SamG17 'B-13: ooh! My likey that! Thanks for being my newest Liker and Faver…also much thanks for reviewing. I like reviews!

ONYX DATABASE VERIFICATION REQUEST. LEVEL 1 SECURITY REQUESTED

ACCES REQUEST: █████

Item: J. Mauve Cho.

Threat level: low

Description: Born in a family known for its strict regime, Mauve displayed above-average skills at analyzing and processing signals, but lacked the capacity to act on them. Mauve has shown above-average skill within the VPD at young age. Functions range from serving as second-in-command to breaching criminal HQ-buildings. After having shown severe disapproval of methods described as "incompetent" and "time-consuming {DATA EXPUNGED]" Mauve requested access to Beacon Academy.

Access was granted.

LEVEL 2 SECURITY REQUESTED

Reports of police brutality not overly exaggerated.

EXIT

Beacon Academy, 14:03 –student dormitories.

"This is not going according to plan."

"You shut up! This is going perfectly according to my plans!"

Grace sighed and continued watching her teammates fuss over the placement of their clothes. After their luggage had been dumped into their room, they had all decided to start decorating immediately. Initially she had thought it would be a good, fun way to spent their time. But having to share a room with a total of four completely different students was proving to be harder than expected. Even though they weren't exactly stranger to each other, there was so much strife…

"I can't keep this up."

"Stop whining and keep holding on!"

Lisa –their newly appointed team leader- was apparently thinking that stacking four cases of luggage worth of clothes in the arms of one Cho was a good idea. But seeing as the poor guy was holding a pile of at least two five feet high now and having trouble keeping it upright, something had to be wrong with the idea. Heck, even she could see it and most of her ideas consisted out of blowing things up in awesome yet intricate plans.

"Am I standing on something?"

Poor Jason tried to take a step backwards to save his balance and stepped on a round object by accident. A familiar round object, though Grace could not place where she had seen it before.

"Yes you are." Lisa replied absentmindedly and took another look around the room.

Noticing how Cho was about to lose his balance and fall, Grace stepped forwards and grabbed his shoulders, preventing him from falling down. "That would be my fault!" She smiled when she took notice of what it was exactly that her teammate had nearly tripped over. It was one of her grenades –funny thing must have fallen during their trip to retrieve their luggage. "Where do we put the clothes?" she then said, hoping that their leader was done with her little planning.

"I think…we have a cabinet somewhere…" The girl replied without taking her eyes of the interior. "If we can divide it in four parts…we can dump our clothes there."

"Brilliant idea girl…" Grace responded and glanced over her shoulder. Allesa was sitting on a bed, still wearing her blindfold. Seriously, why did she do that? How could she even see where she was going when she couldn't see? That made even less sense than stacking four cases onto one Cho.

"What now…" sighed said Cho.

"Now, we stuff all our clothes in the cabinet, close the thing and place our beds where they need to stand." Lisa said and took the stack of clothes from her teammate's arms.

While she was placing their stuff in the in the wooden furniture, Grace took another look at the blindfolded girl. Her long, white hair was adorned with blue strings. Those looked like they were natural…which was very weird, considering the fact that the people back where she came from all had single-coloured hair. Perhaps the girl was a foreigner? Or perhaps Dust was involved?

"I like your hair." Grace said and sat down on her own bed. Even though the room was completely bare, they had already decided on sleeping positions. Her bed was wedged against a wall to the right of the door, while the bed of her childhood friend was all the way left.

The girl didn't respond to her compliment, but that was okay. Perhaps she was tired, or sad or something. It was noon, so perhaps there were certain things she needed to get done before she would socialize with her new team. But now that it was decorating-time, it was the perfect opportunity to talk and get to know each other, wasn't it?

"Can I ask you a question?" The demolitions expert then said. No response. Okay..."If you don't mind me asking, how can you see with a blindfold? To some people it wouldn't make sense." No response. "Not that I am one of those people to who it doesn't make sense…I was just wondering, you know?"

She obviously didn't, because there was once again no reply. The girl was supposed to be blind, not deaf.

"It actually fit." Grace suddenly heard Cho say and she turned around to look at the brilliant situation that they had created. Having stuffed all their clothes in one wooden cabinet, the problem seemed to be fixed. Right up to the point where they would actually need their clothes.

"Of course it fits smartass."

