The Gray between Black and White

by Masterdude21

Driven by desperation, Beacon Academy joins a pact with Onyx, an ancient conspiracy that deals in war and blood. Their child soldiers are formidable, but utterly devoid of human morality. When team RWBY befriends a small group of them and unknowingly break their shackles, they discover that the Grimm are not the biggest monsters on Remnant... - Heavily AU, lemons, WhiteRose, OC's

13. Chapter 13

Largest chapter as of yet, with several POV switches. Bear with me.

---

"Three days ago, I stopped a man who was going to cause a new civil war in Atlas. The day before yesterday, I saved the lives of fifteen people that would have otherwise been killed by Grimm. Yesterday, I saw the most beautiful landscape the North had to offer, even though it is still infested. Today, I learned a new way of killing Ursae with my knives. Tomorrow, I will finally get to see Blackwood again. It has been weeks since I last saw him! I wonder if he still remembers me."

Private diary of ████

---

Day 7 –15:28- unidentified hideout

As the wind howled between the buildings, carrying a scent of the salty sea, Roman Torchwick banged his fist on a nearby wall with a hint of frustration.

"Open up," he shouted. A fisherman looked up, but Roman paid the man no mind. He had more important things to worry about. His runner had gone missing and subsequently, it had cost him a very important little piece of paper.

And if he was dumb enough to bring it like an idiot, it would cost him his head.

A rather shady-looking chap opened the door and Roman marched inside, ignoring the size of the doorman.

"She's expecting you," the man told him.

"Well, no shit," replied Roman. "Don't you have something better to do than hanging out here?"

The man ignored him, which was probably for the better.

But as Roman walked past a few abandoned containers and rooms in the dusty old warehouse, the bald man at the entrance was not his priority to think about. It was the lack of information that got to him. Roman Torchwick was a man of style and intelligence. He always prepared himself before he committed a crime. He always planned days ahead and it was because of that that he had not been caught yet. But he was not the only one in Vale who had the sense to check his own plans; the few criminal organizations left in Vale were all banding together for…some reason. It had him worried, it had his colleagues worried and it had his partners worried.

But it wasn't exactly the gathering of morons that had his attention. It was the consequent attention that others gave to that gathering what had him running through the city like a chicken without its head,

A dark figure was waiting for him just up ahead, sitting on top of a railing of the first floor. He knew what she wanted. She wanted the letter he had been sent to retrieve from the Stahl gang in the warehouses.

There was only one problem though: he didn't have it.

"And?" she asked, not even bothering to check who it was that was walking up to her.

"Did not go off without a hitch," he replied.

"Tell me you got their plans…"

She sounded so impatient and frustrated that he could almost taste it. "Not exactly, no."

The woman sighed and Roman could have sworn that the temperature rose. "What happened?"

"Your buddy Stahl got unlucky. Someone slaughtered his gang and after that, someone took the letter. But! I did manage to talk to some guys about it. It sounds like whoever intercepted it the first, got it from your "Shadows of the Night" guys."

"Are you mocking me, Roman?"

"Not at all. I just do not understand why you sent me to retrieve some stupid message, while we still need more Dust than we can count!"

She looked at him from over her shoulder. "This letter is more important than a boatload of Dust. What did your people tell you?"

Now it was his turn to sigh. "The same old thing. The conspiracy is coming to kill them all. They all seem to think that some guy is going to murdeer them all, which is why the morons all band together."

"And you are positive that it will happen tonight?"

"Not positive, no. But doesn't it simply mean that our opposition will get blown out the window? Shouldn't we be thanking your Ghosts for-"

The woman made a furious gesture and the wall behind him exploded into flames. He shouted in surprise and dove to the side as dozens of molten fragments rained down from above. "Woah, what the hell! Calm down, woman!"

"You do NOT talk about things you don't know," she snapped at him. She sounded very close to killing him and he knew he had to back down fast. "Unless you want your life turned into a living hell, I suggest you keep your head down."

"Uh…what? Keep my head down?"

"A lot of things are going to happen tonight," she countered. "We'll be staying in cover, for now."

"No robberies? No Dust?"

"Dust can wait. Let the others fight it out."

Roman sighed. "Whatever."

---

Day 7 –main dining hall- 17:44

Sometimes, activities in life faded together. Strung up like an endless cycle of actions, deeds and performances. Sensations blended together, memories faded and in the end, numbing was your only result.

He retained the barest memories of past weeks –of past months. Missions came and went in vivid clarity, but the kills he made faded away in a count long since in the thousand. The environment supplied him with enough feedback to react on. He knew that it was unhealthy, but he did not care. He welcomed it. After all, his life should only be a string of operations and missions. He had no need for memories, as his body knew everything. When it was needed, his training would take over control over his body and he would do what he needed to do. Whether that was dodging an incoming projectile or adjusting the scope on a sniper, or scoring a clean headshot from a thousand feet away with a sidearm. The rest was all irrelevant and needless. Junk genetics.

But the problem was that he was supposed to keep the facade of being a student; meaning that he would have to initiate contact with them once again. And seeing as the time indicated that they would be having dinner, he would also have to risk high-profile operations in the dining hall. And while it was a good idea to utilize that moment to fill his hall-quota, he could not help but feel like he was going to operate behind enemy lines. He had an innate feeling of discomfort around these people. Any of them could rise up and attempt to kill; he knew that. In a way, it was discipline-training to increase the control he had over his surroundings. In a way, he just disliked it.

So he would do the usual thing and keep to himself. If only taking his helmet with him was viable…

When he actually arrived at the Main Dining hall, most of the students were already engaged in conversations. They did not seem to notice him –which was good. Unnecessary attention would only put his presence at risk.

"So…Faunus then?" The scythe-wielder Ruby Rose said, "This school seems to have quite a few of them. Then there isn't any racism here?"

Yes. Team RWBY, JNPR and LACG were the current first-year students. The rest weren't within his civilian age-category. Joining them would cause suspicion.

"Racism?" Jaune Arc said. "No, I didn't see any of it. I hope that it stays that way…not everybody is fond of the Fauna."

They would be the ideal form of cover for him. The Faunus -girl sitting on the other side of the hall with the students he did not know had showed up in lessons, so she had to be a second- or third-year student. Sitting at the appropriate distance from team RWBY would assure his safety from useless banter while maintaining cover.

"There are quite some reasons for that…" Lisa Adamant replied.

Their conversation seemed to be tailored to a sensitive subject; it would immerse them deeply and allow him to join their table unnoticed.

"What does that mean?" Blake Belladonna sharply asked.

