Team RWBY

"Ferry's closed. Bugger off." The man sitting in the dilapidated room on the outskirts of an irrelevant town in an irrelevant part of Sanus south of Vale waved his hand at the annoyance as if he were some sort of royalty.

And Weiss was having none of it.

"Excuse me?" Weiss put her hands on her hips and leaned in, her most dangerous expression spreading out across her face.

The man was not fazed.

"I said, princess, that the ferry is closed." The man looked up. "And bugger off."

"How…how dare you?" Weiss spluttered indignantly.

He shrugged, remained silent, and then went back to playing solitaire on his scroll.

Weiss stomped back to her cringing teammates, her wounded ego soothed with the fact that her glare still had some effect, even on her teammates.

Yang's mouth opened.

"Don't."

Yang's mouth closed.

"What do we now?" Blake asked quietly. She was giving the ferry owner a nasty side eye.

"We have to get to Patch somehow and this is the only remaining path there." Ruby fingered the hem of her cape nervously. "The only other way there is by ship, but it would take months to even find a ship!"

"Not to mention that we don't have the money to charter a ship." Yang flipped her scroll into the air and caught it. "No CCT, no bank accounts."

The statement drew a lengthy silence. Amongst the four, they had only the lien that they had on them when they had gone on the mission. Just the bare minimum to use in an emergency, but not enough to do anything like hire an entire ship.

"Screw this." Yang put her scroll back in her pocket and stomped her way over to the ferry owner, ignoring the weak protests of her teammates. The ferry owner barely had time to look up from his game when he was hauled three feet into the air by his collar.

The ferry owner's feet dangled in the air and his hands tried to free the fiery blonde's grip. "Hey what the hell? Put me down!"

"I don't like your attitude. Or you." Yang glared at him, their faces inches apart. "When I don't like things, I start breaking them."

"You don't scare me girlie. Set me down or I swear…" He yelped in pain as Yang's grip around his collar twisted, the cloth applying pressure on his throat.

"Or you'll what?" Yang smirked dangerously as he started to suffocate. His previous indifferent and haughty demeanor melted under her red eyes and sharp threats, or maybe under the heat from her flaming hair. He tried to speak but could only splutter.

After a few moments she threw him into his desk, scattering papers everywhere. The man rolled off the desk and scrambled to his feet with a baton in his hand. "I ain't defenseless you thug! Come and get some!"

Yang didn't wait for another invite. She dashed under his clumsy overhand swing and rotated into a shoulder-check to send the ferry operator into the wall. Her momentum carried her into a roundhouse kick that sent the man through the nearby window. Golden aura flared as it absorbed the lacerations caused by the broken window pane and landed on the man's defenseless torso. She leaped off just as quickly as she had landed, leaving the man curled up and winded behind her.

"Now, I believe we were going to be ferried across this here river?" Yang asked sweetly as she crouched down, fixing her hair.

"Whatever you want, just leave me alone!"

"Perfect! Team RWBY Cruise time, c'mon guys!"

Jaune Arc

Wells Electronics Manufacturing. This is the spot.

Jaune crouched on the roof of a warehouse situated 3 warehouses and a road away from his target. The entire length of the electromagnetic spectrum emitted from the warehouse was being analyzed by the multi-lens telescope Jaune had set up in front of him. The device consisted of almost half a dozen different apertures, each capturing different sections of the electromagnetic spectrum and feeding data into the computer at the telescope's base. The highest resolution bands were the 1-micron to 30-micron band in the infrared to detect heat signatures, along with triple RGB sensors to cover the visible range. Jaune had also added a smaller, lower resolution ultraviolet sensor, just in case.

The raw data was analyzed by the computer into a coherent image and fed into his helmet, allowing him the ability to see the entire warehouse in the darkness, albeit only a two-dimensional cross-section. It would be like playing an old video game. I'm Jumpman, the aura-transfer machine is Pauline, and the dozens of White Fang are the barrels being tossed at me. Brilliant.

Jaune checked the time; it was almost time for the shift change. The guards would be least alert just before the shift change and any disturbances would be masked by the hubbub caused by guards moving positions. The rumbling of a transport vehicle reached him, and he shot off across the rooftop, hopping from roof to roof until he was directly opposite the warehouse. The reason he had set up the telescope at a distance was two-fold. The area around the warehouse was well-lit and there was every chance that his observational equipment would be seen. Plus, he got a much more favorable angle of the warehouse by setting the telescope at an angle to the walls of the building. It was like the difference between an orthographic and head-on diagram.

