Disclaimer-I do not own RWBY, which is owned by the late and great Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. Only thing I own is my characters.

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

23 Janus, 3150 PD -C. Astali-

I jabbed the electric prod into her ribs again, upping the voltage twice as high. The scream that she let only caused this unsettling feeling to push more at my mind, trying to convince me I should stop. I ignored it and continued my work, letting it have the feeling of victory before crushing it once more.

I stopped after I heard her scream go hoarse. Hours of torture would do that to most, I suppose. I let her catch her breath, going towards the metal table that was against a concrete walls and putting the prod on it. The woman was far more trouble than I thought she was. Perhaps it was her animal features, or maybe the fact she was a former huntress. Either way, she was difficult, and I will not tolerate difficult.

"Now Madam… I'm sorry, but what was your name again?" I already knew the answer to that, along with every other detail on her life. I may as well let her underestimate me. Give her the hope she so strongly wanted. It was always fun to take it away.

Alexandria Alabaster, formerly Aero, was the daughter of a merchant and a reformed criminal, who was apart of a crime network centered in Mistral, and hails from Mantle. After graduating from Atlas with mediocre grades, she ran off with her future husband, Davison Alabaster, to Vacuo. She retired from being a huntress after learning she was carrying a child and had a relatively ordinary life. Until the Revolution started, of course. Now she's here, being tortured with no hope of rescue and the possibilities of seeing her family again slim. It's almost romantic. Except for the fact that she was going to die here. And her family would be seeing her again, but not with the joy of being reunited with the most important woman of their lives. Instead, they would be weeping over a broken and unrecognisable corpse in a box.

She spit a glob of red at me, it hitting my boots with a disgusting smack. I answered her with a half-hearted backhand, the force only slightly jerking her head to the side. "Now, Now. We do not need to act so rudely to your superior. After all, how would poor, little Jacob react?"

She widened her eyes, then narrowed them and scowled at me, "Don't you dare even get close to him! No, don't even talk about him!" A harsh, but hoarse, whisper of someone who would do harm if she was disobeyed. A shame she wasn't on our side. Or human to begin with. I would just have to do this the hard way.

"Talk about him?" I started pacing, doing a little rhythm on my back. At the same time, I pulled out a scroll sitting on the table and started dialing a number. I always did like a little psychological warfare. "I would never do such a thing in front of you Madam Alexandria. In fact, how about I just talk to him." I started the call and put the scroll on speaker, signaling the guards that were present to gag her.

After a few minutes, the phone picked up and a muffled yell resounded from the scroll, "Sorry Nana! Hi Momma!" Her reaction was quick and violent. She started yanking on the straps and, eventually, started trying to use what feeble amounts of Aura she had left to add to her strength. It wasn't going to work, I had the straps and chair specially made to be fused with Dust and high octane steel. Escapees tend to not make it far in an escape, so I would prefer if they stayed alive for questioning. For their sake.

"Hello there, young one. I am a friend of your mothers and was told by her to tell you that she loves you very much."

There was a minutes pause before I heard a small laugh on the other line, "You talk funny." The small boy gasped, "Sorry! My Momma always tells me that I shouldn't say mean things to people like that, she says I just like to talk to people a lot."

Chuckling in an attempt to cover up the sounds of the small struggle transpiring next to me, I started walking back towards the table and picked up a scalpel, "It is quite alright little one, you are not the first to say such a thing. I apologize if I sound rude, but do you mind if I talk to your father? I wanted to talk to him about something."

"He's not home right now, he went somewhere with these big scary guys and said he doesn't know when he would be back."

"How unfortunate." I said, with an added touch of sorrow, "Ah! It seems I must take my leave, but it was a pleasure talking to you, young one. I do hope we meet each other one day."

"Goodbye mister!" I hung up and placed the scroll back on the table. Glancing over at my captive, I noticed a sever lack of courage now. She understood now what I was willing to do.

"Y-you're a monster." I simply gestured towards one of the guards to go and retrieve our 'guest', and walked over to her. I placed my hand on here shoulder, relishing the small flinch it caused.

"In war, I have found that you always require a monster to finish a fight with as little opposition as possible. So thank you for those ever kind words." I took my hand off and walked back towards the table. "Scalpel or saw?"

"Wh-what?"

