AN:

Chapter 4: Lullaby for a Deadman

Arc 1: Behold a Pale Horse

It wasn't often that Gilles found himself glad to have days off, but with the initiation at Beacon purposefully being on a Friday with the intention that the teams would have the weekend to spend time together and get to know one another before classes started, he was quite glad as it gave him time to work with Jaune.

The blonde boy had woken very early the morning after having his Aura unlocked looking very much forward to being able to see what he could do now, in part as well because Gilles had promised to do it then and in part because he couldn't shake all the extra energy he suddenly had making it somewhat difficult for him sleep.

"Are you ready Jaune?" The son of Salem asked as he stood opposite his teammate.

Both were dressed in easy to move in somewhat casual attire, the blonde boy was in track pants, a shirt and sneakers. The albino was in cargo pants, boots and a shirt.

As for where they were, it was one of the training rooms within Beacon which could be booked out for hours at a time, having gotten in at 7 am they were very ahead of most people who were probably thinking about booking a room about now. The rooms themselves were amphitheatres with only two rows of seating and a large raised arena platform which was about 20 - 25 metres each way. Blake and Yang were currently doing their own workouts nearby while the two boys started.

"Y-Yes!" He answered watching as Gilles charged forward with his shield raised and sword held behind him.

Jaune raised his own shield in preparation, unsure of where he ought to have his sword however he went for having it pointed out past his defence as the taller man charged him. Though the blonde didn't know it, Gilles would purposefully hold himself back and swing wide in a way that Jaune could easily block it, managing this much with a loud clang as steel slashed and caused sparks to fly.

"That's good, try rushing me and attacking to put me on the backfoot." Gilles offered a direction for them to go hopping backward a few metres and letting his opponent run forward.

The only problem with this was that his opponent had no form, no base, and in his wild attempt at imitating something more he managed to trip on himself and stumble falling to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Gilles asked changing from his stone walled blank demeanour to a more friendly soft one as he held out a hand and pulled his teammate to his feet.

"Hah! You uh got me!" Jaune said, trying to cover himself and move on from his failure.

He wouldn't have been able to catch the slightly pained expression that minutely appeared in Gilles face, but it happened right as Jaune said what he had.

"You've never wielded that sword before in a fight have you?" The albino asked pointedly not wanting to waste time. "I can tell already, you have no form and it's only going to put your life in danger Jaune, let me teach you as your leader how to wield it."

"I-uh-I" The boy started stuttering, mentally running through excuses to say only to fall flat and not find anything to say instead choosing to just nod and listen to what his leader had to say.

"Here, stand as I do. Hold your shield here like this and remember that it is a weapon as well, with your sword held like this over your head pointed where you want to go then take a step forward and twist bringing it down like this- then follow through trying to use your whole torso for the action to use all of your strength- Okay?" The rest of the two hours they had in the training room would be like this where Gilles would provide instruction to his teammate.

~{Swish Swish Stab}~

Salem sat silently in her throne room within the heartlands of the Grimm wondering whether it might be worthwhile calling her children to check in on them, she had great faith in them so that wasn't in question, but rather she just happened to miss them a level more than she thought she might. As well thoughts of them potentially figuring out that the core of their mission while real wasn't all that she had sent them out into the world for, it was so at the least they could make friends with real people and not the Grimm or those who came through her service from time to time like their instructors.

While loathe as she might have been to admit it to Ozma ever, his school offered her children that much at least and that itself brought about thoughts as to whether he might realise just who the 'Foxe' twins really were.

All of her minions were out in the Kingdoms moving on their individual parts of her ultimate plan, as such she was alone for the first time in two decades, it wasn't an odd feeling of course the Immortal Matron of Grimm wouldn't so easily falter in the face of a little silence after millennia of being alone. Of course the last time her children were taken from her under the tutelage of her once lover they were turned against her and forced to become those foul existences he calls Maidens.

Her true goal for the time being that those under her besides Abigail and Gilles did not know of was to collect all these Maidens and release them of the putrid magic that had been enslaving her original daughters for hundreds of years forcing them to incarnate every generation into the body of a new woman and take them over. She may be of the God of Darkness, but she would never impose her punishment upon those children of hers the way Ozma had.

The mere thought of it made her scowl and gnash her teeth as a flare of anger flashed through her.