Oh boy there they went again. Ever since their less-than-happy meeting in the Emerald forest, fighting had been the only form of interaction between them. It made them look like an old married couple. Though she should have seen it coming really; Lisa was did not have good experiences with the Police. She wasn't a vandal or a criminal, but she just had the bad luck to be in the wrong situation at the wrong time. Plus, her brother was…sort of irresponsible.

"And where will we dump the rest of our stuff?" Grace broke their fighting up and gestured at the open door, where the rest of their luggage was still lying.

"Well…" Lisa started and then fell quiet. Miss Auburn could hear Allesa sighing softly from her bed and decided that she wasn't the only one who doubted their furnishing skills.

"I bet that we're the only ones dealing with this…" Jason sighed.

Yeah…he was probably right about that.

Student dormitories

Ruby led her new team to their official room in the dormitories, which was a long hallway filled with smaller rooms where people could sleep. She had it all planned out; there she was going to properly introduce her teammembers to each other, to make sure that things would go without a hitch.

She couldn't believe it! She, a leader of a team! It was as much as a surprise as being invited to Beacon and equally as pleasant. Oh she had never believed that something like this could happen to her, it was so awesome!

"So I guess this is where we'll be sleeping then?" Yang said as she opened the door, leading the newly formed team RWBY inside. "This doesn't look very impressive."

Ruby followed her sister inside a room that was about three by three meters, with barely enough room for four beds and a few closets. It also looked very…dull. "This is our room?" She asked with surprise. This was not what she had expected from Beacon. At least their luggage was already there…

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" exclaimed Weiss. She had been quiet on the way back to Beacon, as they had had a moderately heavy conversation, but it looked like she was right back to normal now. "We have to share rooms together? That is not acceptable!"

"Seems fine to me," Ruby quickly said, hoping to live up to her responsibility as a leader by making sure that there wouldn't be any conflicts in the group. "Now we can decorate it."

"How wonderful," Weiss sarcastically said. "We get to work at our own room."

"I think it'll be fun," said Yang. "We're going to be living here for four years. We might as well make it comfy."

"So let's start unpacking!" Ruby happily said. "Do you think we'll get books? Writing materials?"

"We just went through an initiation that could have killed us all!" exclaimed Weiss. "What makes you think we will immediately get our books after that?"

Ruby chuckled. "Oh silly Weiss. The initiation could have killed almost all of us. Nothing can kill Yang!"

"And why is that?" Blake asked as she wandered into the room.

Ruby followed her inside and immediately spotted her own, red case of luggage; cloaks, toothbrushes and clothes. In that order of priority. "Because she's just that badass."

Yang grinned. "You're so sweet."

"It's true."

"Just because she's badass?" Skeptical Blake was skeptical. "Better people than us have died because of small, unimportant things."

Ruby glanced at the girl. She had her arms crossed in an introvert gesture and one of her eyebrows raised to feign an obvious sign of disbelief, even though her eyes spoke of things far less pleasant than mere skepticism. Blake was exerting personal experience without wanting them to realize that it actually was personal. Why would that be? "Then we just have to learn how to work together in a team, won't we?"

Blake averted her exotic, yellow eyes and Weiss wasn't paying attention altogether. "I for one think we should not be worrying too much about school today-"

"That's the spirit," said Yang.

"-and instead get used to the interior. When the lessons start tomorrow, I don't want to waste time searching for the classrooms."

"Or not."

"True," Ruby said. "Or, we could just hang out in the city and…get to know each other."

Yang grabbed her suitcase and opened it. "We could get to know each other now. I mean, we have a lot of stuff to unpack and take care of. Might as well do it at the same time. Do you think there are rides to the city from here?"

"I'd guess so," Ruby replied as she took a look around the room. It was so bare that they could literally do anything they wanted to to make it theirs. And between the four of them, there had to be enough stuff to make the room that much more personal.

"Shouldn't we at least clean the room before we start?" Blake proposed from on top of the nearest bed.

Yang looked underneath the other beds and said, "It doesn't look like it."

"There," decided Ruby, "cleaning not necessary. Shall we unpack?"

Weiss sighed. "Fine…"

There were two cabinets to fit their clothes and stuff in and two bookshelves where they could leave their books, both for school as for other purposes. Weiss had by far the largest supply of cases to unpack. Two contained nothing but Dust, one was filled to the brim with clothes and another one had all kinds of items that Ruby thought more fit for a living room than a dormitory for students. Of course, the entire point was that they would be living in the dormitories for four years, so they might as well furnish it properly.