Problem: instantaneous response with emotionally charged voice usually signaled stress or distress. If this escalated into a fight, he would have to work hard to not get involved.

"Well…there is the White Fang…they're a bunch of terrorists."

"Is that enough to scorn an entire race?"

"Hold up here would you? I do not 'scorn an entire race' I merely say I understand that some people are not too happy with them!" Teamleader of LACG angrily told dark-haired member of RWBY. Why were they insisting of talking about such useless topics? Opinions were opinions and none of them was a Faunus, so it wouldn't affect their unit-cohesion.

"On the other hand…humans haven't been that nice to Fauna either." Pyrrha said.

He sat down on a chair a meter or two away from them and started watching them. The three teams were filled with clashing personalities and potential problems. He learned by watching, but they were the only humans in the Kingdom of Vale with whom he had actual interaction. The initiation, the PE lesson and some colleges. He was still not learning from them.

"Look, people clash all the time. Can't we just accept that and move on?' Aura-user Lie Ren said, ending the argument. Good; perhaps they were going to discuss a more important topic?

Team CRDL walked into the dining hall. Cardin Winchester had acted like a threat one evening, finding him and threatening to rework his face. He usually responded to threats by removing them, but he could not have killed off team CRDL and gotten away with it unnoticed. He had ignored the threats and they had not pursued hostilities.

"Hey, isn't that team CRDL?" The demolitions expert of team LACG said and pointed at the door. She was correct.

"What are they doing here so soon?" Heiress to the Schnee Company asked. "I thought they were lost in the forest somewhere?"

"I think Glynda recalled them or something…" Yang Xiao Long muttered and seemed thoughtful for a moment.

She…was a very strange female. Her attempts to get him to join their useless conversations had been taxing for sure…but there was something about her that made it hard to object. A certain air surrounded her, deflecting all attempts to get away. So instead of ignoring her like he should do, he would instead comply with her wishes. Like the time at the Cliffs…or in the halls, when she had asked him for his help. He couldn't help it and it was frustrating.

Granted he didn't have anything better to do at that moment, but still. The only thing that he could come up with that properly explained her influence was the fact that she seemed vaguely familiar to him. Like he had seen her before, but couldn't quite place her. Perhaps he had once killed someone looking like her, or perhaps he once had a commanding officer that looked like her. That would explain the sense to avoid going against her wishes; if she reminded him of a commanding officer, it would only be natural for him to 'obey' her like that. Yes, that had to be it.

Making a mental note to ignore Yang from that moment onwards, he continued to observe the team. They had shifted their topic from Fauna and racism to team CRDL and food.

"I don't know. I guess they are just blunt and asocial, but that doesn't make them bullies." Grace Auburn said.

"Are you kidding me? Did you see their actions during the last class we shared?" said Ruby Rose. "That was bullying!"

"Now that you mention it, I think they did a similar thing with Alessa…making fun of her," said Lisa Adamant,

She was wearing a blindfold as if she volunteered for that. Of course she would attract unnecessary attention if she did that.

"And they were making VERY sexist remarks towards you, right Yang?" Miss Auburn said and addressed the blonde girl directly.

"Yeah…" Said blonde replied. "I think I will have their balls for that."

The males at the table all shoved their seats half a meter backwards and he had to admit that the comment left a considerable chill in the air. What did she mean 'will have'? Would she cut them off and keep them? Or would she simply commit several acts of violence against them? And why the balls; sure, they were a weak part of the body, but so were the eyes. Any object could jam straight through the socket and into the-

"Orrrrr," JNPR´s teamleader carefully said, "You can simply take revenge verbally? No need for such trauma."

"Why not both?" Lisa Adamant replied.

He frowned. There was no such thing like verbal revenge; words did not hurt, actions did. These conversations were completely meaningless and he was wasting valuable time with sitting at this place. He had already consumed an MRE before he took the PE college and then quickly popped a nutrient shot.

"I'm going to get me some more food…" Lisa said and stood up from her table. He sighed softly and grabbed his Scroll, hoping that an updated blueprint of the MK-III "Puma" LRV had been released.

The blond teamleader left the tow of students, moved to his table and turned to face the row of food –allowing her to oversee his location.

"God damn!" She cried and fell backwards onto the ground, apparently surprised to see him there. It got quiet in the dining hall, with only the members of the three closest teams actually responding to what had happened. Blake, Weiss and Ruby were shocked to see him sitting there, while Yang merely growled in anger and pointed a finger at the fallen Adamant.

"Language!"

The demolitions expert and Jason Mauve Cho jumped to their feet and immediately assisted their fallen leader. Other students started talking.

"What happened?"

"You alright, Lisa?"

"Where did he come from?"

"He is a freaking ghost!"

The Operative closed his Scroll again after he had determined that there was nothing new and chose to face the complicated problems that made up the three teams around him now. He had succeeded in drawing attention; now what? Improvising?

"Where did this guy come from?" An obviously shocked Weiss Schnee formulated their main opinion on the matter at hand.

"How long have you been sitting there?" asked Belladonna.

"Are you magic?" blared Valkyrie

"You nearly gave me a heart-attack!" Lisa Adamant angrily said and pointed at him. "Someone should put a cat-bell on you!"

"You again?" Yang asked him. "What do you think you're doing here?"

This was the right dining hall right? Where students all sat down and…bantered with each other?

Well, they had him now. If he told them that he had come for dinner, they would wonder why had not taken anything edible. If he told them he had come for social interaction, they would question his silence. Or even worse; actually subject him to it.

What did people do during these kinds of situations? `How would he solve this problem?

"Just enjoying the calm before the storm." His mouth said before his brain could process it. It was a rare occurrence for his head to lose control over his mouth, but he was thankful for it doing so. He would have remained there –not ever replying- for a long time had his mouth not decided to take action for itself.

He briefly wondered whether that sudden moment of sentence was the result of years of training or simply an innate survival technique. Anyways, he was thankful for it; his normal mind could not have come up with anything better.

"What storm?" Weiss replied, still sounding very angry. Lisa pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at his, before she moved away to grab some more food. The message was clear: 'I'm watching you.'

"I guess that would be the scenario-training." Pyrrha Nikos said. She was rather well-known in the other cities besides Vale; tales of her exploits had reached far and wide, even though most communication these days was scarce. Attention would most likely be aimed at her, given people's tendency to surround themselves with things they deemed important. That would be fortunate for him.

"Yes," he said, taking the suspicion off of him.

They didn't address the issue of him choosing their position to sit with, which was positive.

"So why come here? I don't see you sitting here often?"

