El Dia De Mi Suerte III

Ruby was up and early

So was the rest of her team except for Weiss. She was still knocked out cold and would let out a bear snore at random intervals making Ruby giggle.

Ruby was the first to get up since she was used to Yang always hogging the bathroom in the mornings because she 'needed' to groom herself and her hair. Well, she thought she was the first, it was Blake actually. Blake was already in her school uniform and reading a book on her bed.

Ruby said good morning and Blake responded likewise.

The next to wake up was her sister and thankfully Ruby was already done with her business and was dressed for the school day. As usual, it took forever for Yang to get ready, at this point, it was more of a habit than anything. Sure, she'd try to catch the eyes of boys and the occasional sugar daddy, but usually, her explosive anger issues staved many a man off and ended many a relationship.

As Ruby got older it'd scare her to see her sister like that, Dad even considered getting therapy for Yang, but nothing ever came of it.

Anyways after she was done, Weiss finally awoke from her hibernation, a little too slowly for Ruby's liking. So, pulling out a whistle, it came with a goodie bag all the team leaders got and oh boy was it the time to use it. Also, it'd be funny to get this B-I-T-C-H back.

Ruby blew the whistle as hard as she could, right next to Weiss and Weiss comically fell to the ground with a yelp.

After Weiss was brought up to speed, they started unpacking all their luggage, far too tired to unpack the previous night. While Weiss got ready the rest of them started unpacking their things and arranging it wherever Weiss joined them shortly after and she let out a frustrated sigh at the sight of the current state of the room. She tried the best she could to organize her things but there was only so much she could do.

Ruby got one of Blake's luggage cases mixed up with her own, when she opened it up, she was greeted with a slew of pornographic films. Ruby quickly shut the case and thankfully nobody noticed her opening it up. Ruby would probably never look at Blake the same ever again.

A short unpacking montage later and everything was a complete mess.

The beds somehow managed to get piled up on top of each either during said montage.

Showing off her leadership skills and quick thinking, Ruby decided that they needed to build improvised bunk beds. Everyone, except Weiss, were in agreement, Weiss thought it was a terrible idea. A vote was held and Weiss lost to the majority.

By the lady of Vale did Ruby love Direct democracy.

They quickly assembled their bunk beds, once they were done Ruby stepped back to admire their handiwork.

It looked like a piece of shit.

Blake and Yang's bunk beds were built using books from Blakes collection that she was already finished reading. As for Ruby's bunk bed, it was dangling above Weiss's with some rope they found it Blakes luggage.

It was strange that Blake even had rope in the first place.

After that, Ruby went over the days schedule, enthusiastic about the first day. She wasn't too enthusiastic about class. Ruby did skip 2 years of schooling which Ozpin conveniently overlook, Ruby was not at all ready or looking forward to the more advanced subjects that Beacon was teaching.

Ruby cracked open her notebook and began going over the schedule.

"Now, we have a few classes together today. At 9 we got-"

"What!" interrupted Weiss, her eyes nearly popping out her head "Did you say 9 o'clock!"

"Uh," Ruby didn't know what she was getting worked up over, Beacon did give first year's extra time today so they could unpack.

"It's 8:55 you dunce!"

Oh.

Weiss ran out the room with the rest of RBY following her out the door. Even team JNPR tagged along in their mad dash to class. Not only did they completely miss breakfast, but they were about to be late to class. Beacon's a large school. Definitely going to be late.

Turned out it was pointless in showing up on time, their teacher wasn't even there! Students were waiting in the hallway conversing amongst each other, one student that Ruby overheard said that they could legally leave if the teacher was more than 15 minutes late.

She doubted that it was a thing.

Anyways Port, their teacher, finally showed up and was apologizing for his tardiness.

The class was boring.

Port didn't teach anything besides regaling the students with his time as a young Huntsman braving the wilds across Remnant. Maybe there was some helpful tips about fighting the different types of Grimm, but that was only if Ruby read between lines. Mostly, Ruby was busy catching up on some sleep, the excitement from earlier in the morning wearing off as Ports ramblings continued.

As he kept going on, Ruby would make little doodles in her moments of consciousness. Something she's done since her Signal days for any teacher she didn't like as much, her sister laughed at it when she showed her.

