I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.

Prologue: (Shrouded in Ice)

Freedom.

What a joyous sensation it was. Especially for someone like Weiss, who had spent almost her entire life controlled by her father, who found no interest in Weiss's own aspirations. Had he had his way, Weiss would be stuck at some desk level job in her father's company, waiting until Jacques saw her to be worthy of running his company. Thankfully, Weiss had gained enough of her senses to leave before Jacques took away all her freedom. Thanks to some assistance from Klein, her butler who was more of a father to Weiss than Jacques ever was and some assistance from Winter, Weiss had managed to leave the cold planet she once called home on a ship set for the Vale quadrant of the Remnant System.

She even managed to leave with a combat rig, one of the state-of-the-art pieces of equipment used by the Hunters for their missions. And she would need Myrtenaster if she was to accomplish her goal of becoming a member of the Hunters. She had known about the team system followed by all the Hunter divisions all across the Remnant System, be it Atlas to Vacuo and Vale was no different. She hoped that at the very least she could be paired up with someone competent and more… up to her standards.

She looked out the glass windows of her ship, looking out at the path she travelled, watching the stars and the various asteroids and ship fragments float about in the infinite space all around her. Given how hastily this ship was put together, however, Weiss would be lucky if she didn't end up like one of those frozen pieces of salvage she saw in the space around her.

In order to prevent any sort of tracking by her father, Winter had to hastily create the ship from pieces and parts of salvage she managed to find from her missions. Performing all this while making sure their father didn't find out, and also ensuring the ship was built in due time meant that a few corners had to be cut when it came to the quality of the vessel.

But that was a small price to pay for freedom. Freedom from a life of cold and painful separation from whatever little she held dear to her icy heart. One where piece by piece, everything that made Weiss who she was would be ripped away to keep the SDC afloat. A life where the fire of her soul would be snuffed out as a willing sacrifice to the company her father corrupted.

For this was her life, and she was free to live it as she pleased.

As she looked back into the navigator on the ship to check her path however, she was surprised to find another ship in the vicinity of her own. Pulling up further details of the ship revealed little about the identity of the ship, only providing Weiss with the basic build of the ship, which appeared to be a strider class ship of Mistralian make, which did little to offset Weiss's nerves. She had heard plenty of stories of Mistralian pirates attacking Cargo ships, disguising their weapons inside such ships.

Not to mention the equally dangerous White Fang, whose continued actions against her family had always put a target on her back or even the various bounty hunters who her father might have sent to 'extract' Weiss back to her father.

Immediately activating the defensive shielding on her ship, Weiss armed her Dust Rapier from the modular grip she had hidden under her coat and took out her dueling pistol armed with high velocity, non-piercing rounds Dust Rounds. A little paranoid perhaps but in the expanse of space, one can never be too safe. And her suspicion turned out to be true, as was evident by the shot fired by the strider ship.

Thanks to the shielding of the ship however, the shot did little more than graze the hull. If there was one thing this rag tag ship wasn't lacking, it was features. And thankfully, one of those features happened to be a foldable railgun. Activating the turret on the onboard computer, Weiss was immediately synced in towards the weapon's turret and after finding her target, aimed her shot and fired at the ship.

Unfortunately, due to the limited Dust applications of the weapon, Weiss was only able to fire a regular shot which would at best cripple the movement systems of the ship. Weiss needed to get to the nearest Wormhole and fast, before the Strider managed to regain full maneuverability and started to fire back at Weiss's ship.

Plotting a course for a nearby Wormhole on her navigator, Weiss primed the jump drive of her ship with the planned course to take her to Vale, where she hoped the authorities would be able to assist her with escaping from her pursuer, whoever they were. Given by the predictions on her computer, Weiss would be able to escape into the wormhole before her pursuer could recover.

Arming the railgun turret on the side of her ship, Weiss again took aim at the ship, letting the autopilot on the ship take over. But as she aimed at the Dust stabilizers present on the ship, which, given by their state, seemed to be running out of Power. A well-placed shot could either destroy the whole ship or immobilize it and out of the 2 Weiss was content with the latter.