Damn; he was compromised already.

---

Ruby eyed the stoic boy sitting at their table with a moderate amount of suspicion. He really was a weirdo. His sudden appearance at their table was nothing short of miraculous; seeing as he usually preferred to reside in whatever hole he had chosen as his favorite hanging-spot. His facial expression was the same as ever; complete and utterly devoid of emotions. Empty eyes, dark bags under the eyes…it wasn't the same face that Jason had. While the Cho was usually calm and to the point, there was still a hint of genuine feelings with him. Frustration at news, curiosity at words. But with this student…there was nothing. No emotions, no feelings and no reaction to the impulses that usually attracted humane responses.

He scared her.

So what was up with him? And more importantly; why couldn't she figure him out by his body language? Her ability to read people had taken some strange curves before –days would go past without her being able to identify even a single thing before she suddenly could read again- but this was taking it up to eleven. Recent strain and stress had taken their toll on her own mind, causing her 'mind's eye' to temporarily close again.

But still, close friends like Weiss and Blake were easier for her to read than people like Grace and Lisa, whom she had actually just gotten to know. And while Cho and Ren were hard for her to read, they were not completely impossible.

And this boy was just the breaking point of her skill; a new obstacle for her to conquer. Yet there was something terribly wrong with him…like a nasty corruption growing on the inside of a seemingly edible apple. And this time, she could not simply open the apple to see what was on the inside.

Why was he even here? Wait; thinking about these things would only hurt her thinker-box. She would need to ask him herself!

Yes, that would work. Besides; Blake had been weird before she had gotten her to talk. "So…why don't you sit with the rest of your team?" She asked. Of course she knew that he didn't have a team, but it would help big time if he were to speak the words himself.

"I work alone."

Yep, there it was. The dreaded lone-wolf syndrome; only it didn't fit here. It was impossible. Headmaster Ozpin would make sure that these people got divided in the right team, as had been the case with her and Weiss. The Schnee girl had initially disagreed with her leadership, but she gradually grew to accept it and look at them now! Best buddies.

So why? Why would this boy work alone? He couldn't be a proper hunter without a team; that was for sure. Perhaps he was a spare? No, he had to be a third-year student or something. But why would he sit with them if that were the case?

No, not a third-year student. He had participated with their classes, making him a first-year student.

"Speaking of scenario-training, when are we scheduled to receive it again?" Blake asked her.

Ruby grabbed her Scroll and checked the schedule for the Tuesday, searching through the table of times and lessons. Ah! There it was! "In forty minutes. So we still have around forty minutes to sit back and enjoy our meal."

The next fifteen minutes were spent like that, alternating between talking, grabbing and eating food and trying to get to know each other. The nameless student kept to himself mostly, choosing to either watch the other students closely or simply reading strange notes on his Scroll.

And as the day proceeded, he continued staying to himself. Some lessons he didn't take, like one of Professor Adamant's speeches on the usage of Aura and the mechanics of Semblance. Others he did take, like Professor Oobleck's thesis on warfare through history. Only then did he show any sign of emotion; frustration at Russel Trush's blatant disregard of the usage of soldiers against Grimm. But he kept quiet and during the last lesson (concerning Grimm, from Professor Port) he only attended physically, as he seemed to be somewhere else with his thoughts entirely.

It was only when she spotted him through a window, walking outside, that she saw he was actually going to do something. She had never seen him fight before, not once. She had seen his outfit (a strange, sleek suit fit for soldiers) and his weapon (a large, black rifle) but never his style. But he was armed for war, it seemed. It was already dark outside and everyone was getting ready to pull back to their dormitories.

So where was this guy going?

Ruby looked over her shoulder, seeing that her team was still in their dorms. Blake was reading a book, Yang was moving to the shower and Weiss was doing homework. She had all the time in the world.

She opened the window and jumped outside. "Hey!"

The boy turned around, facing her. He had his helmet clipped to his hips and there were two large knifes sheathed to his chest.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He glared at her with moderate frustration in his eyes. She noticed that the dark collection of scars around his left eye seemed to correspond with the blotches and cracks in his helmet. "Ruby Rose," he said, his eyes running up and down his body. "Go back to Beacon."

There was something very bad in his voice, like he was warning her about something.

But she wouldn't be intimidated. "Where are you going?"

His eyes narrowed somewhat, but she noticed it. "That's classified. Go away."

He turned to leave again and Ruby stepped forwards. "Who are you?"

The boy stopped. "What do you want?"

"I want to know where you are going, all alone. It's dark, tonight will be cold and tomorrow we have to get up early again." She tried to convince him to stay in the Academy; she didn't know anything about him, but it didn't seem fair to her that someone had to go out all on their own. It was also strange that someone without a team was sneaking around in the dark.

"That's classified."

Ruby sighed in frustration. She knew classified meant secret, but it didn't make any sense in this context. Who used that word to hide the fact that they were going to be sneaking about, anyway? There was so much about this boy that didn't make any sense. Where was his team? Why was he all alone? Why was he armed and clad to go for a fight? "It's cold and dark outside. I don't even think there are any airships going to the city now. Why don't go you back inside?"

He stared at her with empty, emotionless eyes. They unnerved her. "Stop caring. You won't get hurt."

Her breath hitched and she reached behind her cloak. She had her weapon with her. If he was threatening her, actually threatening her, she could defend herself if needed.

"Ruby!"

Someone behind her shouted her name and she glanced over her shoulder, looking at someone standing behind the window. It looked like Yang, but she couldn't be certain. When she turned back around to face the odd boy, he was gone.

"What?" Ruby looked around, confused. She had literally been looking for a few seconds at most. Where had the guy gone? Why had he even gone? And what was even wrong with him! Who was he to tell her to 'stop caring' like that? He was worse than Weiss had been!

She returned to RWBY's dormitories, shaking her head. She wasn't going to give up yet. They didn't have a lot to do for tomorrow and she was really curious as to what the student with the helmet was going to do, so they were going for a night-visit to Vale.

As it turned out though, her team didn't completely agree with that.

"Excuse me?" said Weiss. She was already pulling her 'insulted partner' look. "You want to go to downtown Vale to track down some dimwit who has a problem with timing? Am I the only one who was a problem with that?"

Blake closed her book and eyed Ruby closely. "No Weiss, you're not. Ruby, you don't even know this student. I agree that it's suspicious, but it doesn't concern us."

"We are training to become Huntresses," replied Ruby. "It is our duty to keep an eye on suspicious things. A lot of strange things have been happening and I think we could put a stop to it if we just-"

"Ruby," interrupted Weiss, "there is no reason to suspect anything! What kind of strange things have been happening that we, as Beacon students, could have prevented? Nothing!"