Weiss not so much.

When Port was going over what makes a good Huntsman, Weiss was getting increasingly angry while giving a death glare to Ruby. Ruby was too busy picking her nose. Then Weiss raised her hand thinking she was the perfect embodiment of what makes a good Huntsman, very full of herself. Ruby still didn't know what was going on, not really paying attention to what Port was saying, it made her question if this really was the prestigious academy she was so hyped to go to.

All Ruby knew was that Weiss was about to fight a Grimm, which was exciting. Weiss left to grab her weapon and change out of her uniform and into her 'combat' clothes. The rest of RBY gave Weiss words of encouragement, but when it came to Ruby, Weiss basically told her to shut her trap. It made Ruby think Weiss was one of those people to unironically use a Specialist copypasta.

Anyways, Port opened the cage and revealed a Boarbatusk, a young one at that. In short, Weiss was struggling throughout the fight, it wasn't like the Boarbatusk was too hard to fight it was just that Weiss clearly had something else on her mind other than fighting. When Ruby tried offering advice or words of encouragement, Weiss would only shut her down, yet when Port would pitch in with his color commentary then she said nothing.

By the end of the fight, the class was ending and Weiss was exhausted. Ruby felt terrible like she did something to anger Weiss that Ruby didn't know about. Weiss left the classroom in a huff and Ruby ran after her. As Weiss was rounding the corner Ruby called out to her.

"Weiss! What's wrong with you! Why are you be-"

"What's wrong with me! What's wrong with you! You're supposed to be a leader and all you've been so far is a nuisance,"

Ah, so that's how she's going to be.

"Ugh, what did I do?" said Ruby

"That's just it, you've done nothing to earn your position! Back in the forest, you acted like a child and you've only continued to do so,"

"Weiss, where is all this coming from? What happened to all the talk about working together? I thought you believed in acting as a team,"

"Not a team led by you,"

That really stung Ruby.

Weiss continued on "I've studied and trained and quite frankly I deserve better. Ozpin made a mistake,"

After making her declaration of insubordination she walked away with the clack of her bitchy sounding high heels. How can high heels sound bitchy? Don't ask me, pal, I'm just writing the story.

Ruby turned to leave with her eyes starting to get watery, what Weiss told her didn't help the insecurities that Ruby already held since she was chosen as the leader of the team and if anything, only confirmed them.

But like the creepy old man he is, Ozpin showed up out of nowhere. It scared the living shit out of Ruby for a moment.

"Hmm, now that didn't seem to go very well," said Ozpin

"Is she right? Did you make a mistake?"

"That remains to be seen," responded Ozpin, there was no way he would outright admit he made a mistake like that, well maybe except that Jaune boy, but Beacon would weed him out sooner or later. Of course, he made mistakes, he wasn't infallible, but he likes to think the random button on his computer did a pretty good job of choosing team leaders. In fact, he was a little indignant at Weiss's comments, he'd half the mind to deport her ass out of Vale and straight into an Atlesian Bootcamp.

Ozpin had a little pep talk with Ruby, addressing her grievances and telling her it was only her first day and that she would improve over the course of her time here at Beacon. Oh boy, did he hope he was right, all that paperwork he had to go through at the last minute just to get Ruby into his school was a major pain in the ass. Glynda refused in helping Ozpin, especially after he already let in a former terrorist into their school, that sure as hell wasn't easy to hide from the Council and if Warren ever found out he'd raise a massive shitstorm.

In hindsight he probably should have just handed her off to Warren, she was, after all, the second-highest-ranking member in the White Fang cell of Vale. She would have been sure to know a lot about the base of operations the White Fang had and the Council wouldn't think he was just sitting on his ass. Then again, she was technically royalty and that would have caused a major international incident.

It was easier when he was king, he could always tell the peasants to shut up if they ever raised a fuss. He could never really remember why he decided to switch his strategy over to cold wars and deep states.

Oh well.

With the conversation over, Ruby walked away feeling a little better about herself. Hopefully Ozpin didn't have to do that again, because he was sure as hell wasn't doing it for any other student on campus.

