A/N: Hello everyone! Sorry about the wait, but I've been traveling and haven't had a lot of time to write.

I'd like everyone to know that there may not be any updates for a while. That's because this is the last exposition chapter, and after I finish this, I have to actually sit down and work out exactly how the plot is going to go. I know there's a fight scene here that seems like it might be important, but this is mostly to add some shiptease and explain any newly created powers or changes I made to current ones. I am actually using Season 3 canon as it relates to Semblances and so forth, just not plotwise.

Anyway, on with the chapter.

Chapter 3: Action!

The elevator in Ozpin's office dinged, and teams RWBY and JNPR stepped out. Ozpin had to admit, he was surprised they'd been so prompt.

"Good morning to you all. Please, take a seat."

Ozpin hit one of the buttons under his desk, and eight seats popped out of the floor. The teams quickly took his advice.

Ruby, as always, was the first to speak.

"Um, Professor, are…are we in trouble?"

Ozpin grinned.

"No, Miss Rose. You are not. In fact, I have called all of you here today to give you a mission."

Ozpin pressed another button, and a map of the city showed up with a gently pulsing red dot on it.

"We have, in this warehouse, located a small White Fang operation of no more than twenty members."

Ozpin noticed the minute tightening of Blake's hand on her armrest.

"As their motives are unclear, we can only assume they plan to cause some sort of trouble at the Vytal Festival next week, and we would not want interference at the tournament or the festival, since I assume all of you are planning on your team being victorious."

Nora huffed.

"We only lost last year because I missed Yang that one time!"

Yang, of course, chimed in.

"And we only lost because we were unaware of the fire rate on Coco's minigun! Or that Fox could use it as a jumping platform! Or that Yatsuhashi could then throw his spear thing-"

"Naginata," Ruby corrected.

"—fine, whatever, naginata in such a way that Fox could land on it! Or that he could then use Velvet's magic silk thing to make his arm blades explode!"

Ozpin, throughout all of this, had adopted a look of polite indifference.

"In any case, I would like your teams to go root out this operation, considering you eight currently compose the most skilled Hunters in Beacon. Kill only if necessary, of course."

Ruby nodded vigorously.

"Got it, Professor!"

As one, the eight young Hunters stood and walked into the elevator. Just before it closed, Yang yelled, "And thanks for the compliment!"

Some time later, Teams RWBY and JNPR were lying on their stomachs in a conveniently large air vent.

Jaune and Ruby looked over the room, noting positioning of the White Fang (spread out, although all the guards did go through certain areas at once) and positioning of other useful objects (lots of shipping containers were spread across the room as well, though neither team leader could discern their purpose).

They then proceeded to discuss strategy quickly, before returning to the others.

"Nora, you're charged up, right?" asked Jaune.

"Yes, sir! Lightning flows through my veins like…like…blood flowing through veins!" Nora said in what most would think was a stage whisper but what RWBY and JNPR knew was actually as quiet as Nora could be.

"Right, then," said Ruby. "The plan is simple. The next time all the guards aren't looking, I'll carry Pyrrha as fast as I can so she can hit all of the shipping containers in the stack nearest to us. Do you think you can push those, Pyrrha?"

"Maybe not quickly," Pyrrha responded, "but their weight means they shouldn't take long to start falling."

"Then," Ruby continued, "the next time the guards are in that area, Pyrrha will push over the shipping containers. They should make enough noise that the guards will flee the large falling object, at which point Nora will shock them from range. Then, of course, we'll move into open combat. Any questions?"

Weiss quickly piped up.

"Do we know what's inside those shipping containers?"

Ruby grinned.

"Well, if they were Dust, it would make our job easier, but I messaged Ozpin and he said this warehouse just stores parts for the Knights and Paladins. So probably that."

"Ruby," Weiss grumbled, "you do realize those might be extremely difficult to replace."

"Yeah, but I don't think they'll break. Besides…"

Ruby flashed that grin that Weiss was incapable of saying no to.

"…if I thought it would put you in any danger from anyone, I wouldn't have proposed it."

Ruby very quickly realized what her last sentence had sounded like, and her face turned a slightly darker shade of red than her cloak.

"And when I say you, I of course mean anyone in this duct!" she stammered. "In any event…"

Ruby turned to face Pyrrha.

"…ready, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"I think so. But Ruby, could you maybe-"

Pyrrha's sentence was cut off as Ruby grabbed her hand and zipped out of the vent, returning mere seconds later with rose petals fluttering behind her.