One of the items that Weiss had brought with her was a painting from the Forever Fall forest, not so far away from Beacon. The forest was filled with beautiful red-coloured trees for a major part of the year and Ruby had always wanted to go there one day. The problem, as always, lay with the roaming creatures of Grimm that lived outside of the city. Normally, a kingdom would be a large section without any fear of those monsters. The problem with Vale was that the cities had a lot of room in-between to fill up and, because most of the cities didn't even bother to communicate and work together, that room was filled with Grimm instead of roads or towns. It turned one surviving community into several smaller communities…that survived nonetheless.

She wondered just why the Heiress had brought it. There wasn't any excessive emotion in her eyes when she hang the painting on the wall –spending a good minute hanging it straight- so it couldn't be a memento of a derailed past or something sad like that.

"You have a lot of books," Yang told Blake as the raven-haired girl stashed half a dozen books into one shelf.

"I like reading."

Then Ruby spotted something that she liked. She had just unfolded her Crescent Rose to cut a sheet she had found for a plan, when she happened to glance at the window. "Look at these curtains!"

"Ehm…they're red?" said Yang, placing her hands on her hips as she stared at the curtains."

"Yes! And they are so cute! I love them!"

"They're just curtains…" said Blake.

"Yeah. What's so special about them?" scoffed Weiss.

Ruby carefully brushed the curtain aside to look at the landscape beyond the Academy. Because Beacon was built on top of a large bluff, it was nearly impossible to reach it by anything else than an airship. But beyond that, on the other side of the cliffs, lay the Emerald forest. It was where they had been running around during the initiation and she hadn't paid it any mind to how it looked, as she had been too busy not to die, but the forest looked beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. "You'll see, tomorrow morning." When the sun would rise, above that forest, it would be an amazing sight.

After that little break, they proceeded to stuff their clothes into the cabinets and use whatever space was left to fit their other, personal belongings. Yang had a poster of her favorite band, Blake quickly hid a book with a blushed expression and Weiss was just watching them with a frown on her face. Just a few minutes ago, the two of them had had a conversation about the problems they had encountered during the initiation. Weiss was worried that her career and stay at Beacon would be damaged by her antics. Ruby in turn had said that they had a whole team of students now, so even if she would do something foolish, there would be two other girls there to pick up the pieces. And that had been before she had been made leader.

"So, what do you think of the boys here?" Yang asked, breaking the silence.

"Not interested," Weiss was quick to reply.

Blake made a soft sound that could be interpreted as a dismissive grunt, while Ruby said, "Jaune seems like a nice guy. I don't know about CRDL though…they don't look like pleasant people."

"You mean team CRDL? Four guys with stupid armour?" asked Yang. "Yeah, I thought about strangling one of them when he whistled at me. You know your first day is going great when you already feel the desire to kill your fellow students."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?" said Blake. "You barely met them. Why are you already judging them?"

"Deeds say more than words, Blake," replied Yang. "But if they prove to be cool guys, my opinion might change."

"Alright…"

So there wasn't much interest for boys then? That was fine; Ruby could find herself in that. "If you want to visit the city this afternoon, we can skip touring the school and go that instead."

Weiss pulled a face, but Blake smiled. "Actually, that sounds like a good idea. I'd like to see the city."

"That's settled then," said Yang. "On to Vale it is."

"Haven't you seen the city enough so far?" said Weiss. "It's not that impressive."

Blake looked away. "I haven't seen much of the city yet… I'm not from Vale."

Why was she looking so sad? A chance to see the capital city of the Kingdom for the first real time was a good thing! Ruby made a mental note to tell Weiss to ease up somewhat and addressed Blake. "Which part do you want to see? The commercial district is where all the stores and things are, including a few warehouses to the south…but those are dull and boring."

"Isn't dull the same as boring?"

"Perhaps. But people are actually saying that bad things happen around the larger warehouse, so we should avoid that one while we're there."

"OR," Yang enthusiastically said, "we could pay a visit to see what the people are talking about. That would be fun, right?"

"That sounds very dangerous," said Weiss.

She spotted a small smile on Blake's face as the girl replied, "Sure, the commercial district sounds good."

"Yay!" Ruby had to make sure that she didn't jump a hole in the roof. Blake was a very introvert individual, which might have been awkward for team-assignments. Getting to know each other would be incredibly important and this was an excellent first step.