Earlier in the day…

There was silence within the elevator. Warren and Alex didn't have much to say. Alex was busy trying his best to keep it together, he had a little too much to drink last night after he pulled out his custom-made hooch, obviously not learning his lesson from the events earlier that day. He kept telling himself he was always able to handle the drunk better than the high, which was true, a little talent he developed after many a bar fight.

He was wearing a pair of shades he bought from a 99-cent store a few days ago, they looked lame, but it helped keep the sun out and hide his shame from everyone. He'd feel a lot better later in the day.

Warren beside him was dreading the fact about having to work with Ozpin's kids again, earlier he told Alex about his horror story on their way to the elevator. Apparently, the kids Ozpin sent him had a few Faunus students on the two teams, they went to stop a White Fang raiding party from making off with a shipment of weapons and ammo to outfit a small army.

Then the kids started monologuing with the White Fang much to the chagrin of Warren. While they were monologuing with the Huntsman, they had others look for another way out of the Warehouse as the Huntsman were blocking their way out. Thankfully VAIG came just in time, creating an explosion on one of the walls, they breached the warehouse and blasted the White Fang away.

That led to a confrontation between the Huntsman and the VAIG squad, but thankfully it was broken up before any of them could come to blows.

As much as Alex likes to knock on the Huntsman, they could still kick his ass if he wasn't careful. The Huntsman in training he could probably deal with them if he was careful, which he always is during fights, as for veteran Huntsman, well he's fought mother Deathclaws and alpha male Deathclaws with the help of heavy ordinance and a healthy amount of luck so he thinks he'll do just fine. The problem arises from Huntsman being highly mobile fighters and with their auras, the idea of cover and concealment was entirely lost on them. Which worked fine against Grimm, but Huntsman could only zip and zag for so long against his sniper fire.

Forget about getting close range with a Huntsman, Alex would consider himself a decent melee fighter, but Huntsman were on a whole other level. He'd be chop suey. If he had to get close range, he would, but only if there was no other choice.

Alex wasn't planning on making enemies of Ozpin anytime soon. Huntsman were just known to essentially work for the highest bidder especially the older and more bitter they got. The only reason rogue Huntsman was a title is if they go directly or indirectly against the academies' interests in which case they get labeled as degenerates and traitors.

Anyways, Alex left his ruminations behind when the elevator doors opened, before they could make their appeals, they had to give Ozpin the scoop as to what they found out on the electronics that were successfully acquired.

They walked into the clockwork themed office, Ozpin took no notice of Alex's Pip-Boy, if he did then he didn't care enough to make a comment on it. Warren grumbled about there never being any seats in Ozpin's office.

"Good morning gentlemen let's get straight into it, shall we. Warren what information do you have on this drug farm you mentioned,"

Warren cleared his throat and looked at the stapled stack of papers he brought in with him. A much more condensed version of the original report with the information only pertaining to the farm.

"There's a White Fang operated farm of 512 acres just outside the village of Newsale. Cash crops are mainly grown there such as Cannabis and opium poppies, more mundane cash crops are also grown such as Wheat and Barley most likely to avoid suspicion,"

Another oddity about Remnant was that they used a lot of Latin rooted words, in fact, it was a miracle that Remnant's linguistics evolved the same as earths or relatively the same. There was still that odd slang term that he'll hear, but other than that he can understand pretty much everything, which he was thankful for and also thankful for them using the same Roman alphabet. It still made Alex flip flop back and forth as to whether he was still on earth but just far into the future or on a different planet altogether.

Right now, it wasn't the best time to be wondering. Warren continued his report.