Yang didn't seem to agree though. "Actually, the shootout at the commercial district could have been prevented. The robberies of at least four Dust-shops could have been prevented as well. The criminals of Vale are all stirring up a hornet's nest; didn't you see it?"

"That's not our problem though," said Weiss. "The Police can do whatever it is they do to catch criminals. We are still training-"

"But Jason Cho said that the Police are currently ill-organized and incompetent at their jobs," Blake then said. "We can't expect them to interfere. And Yang is right; there is more criminality than normal and something is stirring them up."

"That's the spirit," Ruby exclaimed.

But Yang ruined it. "I still don't see how this is relevant to one bloke who's out to get a fresh nose though."

Ruby sighed. "He was armed! He is obviously expecting trouble! Shouldn't we at least inform somebody about this?"

"Name one reason why we, as a team, should get ourselves endangered for someone we barely know," said Weiss.

Ruby fell silent for a few seconds. Her partner had a point; was she willing to stake the lives of her friends on something that might not even get them somewhere? But…she wasn't even sure if there was going to be any fighting. There might not be something at all. But if there was…"My mother always told me that, if more people would just be kind to each other without a reason, the world would be a better place. I'm not asking for a lot. I just want to be sure that everything is alright tonight. I just have a bad feeling, that's all."

"A bad feeling?" Weiss said skeptically. "You want us all to go out in the cold, in the dark, because of a bad feeling?"

Ruby shrugged. "Basically, yes."

Weiss and Yang stared at her, while Blake sighed. "Alright," said the girl, "If you want to check out Vale, I'm going with you."

Her heart leaped and she had to remind herself that Blake did not appreciate sudden hugs out of nowhere. It was very hard not to, though. "Really? Blake, you're awesome!"

"Well, if you two are going, I'm going as well," Yang told them.

"Seriously?" said Weiss. "You two are both going?"

Blake nodded solemnly. "If the person Ruby saw tonight is in any way linked to recent events, we might be on to something. I trust Ruby to do what is right."

"I'm bored. If we can find a little action tonight, I'm in."

Though Yang's reasons were simpler than Ruby had wanted, the fact that her sister still wanted to stick by their side warmed her heart.

Weiss groaned in frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I can't believe that I am stuck with you three throughout this. What choice do I have but to accompany you?"

"Weiss, really?" breathed Ruby, not believing her luck.

"Don't get any funny ideas you little red scalawag! I need to make sure that you three don't cause an international scandal of some sorts."

Ruby blinked a few times and looked over at Yang and Blake. Then she burst into a fit of laughter. "Us, causing a scandal? Don't be silly!"

"Yeah," shouted Yang. "An incident, maybe. But a scandal? Never!"

Blake ran a hand through her hair and checked her bow. "Suddenly, I am not sure that this is a good idea anymore."

Good idea or not, they were still going. They grabbed their gear, weapons and ammo and moved out. Ruby wondered about the boy. She had met a lot of new people on Beacon. They had become friends with team JNPR and at least partially to team LACG, they had met new and interesting professors and they had met bullies. She had seen so many new faces and she had seen so many hidden emotions…yet she had never seen someone like this student. Never before had she seen someone so profoundly wrong and empty like him. She might be a little bit paranoid, but everything about him screamed trouble.

And she didn't want trouble. Now she was in no way a judging person; she believed that everybody was inherently good. Everybody was capable of being a good person and because of that, everybody deserved a chance. It was why she felt for this boy's wellbeing. But she also felt like there was more to this than met the eye and she had to be honest with herself; she didn't like it.

When everybody was geared up, it was time to move out. It was about nine in the evening and Vale was supposed to be very lifelike. There was still one airship ready to ship them down to the city, though the pilot didn't seem particularly happy about it. But at least they were making progress!

"How do you plan on following your guy?" asked Blake.

Ruby smiled. Her guy. Her team, not even together for much longer than a week, already trusted her this much. It was heartwarming to think about. "I have no idea where he went, but I have a feeling that there is somewhere we can find him. That somewhere will most likely be trouble."

"Why is it always trouble?" asked Weiss. "Why can't it be something normal for a change?"

"Because trouble is always around the corner," replied Ruby. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah…I haven't really spent a lot of time in the city," Weiss reluctantly replied.

"You mentioned that before. Did you stay at the Schnee building most of your time?"

The girl scowled and averted her eyes. "You could say that. My family was rather…adamant…in their ways. Of course they would be…I mean, they have a lot of things to worry about."

"Wouldn't you want it differently then?" Ruby carefully pushed. "Couldn't they have compensated?"

"No," the Heiress firmly said as she stared out the window. "My father has made a lot of enemies in his time as the head of the family. Sometimes, freedom has to be sacrificed for safety."

"You can't go through life without making enemies," said Yang.

Ruby didn't like the word 'sacrifice' a lot and she wasn't too sure about making enemies either. Weiss and her had started out as enemies before and look at them now. "Didn't he sacrifice too much though?"

"I wouldn't know," the girl slowly and cautiously replied, as if she was picking her words with great care. "You can't change the past."

"But you can change the future."

"How?" She snapped. "How would you break free of something you have never had any form of experience with, at all? How would you break dozens of years of family tradition for something trivial?"

That sounded personal. And Ruby had just one answer for that. "Simple. With friends."

Weiss didn't respond to that, and neither did Blake and Yang. But the very obvious silence that followed was all the proof that Ruby needed to know that she had hit something sensitive.

"Girls," Interrupted the pilot, "you might want to see this."

Before Ruby could add anything to that, the speakers on the far side of the dropship flared on and a voice started talking. She had seen one of those before in the last ship, but she had thought that those were meant to be decorative. It sure didn't work when they had been on the ship with Professor Adamant.

"-situation never seen before in Vale. So far, none of them has been identified, but it is a matter of great concern."

Blake was aghast. "What?"

"People are being kept away from the area around the complex for fear of the hostages being executed. The Police say they can't do anything yet."

"Hostages?"

"Inside sources declared that it was supposed to be the staging area for a large drug-haul, but details are vague."

"I think we found your trouble, Ruby," said Yang. But she didn't get a chance to follow up and on that. The pilot declared that they were closing in on Vale and after that, things got a bit hectic. Because the first thing they noticed when they got out of the airship was a very loud and distinct noise of guns being fired in the distance.