He activated his Gravity and Wind Dust sockets in his boots and shot across the gap between warehouse in a high arc. He sailed well over the lights of the compound and on a blackened electrical pole. The Vale Power Grid had gone down during the attack and it had not gone down well. In the conventional methods of power generation employed on Earth, disconnecting the grid could only lower the power running through it. However, the engineers of Remnant had not learned the same lessons their Earth-based counterparts had through trial and failure. As usual, the ease of use of Dust was to blame for their oversights. The power grid had different standards due to new technologies being developed even as the previous iterations were being installed. Furthermore, the only upgrades made to the system were more parallel lines intended to increase the load. The grids in the poorer parts of town weren't even touched.

I guess that's not so different from Earth then, heh. Jaune pulled out a small box from a satchel and hooked it into the ruined wiring of the pole. The destruction of the power stations had caused the Dust to go supercritical and dump power into the Grid. The surges had fried every switching station where different sections of the Grid interfaced. The result of the destruction of this Frankenstein's monster of a grid was a collection of independent grids scattered through the city that still worked individually. That was how the warehouse was still being powered and how White Fang operations continued unhindered. Jaune intended to use that to his advantage.

The device's purpose was simple. When activated, it would complete the circuits that had been disconnected when the interface to the outside grid had fried during the fall. Putting these devices at strategic locations was guaranteed to complete circuits that led to heavy machinery. Machinery that was still active during the fall.

The greatest current in a circuit happens when you attach a new load to it, also known as a transient current. There was no way that the generators the White Fang were using would be able to handle a sudden transient current on the industrial scale. Activating these devices would effectively shut off all the power in the district and the ensuing blackout would only be to Jaune's advantage. It was, however, only an escape trick. Ending the mission undetected was his primary objective; it wouldn't do to have his enemies suspect anything.

He moved from pole to pole silently with liberal applications of Dust. His Infiltrator body and armor had gone through many iterations in the past year, making the design almost undetectable by normal means. It wouldn't hold up against specialized tools like Aura tracking, but he was invisible to conventional detectors. He didn't even show up on his own cameras!

Once all the blackout charges were properly connected, Jaune observed the scenario once more. The guards were well into their conversations with the relief shift and none of them were even remotely aware of what was going on above their heads. He grinned. No one ever looked up. Infiltrating the warehouse through the roof would be far easier than going in through the ground level, just like he had anticipated. Another large jump and he was on the roof. A small Dust charge and the lock on the skylight practically melted in his hands. Jaune slipped into the darkness, so focused on his mission that he himself forgot to look up.

Cinder Fall

Before the Fall of Vale

"How did this happen?" The voice was quiet, controlled.

Emerald quavered under the woman's rage-filled eyes. She knew this tone, she'd heard it often enough to learn a lesson. Someone was going to be hurt today. There was rage contained in the voice, layered with threats of violence, pain, and terror for anyone unfortunate enough to be the cause of that anger.

"I do not know Cinder, I did exactly what you instructed." Emerald's voice quavered.

"So you're saying it's my fault you failed?" Cinder's tone was sharp.

"No! No, that's not what I meant!" Emerald exclaimed, startled. "Your instructions were correct; the procedure had always worked before. I don't know why it didn't this time!"

"What was different this time?" Cinder narrowed her eyes, promising consequences if her answer was not deemed satisfactory.

"Two things. First, we were using a new design of the software. Maybe Watts made a mistake?" Emerald leaned on the thin hope of Cinder's well-known hatred of the mustached man. Maybe it would be enough to get her off the hook…

"That explains why the device didn't work. It does not explain why Vale Police decided to raid the warehouse, arresting our mercenaries, confiscating the Dust, and effectively delaying our plans by two weeks!" Cinder slammed the table between the two women and left the wooden surface scorched. "This was sabotage. You know how she will react to this news."

Emerald gulped. She thought she was mentally prepared for Cinder's rage after all these years, but the woman managed to surprise her every time. She took a deep breath before speaking, choosing her words carefully. "There is a second thing. There was something…different about this attempt. The device was taking longer to respond, and it was lagging, almost as if it was being pushed too hard. I checked the running processes on it, and it was almost as if it was either up against a brick wall of security, or something had hijacked it. So I…"

Cinder's eyes locked onto hers and the green haired girl's mind went blank as the inferno in Cinder's eyes seemed to pierce her mind and turn her paralyzed. "Another hacker? There was another hacker that could stall Watts' device? Is that what you're trying to say?"