"Sorry, Pyrrha. What were you saying?"

Pyrrha, whose face had turned slightly green, just said, "Ignore it."

"In any event, we have about two minutes before the guards return to that spot again. Everyone get ready."

Scythes were expanded, swords were drawn, and Ruby's command was followed generally to the letter.

Weiss slid next to Ruby, taking special care to avoid any part of Crescent Rose.

"Ruby?"

"Yes, Weiss?"

When you said you would never put me in danger, was that a…confession of some sort?

"What formation should we take?"

"I think we should use Snowflake. You know, the new back-to-back one we came up with."

"Alright."

The guards walked behind the crate, and Jaune signaled Pyrrha. Pyrrha threw out her hands, and the shipping crate began to move. One foot…two feet…

The crate began shaking, and the guards very quickly sprinted out from under it.

All twelve of them were immediately stunned by bolts of lightning which leapt out of the air vent.

The last thing they heard before sinking into blissful unconsciousness was a female and a male voice yelling "Everyone, NOW!"

Ruby skidded to a stop on the stone floor at the same time Weiss launched herself next to her partner, landing on a glyph and hopping to the ground.

Two agents of the White Fang stood in front of them. One raised a hand which held a sword and another with some sort of pistol, though Ruby could see it shaking. The other spoke with much more apparent confidence, pulling out a quarterstaff.

"So, then. Weiss Schnee."

Weiss quickly brought Myrtenaster into a ready stance. This did not apparently scare the agent.

"The crimes of your family against all Faunuskind shall be punished. You shall not live to see the end of this day. I shall…"

As the agent continued speaking, Ruby slid over to Weiss.

"Do you think he's going to set the new record?"

"I don't know. Forty-five minutes is going to be pretty hard to beat. Especially because I don't currently have the patience to deal with this."

"Okay then. I'll take the one spouting a monologue."

The agent still had not stopped.

"And when your family sees your corpse, they shall know—"

The agent's words were cut off by a quick application of Crescent Rose to the midsection. He flew back several feet, into another shipping container.

Ruby strode forward, holding her trusty sniper scythe at the ready.

"Would you please stop talking? It's annoying me."

The agent stood up, wincing a little but twirling his staff.

"And you would be Ruby Rose, then."

He leapt forward with a staff blow that surely would have been hard for a normal human to block.

However, for an almost fully-trained Huntress with the ability to move faster than the eye could see and a massive scythe, it was not quite so difficult.

Ruby grinned at the man who was currently gaping at his staff, which had been neatly severed in two when it hit Crescent Rose's blade.

"You know my name!"

She then threw a jab at his stomach. And while Ruby might not have been a large person (although she did know that the last three years had nicely…filled her out, even if Yang would never admit it), the equation was f=ma.

And Ruby was really good at the acceleration part.

The agent shot several feet into the air and landed just in front of Ruby. Conveniently for him, he was unconscious before he hit the ground, so he couldn't feel the broken arms he now had.

As Ruby moved to engage one agent, Weiss aimed Myrtenaster firmly at the other one.

The Faunus raised his sword, in what Weiss assumed was an attempt to look vaguely intimidating.

The fact that he was shaking so much Weiss was surprised he hadn't accidentally fired his gun, however, ruined the effect.

"W-well, then, i-if m-my partner is f-fighting her…"

Weiss fired some earth Dust at the man. Thankfully for him, he just managed to roll out of the way of the projectile, and was thusly not struck by the stone spikes that erupted from the ground where he had been standing.

The man quickly brought his pistol to bear, firing several shots at Weiss. Weiss, however, quickly assembled a pulling glyph in the air in front of her, dragging all the shots to a stop in front of her. Operating quickly, she reversed the glyph, launching the shots directly back at the operative, before quickly applying a time contraction glyph to herself.

Time seemed to slow down as Weiss watched the projectiles fly straight at the agent. The agent, for his part, did make a valiant effort to dodge.

Then Weiss, moving through time more quickly than most, was at his side and firing burn Dust through a glyph into a short range explosion that launched the man right back into the path of his own shots.

He was struck by all the blasts he had fired, and skidded on his back, unconscious, directly into a shipping container.

Weiss dispelled her time glyph, and Ruby dashed to her side, carrying Crescent Rose in its unexpanded form on her back and the agent she had been fighting slung over her shoulder.