Ruby looked around. They had been dropped south of the city, where few people came. There was a forest nearby and in the distance, she could clearly hear the gunfire going on strongly. Across of the forest lay a patch of considerable open ground, but something was not entirely right. Something was nagging at her, like a funny feeling in her stomach.

"Ruby?" said Blake.

"I'm feeling it too," she replied.

"The trees…some of them are flattened."

That wasn't something she knew. "I didn't see that. Which trees?"

Bake pointed at the other side of the open ground. "There. There are some tracks leading up to them."

Tracks? Flattened trees? How could Blake see all that in the darkness?

"So, hostages huh?" Yang said, distracting her. "That would explain why soldier-boy left Beacon."

"Don't be stupid," Weiss bit at her. "That radio-transmission we heard? That was the news. He could not have possibly known about it."

"I can think of no other place for him to go now," said Blake. "He must have caught wind of it." She shook her head and sighed. "Hostages…horrible. You were right, Ruby. These people need us."

"Can we do this alone though?" She replied. "If we mess up, those people could die."

"If that other student messes up as well, things can get even worse," said Yang. "What is that idiot even thinking? Does he think he can take on multiple crime syndicates by himself?"

"He did make it past the initiation on his own," Ruby was quick to reply. She didn't want to consider that the boy could get himself killed because of heroic resolve or even worse, get others killed. They needed to act fast. "And we are here, right? If we work together, we might be capable of freeing those people."

"I think we need to go back and ask for help," said Weiss. "What if we are outmatched? We could end up making things worse."

"There is no time to go back," Yang told the Heiress. "Do you hear these shots? He's already fighting."

But Weiss had a point; they needed more people if they wanted to do this right. Going back was no option, as the lone student was already fighting with the enemy. What they needed were quick reinforcements they could rely on. They needed team JNPR.

"Guys," she said, "I'm going to call Jaune. Whatever is going on out there, somebody needs our help. And we're going to give that help."

---

21:08 –LACG dormitories- Beacon Academy

In an event normally not familiar to his teammates, two had gone to bed early that evening. One was Grace, tired of a day of lessons and the other was Alessa, tired because of whatever reason else there was. Both ladies were sleeping in their beds and Lisa was currently gone to do…something.

Which meant that Jason Mauve Cho was currently all on his own. Not that he minded though; he hadn't really had a moment to recollect himself in ages. All this hectic working at Beacon really reminded him of his early days with the Vale Police Department. He had been the youngest one to work there since…well, since his father. It had stirred up the necessary fuss until he had proven himself by chasing down and capturing an escaping suspect that the seniors had accidentally lost control over. But that was then and this was now and at this place, there was no simply proving yourself.

In Beacon, everybody was considered green until they were graduated. And in a way, that was exactly what he needed. A place to start over again, with people who were either your equals or your superiors, but always your ally.

He activated his Scroll and leant back in the chair, enjoying the simple light that the bedside lamp granted him. It appeared that he had a new message. It had been filed under the 'useless' filter, but his Scroll had the tendency to store all the important mails under that filter, so he'd check it out anyway. The device's design was an old one; used by the policemen of the VPD. Obsolete and slow, but sturdy enough to withstand an Ursa sitting on it.

Literally.

Opening the message, Jason frowned.

"Mauve, your decision to stay with Beacon even after the initiation infuriates me. Have you no sense of family-honor? No respect for traditions? I order you to come home immediately and-"

It was another one of these. He placed it from the 'useless' tab to the 'very useless' and loaded up a book. There was a reason why he had left the VPD to join Beacon, even though some people were too thick to understand that. His officer had understood that, which was good enough for him.

Before he could even begin looking up where he had last closed his book, someone opened the door to the dormitory and barged inside.

"Hey Lisa."

"Hey Cho. Ladies still sleeping?"

"Like roses. What's up?"

The Adamant walked to her wardrobe and pulled her weapon out. "I just spotted team JNPR leaving their room, armed for war and looking like someone had kidnapped the daughter of the Headmaster."

"Good for you."

"No, seriously. They looked really worried."

Jason sighed and closed his scroll. "Something tells me that you're not going to let this go."

The girl loaded a few rounds into her rifle and slung a few extra magazines around her cargo pants. "Not really. How are your stalking skills?"

"A little rusty," he sarcastically replied. But then Lisa's tone dawned on him and he got up. "You're actually going to prep the team to stalk them, aren't you?"

"Bingo. I think it's suspicious that they are going somewhere with their weapons at the ready, looking like they are about to steal candy from children."

"I can relate to that, yes-"

"So wake the sleeping beauties up and get ready for action. It's stalking time."

Jason had to admit that, once Lisa had her head set for something, things happened very quickly. Grace woke up and nearly blew him up with a grenade stuffed in her pillow, Alessa woke up and nearly clawed his face off with her weapon and then they both occupied the bathroom to get dressed. In the meantime, he loaded up all the Dust that his weapon could carry and folded his synapses away again. The conversation he had had with Blake had helped its design enormously; thanks to her tip, he could now retract the wires and fold them back in his sleeve in two seconds time, after which they were ready for the next target. He just hoped that whatever was going on, there would be no need for violence.

"Explain it to me again," Grace later said as she sluggishly tried to fix her hair. They had left their dormitories and Alessa was guiding them to JNPR, who were only a few hallways ahead. "Why are we going to stalk Jaune's team again?"

"Because they are very suspicious, armed and grumpy and all that," Lisa said as she slowly stuck her head outside the nearest wall. "Also-"

Jason's scroll buzzed with a new message. He paused for a moment, before opening it.

"Hey Mauve, remember when you asked me to keep you aware of criminal activity in Vale? Well, we have a hostage situation in that large compound to the south of town. Thought you wanted to know, as the Police can't get inside that perimeter without alerting everybody. It's all over the news, but there's nothing we can do."

It was Constable Marron, one of his contacts with the Police. And he brought trouble.

"Lisa," Jason said. "I think I know where JNPR is headed."

"Where?"

"There are hostages near the criminal compound near the south-end forest. Police can't get there, but it's on the news too. Trust me; it's only a matter of time before people get killed."

"Then we need to act fast. The VPD is good for nothing. Grace! Get me Ruby on the Scroll. Alessa! Find JNPR. Cho! Are there still airships going?"

"Until ten, yes."

"Good. Move it people, we've got people to save!"

"Ehm, Lisa?" Grace asked as she typed a message on her Scroll. "Don't you think we should let older people handle this? Like, Hunters? Professional ones?"

They reached the end of the hallway, close to the exit of the main building. It was dark outside, safe for a few lights along a runway.

"Not enough time, Grace. What does Ruby say?"