Emerald nodded, not trusting her voice. Cinder broke eye contact and turned back to the screen she held in her hand, tapping with a newfound ferocity. A thoughtful expression passed across her face. The rage melted away and cunning replaced it.

"Did he leave a calling card of some kind?"

"I'm not sure, there was a forced download of some kind, which was when I pulled the plug."

"Show me the file."

Emerald disconnected Watts' 'faulty' device from all networks and handed it to Cinder. She proceeded to open the secluded folder, which was partially downloaded, yet unencrypted. She would be able to view at least some files inside it. She opened it and found an image file and a corrupted text file. The image file was encrypted, but Watts' cracking software was able to crack it with surprising ease.

That was too easy. Either his blocking us was a fluke, or he's trying to send a message. Another thought struck her, and her mouth curled in a sinister grin. That confirms he's not law enforcement. This will be interesting.

"Cinder?" Emerald quietly spoke up from across the table. Cinder had almost forgotten about her as she planned around this new player on the board. "What did you find?"

"Someone with more talent than sense, and more bravery than talent."

"What do you want me to do?" Emerald could see Cinder was already mentally planning four, five steps in advance.

Cinder opened the image file and showed in to Emerald. A red P on a burning Remnant. The name of the file was simply Promethean.

"Find this 'Promethean'. Learn everything you can about him. Maybe this development isnt as bad as we think…"

Jaune Arc

Jaune cursed under his breath as error after error threatened to flood his HUD. He was crouched to the side of the control panel of the aura transfer machine with his armor connected to the innards of the control panel. He had managed to make it to the machine without being detected. It was easier than expected, which either mean the guards were amateurs or they weren't expecting an attack.

He ended his probe and opened the autogenerated error log. The aura machine had a very basic operating system layered upon an equally simplistic hardware. It seemed that the electronics of this machine were secondary to the aural-mechanical circuitry buried deep inside it. The simplicity of the electronics gave him no insight into the workings of the system.

Especially not when the bloody thing won't even boot up! Jaune disconnected the wires from the machine and closed the 'panel' on the back. He had basically cut open the metal behind the control panel to access the internals since there seemed to be no way of maintaining the machine. It was built for a single purpose and was only to fulfil that purpose once.

As he scrolled through thesurprising number of errors such a simple piece of software could generate, he noticed references to life support systems in the pods attached on either side of the machine. The only difference between the two pods was a rough hole in the middle of one, at about chest height. Cinder Fall's arrow had shot the poor girl inside the pod before Jaune and Pyrrha had managed to escape from that cavern under Beacon. It was also Jaune the last time Jaune had seen Headmaster Ozpin. The man was nowhere to be seen during the Battle for Beacon, no matter how many times Jaune ran through that timeslide. For all he knew, Ozpin was dead.

Most of the errors had to do with missing dependencies, which meant that there was another subsystem attached to the machine that was conspicuously missing. It seemed vital to the operation of the machine and Jaune was willing to bet that it contained the code to manage the aura transfer operation. The only worth the machine held for him now was the aura-mechanical designs inside. He snuck around to the back of the machine to a hole he had created with some Scorch Dust earlier, much like the access hole he had created in the control panel.

It only took a few seconds of shining a light inside the machine to realize something horrifying. This was machinery that should not, could not, have existed in the modern age of Remnant. The technology was far too complex, too advanced. The technologies necessary to create this machine, the designs that preceded this, were easily decades in advance. He had seen the state of Atlas' R&D department, their cutting-edge devices, and had even managed to create an aura-powered cyborg!

However, all that paled in front of this…goldmine of future design. There were circuits and components inside Jaune could not even imagine the applications of. He willed his aura into existence and spun a small sliver of it into existence. He fed it into certain sections of the circuitry as a sort-of multimeter for aural circuits, determined to test exactly what they did. There was something more to this machine. This was not simply a way to get aura to move from one body to another; Jaune had enough experience in that field. Heck, his original body was in bits and scattered over the ocean! He transferred his aura into new bodies more times in a day than some people ate!