"That was easy," Ruby quipped.

"Yeah."

As Ruby left to carry the unconscious operative to the air vent, Weiss, just as an aside, tried again to summon.

The glyph appeared, but all that showed up when it detonated was a large sword.

As usual.

Weiss briefly wondered why this was so hard.

Blake hid behind a container as a White Fang ran through the "hallway" nearest her.

She then leapt out from behind that container, and before that particular operative could blink, he was surrounded in a cylinder of many hazy purple mists, all in the shape of Blake.

Blake thanked Weiss for continuing to provide her with this new "shadow" Dust her family was making. The purple substance had a notable use as a stealth tool. It was supposedly difficult to form, however, being made of all the basic dust forms and gravity dust. Weiss said there was another form that was the same combination but with lightning rather than gravity dust, but Blake hadn't seen it yet.

The operative was laughing, apparently. Blake quickly returned herself to the matter at hand, firing Gambol Shroud as a grappling hook to launch up to a catwalk above the man.

The operative continued laughing for a short time, then stopped.

"You think this will protect you, traitor? My ability to sense Auras is second to none! You cannot possibly hide from me!"

Blake assumed the man was focusing, trying to sense her Aura and location.

Then a scream rang out from within the cylinder.

"Wha…wha…no…stay away, I'm warning you…NO!"

Blake jumped down from the catwalk and dispelled her shadows to see the man twitching on the ground. She walked over to him.

"Did I forget to tell you about shadow Dust? Apparently, when someone tries to sense Auras through it, it responds by showing them their deepest fears."

She then swiftly knocked the man into unconsciousness with a kick to the head.

"Useful tool."

Yang launched herself at the ground and quickly reloaded Ember Celica. Standing in front of her was a lion Faunus Yang could only assume had more muscles than sense.

She was also, however, quick to notice the very large club he had in his hand.

She was also extremely quick to notice the club being swung at her.

Yang quickly flung her gauntlets out to block the large implement. She still was pushed back several feet, but that was fine. Besides, nothing had actually hit her, right?

Yang looked at her right gauntlet (she could never remember if that one was Ember or Celica) and saw a small, blinking light attached to a larger explosive device of some sort.

"Oh, you motherf—"

The blast went off, and Yang was launched back another several feet into a shipping container before landing less than gracefully face-first.

Standing up, Yang took quick inventory.

Nothing broken, no large bruises…

A few strands of hair floated down in front of her face.

Yang's eyes turned vibrantly red.

The agent, however, had turned away and did not notice her.

"Hey, you!"

The lion Faunus turned around to see Yang, hair glowing and surrounded in a flaming Aura, charging at him.

"I'm not lion to you, bitch…"

Yang jumped into the air and slammed her fist into the Faunus's mask.

The punch and subsequent detonation launched the Faunus a good two feet underground.

"No one touches the hair!"

Jaune quickly threw his shield under him, skidding to a stop with sparks flying on the ground.

The agent in front of him appeared to have a very large axe on her person.

She quickly turned around.

"Aw, come on!"

Jaune was, at this point, very confused.

"I could have gotten to fight any of the others, and I get stuck with you?"

Oh, I get it.

Jaune's understanding quickly turned into mild annoyance.

Wait. Was that an insult?

"I'd like it to be known," Jaune said, "that I resent insults to my skill."

The agent said nothing, instead opting to charge at Jaune and bring her axe down in a powerful swing.

There was a flash of white, and the agent fell over. She quickly rose, picking up her axe.

"What was that?"

Jaune smirked.

"Tell me. What's the most recent data the White Fang has on me?"

The agent ran through her scroll.

"Weapons…style…Semblance…oh."

Jaune's smirk widened to a full-on grin.

"Yeah. The first use of my Semblance. Anyone who attacks me frontally takes the force of their own attack."

The agent laughed.

"Then I guess I won't attack you frontally! Axe! Split!"

The axe's cutting edges split into eight smaller blades, which surrounded Jaune before flying at him.

A dome of Aura expanded around the Hunter who Beacon had nicknamed the "White Knight," and all the blades fell limply to the ground.

Jaune laughed.

"You may have wanted to read that file more. The second use of my Semblance creates dome shields out of Aura wherever I want, whatever size I want."

The agent roared, brought her blades back to her axe, and charged, bringing her axe sideways to avoid Jaune's barrier.