"How do you mean not enough time? Ruby is…eh, screw it. You're right, not enough time."

"Thank you."

Jason needed more context with that one. "Grace? What did Ruby say?"

The demolitions expert sighed. "Ruby is currently leading her team on a counterstrike against the criminal compound, where someone else is raising hell."

He stopped. "What are they even doing there? Are they insane?"

"Beats me. I'm just here to blow things up."

"Got ammo then?"

Grace smiled. "Enough to blow the entire compound to kingdom-come."

"Great. Lisa? What now?"

The Adamant led them to the outer edge of Beacon, where they could see team JNPR walking towards the only remaining dropship. If they wanted in on the action, they needed to hurry."

"Only one thing we can do now," said the Adamant. She inhaled sharply and then shouted at the top of her lungs, "Hey, Jaune!"

---

21:17 –criminal compound.

With her team scattered in a rough leave-like formation, Blake Belladonna advanced through the dark forest. In her mind, dozens of thoughts were twirling around and distracting her from what needed to be done. Thoughts about human injustice, thoughts about innocent men and women locked up without reason. Thoughts about past operations to rescue captured people, which she had undertook with a dozen other armed people.

This attack right here was foolishness; there were four of them. Four. And from her position beside a tall tree, behind a bush, she could see how many enemies they were up against. The criminal compound was like a fortress: walls around the perimeter, men with flashlights running around and jeeps racing from one building to another. There were approximately five such complexes, all of them large enough to hide at least two dozen men. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she had spotted another set of tracks leading up to the compound. Tracks that very closely resembled tank-treads.

How were they going to do this? How? There were a hundred armed criminals running around and they had vehicles to back them up. This place would take an army to take, not four students without any experience in killing people! Their only salvation would have been stealth and secrecy, both of which were now impossible because somebody down there was unleashing several kinds of firefights at once. People were running and screaming and searchlights attached to guard posts were frantically searching around for a potential target. Several times, an explosion went off. In this chaotic fighting the hostages would be sure to peril. They had no chance.

Was this all the male student's doing? Was he the one responsible for this mess? If innocent people got hurt tonight, would it be his fault?

To her right, Weiss was taking up a position behind a thorny bush. A part of her skirt latched onto the spiky branches and Blake could hear her cursing and swearing underneath her breath as she worked to get free again. The Heiress was nowhere near ready for what was about to come.

The plan for this was actually pretty complicated. Even Ruby knew that they couldn't take on a hundred armed criminals without dying, so they had to clear the line for team JNPR to join them. After that, they would split up into their respective partners and commence two different operations. One group was going to infiltrate the compound, search for the hostages and escape while the other half was going to infiltrate the compound and raise new fronts to cover them.

But there was a problem with that, too. Blake could not see the lone student anywhere, yet people were firing in all directions, screaming and running. There could be only one explanation to that; multiple groups were fighting each other. If that was the case, this mission had just gotten much simpler.

She received a message on her scroll. It was Ruby, telling her to find Weiss and team up with her. Well, Weiss was right there. It was a smart choice, really. Yang wasn't that good in stealthing and Ruby was inexperienced in that area.

Weiss must have received the message as well, as she looked around, perhaps trying to spot Blake.

The girl smiled and flicked a small rock at the Heiress, startling her. Nobody could see better in the darkness than her. Ruby had made a very good choice for the stealth-team.

Blake silently approached Weiss and whispered her name. The pale girl whirled around, her hand at her rapier. "Blake! Don't do that!" she hissed at her.

"Sorry," Blake said with a smirk. Something about Weiss not noticing her made her feel surer of herself. "So, got a plan?"

"You're the type to sneak about," Weiss agitatedly said. "Can't you think of something?"

Blake frowned and looked back at the camp again. It was an open stretch of at least ten meters to the compound from their position, on either side of a main road. The forest was closer to the structures on the left though, with only one badly-illuminated meter to cross. If they wanted to get to the hostages in time, that would be their way in. "Weiss, do you see the left side? I think we should enter the facility there."

"That's…actually a pretty good idea."

"I know. Let's go."

The Heiress nodded and got up. "So this is it then? We're going in there?"

She sounded rather unsure of herself. Blake could relate to that; she had never expected that she would have to do anything like this so soon, but it was no use worrying about it like this. "Yes, this is it. Keep calm and we'll be fine."

"You don't need to tell me to keep calm. I'm always calm."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's go."

The two of them started making their way around the compound, making sure to keep to the left. The amount of fire seemed to die down somewhat and two large, armoured vehicles rolled in-between the buildings. She wondered if the student was still alive in there somewhere, taking the fight to the enemy. If he really was all alone, he was better than she had thought. But how many were there? And how many hostages were there?

They approached the wall and they jumped over without any difficulty. Once on the other side of the wall though, things were considerably worse.

There were a few containers, the largest of which was red. People were screaming in the distance and a helicopter flew overhead, but that wasn't what had their attention.

"Oh god," Weiss breathed and clasped her hands in front of her mouth. And for once, Blake was inclined to agree. There were three dead bodies, clad in black clothes, just put away in the container. It was a large, red shipping-container, containing a few boxes and, apart from the dead, nothing else. The three had been unceremoniously dumped in the corner, their eyes still open and staring blankly into the void. A long, single-handed axe had been broken in two and lay on the ground, together with two pistols. Two of the men had red, clean holes in their foreheads, while the third one had a red streak on his throat

It was…not an unfamiliar sight to her, but she had never gotten this close to the actual results of murder before. A numbing feeling of horror spread through her stomach, but she couldn't dwell on it. In her mind, she automatically distanced herself from what she saw. These were the dead remains of criminals, not people. There was nothing she could have done.

Weiss turned around, choosing her own method of clearing her mind. "That's horrible! Who did that!"

Swallowing her disgust and fear, Blake said, "I think they all turned on each other. Come on Weiss…we need to go. Weiss?"

The girl didn't respond. Her knees were quivering and her shoulders were trembling.

Blake had seen dead bodies before, even though the circumstances had been completely different. But Weiss was so sheltered by her family that could not have possibly seen something like this before.

"Weiss," she gently said, placing a hand on her teammate's shoulder. "Come on, people are depending on us. We need to move."

Weiss shook her head. "You're right. L-lead the way."

After a brief moment, Blake decided that Weiss had recovered well enough. The two of them pressed on and deeper into the compound. She could hear Ruby and Yang engaging the enemies, though she didn't know where the two of them were. All she knew was that, if they didn't get to these hostages in time, more people were going to die.

---

21:22

"Yang!" Ruby yelled from behind a parked jeep, as bullets impacted around her. "Take cover! That's a tank!"

