The clearest images flashing in her mind now were that of her mother… and that of the Hound. That is what Salem wanted her for. She knew it and Tyrian likely knew it as well. "I'll never go anywhere with you." she readied her stance now, looking Tyrian firmly in the eyes.
The rest of team RWBY all fell into formation around their leader, in preparation for what was about to happen.
"She's not going anywhere with you." Weiss threatened while pointing Myrtenaster at him.
Taking a deep breath, Tyrian Callows smiled. "Good."
Commentary: The thing about screwing with the timeline is that it can lead to all kinds of things happening, especially if say... You scare your enemy into thinking you're a threat. Of course, they're gonna send someone for you.
Other consequences might include your very nosy headmaster wanting to test you by sending someone close on your mission with you.
Next time we'll see how well team RWBY fares against the likes of Tyrian at an earlier point in time!