There was something more to this. A few choice components were broken off from the board and were quickly secured in his pocket. Jaune snapped photos quickly and committed the most interesting bits to memory before putting the metal panel back into its hole. No one would notice it until they had to move it, which would be long after he had escaped. He moved back to the control panel and was preparing to gather his tools when a blinding light illuminated his surroundings and caused his night-vision to go white before adjusting to the glare.

"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!" The voice barked behind him. Jaune couldn't determine anything from the reflection of the man in the metal of the aura machine: the light on the end of the man's arm was too bright to see anything else. The image from his telescope outside didn't show anything amiss, which worried him greatly. He had not seen the man appear on infrared, visual, or on the motion sensors. What exactly was he facing here?

He uncertainly raised his hands above his head. He couldn't self-destruct. He had valuable information on him that he had to escape with. He would have to escape.

"PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD. STAY KNEELING AND NO SUDDEN MOVES!" The man's voice was deep, confident, and purposeful. Jaune decided to let events happen. He had gotten everything he had come here for and this was a most interesting development. He wanted to know who this man worked for, and the only way to do that without causing a massive fight was to go along with the man.

"Who are you? What do you wa…AGH." Jaune winced in pain as something smacked him in the back. His aura had nullified any damage, but the force of the blow still startled him. The man had shot him with a silenced weapon, from the feel of it. Possibly a pneumatic weapon, based on the hiss of air.

"NO TALKING!" The man approached him slowly, keeping the light trained on him the entire time. The man kept the hand with the light trained on him while the other cuffed Jaune's hands together. They felt like standard metallic handcuffs, much to his confusion. A man who could bypass my sophisticated surveillance, yet only uses normal handcuffs? Weird.

The man grabbed Jaune by the cuffs and pulled downwards so Jaune's arms were twisted painfully behind his back. There was no danger of anything breaking, but the position was horribly uncomfortable and on the verge of being too painful. The man knew what he was doing. That means he received training. Good. Trained enemies were predictable.

Jaune was bodily dragged away from the machine and out of the tangle of boxes that hid the machine. The man was strong and was dragging Jaune more than pulling him along. Jaune could barely get his feet under him. They banged painfully on each of the metal stairs that the man was now dragging him up, taking him to the roof, utterly careless of the noise made by Jaune's metal suit.

He must be White Fang. Jaune decided as he continued scanning the information streaming to his helmet from his telescope. None of the White Fang guards had even changed their patrol patterns. Was this a setup? How could anyone know I was here? No one knew Jaune was alive. He had gone underground, literally, after the broadcasted betrayal of his partner, the Invincible Girl. Even the interrogation and elimination of Emerald at the White Fang base was done in secret. Everyone who could have possibly seen him there was dead. Even if he had been sighted, he was there in an anonymous suit, with no connection to either him or the Prometheans.

Maybe this wasn't a trap for me specifically. Jaune thought as he was dragged up the last flight of stairs onto the roof. Maybe this was a trap for anyone who would try to steal the machine. After all, only those against Cinder and her band of baddies would try to steal the machine.

The man stopped in the middle of the roof. Jaune had been facing away from the man this entire time, with his hands cuffed behind his back and being used to drag him in a very unappreciated manner, and thus could only look out over the compound or admire the stars. They waited like this for a few minutes before the sound of an approaching Bullhead broke the silence.

"Sounds like your ride is here. I enjoyed the date, but if you could drop me off at my place that'd be great!" Jaune snarked as the sound approached their position. While any normal person would count a kidnapping by an unknown entity as 'mortal danger', Jaune didn't exactly fit a normal definition of mortal anymore. He was borderline enjoying this, which partially scared him. He wasn't like this before the Fall of Beacon, but something had changed inside of him.

Before he could do any more psychoanalysis, he was picked up and thrown bodily into the Bullhead. He tried to stand up as the man had jumped into the airship right after him, but a quick punch to the gut sent him to the floor with a gasp. The man was strong! Jaune devoted some more of his aural energy into the shielding around his body. It wouldn't do to lose his focus if he was punched like that again.

The man grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air, letting Jaune take his first good look at him. The man stood more than six and a half feet tall easily, if not seven. He was able to lift Jaune more than 5 inches off the ground without much effort and at arms-length, a testament to his strength. His head was encased in a white, featureless mask that almost looked porcelain in material. The only opening were two slits that kept his eyes hidden behind them, and the only color on the mask was a garish smile painted onto where a mouth should have been. The man was armored in a blocky metallic armor than covered the rest of his body, covering his body shape, but Jaune could tell the man was well-built and heavily muscled. His barrel chest was covered in pouches and there was no weapon on the man that Jaune could see. Neck down, he looked every bit the soldier. Above the head, he looked like a cultist from a nightmare.