Beacon Academy, ██ – Hangar bay

As soon as the Operative had made sure that he was in the clear and that nobody would disturb him, he grabbed his scroll and opened his newest message. It looked like it was time.

Greystone, infiltrate the city of Vale and perform a snatch-and-grab in Warehouse six. We have confirmed identification on a compromised political target and it's up to you to retrieve him. Coordinates for a safehouse to store him will be sent only after you confirmed his capture. We believe he holds vital information.

We want that information.

It didn't say who had sent the message, but then again it didn't need to. He knew it came from the higher-ups and what it meant; a proper mission to focus on. The past two days had been…confusing for him.

Folding the scroll back, Greystone headed towards the cargo-bay where his gear was waiting for him. Warehouse six lay somewhere at the corner of Vale; meaning that he would have to grab some transport to get there. But seeing as the building was the safehouse of a corrupt politician, he would have to take extreme measures and precautions to avoid detection until he would be in the perfect position to strike. There was no Intel on the opposition, but the people in the district of Vale were very strange in their offensive capabilities. Like the Malachite twins in the Club where Yang Xiao Long had scouted for a HVT. The two girls were very well trained, if lacking in discipline. If he were to run in any people trained at an Academy, he would have to bring equipment for short to medium range.

That meant bringing a side-arm, his MK3 assault rifle and two combat knives.

Well…the crime sector in this city seemed fond of using large bladed weapons like katana's and fire-axes.

That meant two combat knives with large blades.

He reached the cargo-bay where all his equipment was and walked straight towards his suit's locker. During his light scaffolding in the Emerald Forest he had wasted two grenades to take down the tailing Ursa's. Two! He could have simply continued on towards the temple-grounds but no, he had to waste valuable equipment because he was unsure of the fact whether he would run into other hostiles.

Still, he could simply improvise.

He strapped the armoured components of his suit on and reached for his helmet, but then he stopped and looked at something which had attracted his attention form the corner of his eye. His scroll had buzzed to life again, indicating another received message.

Additional Intel? Secondary objectives?

'Transport is standing at the ready. Head to the following coordinates.'

A set of coordinates was attached to the message –which solved the problem of how to get to warehouse six.

He slapped a fresh magazine in his assault rifle and strapped the pistol to its holster on his hip.

Half an hour later, he noticed that his transportation method involved the usage of a large four-wheel-all-terrain vehicle known as the Puma. This one was an upgraded version of the standard issue all-wheel-drive all-wheel-steering W11 jeeps that the army used in their battles against the Grimm. Even though it hadn't seen any action in the kingdom of Vale, he knew that it was only a matter of time.

The usual design involved a massive anti-air mounted chaingun on the back, but this version had been tailored specifically to his needs. Not his personal ones, but according to the mission parameters. Which meant that the once-formidable medium-armoured heavy duty vehicle was reduced to what could be seen as the 'civvie' version of the series. No weapon platform, coloured in a dull police-blue and a heavily reduced motor to reduce noise were the direct consequences of a low-profile operation.

He disliked it, but he knew that is was necessary if he wanted to get close to the Warehouse. His target would be jumpy in close proximity to an Academy and any sign of hostile forces would cause the man to take drastic evasive action.

So, while he was driving the civilianized Puma towards the outer left edge of the city, he briefly wondered whether he should go low-profile and ditch the car or simply play the I-am-a-proper-person-like-you card and park the jeep somewhere close to the Warehouse. But then he realized that he was fully equipped for a prolonged firefight and that the mere sight of him would cause the target to bail. No, he'd play it low-profile for now and park the car somewhere in the forest nearby. After that, he would simply have to walk two-hundred meters to reach the place.

But as it turned out, things were more complicated than that. From his vantage point on top of a roof, a dozen meters away from the safehouse, the Operative could see that the situation would require more attention than he previously thought. The ´Warehouse´ was in fact a heavily guarded complex with at least a dozen armed men walking around a clearly established perimeter. If the target was able to get so many men to protect him, he was a very influencing man. That made him dangerous to the civilian population –which made him top-priority to take down. The guards walking around were all wielding some form of bladed weapon –a few of them sported firearms and he could even see a man walking around with a shotgun.

A sniper was patrolling the rooftop, making his gap of opportunity even smaller. But the perimeter was sloppy and not very clear; the patrolling men were missing quite a few spots in their patrols. If he was swift, he might be able to slip past the first two guards and enter their perimeter unnoticed.