"That's not a tank," Yang yelled in return. "That's a B11-Urutu Armoured Personnel Carrier! Where did they even get that?"

"A what whatta carrier?" There were a lot more bad guys than she had initially thought. Even though Blake and Weiss had successfully infiltrated the facility, things were only going downhill from there. These guys had a lot more to offer than simple henchmen. "Yang, get away from that tank!"

"There are two of them!" Yang yelled. "We should be able to take them-"

The two armoured vehicles approached from both directions of the main road, catching them in a pincer-movement. The first one opened fire and Ruby activated her Semblance, which took her over the wall and behind the tank-thing.

Yang saw the threat as well and jumped out of its trajectory. The vehicle fired and turned the jeep Ruby had been using as cover into a heap of slag and metal, its oversized rounds tearing enormous holes into the metal frame like it was a thin layer of paper. As it trailed Yang, it drew a trail of destruction across the wall, creating multiple new holes through which they could enter.

"Yang, less gawking and more destroying!" Ruby yelled the moment she spotted her sister stopping to admire the metal monster. Why weren't there more men attacking them? Where was everyone and where was JNPR?

"But they are so pretty!" The insane girl replied. "It would be a shame to destroy them!"

"Yang!"

"Come on Ruby…can't we just keep one alive?"

"I promise you a ride in a jeep with a really, really big gun!" Ruby replied in turn. "Just bust them!"

"All you had to do was ask," Yang said with a big grin. She slammed her gauntlets together and unleashed a shockwave of heat. The APC's were close enough to unleash their guns properly and twin rows of fire were poured down the road, turning rocks and shrubberies into splinters. They couldn't get a good bearing on the two of them, but if they didn't watch out they would hit their own people!

Half a dozen goons came running out of the complex as Yang engaged one of the tanks and Ruby saw that some of them were wielding weapons. Those needed to be taken care of first. Where was team JNPR, anyway? They should be here!

But she couldn't afford to dwell on that. She jumped down from the wall and, after glancing at Yang one more time, moved to engage the enemy. She swung her scythe left and right to deflect incoming strikes from machetes and axes and then disarmed two men, before knocking them out with well-placed hits to their heads. Their Aura took the brunt of the force, which was a good thing. She was here to help, not to cause more death.

Yang jumped in the air, launching multiple blasts at the tank she had in her sights. The projectiles smashed into the armoured vehicle and actually caused a dent or two in its chassis. The blonde screamed defiantly as she came down on the vehicle, latching onto the barrel and spinning twice around it before she got to a stand-still. Then she placed one foot on the rotating segment and the other one on the chassis underneath it.

Ruby grinned widely as she saw her older sister grunting and pulling at the turret, intent on ripping it from its hull and destroying the vehicle. Two high-caliber shots slammed into her and knocked her to the ground, upon which Ruby spun around and saw that the second thing had Yang dead in its sights. She buried the blade of her scythe deep into the ground to stabilize herself and opened fire, sending several shots bouncing off of its armour and getting its attention. Her scroll buzzed with a message and she ignored it, hauling her weapon out of the ground again and moving to a different position.

Yang was trailing fire and heat as she jumped back on top of the vehicle. She screamed as she punched at its barrel, crushing it with one double-handed hammer-blow. The barrel got dislodged and slammed into the ground, while the blonde jumped off again and moved out of the other tank's range.

Ruby briefly perched herself on top of the wall, long enough to check her Scroll. It was a message from Jaune, saying that both team JNPR and LACG were approaching the criminal compound, but from different directions.

Her heart jumped and she suppressed the desire to shout with joy. Their friends had gotten their cry for help! They were coming to their aid! This was amazing. And team LACG too? She didn't even care why Jaune had brought them, the more students there were the bigger the chance they were going to save these hostages!

But she had no time to reply to Jaune. She spotted more people approaching their position and she realized that she and Yang needed to move.

"Yang," she yelled, while her sister was zigzagging towards the remaining tank. "Get out of here! Different location, now!"

She didn't stick around to see if Yang had actually heard her. People were taking potshots at her and she could hear something large and airborne moving to intercept them. How many vehicles did these guys even have?

---

20:58

Lessons in warfare always taught that an enemy, if pressed too hard without a way to escape, would fight with an increased morale and fighting spirit. The way of war always taught that an enemy needed to be given a road to escape on.

But Operative Greystone had to encounter such fighting spirit as described with the various gathered criminal groups at this compound. The Black Angels, local mobsters, none of them could compare to a marching army in any way. Badly disciplined, cowardly and spineless. Their income ranged from human trafficking to liquidations and while the people in the Kingdom of Vale had kept the criminal activity to a relative low pitch, Onyx had still decided that they needed to go.

It was a task that he was happy to oblige. Forcing the bosses of these organizations to conclude that they needed to work with each other to combat an unknown threat had been easy enough and now, they were all packed tightly into this "top-security complex" like fish in a barrel. Just waiting for someone to visit them and shoot them between the eyes.

And that was exactly what he was planning to do. After an hour of careful planning, he found himself wedged tightly against the undercarriage of a vehicle, close enough to the wheels that his vision consisted out of rubber. It would take him directly to the place he needed to be. Throughout the journey, gravel kicked up by the vehicle bounced upwards and was deflected by his suit. It didn't bother him. He had visited the group of buildings once, so he knew where to go once inside. And after a long, bumpy ride wherein his hands had started to ache, the truck finally stopped.

"Alright, one moment," said a heavy voice. Greystone knew what was going on; the vehicle was being checked for anyone with the idea to hitch a ride. They would be checking the underside with a mirror attached to a long stick.

He reached for his belt and fumbled around. He had a small mirror, taped in so that he could grip it easily. Because of his extensively-done research, he knew what the routine of these guards was. The moment he saw the underside of their mirror appearing in his vision, he whipped it out, aiming it at the undercarriage. The criminal slowly pulled his stick across the side and the Operative countered it with his own, providing the man a good view on the underside of the underside of the truck, a few inches to the right of his head.

"Yeah, you're good to go. Can't be too certain, assassins can be everywhere."

"Yeah right. Do you believe that Oxford shit as well?"

"I don't believe a thing. Boss pays me to keep an eye out and I do."

"Fine. Go along."

The truck drove off again and the Operative placed the mirror back. If Intel was correct, there were a couple of different syndicates meeting. All the important staff was present, as well as a couple of Urutu APC's and two attack helicopters. Nothing he couldn't handle. He had the entire night, but this would only take him an hour or two.