The man's other arm came up. Jaune watched it approach his face and struggled in vain. His palm was about the size of Jaune's face and Jaune watched in horror as it wrapped around his head. The man squeezed and Jaune's eyesight became pulses of color and his hearing filled with the sound of grinding metal. With a jerk, his ruined helmet came off. Before Jaune could recover, he was slammed into the wall of the Bullhead with enough force to be sent through the thin metal wall and land in the rear cargo compartment. Jaune used the momentum of the throw to his advantage and rolled into a crouched position facing the front of the Bullhead. His aura had taken a dip protecting him from lacerations from the shorn metal of the wall, but he had enough to fight back. More than enough to kick his ass.

A shotgun blast punched through the metal of the closed door but Jaune didn't bother dodging the pellets. He broke his handcuffs and lunged straight at the man who was stepping through the ruined remains of the door. Jaune ducked to the left and used his momentum to go into a turn and draw his sword at the same time. The man recoiled in surprise at Jaune's sudden change in position and started scrambling backwards. Jaune felt his lips curl in mirth.

The man raised his arm and fired another shotgun blast at him. This time, Jaune used a bit of Aura to push himself out of the way as he analyzed the weapon. Single shotgun, semi-automatic if I had to guess, fitted in his right arm, which is probably prosthetic. Explains his strength. He used another blast to fling himself to the floor to avoid another shot, and then a third blast to slide him across the floor at his enemy. He crashed into the man's feet, which surprisingly did nothing to upset the large man's balance. He simply kicked his leg out and then the other to dislodge Jaune's grip on both his sword and his leg, before leaping away. Jaune grinned and somersaulted out of the way of another shotgun blast, depressing the trigger button he held in his fist.

He had attached a concentrated Dust explosive on the man's legs during the brief struggle which was activated by a small bundled Aura crystal that was connected to the circuit when the trigger button was pressed. It was more than enough to inconvenience any Hunter, incapacitate anyone else, and outright kill someone without any aura. Case in point, his kidnapper.

Jaune spun around from his somersault, expecting to a see a neat explosion and the legless man being sucked out of the hole in the Bullhead. Instead what he saw was colors swimming in his vision as he was tackled into the wall behind him. There was no explosion, no triumph. Only pain. The man was sitting on his chest and punching Jaune's face with reckless abandon. Jaune felt something wet run down his face and saw splashes of red cover the man's fist. He wasn't sure if it was his blood or his opponent's.

Where is my aura?! Jaune's thoughts were muddled, cloudy with pain. It should have been protecting him. It wasn't depleted; he could still feel it simmering under his skin, but it felt distant, locked away. Jaune tried to expel outwards to get the man off him. The aura bubbled angrily and Jaune felt a surge of power go through him before…nothing.

A sudden thought struck him along with the man's sixth punch. His head lolled to the side, but his mind was elsewhere, frantically processing the information. His aural trigger for the bomb hadn't worked, he couldn't detect any trace of aura from the man, and now he couldn't use aura when the man was in contact with him.

Jaune's eyes widened in realization. The man was somehow blocking his aura! He moved his head to blearily look back at the man, but the man's seventh punch finally knocked him unconscious before he could do anything else.

The man paused and lowered his other fist. The boy was harder to subdue than he had expected. He forced the kid's eye open and ensured his target was unconscious before getting up. He picked up the sword that the kid had used and moved out into the front of Bullhead, appreciating the build of the sword before throwing it out of the Bullhead. He went back to his unconscious and shoved his body into an open metal crate stashed in the corner of the hold. He locked the crate and checked upon two other closed crates.

Satisfied that they were secure, he made his way back to the cockpit. That made three. The man took a seat at the controls of the Bullhead and started writing a report. Four more left. He ticked off a box on his contract's bounty list and pulled up the file on his next target.

A whole team of Huntresses, huh? Should be easy enough. He put the file down and typed coordinates into his autopilot. A map of an island came up almost immediately and he raised an eyebrow at the results.

What kind of name is Patch?


AN: Thanks for reading! Sorry for the delay, again. Anyways, please review, follow, favorite, any or all of the above! I'm also open to PMs of constructive criticism, discussion, or praise. Until next time!