Another dome shield popped into existence, and then the agent was shot back by a pulse of force.

"And the best part," continued Jaune, "is that I can imbue them with Dust, too."

While the agent was getting up, Jaune readied his sword and shield. The sword began to glow white.

"And the third use of my Semblance is a little simpler. It enhances my sword."

Jaune charged forward, swinging his blade at the agent's axe handle. It neatly split in two.

"First, I can make it cut better…"

Jaune leapt back and swung in a downward chop. A wave of energy launched from his blade and sent the agent flying, knocked out.

"…and second, I can make it shoot wave beams."

Jaune's sword returned to normal. He contracted his shield, slung it across his back, sheathed his blade, and walked away.

When he was absolutely sure no one was looking, he fist-pumped and did a little celebration dance that all the forms of his Semblance had worked so well.

Pyrrha's sword came into contact with her enemy's mace, which appeared to be locked into a gauntlet on his hand.

She briefly reflected that even in build, her enemy reminded her of Cardin Winchester.

It clearly wasn't, but it made her feel better about beating him.

Pyrrha's hand shot out and grabbed the mace. The operative looked confused for a second.

He then slowly realized what exactly that meant, and his face became less "confused" and more "oh crap."

Pyrrha whipped her free hand up, and the man, pulled by his mace, began to fly around the ceiling at high speed.

This lasted a good ten seconds before Pyrrha flipped Milō into its rifle form and shot the man three times, before using her Semblance to slam him into the ground.

Thankfully, his arms hit first, so she didn't have to worry that she'd accidentally broken his neck.

Nora happily chased after the twin-sword-wielding operative, holding her hammer high in the air.

"Stand still so I can hit you!"

The agent took this, apparently, as a cue to begin running faster.

Nora took that as a cue to change Magnhild to its grenade launcher form and fire several shots.

The man flew into the air before landing hard.

Nora ran over to his unconscious body, noting the snapped legs.

"That's gonna leave a mark!"

Ren threw out his pistol-blades to block the operative's daggers and then fired his automatic pistols into the man's chest.

The man skidded back on his feet before charging again with his knives.

Ren holstered his pistols and side-stepped the attack, before hitting the operative in the back with a palm strike.

A pulse of energy expanded from the blow, and vibrations almost imperceptible to the ear or to the touch went through the agent's body.

The agent coughed up a slight degree of blood, and then fell to the floor.

Ren checked quickly for a pulse, relieved to find one still there.

"Be thankful you have Aura," Ren said. "If you hadn't, my Semblance would probably have left a gaping hole in your chest. Those vibrations are powerful."

Shortly after those events had transpired, the operatives captured had been placed in medical custody, and a majority of the Hunters involved in the fight had returned to their dorms. Yang and Blake, however, had mentioned something about a "night on the town" before Yang had dragged Blake away from the others.

Weiss and Ruby were sitting on their bunks, one above the other.

Ruby spoke.

"Hey, Weiss, guess what's happening soon!"

"Ruby, is this about our moving into partner dorms?"

"Well…yeah."

There was silence for a while.

"Ruby?"

"Yeah, Weiss?"

"Today, back at the warehouse, you said if you thought your plan would put me in any danger from anyone, you wouldn't have proposed it. What did you mean by that?"

Ruby blushed a little.

"Weiss, I already explained that, remember? I was using 'you' to refer to everyone else."

"Oh. Alright. Good night, Ruby."

"Night, Weiss."

As Weiss turned to go to sleep, she thought a little before coming to a conclusion.

It's probably best that that's all she meant.

Because if she'd meant what I thought she meant, that would have been an issue.

Why would that have been an issue, though?

Because of Father.

Why do you care about what he thinks anymore?

I don't care about what he thinks.

But I care about what he might do.

To me…

To my friends…

And especially to Ruby.

As Ruby drifted off to sleep, she thought as well.

Not telling her was probably a good idea.

Why?

Because I wouldn't have been able to stand the rejection.

What makes you so sure you'd be rejected?

Because I'm almost certain Weiss isn't a lesbian.

And even if she is, she definitely doesn't feel that way about me.

Not the way I feel about her.

A/N: Intrigue! Shiptease! Probably horrible fight scenes!

Seriously, if anyone has any advice for me, leave it in a review and I will love you forever.

Also, this chapter was longer than the others. That might be normal, actually, as the others were exposition chapters. The plot is about to begin.