Standing from her throne she walked down the stairs, the long draping silk of her dress dragging across the floor. She moved toward the large door on the opposite side of the room, once she was out she walked down the hall toward where she had Watts set up one of the latest Atlas terminals for making long range calls. The room was the size of a small bedroom with the large computer unit sitting on a thick rosewood desk that had been a 'gift' from one of her subordinates.

Sitting at the desk her pale fingers turned the machine on and it wasn't too long before she called her children for them to update her on their progress.

~{Detestable Actions}~

Abigail was struggling to enjoy her morning after having finally gotten a good night's sleep because her teammates were up and at it long before she felt they needed to, they may have been taking things seriously, but to her while she wasn't working this was all play and meant she could sleep in all she wanted. But her team leader Ruby had seen fit to wake her and Weiss in the same manner with a whistle in the ear, then promptly told them they needed to unpack their things so they could start decorating and doing other fun things.

'Fun things…?' Abigail thought with an incredulous look on her face scowling at her ruined morning, she would need to head out with her brother to watch their target.

At the least the Schnee appeared to be on the same page as her which made her a little happier, though this wasn't for long as the white haired girl was quickly and easily sucked into doing what Ruby wanted by the slight motivation of Pyrrha saying it could be fun. Abigail chose to do her own thing and shower, get changed then look through what she might need to bring to her and her brothers hideout in the city which they'd brought two days before the opening of the school and spent all their time setting up when they weren't running around doing their job.

Deciding to use the excuse she had Gilles had come up with to escape their teams about a family member who was dying in the Vale hospital so she would be visiting them often. Her team accepted her excuse solemnly understanding it and letting her go without push, though her partner had offered to come as support she turned the redhead down.

Within an hour and a half she arrived with her brother at their base of operations only for Abigail's Scroll to ring, which was already odd as only her new team, brother and their mother had her number.

"Who is it?" Her brother asked.

"It's Mother." She replied before answering the call, their mothers pale face, dark sclera and red irises came through appearing on the screen as she greeted them.

After about half an hour of telling the story of their past month since leaving the Grimmlands uninterrupted until Salem finally spoke, having sat silently throughout the entirety of it until she felt like repeating some of what they had said to confirm it as it had been said in passing. Though the twins hadn't spoken about their time at Beacon itself yet.

"Hmm… so you say her security is minimal and she is lax in her approach..?" Salem's rich voice came through Abigail's scroll in its tablet mode.

"Yes Mother, we have checked nearly all of her hideouts and done background checks on at least twenty of her staff working at these places, they're all as trustworthy as career criminals get. However we have concerns about how she presents herself flaunting wealth and parading around." Gilles replied and the twins waited in silence as their mother hummed in thought, closing her eyes.

A few minutes passed before the long lived woman spoke.

"I see, the both of you will go and push her buttons and start causing problems for her then. I will leave what you do at your discretion." The woman finally answered.

"Of Course Mother, it will be done." The twins answered in unison.

"Has your attendance at Beacon caused any issue yet?" Salem asked changing the subject slightly.

"No, however, brother was made the leader of a team here which may cause problems down the line." Abigail answered for Gilles.

"It seems like your training was recognised, good work Gilles."

"Thank you Mother, I will continue to make you proud." The albino boy answered back.

The three of them would talk for an hour more before Salem would end the call, after that the twins would return to working on what they had been going to do beforehand. Which was now going to be more violent than originally intended, they had been thinking about purposefully being sloppy when they broke into one of the warehouses the Dust was being stored in but now they were going Raid the warehouse and call in a police tip on it.

The warehouse they had chosen was in the industrial part of lower Vale where many businesses worked out of making it a decent location to store things like Cinder was currently doing as it would allow for trucks and even Bullheads to be going in and out of it. However that wouldn't last forever with the constant rate at which they were moving all the Dust that was being robbed throughout the City.

As such their heist turned raid would start with hijacking one of the trucks and using it along with the IDs on the ones driving it to get into the warehouse itself and make the whole ordeal very loud.

~{Heisting}~

The next day Gilles and Abigail stayed at the school to spend time with them and start building their relationships further, Abigail was hoping to foster friendship with the girls of her team as they seemed very much the dedicated and strong willed types she was fond of. Gilles was more or less just hoping his blunt and stern demeanour wasn't off putting seeing as he was meant to lead these people with him.