"There's also a fortified compound that holds a garrison of White Fang and houses the workers as well,"

"They do not force the local village into labor?" asked Ozpin

"No, as far as we know from the information we've gathered they've been sourced mostly from migrants coming from Menagerie, they're essentially working to pay off the fees that it took the White Fang to transport them to the farm and pay the rest of the trip to Vale,"

Ozpin nodded "Carry on,"

"As I was saying, the garrison itself is no larger than 30 combatants, most of it is out guarding the farmers or patrolling the roads steering wanderers away from the farm. Occasionally White Fang raiding parties will make a stop to resupply before heading back out. There's no raiding within the immediate area of the village though, most likely to avoid suspicion,"

"And is Newsale aware of the White Fang presence? Or least suspicious of the farm itself, I doubt that heavily armed Faunus staving people off wouldn't raise suspicions,"

"In Milo's reports he did say that the village was starting to get suspicious, so they sent in the original owner of the farm into the village to explain things, while they kept his family hostage back at the farm. He told the farmers that he just got bought out from some company out in Menagerie, the villagers seemed to accept the lie never mind the fact there's no company that large on Menagerie that's even close to buying out farms abroad. The actual story was that he developed a drinking and gambling problem, he got into debt and the White Fang conveniently came in and offered to settle the debt if he only sold the farm to them,"

Ozpin took a minute to think before asking another question.

"Is this farm financing the White Fang in Vale,"

"Not entirely, they have other sources of income. It's mostly small-time stuff, but they also have an anonymous source, supposedly it's a considerable amount of Lien but Milo wasn't sure of the exact figures. However, if the farm was knocked out of operation it would slow down operations here in Vale and it would severely slow down or halt operations elsewhere throughout the Kingdom,"

Ozpin mulled over what Warren said, he looked deep in concentration, something was not sitting right with Ozpin. He pondered for a few minutes before speaking once more.

"Thank you, both of you, for bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately, before we can take any action, I will need to gather a force to send with you,"

Warren had puzzled look on his face "What do you mean? You can't call upon one of your Huntsman or a team of students,"

"I'm afraid not, it is too early in the school year to start sending the teams on missions and the council has been taking issue with my 'liberal' use of Huntsman on non-Grimm related issues. So, it will need to be postponed,"

A sense of relief washed over Warren not having to be sent with a bunch of kids and Alex was just relieved he wasn't throwing up all over Ozpin's office.

There was no real rush to take the farm, it wasn't like the White Fang was on to them. Milo only kept inventory for the various bases in Vale and the position shifted regularly. At some point, Milo got sick of all the codenames and secrecy because he dropped all that with the recent logs, it explained why there was a lot more info on this base than the others.

Ozpin had more to say however.

"I do have a lead you and Alex can investigate in the meantime. It is more a rumor, I was recently contacted by the mayor of Myersville, a village to the southeast. He claims that there was a recent White Fang sighting and was adamant that they were White Fang, I want the both of you to investigate these claims,"

"Are you sure it's worth investigating? Myersville doesn't have much that the White Fang would want, and it could turn out the sighting is totally bogus," said Warren

"I will not take any chances, if you feel however the whole thing is fluke then you may call it off, but I implore you to stay for at least a few days to verify these rumors,"

"Alright then, we'll check it out,"

"Good, I'll call in a bullhead, it will be ready to leave at 9:30,"

Things were starting to wind down, Alex was grateful he didn't have to speak throughout the whole meeting, he wasn't even sure why he was there in the first place, but he wasn't complaining.

Ozpin looked at Alex.

'Oh fuck,'

"Alex, I almost forgot, how did the interrogation go with the prisoner, specifically what did you learn from him,"

'Jesus, I don't know why Warren can't explain, he was in the same damn room as me,'

It wouldn't do to just bitch and moan in his mind, he was going to have to speak.

"Um, we didn't learn much from him, just that the White Fang was stealing a lot of Dust and are planning something big. That was about as much as he knew," Alex didn't say much but he felt like he was about to puke with just about every other word.

"Hmm, very well. If there is nothing else then the both of you may leave,"

Alex and Warren made their way out.

Warren was going to head back home to pack a few things, Alex was going to go puke then he was going to start packing. After reaching his room he retched his guts out into the toilet, he felt a little better after that. His body would take care of the rest and he should feel better by noon, now it was time to start packing.

Since it was more of a reconnaissance mission, he was going to bring his MP5SD for this one, the 9mm rounds wouldn't have the same stopping power like the other weapons in his arsenal but that wasn't the point of the mission, as a sidearm he'd carry his trust A Light Shining in Darkness. Alex did decide on bringing his Hécate II if the village was getting hit at any point by either White Fang or Grimm he'd want to have some serious stopping power, he disassembled the anti-material rifle and put in his duffel bag alongside the MP5SD.