He waited until the sniper turned around –ignored the giant bullseye that was the man's head- and dropped down from the rooftop without making a noise. The first two patrollers were unable to spot him, just like he and he quickly moved ahead. There were multiple parked cars and other items he could use as cover and when the sniper turned back to face the main area, he quickly slipped underneath a vehicle. Keeping a close eye on the hostile through a small hole in the metal, he waited until the sniper once again turned his back on him before he moved. There were only three guards between him and the entrance to the Warehouse. The sniper wasn't facing them and the other men were walking away from his position.

He emerged from underneath his hiding spot after tearing a small piece of metal out of its socket and moved towards the trio of targets. They were standing close to the entrance and now that he had a closer look, he realized that the sniper couldn't even spot them there. Whoever paid these guys wasn't very large on proficiency.

He increased his speed until he was flat-out sprinting and covered the remaining distance within seconds. He could have simply opened fire and killed every hostile in sight, but that would alert the guards and more importantly; his target. Stealth would be the key-factor during this operation and he couldn't afford to have even one shot fired until he knew exactly who and where the HVT was. One of the hostiles turned around, saw him approaching their position and was just about to scream and attract unnecessary attention, when a small piece of metal sailed through the air and impacted on his head with a dull 'clunk'.

"What-"One of the two remaining men started to say, but the Operative smashed his boot into his face and silenced him. After having dispatched of the first hostile, he jumped in the air and kicked the second one in his head. That henchman went down as well and now he was only left with the third hostile. That one too, never got the chance to scream when the Operative wrapped his arm around his throat, grabbed his chin and broke his neck. Releasing the limp body, he then quietly dragged the three guards over to a dark corner, before opening the door and entering the complex.

If he was lucky, he would have five minutes before the bodies were found. Not knowing who and where the target was could be a major problem in his mission, but he wouldn't allow that to stop him.

He moved through the hallways like a shadow; without making any noise and without anyone noticing him Twice he encountered a camera and twice had had been forced to remove it; increasing the chance of being found out. But that didn't matter much; he had the element of surprise on his side. By the time the slow mercenaries found out that there was an intruder, he would be long gone.

With a prisoner.

He opened another door and ran headfirst into a group of five armed men. They had been sitting on a table playing poker, but it seemed that something way more interesting had stumbled into the room now.

"Who-"one of them started, but he didn't give the man a chance to continue talking. Charging forwards, the Operative unsheathed his combat knife and went to work. His five opponents were all wearing the same attire: black clothes and boots, a ridiculous collection of hats and some red glasses. Their weapons of choice were currently all melee weapons which was good for him; it would make less noise to fight these hostiles that way.

He took the first two targets by surprise; he grabbed the first by his face and slammed his head into the table, breaking the wooden piece of furniture in half and shattering the man's skull. Then the Operative lashed out and kicked the second mercenary in the throat, crushing his larynx and removing him as a threat.

In the two seconds that passed by during the fight, the remaining enemies picked up their weapons and moved to attack. With his ten-inch knife, the intruding soldier parried two slashed of axes and retaliated both times; stabbing one of them right in his face and breaking the other man's ribs with a roundhouse kick. While that one staggered backwards, he sidestepped and grabbed his swinging axe. He spun around and slashed at the man's abdomen with the bladed edge; succeeding in neatly severing the fellow's belt. After that he moved again and caught the man with the hilt of the weapon against his throat. He had his back to the man; chocking him with his own weapon and facing the nearest door himself. A new group of hostiles had entered the fray and some of them were wielding firearms.

"Hold it!" The leading mercenary yelled and prepared to fire his own machinegun. That wouldn't happen.

He let go of one handle of the axe and spun around on his heel. Holding the fire-axe with only one arm, he used the sudden release of pressure to swing it 360 degrees around and knock the guns out of the enemies' arms. The criminal whose belt he had slashed apart stumbled to the ground, nearly embracing it because of his sudden freedom and fresh oxygen, before a punch to his balls and a kick to his head effectively brought him down.

One of the hostiles had managed to grab a reserve pistol and tried to aim it at him, but he was way too slow. The helmeted soldier took two steps forward and brought his right hand down on the sidearm while his left hand connected with the nearest chin. Then he dove underneath the now extended arm and pulled it to the ground, nearly tearing the arm out of its socket and sending the criminal crashing to the ground.

