Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.

CHAPTER 10

Ren stepped into the dining room, and sighed. The issue of getting to Atlas was honestly of little concern to him, the world was highly unlikely to end in his natural lifetime due to a number of factors, but seeing everyone in the party splitting up in frustration at the news that Ozpin had been lying to them the entire time was annoying in it's own sort of way. Not that he'd put it past Ozpin, Ren always assumed everyone was being deceitful. He clenched his fists. He was always being deceitful. Ren was faking his commitment to this mission his team had joined both RWBY and SPGL on. He didn't really care about Salem, or the maidens, or the relics, or the gods. Sure Ren was "one of the good guys," he believed in keeping humanity safe from the grimm, he'd fight them until his last day on Remnant if he could, but it wasn't because he cared. It was because he could fight and people would praise him, because it was fun that he was allowed to have, and because... Because Nora cared, because Nora wanted to save people...

"Mr. Schrodinger?" Rot turned his wheelchair to face Ren.

"What do you want, kid?" Rot asked, sounding irritated.

"I…" Ren halted himself for a moment to construct his words more carefully. "No offence, but you're old. Not as old as Maria, but you've undoubtedly spent more time as an active huntsman than her… Surely you attended an academy, had a team, became licensed, and fought many battles together… But you must have also had your issues, much like my own team and our friends are having now. You also seem wise and knowledgeable about much of what Ozpin has told us, and what we've seen from Jinn. If you have any way of assisting us, any knowledge on what we might be able to do to defeat Salem, you've got to tell us." Ren said.

Rot snorted at that, which caused him to cough. "Mi Hermana…"

Ren gave him a confused look. "That's West Vacuo for 'My sister' dipshit…" Ren sat down in a dining room chair. "My sister was on my team. Our parents split up and she moved to Atlas at a young age and we reunited in Beacon, way back in the old days. We all ran missions together in some of the most remote locations across the globe. Far east Anima, Menagerie outback, South Islands of Sanus. One day we got intelligence from Atlas that there was a shift in the power structure of Vacuo, back when it still had some dust for a time after the Great War and FFR. Now this was not the digital age. Before drones and the CCT got all their kinks ironed out and were modernized, aerial reconnaissance and message delivery was the safest when it was done and delivered by hand, but that made it slow. A film canister had to be dropped out of a spy plane, this old pre-airship thing, developed in a dark room, packaged, and trade hands 3 times before it got to us. Suffice to say at best that can be done in 3 days, and that's enough time for intel to go sour. Our dog in the fight was a bandit turned politician in North Vacuo, one of the tribal leaders of the region. You think I'm bad? This guy woof…" Rot took a second to laugh.

"Our opposition was a gang syndicate trying to gain counsel seats to control the underworld and overworld of Vacuo. Could never nail them for anything, they skirted around the law, and paid off more police than the Kingdom even had… We went in under aliases and false intentions, and cut the head off the snake… It wasn't just us of course, there were Atlas specialists with us, some of the first huntsmen incorporated into their military… But like I said, intel went sour... I lost 17 of the specs, and was captured in the conflict. They kept a bag over my head every second, so I couldn't see, and they poisoned me so my aura had to keep repairing my cells and all that. I never had enough to use my semblance. They sent me to a torture house in the slums trying to find out who ordered the hit. After 6 months I escaped, got captured again, sent to far East Anima, where they left me in a container full of rotting corpses half submerged in the wetlands. But I wasn't going to die in a fucking swamp.

My team pulled me back out… I could never thank them enough for that… We spent the next 5 years fighting those assholes in Vacuo, East Anima, all over. Gun running Atlas weapons and tech to tribal people in the wastes of western Sanus on horseback. Assassinating drug cartel leaders for Vale in the dead of night. Got double crossed, left to die in the desert of Menagerie. Found the son of a bitch that tortured me in Vacuo, lost my shit, killed him… And about 4 civilians…" Rot went quiet for a moment, and Ren remained focused on the story.

"After the major crime syndicates in Vacuo were busted, and Atlas didn't need us anymore, we drifted. 4 years of life on the road, defending villages, finding lost travelers, that fun shit you kids do. In the meantime, that bandit we put in power in Vacuo… Guess what he did after he lost the election to a third party candidate? If he couldn't have Vacuo nobody could. Every town and settlement that wasn't the main kingdom, practically wiped off the map. So my team goes in, no payment, no contract. We set a trap, and we put a stop to what we started… I lost my entire team that day… I lost my sister, got my jaw blown to shit, and walked away from the light." Rot sighed. "Of course power hates a vacuum. After I lost it all, I filled the shoes of the underground of Vacuo to prevent any of the fucking sickos from getting too high up the ladder. Organized the crime, and set standards for how we'd do business. I knew the game so well I lost myself in it… But Ozpin didn't see it that way." Rot said with a smirk.