The Pip-Boy was still coming along for the ride, he wanted to be prepared if they ever did get caught into a serious firefight, the use of his Pip-Boy would raise questions, but if it came down to a life or death situation then he'd worry about the consequences later. Alex was still packing other things such as a harness with ammo pouches to carry his MP5 ammo, also packing away extra underwear and socks.

What? Did you think he would wear only one pair of socks and underwear?

It may be a Wasteland he just crawled out of, but he wasn't a complete barbarian. At heart, he was still that little pampered vault dweller, but as he fumbled around the Wastes, he learned basic survival skills from pre-war survival manuals and got most of his real-world experience through trial and error. Occasionally friendlier folk would teach him how to live off the land, solving his undergarment crisis by teaching him how to make loincloths and puttees. The only pain in the ass was cleaning your clothes since a lot of the water in the D.C. area at the time was still mostly irradiated, it wouldn't do to soak your clothes in that or even to wash yourself.

Nowadays the water in D.C. is a lot cleaner from what he's heard, not as if it matters anyway because he abused the hell out of the vending machines from the Sierra Madre to give himself clean clothes, that was probably way more valuable than the gold ever was.

Anyways, among the many errands Alex accomplished the other day, buying underwear and socks was one of them. Just because he knew all these survival skills didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of the bountiful resources this city has.

The bullhead wouldn't leave for another hour, so Alex decided to eat some breakfast as he worked his appetite up already and took the time to read a little about the Myersville. Ozpin said the dining hall was open to him and the food without a doubt would be top-notch since Beacon had its own team of chefs, he could even put in a request for them to make Alex something off the breakfast menu. That sounded nice, but breakfast was in full swing in the dining hall and he'd look weird standing in a line with a bunch of kids significantly younger than him. Alex settled on a can of beans he had in his Pip-Boy; he didn't have the time to cook anything.

There wasn't too much information he could find on the village, he did find out that the village has a website where they boast about being one of the largest exporters of wheat in Vale and they have a centuries-old castle since before the Great War. Other than that, there was no other information about the village with it being a relatively obscure location.

Alex was agreeing with Warren on this one. The village was out in the bumfuck of nowhere, he doubted that the village had anything the White Fang wanted, maybe except for food. White Fang out in the wilds, when they're not fighting off Grimm, are usually targeting convoys or bullheads headed for Vale, mostly to steal the cargo and ransom off the crew, if they were still alive.

A village-like Myersville wouldn't be ordering anything that would catch the Fangs interest. They could be making moves to extorting the village, Alex didn't really know, he was mostly operating on his past experiences out in the Wasteland, if they're not already extorting or raiding the village then they must be set in terms of resources for now and in no real pressure to attack.

Whatever it was or whoever it was they'd find out soon enough. The bullhead would soon be leaving, grabbing his duffel he made his way out. Warren was waiting for him with his own luggage by the bullhead and they soon departed. In total the flight would take around 3 hours to get to the village, the bullhead was a slightly larger variant because of the cargo hold, they were coming in with the ammo shipment for the militia.

Warren was typing away at his laptop, emailing contacts and the such while Alex fiddled with his Pip-Boy checking his inventory looking at the absurd amount of ammo he had. A few times Warren would look up from his laptop, at Alex's Pip-Boy and just shake his head in disbelief.

Alex noticed and took a deep offense to that.

'Oh yeah sure, a scroll can do everything a Pip-Boy can do and more, but can a scroll be used as an improvised bludgeoning device? I think not,'

Plus, his Pip-Boy can store gear, although that was a feature added much later. It was mostly based mostly off the vending machine technology from the Sierra Madre, Mothership Zeta tech helped as well but that was by total accident, it happened while the Think Tank was tinkering with the teleporters. Alex had no idea how it led to creating a pocket dimension within his Pip-Boy, but whatever, it let him store more shit. It would keep him awake at night at times, the Think Tank told him there was a small chance that Pip-Boy might just turn into a black hole and swallow up the earth. That really scared the shit out of him.

Time continued to pass, and Alex closed his eyes, resting in the corner of the bullhead. He wasn't tired really; it was more about passing time. Warren looked busy and he didn't know him that well and would rather not have pointless small talk.