A quick stomp with his boot made sure that he wouldn't be bothered again and he prepared to advance to the adjacent room. There was only one survivor now; an older-looking man with a bloody cut on his head, lying on the ground and holding his hands up in the universal surrender-sign.

"You don't need to do this," the man slowly said, his voice calm and reasoning. "Just let me go, I have a fami-"

The Operative shot the man between the eyes and kept moving, wiping a splatter of blood off his arm. But no sooner had he dispatched of the last hostile or a sudden alarm flared to life. Red lights flooded the hallways and a blaring horn effectively woke up the entire warehouse.

Who had tripped that alarm? None of his enemies had had the chance to do so; he had eliminated them all. So there was either someone else currently infiltrating the complex, or some silent alert had tripped the main one.

It all meant the same. Move quick or let the target spring.

City of Vale – Commercial District – 13:30

"So this is the commercial district?" Yang softly said as they passed yet another café where a bunch of teens were sitting enjoying a cup of coffee. "Looks cozy."

"We are just here to plan our next trips Yang, control your happiness." Her little sister replied, alternating between watching her scroll and watching where she was going. "For now, remember what you saw and keep it in mind for our next trip."

"But that won't be until next weekend!" The blonde returned. "Which will take four days! Four! I don´t want to wait that long; I want to relax on a terrace right now!"

"There there…it will be alright."

Weiss sighed contently and placed her hands behind her neck, obviously enjoying the sunlight. "You know, I think that things will turn out to be alright. It's a lovely day; the sun is shining and we don't have to worry about anything for now."

"If you put it like that…" said Blake.

"Unfortunately," said Ruby, "We have lots of spare time now, but once school actually starts, we'll most likely be buried in homework."

"Well if you put it like that…" said Blake.

"That's so typical for you!" Weiss said angrily, directing her anger towards Ruby. "You always find a way to make something annoying to think about!"

Ruby flinched. It was a bit harsh. This was the first time she really did that; usually she was the one who made things sound happy instead of sad. "Why are you suddenly so angry now Weiss? You shift emotions faster than…than…" A terrifying idea rose in her mind and she gasped in shock. Checking if there was anyone who could hear her, she whispered: "Is it…your time?"

Yang and Blake quickly increased speed and moved ahead, seemingly understanding the problem. Weiss however, didn't.

"What are you talking about?" She said. Eyebrows frown slightly, slight contraction near eyes…genuine surprise, not forced enough to indicate false emotions. Oh…whoops.

"Nothing!" Ruby quickly said, realizing she had made a huge mistake. Of course it wasn't that time! She wore red, Weiss wore white. She would have noticed whether it was or not. She quickly took a few running steps to join her team-members, hoping with all of her heart that the Schnee Heiress wouldn't understand what she had insinuated.

"What did you mean? Ruby!"

They passed a few more shops on their way south. She was starting to wonder when Yang would attempt to convince them all to visit the warehouses. People kept whispering about how some of them were completely off-limits to certain other people and –judging by their facial expressions when they said so- they were nearly scared by the rumors. Why would gossip about restricted warehouses be scary? She couldn't wrap her head around it.

Of course, that didn't take long. When Weiss was distracted by a dress in the front of some clothes-shop, Yang casually brought up the subject again.

"Why would you want that?" Blake asked her. The girl did have a point…but Yang didn't seem to give anything about that point.

"I'm curious. Just follow me!" the blonde replied and headed towards the infamous warehouse Six. It seemed that the closer she got to the borders of Vale's commercial district, the more the general mood seemed to drop. It almost felt a bit…grim.

Not the best description she had ever used for a city.

Eventually Ruby found herself in front of a large gate, where two men with dark clothes were standing. They held their arms behind their backs and they wore black sunglasses. For some reason they reminded her of the henchmen that had been recruited by Torchwick. That was an awfully creepy coincidence.

"Is this where you wanted to go?" Weiss asked her when she had caught up. "It hardly looks like a place we would want to be." She paused. "It's so gloomy."

Gloomy was a better description than grim.

"Why are we here?" asked Blake.

Yang sighed. "Because people seem to think something is wrong about this place? Because they all whisper about it and fear it? Because the people guarding it don't look like manual laborers?"