"Scalpel or Saw, it's rather a simple question." I picked up the saw and started to examine both it and the scalpel. The edges would need to be sharpened again. Washed as well it would appear.

"Sc-scalpel I guess," she then blinked a couple times, as if having realized something. I hope she has realized something, or I else she was greatly overestimated. "Wait, why isn't my husband home? He should be…" Her eyes relit themselves with the same ferocity as when the interrogation first started, as if the continuous hours of pain and suffering had never happened, "If you did anything to him I'll…!" The chair was struggling to stay anchored to the floor, and the straps were starting to tear. I quickly grabbed Warmaker and transformed it into its shotgun form, letting a round go into her knee. She screamed in pain as the slug reduced it to nothing,letting the leg fall limply to the floor.

"I don't think you are in a position to make threats Madam. I haven't done anything to your husband." I walked over to the exit and knocked on it. "If you're so worried about his well being, then why don't you ask him yourself?" On que, the door opened and a struggling, slightly beaten, man was brought in on a gurney, yelling at his captures.

"Davis!" She yelled through her screams, trying to uproot the chair once more. Warmaker dispelling another slug near her remaining leg was all the suggesting she needed. As a bonus, it shut up the man as well.

"Before I can do anything you might regret, would you now like to tell me where the Revolutionary base is?" She glanced over at her husband, who shook his head, and then glared at me. Sighing I walked over to Sir Davison and started spinning the scalpel between my fingers. "Did you know that without the iris, you could not see? I found this out at the age of thirteen myself, but I was still awestruck at the fact that our pupils were not the only needed part to see. It's likely common knowledge now, but I always like to test out what scientific fact comes to my mind." Putting my hand on top of his chest, I stabbed the scalpel into the Sirs eye and started cutting the iris out nimbly. I held down through it all and his constant jerking about caused some rough cuts into the actual iris, but I finally pulled it out and placed it on a small stool. "Now, Madam Alexandria, would you mind telling me what I want? I wouldn't want to do it to the other eye, being a blind man in this bloody world is a death sentence."

She said nothing, just stared blankly at the iris and whimpered lightly. Sighing, I started moving towards the other side of the gurney, "Very well then, but when your husband runs out of eyes, Jacob will have to be brought in as well," Her head jerked up in fear, and Davison did his best to look at me with his other eye, terror showing across his face, "It is regrettable such a young and bright spirit will have to be sightless and parentless."

"Stop! Please! I'll tell you everything, just don't hurt either of them!" She was losing her voice with all her careless screaming, but it didn't matter now. She was going to let loose her information. I walked over to her and motioned for her to continue, "It's in the Kosmos Mountains, near Atlas. We just got there, so we shouldn't be ready for an attack." She was started sobbing afterwards, and Davison looked to be holding back his own. It was amazing how easy it was to break even the strongest of people in a matter of minutes, especially if you knew who they are and what culture they are from. It just came down to how you used that information to get what you want. All I want is to win this war, no matter the cost.

"Thank you for this, Madam. I truly am grateful. I hope you enjoy your freedom." They didn't show any reaction to what I had said, or they knew I was lying. In the end, all they got were two bullets to the head.

7 Sextilis, 3176 PD -C. Astali-

I awoke and rose quickly, ready to for combat. Quickly, I dropped my guard when I saw that I was still in the auditorium, having volunteered to watch the students. It was mainly to get away from the pestering Port and to be able to get some form of introduction to some of the students. While making my rounds before most of the students went to sleep, I discovered that a Schnee was attending. I had met only one Schnee and she was too deep in Ironwood's pocket to really be of any use to me, maybe this one will be different.

The only nuisance I had during all this was the occasional pair of students who had wandered off to get to 'know' each other. I caught one pair in the middle of the act, in fact, and I had to hold back my anger from them just ignoring me. I had to punch a wall in the end to get their attention, and when they saw me…

It seemed like they had seen a monster.

Monster. I guess some things just never change in the end.

Sorry if this chapter doesn't feel like it compensated for much in the way of my absence, but I think the amount of backstory and, I hope, personality I gave to Astali will greatly make up for that. But do not worry! I know exactly what I'm going to do for next chapter so be ready for the start of initiation and maybe possibly a new character or two.

I hope you guys enjoyed and don't forget to follow, favorite, and/or leave a review!