Part of their general plan to conqueror Beacon started with having their teams eat together and hang out often as it was easy to justify it with not only them but Yang and Ruby being siblings as well. As was the case at the current moment.

"So Yang, how is my brother?" Abby asked the other blonde girl at the table, earning a delayed unsure expression before the lilac eyed girl responded.

"He knows his way around a sword, couldn't ask for a better man!" She joked to the disgust of Blake next to her going by the noise the girl made.

"Yeah he's always been good with those, I think it was because he didn't have any friends growing up- I tried my best!" The daughter of Salem faux cried at her comment before laughing.

"He said you two grew up with just your mother out in the frontiers of Vacuo what was that like? I can't imagine it was easy?" Blake decidedly asked, hoping to change the direction of the conversation and learn more about the situation that could have birthed the Aura chant she and Yang had heard.

"I suppose so, I never stopped to think about it too much. We were pretty much handed weapons once we were out of the womb and trained to protect ourselves and fight Grimm, so there wasn't much time to worry about whether it was hard or not, just that it was life and things would be that way. But I can definitely say not being around Grimm most days is a huge change." Though those at the table would never understand the full extent of her statement, Abby fully meant what she said.

"So you're more acclimated to being in a warzone than living like we have been here? Even if it's only been a few days?" Pyrrha jumped in, interested in learning more about her partner.

"If that's how you want to see it, sure, it didn't feel like a warzone, at least not in the way I've seen on news reports- it was just a tense place where Grimm were always within earshot of the walls." The spawn of Salem replied with a shrug.

"I can't imagine a place like that, it must be wild there. Me an' Rubes grew up on Patch and basically never saw Grimm unless we were lookin for 'em!" Yang said not quite being truthful of the time she had nearly gotten herself and Ruby killed in the woods.

"What about you, Jaune? Blake? Any dark secrets to tell us about your upbringings? Maybe you've got some skeletons Pyrrha?!" Abigail pushed trying to learn more about the others before turning to Weiss.

The girl had been causing some minor disputes within their team while she had been gone and her plan was to stop them soon. "Or Weiss? How many servants did you kill when your chicken wasn't cooked right?!" Abby joked.

"I haven't had any servants killed for undercooked poultry." The Schnee defended herself only making it worse.

"Oh? So you've had servants killed for other things? Unpolished shoes? Spilt milk?!" Abigail continued making the heiress huff indignantly shutting up as she ate her food.

While his sister made herself a known entity and expressed her personality in full, Gilles quietly enjoyed the food he got, finding himself happy with what he'd chosen, not being entirely familiar with most of what was offered in Beacon's cafeteria. Next to him was an exhausted Jaune from their training earlier that morning which once they had been kicked out of the room they booked moved to them running laps around the school as Gilles was slowly forced to find out new things that the boy was completely lacking in and for some reason just refused to tell him about.

He was going to have his records looked into soon enough at the rate he was going since it was only going to cause more issues and with how capable everyone else within Beacon was it was hard to imagine them letting someone as unprepared and otherwise useless in. And more to that point he was completely aboard the idea of training the blonde boy to be a competent soldier who could not only hold his own but even dish out competent if not good plans of action when the time came.

All part of a move to make him more confident in himself which Jaune appeared to be massively lacking in.

When they all finished eating and parted ways Gilles went to find somewhere out of the way where he could sit and think more meditatively about the past month and few days as he'd hardly done it. The spot he found was on the roof of the dorm building where there was a roof access to a garden that had seating around its hedges and small trees, while up there he sat alone under one of the trees finding it to be more peaceful. Something he had always longed for that he had finally been able to achieve since coming to Vale was experience what real Nature looks like instead of through the lens of his Scroll or a t.v.

His home in the dark ruinous lands of Grimm had never once brought about a sense of wonder and beauty that he felt see the lush green forests of Vale since getting here, even if many of the streets were stone and lined with metals it was a far sight better than pitch, tar and other shades of black and varying purple crystals.

He had never really realised how much he liked his solitude until being surrounded by so many people, but it seemed he really liked being on his own. Hopefully he could still lead his team without that affecting them since they were innocent to the matters he and his sister were here so I didn't wish them any harm.