"Good enough for team RWBY, I suppose…" Ruby muttered and ran her hand through her hair. That act caught the attention of one of the two males and his head turned ever so slightly towards her general direction, before resting at Yang. Big pervert…

"So…what now?"

"I just want to find out-"The redhead started, but the rest of her words stalled in her throat as a red light flared to life a few meters away from the iron gate.

"Hey, there's an alarm there," Yang told the two guys, after which the two looked at each other and promptly ran back inside.

"Why is there an alarm?" asked Weiss.

"Security purposes, I guess," replied Yang. "But I wonder why-"

Before she could speak, gunshots rang out and people started to scream from inside the building. Windows exploded and a dark shape fell out of one on the second floor, hitting the ground with a dull 'thud'.

Ruby groaned in frustration as she realized that she had led her team into a live firefight. That was seriously the biggest form of bad luck she had had as the team-leader up to now. Following vague gossip and then stumbling into some sort of fight without any warning was something that could only happen to the most unlucky person on Beacon –as if she hadn't had enough bad luck already.

"Ruby, control your sister next time!" Weiss snapped, somehow blaming her instead of Yang.

"I hold no control over any Yang," She softly replied and considered turning back to avoid any stray bullets. She had never ever been shot in her life and she would like to keep it that way. Even though her Aura would block most small-caliber shots, she didn't want to risk it. The best thing to do right now would be to run away…but she wanted to know what was going on.

"What now?" Blake said after a brief lull in the shooting. More windows had popped and at least three more people had fallen out of the building.

"We investigate!" Yang said and smashed her hands together.

"Are you insane?!" Weiss yelled and covered her head with her arms as another salvo of fire went off. "Shouldn't we be running away from explosions and bullets?"

Decisions decisions…

Warehouse six, 13:40

Things went from bad to worse. In the few minutes that had followed since someone had tripped the alarm, Operative Greystone had been forced to run through narrow hallways, clear large rooms with scattered hostiles and even crawl through a piece of the ceiling to rush towards his objective. all the while shooting and killing every armed personnel he encountered. Every room he entered, every door he opened and every step he took spelled another person standing in his way. What was supposed to have been a stealth-operation had turned into a bloodbath and the worst thing was that his target was getting away.

Charging through the thin hallway, he looked out of the window and saw a fat, bald man hobbling towards a car. Six men with arms were taking aim at the windows. No way that he would let the target escape him now.

He aimed down the sights and squeezed off a single round. The projectile exited the barrel, smashed through the window, sailed past a small slit in-between two barrels and punched through the target's ankle.

Normally soldiers would be discouraged from trying to take down a HVT that way due to the potential of stray shots killing it. But his training had been…different from normal military training. It was the sole reason that he had been send to Beacon Academy; to do the things that normally couldn't be done. He had read the files on the new students there and with one exception, all of them were extraordinary gifted. If any people in Vale possessed that kind of training and decided to use it to cause anarchy and chaos, the resulting chaos would destroy the city.

The man collapsed as his legs were suddenly unable to carry his weight and that provided the soldier with the valuable time to exit the building and retrieve him. Reloading his weapon would take too long to do and the six guards standing around the politician were all getting ready to fire. He needed to act fast.

He took another few steps to increase his already significant speed and then jumped towards the wall on his right. He placed his feet on the concrete mass and then pushed himself off –and right through a window to his left. The window shattered into a thousand pieces of shrapnel and he discarded his rifle, pulling out his sidearm. He pulled the trigger six times and six bodies tumbled to the ground; killed by headshots. Quickly grabbing a fresh magazine out of his pocket, he landed on the ground and caught his assault rifle from the air. He immediately reloaded it and brought it up, sweeping the area in front of him.

Area clear of hostiles, target secured and a total of two seconds had passed since he had exited the Warehouse.

He was just about to walk up to the HVT, who was cowering on the ground and attempting to crawl away, when a voice rang out.

"Nice moves there soldier-boy. Why don't you show me your pretty face?"

He immediately turned around to face what had to be a new hostile, but the moment he moved he felt a hammer-blow strike his stomach and he staggered backwards. Struggling to recompose his stance, he glanced around to see who had attacked him. How had he not seen that before? Was she so good at moving unnoticed or was he growing stupid?

The attack that had been dealt to him had knocked the air out of his lungs, but he quickly calmed his muscles and recollected himself. The new enemy was standing at the top of the Warehouse, her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was very long and swirling behind her back, coloured in black. She wore green, revealing clothing, concealing a part of her torso but not her legs or arms. Pieces of armoured components were strapped to her joints and a pistol was strapped to a leather boot.