But before Weiss could charge up the shot, she felt a thud strike the ship, shaking the ship. Immediately, leaving the view of her turret, she checked the onboard systems in order to make sure that nothing was damaged permanently. But she had bigger worries than just the ship's systems as she felt 4 more thuds strike her ship. Analysis of the source revealed an extremely worrying problem however, one that Weiss would be lucky to escape from alive.

Grimm pods, filled with the biotechnological beasts had landed on her ship and given by the scraping and screeching sounds coming from the ceiling, Weiss was about to expect some extremely dangerous company.

As the first Ravager fell and entered and bared its arm blades at Weiss, she looked down the Ravager's malicious red eyes, aimed her revolver at the beast and fired a shot between them. As she watched the beast fall to the ground, she felt a blow to the back of her head and felt the airlock open, sending her into the Dust storage unit of the ship where she lost consciousness after meeting the cold wall of the room, the last thoughts on her mind being that the ship that was supposed to grant her freedom, may become her tomb.

Blake hadn't been having a good couple of days since she defected from the White Fang. After making an escape from Adam in the Saunus belt, after a botched attempt to steal some cargo, Blake ended up using one of the escape pods aboard Adam Taurus's ship and landed on Mistral's surface station where she crash landed, only surviving thanks to the assistance of her combat rig, Gambol Shroud, which combined the ease of use and tech of the Atlesians rigs with the stealth capabilities of the Mistralian rigs, forming a exosuit which could be hidden very easily as a jumpsuit and bow which nicely covered her ears. The rig came with a specialized pistol and ballistic scythe/katana which had a few more components that Blake was still attempting to learn how to effectively use.

After a few days of living off scraps, Blake needed to quickly find a way off Mistral and planned on heading towards Vale to maybe start a new life. But she quickly found that without Lien she wouldn't be able to pay for such a trip and as such she planned on getting to Vale by more illegal means.

Using the suit's capabilities, which included quiet footsteps, wall climbing gloves and sensor disruptors, she managed to find her way onto a ship that was on course for Vale. Unfortunately, Blake was unable to predict that a group of Mistralian Pirates would board the ship and end up commandeering it when the ship was planning to head to Vale. After spending 3 days hiding from the Pirates, she was sold out by one of the captured crew and was captured by them and was held in the brig of the ship.

And given from what she had been eavesdropping, if she didn't get out quickly, she was going to end up sold as a slave in one of the many Black Markets present around Mistral.

Luckily, the Pirates had never accounted for Blake's exosuit. Quickly using her semblance, Blake managed to leave a decoy and managed to find a safe place where she used her hardlight blade in conjunction with her metallic one to break out of her bonds and after the Pirates noticed Blake's decoy, she detonated the fire dust she placed in her decoy and quickly made her way through the ship, hoping to find an escape pod to escape from this prison.

Quickly however, the plan became quite complicated as was evident by the Grimm pods which had managed to arrive onto the strider. As soon as she went up the upper deck, she found herself quickly surrounded by 4 Ravagers. After seeing one of them lunge at her with its arm blade, Blake used her semblance to jump up and shoot at the Ravager's head, downing it with 3 dust shots.

Quickly swinging her ballistic scythe, Blake hooked it onto one of the sides of the Ravager and pulled it into another, sending both of them to the ground. Landing on the mechanical spine of another, Blake plunged her dust blade into the back of the beast. Jumping off its spine, Blake as she fell shot, quickly downing the 3 Grimm.

Rolling to her feet, Blake took note of her surroundings and checked her aura through a bar on her arm. After finding at 70% she checked her path to the escape pods and once again snuck into the shadows of the deck and made her way to one of them. Upon entering one of the escape pods, Blake quickly entered in the coordinates of the nearest wormhole, hoping that the move wouldn't take too much fuel.

Blake was about to press the eject button when she heard the whispering of a voice she hoped to never hear again.