Once they landed, there was no formal greeting or anything like that. It was just members of the militia coming to unload all the cargo off from the bullhead, one of them led Alex and Warren to the castle. The village was a decent size village of around 1,253 people from what Alex has read over the internet. The village had two walls, the first surrounded the entirety of the village, with it being made up of concrete and barbed wires atop it. The second wall was surrounding the castle itself where it sat perched on one of the three hills of the village, the walls looked much older, mostly of cobblestone.

The castle continued its age-old function of acting as an administrative center, back in the days it was like a Camp Golf since the region used to be a hotbed for Grimm activity and the castle was built for Huntsman to rest up before they went out and culled the population. In time the Grimm population whittled down and so did its relevance, switching over to a more administrative center.

Walking up a series of steps, their guide them to where they would be staying. Alex and Warren threw in their luggage into their respective rooms, they'd unpack later, for now, they still had a mayor to meet.

They continued to follow the guide to the mayor's office, the office was more an office/bedroom, to the right corner of the room near a window there was the mayor, a scrawny little man and looking deathly afraid of something. Next to him was a much larger man with red curly hair and a bushy beard, he looked jolly, like a red-headed Santa that hit the gym frequently. He had what looked like an Atlesian styled rifle strapped to him, same with the pistol holstered to his side, wasn't wearing any type of body armor, must have come back from a beat around the wall.

The mayor got up from his seat to greet Warren as he looked like the most senior of the two.

"It's great that you came, we've got sightings of White Fang in the area and the Grimm have been ramping up lately we nee-"

Warren put his hand up to simmer down the mayor.

"Calm down, we're only here to investigate the White Fang sightings, if Grimm should become a problem then a team of Huntsman is on standby to respond to the threat,"

It was a lie, but it calmed down the mayor.

"Right, right, sorry about that," the mayor pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his forehead, it wasn't hot in the room it was just the mayor's nerves getting to him.

"Take a seat Dave, simmer down," said the bearded man, patting the mayor on the back. The man had a peculiar accent, Alex couldn't pinpoint as to where it's from exactly, but he could tell he wasn't originally from Vale.

Dave did as he was told and took a seat, the man was obviously letting his mind getting the better of him, not being used to dealing with situations like these.

The bushy-bearded man didn't seem disturbed at all, most likely thinking the situation wasn't as serious as the mayor thought it was.

"Alright so what was this about White Fang in the area?" asked Warren

The bearded man spoke for the mayor.

"A few of my boys were out surveying the region, looking for Grimm tracks, checking if the Grimm were going to migrate this fall, the usual. Much to their surprise, they ran into two Faunus, both equipped with rifles,"

"And that was alarming?" interjected Alex

"Oh no, no, don't get me wrong I'm not racist or anything like that and neither are my men, as far as I know. What was alarming was that they ran off before the patrol could even talk to them. When the patrol investigated the area, they found a busted-up radio and antenna,"

A side note, radios do in fact exist on Remnant, but nothing long-range and since they could never launch satellites up into space the CCT's dominated.

"How long ago was this? And do you still have the radio and the antenna?" asked Warren

"It was 2 days ago, and yes we still have it,"

"Have you tried repairing it?"

"We had a man that would repair radios and electronic but he had a family emergency in Vale and left last week and well it's just a radio at the end of the day, even if it was repaired it would not give us any more clues as to where the men went,"

"Still I want it fixed, see if there's anything in the area,"

Warren looked over to Alex

"Know anything about fixing radios,"

"I know a thing or two. I'll try to get it repaired, but no promises," said Alex

The bearded man looked a little extra jolly at that.

"Ah, superb news! I'll show you to the armory, Dave insisted that we kept it somewhere secure, for whatever reason. Come, follow me,"

"I'll stay here and bounce some questions off of the mayor," said Warren

The bearded man led Alex to the armory, along the way they introduced themselves.

"I'm Alex by the way,"

"And I am Sigismund, but please, call me Sigi,"

"You from Atlas by chance?" asked Alex, he certainly had a Germanic sounding name and he had that slight accent.