Who was this?

More importantly, what had she hit him with? He hadn't heard a weapon discharge or he would have evaded the projectile fired at him. Could this be an Aura-user? Capable of fighting with the mysterious power that had been classified as 'the manifestation of the soul'? If she was, he was at a serious disadvantage. Aura was one offensive ability to which he could barely defend himself. With the HVT lying writhing on the ground and every cop in the city about to turn up with blazing sirens, he couldn't afford to engage this target now.

Why was she even here?

"Only a coward hides behind a helmet," she taunted him. Tough luck; he had never seen the use of a taunt and it would only serve to distract her. That concept was lost to him. But her capabilities were unknown to him and if he wasn't careful, a misfire could kill his target.

Or a well-aimed shot. He didn't know whose side she was one and for all he did know, she was there to assassinate the politician. There was one thing left for him to do in this situation; and that was to grab the man and leave.

He quickly snapped his rifle up and shot her, but the woman brought her hands up and blocked his bullets with a pair of shimmering, green orbs. After that she returned fire with her strange technique, launching a series of small projectiles his way. He was standing directly between the hostile and his HVT. Moving away would mean letting the man get killed and that was unacceptable. But staying put meant subjecting himself to unknown enemy fire.

He discarded his rifle and jumped backwards, grabbing the coat of the moaning criminal in the process. He slung the obese bullseye out of the trail of the glowing projectiles and then quickly jumped in the air to dodge the follow-up attack.

The rounds detonated behind him and pelted his armour with pieces of rock and dirt. Even though his suit protected him against extreme temperatures, he still felt the heat that the explosions radiated.

He rolled to his feet and immediately fired half a magazine of pistol-ammunition at the hostile. She brought the glowing orbs in front of her head and the seven bullets were neatly deflected by her aura.

"Oh, but you don't remember, do you?" she said, jumping off the roof to engage him.

Feminine shouts disrupted their exchange of fire and he could recognize the voice of Ruby Rose among them. What was team RWBY doing here?

"Friends of yours?" Her hands glowed and again he was forced to nearly absorb the enemy fire to get the target out of her reach. Sooner or later she would score a direct hit. "Oh who am I kidding…"

For some reason her voice sounded familiar…but he couldn't place her. For some reason, he recalled the image of a crowbar, but he didn't know why. And neither was it important –nothing was except completing the mission. He closed in on her and whipped his knife at her head –which she narrowly avoided. The two of them exchanged a furious series of blows all the while the screaming voices of team RWBY became more and more audible.

She lashed out at him and he dodged her blow. Then he sidestepped and brought his arm down on her neck, twisting his hip and displacing her balance –sending her crashing to the ground.

Good, that never seemed to fail. He resisted the innate urge to finish a downed foe off with a stomp of his boot and instead took the opening before she could recover. He jumped backwards and threw the High-Valued-Target in the car that had been prepared for him.

He saw her getting up as he boarded the vehicle. "You can't run from me forever!" She yelled after him. The woman had taken no other moves to harm him and he didn't bother to figure out why. He wasn't running from her; in a normal engagement he could take her. Probably. Maybe. He might win and he might lose, but in this particular fight the local forces would catch up with them and complicate manners. He wanted to stay low-profile in Vale, but this strange woman –who had undoubtedly activated the alarm to get to him- was forcing his hand.

She had to have been some hired gun to kill the politician before anyone could get to him. An unimportant pawn in some political game…he'd let team RWBY deal with that. He had more important things to do

"Despite the four Kingdoms being "safe havens" from the Grimm threat, mankind is not safe in there. For many decades, our biggest enemy has always been the creatures of Grimm. Even now, if one were to step outside of their kingdom, they risk being mauled by a ravening monster. However, man's greatest enemy is not only Grimm, but also man. When opinions and views clash, radical organizations will form. Look at the White Fang, an extremist Faunus organization. Look at the Servants of Menagerie, an extremist human organization. Are all Faunus terrorists? No. Are all humans terrorists? No. Is the White Fang afraid of hurting Faunus? No. Are the Servants of Menagerie afraid to hurt humans? No. These groups are everywhere and, in direct contrast to what people think, they are not insane."

- On Terrorism, a Thesis on how to counter direct and Radical terror, by █. Ikterine