"Hello darling." said the voice within her exosuit, nearly stopping Blake's heart with fear as she froze. "Do you really think you can run forever?"

"N-No! How can you be here?!" Blake exclaimed out, in fear as she heard the familiar voice of Adam Taurus.

"Face it Blake, you can keep trying to run fruitlessly away from me, hunted down by your very brothers and sisters for your betrayal till we find you or you can come back and face the consequences."

"Get out! I want nothing to do with you!"

"It's your choice Blake. This doesn't need to escalate after all. You can always come back."

"I'm done with you, Adam. Leave me alone!"

"Well, you've made your choice. Time for me to make mine." Adam replied, his voice making Blake shudder in fear as she felt her exosuit begin to lock up. "You could've made this easy on yourself."

Snapping herself out of her fear, Blake slammed the eject button on her escape pod and fired it blindly hoping she could at least get out of the vessel and land someplace where she could hopefully deactivate her exosuit in order to stave off the threat to her life. Head slamming into the restraints, with most of the impact being absorbed by her suit, Blake was quickly sent into the expanse of space, hoping her next landing wouldn't be her last.

*SLAM*

The impact left Blake's aura flickering, but that was the least of her concerns, at least with the noises she was hearing from inside the ship.

Weiss woke up to the sound of gunfire and screeching as she rubbed her head and gathered her weapons. Resting against the wall, she took note of the situation around her. There were probably more Grimm outside waiting for her meaning she had no time to waste. Taking into account the gunfire, whoever was onboard her ship was also probably hostile but still had the sense to prioritize the Grimm, meaning if Weiss could at least get to the Wormhole, she could manage a quick escape before dealing with her stowaway.

As she was about to open the door, she saw 2 blades protrude out the door suddenly making her jump back and shoot into the closest approximation of where the beast's head would be. After 2 missed shots, she finally found some success as the scraping stopped and she heard a thud fall to the floor.

Sliding the door open, Weiss took in the scene. A black blur with red accents was slashing the Grimm around her leaving 3 on the floor and impressively bringing down one of the Ravagers using a scissor kick. Unfortunately, the blur had forgotten about the rising number of Grimm on the system and quickly was knocked to the floor by a kick from a Monarch Ravager.

It's metallic crown, adorned with spikes, was poised to strike. Luckily for the stowaway, Weiss was concerned with removing the Grimm from the ship, rather than dealing with a potential newcomer. Quickly forming a Glyph using the holographic projections her suit semblance allowed, Weiss blocked the Ravager's head and sent it flying into the wall opposite to her.

"I don't know who you are or why you're here, but if we don't clear the Grimm, we're doomed. So, let's call for a truce until we get to a safe place."

"I know who you are, Schnee, but I'm also inclined towards escaping this ship. So, I accept your request." replied the raven-haired girl who seemed to have a grudge against her family.

Not that she cared, she had plenty of people that promised her bloody murder or threatened her family for the long list of morally questionable actions her father had committed. Some of them took the lives of family members and one nearly cost her, her life.

At least compared to the rest, this one didn't immediately want to kill her.

As she heard the Ravager snarling as it got poised to attack them both, Weiss quickly took out some Ice Dust from the Storage unit and armed her Revolver with the same type of rounds. The raven-haired girl simply took out her backup pistol and aimed it at the beast, which was now charging at them both, hoping to skewer them with it's arm blades.

Weiss chose to shoot at the Ravager's knees which turned out to be a good choice as her shots slowed down the beast as ice grew on its mechanical legs causing it to slow down long enough for her companion to land an accurate shot to the Ravager's crown making it lose most of spokes that provided it the shielding around it's head.

It didn't stop it from pouncing on Weiss, which made Weiss seriously question what on earth she had done to be the first priority of EVERY SINGLE PREDATOR in this galaxy. Luckily as she ducked, she brought her Dust Blade through the Grimm's chest and as she gracefully spun under the Grimm, she watched as it tumbled and fell onto the ground.