"Yes, from Mantle specifically, low landers are little more traditional and like speaking the old tongue, at least in certain neighborhoods. Never cared much about speaking the old tongue much myself,"

"So, what brought you to Vale? If you don't mind me asking,"

"Not at all, I moved here a year ago, my sister has a bakery here with her husband and they told me the old commander of the militia was retiring and since I had some military experience they asked if I could fill the role. And uh as for what made me make the move…" Sigi adopted an uncomfortable look on his face and started scratching his beard.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, sorry for bringing it up,"

"No it's alright, just a little frustrating," Sigi sighed "Don't want to get too emotional with a stranger, but you could probably piece it together if you've been watching the news so I might as well just tell you. I was a sergeant in the Atlesian Army and the army was replacing the regular ground troops with the newer AK-200's, Atlas's plan was to focus more on cranking out robots and using specialists if a situation called for a more human touch. Anyways a lot of units got demobilized, including mine, very abruptly. As soon as the AK-200's came in, the council wanted us gone, there was little foresight on the matter and it turned out to be a whole confusing mess of paperwork that the army administration got overwhelmed with,"

They continued walking and rounded the corner where the armory door was at, Sigi wrapped up his explanation.

"Basically, I was thrown into civilian life abruptly and without any kind of pension, I tried enlisting as a marine but the Council declared that any soldiers from a recently demobilized unit cannot enlist into other branches of the military for a period of 5 years. Anyways, enough of my melancholic ramblings, we've arrived,"

The armory door was made of solid steel, looked modern and out of place compared to the other sections of the castle, Sigi punched in the codes to the door and unlocked it. It was small inside, only containing a few racks with spare guns, there was mostly ammo stacked in here and replacement parts for guns. In the middle of the room, there was a table with the broken radio and antenna on the table.

"So, what do you think?" asked Sigi

"It's not too banged up, as a matter of fact, you could have just fixed yourselves but whatever. I'll need a few tools to fix it up though,"

"Come then, we should have a few things in the shack out in the courtyard,"

After Alex and Sigi grabbed a few tools and some duct tape, Alex got to work. In total it took maybe 5 minutes to fix it, it wasn't too dissimilar from the portable radios that NCR troopers would lug around, the only difference is that this is much smaller and lighter compared to the 38-pound radio troopers would have to lug around.

Another side note, Since Vertibirds, were becoming more common in military operations, NCR had at least one trooper in a platoon to have a portable radio in order to call in air support or artillery strikes. Most of these troopers were from the newly formed NCR signal corp.

Back to the radio, Alex started fiddling around with the knobs making sure it was working, he was mostly getting static from the speaker, it was dumb but at least now he knew it worked. Sigi left to go check on the militia guards posted around the castle and let Alex do his thing.

"White Fang here, why isn't you unit working, we're still getting static," a voice uttered from the speakers.

It made Alex jump like he just got caught jerking off. Now he guesses he has to respond.

"Uh, we're working on it right now, just wanted to test it,"

"Well, your unit still doesn't appear to be working, pal. Who is this?"

"Well, that's not unusual, is it? Nothing works right anymore,"

"Huh, ain't that the truth. Just don't let anyone who's got Adam's ear hear that. You'll be making cargo runs to Vale 'til the end of time, pal,"

"Adam?"

"Yeah, you know how he gets when people complain. He takes it personal, like it's a loyalty thing,"

"Adam Taurus?" not one of Alex's brightest moments

"Adam Taurus the leader of the fucking White Fang. Who'd you think I was talking about? Who the fu- Who is- What- I should kick your fucking ass! Who is this?"

'Oh fuck, oh fuck,'

"Uh, you're not important enough to know that,"

"Oh? You're a wise guy huh? Look I'm tracing you right now pal. We'll see how smart you feel when Lieu chews your ass out. Dickhead!"

"I've got your trace for you, and I can show you where you can shove it,"

'This dork won't be able to trace me. Or at least I hope so,'

"Ah, a few more moments and I'll have your ass in a sling, wait a moment. This can't be right, your team is nowhere near the designated comms zone,"

"That's right sucker. Right where you can't get me," said Alex feeling smug about himself.