"Ozpin… Came to you while you were a crime lord?" Ren asked.

Rot chuckled. "Yup… It was because of my eyes… I followed his orders to the end of Remnant on a mission I'd rather never remember... And he failed us then… But I didn't blame him. Salem's always been tougher to fight than she seems… And we were the cutting edge at the time. We didn't need Atlas's robots, or hard light, or stuck up authority figures to tell us what to do. It was just us warriors, doing what we had to, and we did things our way... Kid... Ren, that's your name right? When evil acts, act back, it doesn't matter what the people in power say you can and can not do, because they're going to forgive and forget real quick when it's you saving their ass... "You can't count on anybody to do your job for you…" Something Mi Hermana used to tell me, and it didn't click until I was facing down Salem. This whole getting to Atlas thing? Saving the world? If you think we need to rely on a narcissistic egomaniac with a misplaced sense of nationalism to ferry us to Atlas, or a man so old time forgot he should have died 20,000 years ago, to lead us into a war he's failed to fight since it started, then you need to get your head checked, or you need to nut up and do your damn job." Rot said, with a sneer, as he turned back towards the window. "I'm done talking. Figure out how to get to Atlas on your own." He said, waving Ren away, before coughing into his fist.

Ren got up from his chair, turning to leave the room. "I'm…" He needed to say something polite. "I'm sorry about your sister… And your team… I did not mean to bring up bad memories." Ren apologized.

Rot grunted. "Kid, those were my best memories…" Rot said, before Ren started walking away, Rot's words echoing in his head. "Do your damn job."

It was past sunset by the time the front door opened, and Pale limped into the house with Qrow slumped over his shoulder, Yang, Halcyone, Jaune and Pyrrha behind him. "Get an IV drip prepped, Qrow's piss wasted, and he's crashin' hard!" Halcyone shouted, as Pale brought the unconscious vomiting man into the room, and laid him down on the floor on his side.

"Shit!" Yang shouted as she slipped past her friends, and rummaged through the kitchen looking for a turkey baster to suction his airway with. Pyrrha put a blanket over Qrow, as the rest of the house came to see what the yelling was about. Even Rot wheeled himself into the doorway of the dining room to listen better.

"I thought Qrow couldn't get this drunk?" Jaune asked nobody in particular.

"He hasn't been this bad since mom went missing." Ruby said, as she knelt by her uncle's side, stroking his hair as Yang tried to clear his mouth of vomit. Oscar was lost as to what to do, and nobody else really had any experience with the situation.

"Sorry about this Rot." Clayton said, taking his spare IV bag.

"Ah, I don't need that shit." Rot grumbled, as Halcyone started up a direct line for Qrow.

"Gods above how much did he have?" Siniy asked, as Yang was on her third time around clearing his throat.

"You ever seen that comedy movie, where the guy tries to drink his way out of drowning in a vat of beer?" Clayton asked. Siniy nodded. "Qrow's tried that before. So use your imagination." Everyone looked at the man with surprise, and a hint of respect from the Cyrillic polar bear.

It took an hour, but the rag tag team of not licensed medics managed to stem the old bird's alcohol poisoning. "He is going to have the mother of all hangovers when he wakes up." Pale said, pointing to Qrow's still slumped form on the floor. With everyone having regathered, and the situation having calmed down, Halcyone, Siniy and Nora went to get the groceries they left out in the cold, as Pale got to work cleaning the carpet.

The teams aided Saffron in preparing dinner as best they could, setting the table, cutting vegetables, and so on, all in silence.

Jaune was the first to speak. "I'm sorry about being fussy earlier… We don't have Ozpin, and Qrow drank his problems away, so what's the plan going forward?" He asked, setting down the half of an onion he had in his hand.

Rot chuckled form the doorway to the dining room, as he wheeled into the living room. "Tell 'em Ren." Rot said.

Ren, having finished laying out the silverware, turned to face his friends, and came back into the Living room. He blinked a few times, not used to being the center of attention. "You can't count on anybody to do your job for you… Rot told Me his sister used to say that to him. We can't count on Cordovin to help us, it seems like Ironwood posted her here because she's a nuisance and unpleasant to be around, but not completely incompetent enough to fire, and we can't expect Ozpin to want to help either after everything that happened. So we need to get to Atlas on our own… Whatever it takes, no matter the consequences, if it means the relic is safe."

Eyes shifted all around the room, and the more… Criminally minded of the group came up with a framework. "We fly ourselves to Atlas." Ruby said with a smirk.

Rot got out of his wheelchair. "Now that plan I like." He said, as Jaune's jaw practically dropped to the floor.

"You weren't paralyzed?!" The knight asked, slightly irritated that he pushed him all the way from the hospital uphill for no reason.

Rot smirked. "Na, I'm just fuckin' lazy."

Author's note.

Lots of exposition sprinkled throughout about what happened a decade ago. Oh yeah, It's all coming together.