But given from the flashing red eyes she was seeing; she probably hadn't killed the Grimm. A thought which was immediately proven as the Beast jumped at Weiss but before it even got the opportunity to pounce, it was thrown to the control panel by Weiss's new companion with a swift dropkick.

Roaring in pain, the Beast let out a deafening scream which made Weiss cover her ears in pain as her ears began to ring. But it seemed to affect her companion far worse as her companion was… only covering her bow? Raising her revolver, Weiss blindly fired at the Grimm but only hit the control deck with the first shot but struck the beast's chest with another, which seemed to stop it from screeching.

Both her and her companion dazed and with her ears ringing, Weiss would be lucky to escape this conflict without any major injuries.

The Ravager still had some fight left in him however, as she after recovering, it rushed forwards with blinding speed and grabbed Weiss by the shoulder before throwing her into the control panel. The impact shook her to her core as she fell off the panel and onto the cold floor with red lights flickering all over the ship. Desperately trying to find her gun, she looked around and found her revolver lying on the floor to her right. She tried to move her body towards it but found her boots snagged on the desk. Out of her holster, she took out her Dust Sword and aimed it carefully at the hook which had her leg snagged. She had no idea what impact a Dust strike would have to her aura, but she certainly didn't want to find out.

Before Weiss could even get the chance to do as such, however, her right arm slammed to the floor making her wince in pain and causing her aura to flare up twice. As she looked to her now pinned arm, she found herself looking into the eyes of the Ravager from before with its left leg pinning her arm and its right armblade poised to stab Weiss. There was no time to even build a Glyph to block the strike. The Ravager just had her completely beat.

As the blade came down on Weiss's helpless body, she wondered what she had done to deserve such a fate. But the impact never came.

The raven haired girl managed to recover from being sent to the floor after the sonic scream and had grappled the Grimm by it's back, plunging her metallic blade into the beast neck before sliding of it's back and slashing the chest of the Grimm with a horizontal slash that revealed the amberlight inside the beast.

Recovering from her pinned position and slashing off the hook that kept her stuck to the control panel and made a Glyph in the ground before her. Eyes flashing to her companion, both her and Weiss came to a silent agreement about their next action.

Jumping off the Glyph, Weiss plunged her Dust Blade into the amberlight opening before quickly pulling it out and slashing its knees cutting it down into one knee. Meanwhile her companion slashed off the beast's right arm before it could strike Weiss and after pulling her metallic blade out of the Beast neck, slashed it's head off with a cross slash, silencing the now headless beast.

But without even a second to breathe, the entire ship shook violently and rattled. A look around the control panel revealed that the ship was severely damaged by the Grimm with some systems being hijacked. Rushing over to the panel, Weiss quickly directed the ship's thrusters towards the wormhole in front of us.

However, she found the systems slowly being taken over by Grimm and as such she quickly switched off the autopilot and activated the manual guidance systems. She was tired of everyone taking away her agency and she was not going to let her first real choice be her last.

She had already placed the ship in an irreversible path towards the wormhole when she heard screaming from behind her. Turning around she saw her raven-haired companion had collapsed and was starting to scream painfully as she clutched her head. Her eyes revealed a maddening glare and given from how unnaturally she was getting up, Weiss could only imagine what horrors were afflicting the girl.

Taking out her Dust Blade and using the Ice Dust she still had left, she plunged the blade into the ground, which when combined with her glyphs made ice that covered her companions foot locking her in place. Immediately turning around, she sent the ship into maximum speed and activated the jump drive as she randomly chose a location to jump to.

All she could hope for now was that wherever she went, help would be close by.

A/N: Second Prologue complete! I hope you're enjoying this story so far. Again huge shoutout to my betas TimeX13, 0neWhoWanders and Riggy_Minus! They are all amazing writers and you should definitely check out their stuff. Next update will be on the 22nd of August!

Please do review to let me know what all I can improve, don't be toxic and as always Keep Moving Forward!