"I've got you. At Myersville. Ah, well, why don't you just sit tight, and I'll order up a little celebration for ya. Including fireworks,"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, keep talking you blowhard,"

"Well, whoever you are, I just dispatched a death squad to your location. Have a nice day,"

"And what are they going to do?" Alex doubted had an actual team that could drop in on the castle, it seemed a little too out of reach for the White Fang.

"Usually they just go in shooting. They let someone else search through the bodies to figure out what was going on,"

"Oooo, now you've got me all scared. I need to change my undies," said Alex in a mocking tone.

"Yeah. Goodbye,"

And with that, the line went dead.

Alex sighed

'That could have gone a lot better… oh well! Not like they can do anything and if they can, well I'll just let my gun do the talking,'

Unfortunately, Alex still believed the end of a gun barrel could solve most problems if diplomacy was thrown out by his own blunders.

'Should get back to Warren and tell him what happened. I'll also conveniently leave out the fact that I messed up during that Adam part. I'd rather avoid Ozpin's version of 'firing' an employee. Probably more like firing them in the back of their heads,'

Alex walked back to where the mayor's office was, Warren was just about done, he looked over to Alex.

"So, how'd it go?"

"Well I fixed the radio, problem was I made a random encounter with the White Fang over the radio,"

"Oh shit, so they're nearby?"

The mayor paled at hearing this.

"Pretty much, the guy thought I was apart of a comms team, I goaded him into talking, see if I could find out more, but then he started tracing me and well it went to shit after that,"

"What'd he say?"

"Threatened to send a death squad,"

The mayor was starting to shake like leaf now.

Warren snorted at that

"Not likely, anyway we'll worry about that later. For now, Sigismund is gathering a convoy and some of his men, he wants us to look at the sight of where the Faunus were last seen. Get suited up I'll meet you at the entrance of the village,"

Alex went back to his room and started equipping his harness and putting the MP5 strap over himself, he looked over the disassembled anti-material rifle and pondered if he should bring it or not.

'Nah, I'm taking it with me,'

He quickly assembled it and materialized it into his Pip-Boy, if there was an emergency on their way back or on the way there to the location then he'd whip it out. He met up with the convoy that was assembled near the entrance of the village, there was 4 old and beat up SUV's and two pick up trucks fitted out with what looks like M2 Browning's, they slapped on a plate shielding around the gun to protect a portion of the gunner. The militia looked ragtag, besides Sigi, only a few others looked to be wearing body armor, the rest were either wearing flak jackets or nothing at all. The only consistent thing was the rifles, they all looked like Atlesian knock offs.

In total there was 22 personnel on this convoy, including Alex, Sigi, and Warren. The mayor didn't want too much of the militia leaving.

Sigi approached Alex.

"Load up in with Charles over there by the black SUV, Warren is riding with me,"

They loaded up into the vehicles, the SUV Alex was in was only himself and the driver. The steel gates opened, and the convoy rolled out, in total it would take 40 minutes for the convoy to reach their destination.

"Hey, is it cool if I put some music on?" asked the driver

"Go ahead, just don't blast it too loud,"

The driver used his right hand to open up his scroll, as he was looking for a playlist, he would look up to make sure he wasn't crashing into the pickup truck in front of him or lagging behind the rest of the convoy. The driver finally found the playlist he was looking for and pressed shuffle.

It was a song about thongs.

Alex just kept his eyes on the farmlands and thankful that the song wasn't too loud so he could easily tune it out.

Then the convoy entered the woods.

It was a visual shock for Alex; besides Oasis, he's never seen any areas that were this densely forested. The further they went in however, the woods started to become more ominous and darker, the only sunlight being on the dirt road and the occasional crack of sunlight within the forest. It put the driver on edge, he reached over to the volume knob and turned up the music to drown out his fears.

Alex frowned and looked at the driver like he was an idiot.

The driver didn't seem to care, he kept tapping away at the wheel to the music, singing along about some dude telling to look at a photograph.

'This is gonna be a long drive,'

AN: Uhhh, hey my bad, I was going to upload yesterday but I got lazy. Honestly felt this chapter was kind of a snoozer and I hope to rectify that with the next chapter. Anyways hope you all have a good one and stay safe.