Finally, when the truck stopped at its destination and the passengers stepped out, he allowed himself to drop away from the undercarriage. He was without sound and without impact; nobody heard him leave the vehicle. He slid away from underneath it and looked around his new location. Motor pool, three tangos, one stopped for a smoke and the other two were armed with pistols.

Threat level was low to none.

He snuck up on the one in the back of the group and unsheathed his knife. Now Aura had the annoying tendency to stop his lethal attacks at first and he couldn't trust that these men weren't trained in the usage of Aura. Almost every adult human had at least a basic layer of Aura defending them. Normally, the Aura only activated when the user's life was in an immediate threat. He had witnessed men and women stop bullets that would have impacted on their front without actually doing anything. Sometimes, Aura would not block unnoticed attacks. Most low-ranked criminals didn't have enough training to stop bullets with their Aura and more often than not, his attacks would cause direct death without anything blocking them. One just needed to know how to strike.

He grabbed the smoking man by his neck and bashed his knee into his back, immediately following up by a double knife-thrust to his kidneys. On the very first attempt, the blade slid into the man's flesh and hit his vital organs. The stab stunned him and in the brief moment the man was unable to speak or cry for help, he slit his throat and gently lowered his body to the ground.

No Aura to stop his attacks. Nobody had spotted him. Good. On to the second part of his plan: disarray. He wasn't going to take on a hundred men and their vehicles in a fight. He might win, he might lose, but it would take him too long. Onyx's cover story wasn't going to prevent people from interfering forever.

Besides; why waste ammo when you had an army of criminals ready to tear each other apart? They were meeting here to discuss a mutual enemy. It wouldn't take much to shatter the fragile trust they had.

He placed a small explosive charge on the engine of the truck and snuck past the two guards, who were standing guard in front of the motor pool.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Ever wonder why we're here?"

They didn't notice him. There was a large, red container in front of the building, but there wasn't anything in there he needed. There were other tactical places around the building that he needed to head to, though. His plan was to create a simultaneous detonation across the compound, distracting the criminals and getting their attention. After that he could start removing them.

Throughout his operation, he encountered men and women on guard-duty. He killed those using the same methods he had been instructed in; he sliced their throats, broke their necks or otherwise crushed an important segment of their spines. After six such kills in eight minutes and having placed a dozen charges at tactical places, he was back at the motor pool for the second part of his plan.

The two guards were still babbling about.

"I don't know man. But it keeps me up at night."

He sighed and dropped down from above, shooting both of them in the head before he hit the ground. He then dumped the trio of bodies in the red container and made his way to the central building, where the leaders were gathered. With them dead, Vale would be clean again.

Once there, he ran into more trouble. Six men had were stationed at some intermediate room, all clad in brightly coloured outfits and armed with large weapons. He hadn't expected them and they hadn't expected him, judging by their surprised looks.

His rifle barked three times and three men fell, killed by headshots. But the remaining three were fast; faster than he could have predicted. Two of them immediately rolled into cover while the last one pulled out two sub-machineguns. He started hosing the area and the Operative was forced to take cover again. But the hallways behind him were completely devoid of appropriate rooms and those that were filled with things that could be used of cover were locked. This complex was filled with useless space.

He knew his limits. His own Aura levels were superficial at best. He had a very flimsy layer, capable of stopping perhaps one or two hits. He never knew why; he seemed to have a slight case of memory-loss of his past few missions. It didn't matter though. If they didn't hit him, he didn't need to worry about his lack of Aura or Semblance.

Still he backed away from the corner; those rounds were charged with dust and the many dozens of rounds that thundered down the hallway destroyed the entire hall. Each round left a blistering crater the size of his fist in the rocks and if he caught even one of those rounds, he would be done for.

Greystone dodged the first few rounds and closed in on the man. He unleashed a series of quick jabs at his ribs, cracking two of them. He then stepped to his side and wrapped his arm around his neck, brushed a feeble attempt at a counter aside and wrenched his neck, wrenching them apart.

The body fell to the ground and someone kicked at him. He blocked the kick that was aimed at his head with his right arm and countered with a kick of his own, trying to catch the perpetrator in his side. But the man jumped backwards to avoid the attack and then took two steps forwards again, aggressively pursuing the offensive. He was wearing brass knuckles and his punches came fast and powerful.

He was also at least seven feet tall, putting him at more than a head higher than him. And he was broad; effectively twice as broad as he was.

And it wasn't like he was under-muscled or something…plus he wore his armoured suit, which made him bulkier than most students at Beacon except for Winchester. And he didn't count.

"Got you now!" The man growled as his hands shot out with one jab after another. He was fast, but not much faster than people he had dealt with before. And his balancing was all wrong: with every jab he sent, his hind foot almost completely left the ground and his entire weight shifted forwards.

He backed up a little –and immediately hit the wall with his back. Great.

The man's arm shot forwards and Greystone countered the strike, throwing several quick punches at his armpit and chest. The last hostile appeared out of nowhere, brandishing a machete. He countered the attack, redirected it into the giant's leg and then struck several blows to his solar plexus, the third of which caused the man to fall over and stop moving. He inhaled through his nose and then struck at the remaining hostile with a clawed hand, thumb first. He punched through the man's defenses, sank his thumb deep into his eye-socket and swirled to the right, puncturing the brain.

His enemy uttered a terrible, gurgling scream and collapsed.

Total time elapsed since moving: two seconds.

The Operative shook the gore off of his gauntlet and steadied his breathing, which had gone above average throughout the fight. It wasn't his preferred method of taking people down, but he had long ago learned the weaknesses of the human body and how to exploit them. He wouldn't be as foolish as to ignore a guaranteed kill when it presented itself.

He knelt next to the man who had fallen over during the fight to verify that he was dead.

No pulse. His heart had stopped, exactly what he had aimed for. Ventricular tachycardia, brought upon by extreme vibrations into the heart. In mere seconds, this man would be dead as well. In theory, he already was. If he wanted to, he could perform CPR and resuscitate him.

So he grabbed the detonator and activated all the explosives. It was time to go to work.

---

21:20

It was a good thing that team JNPR didn't really care much about the fact that they had been stalked. They were too worried about Cho's news that there were hostages at the compound. The ride there had been relatively quiet and even though Lisa knew that Jaune was easily the most nervous one around here, he looked calm enough.

But perhaps that was because he didn't like flying and that he would puke his guts out if he opened his mouth.

Of course, Cho briefed them all on the situation. On the hostages, the multiple criminal groups and the fact that team RWBY was already down there kicking ass.

"So why aren't we letting professional people take care of this?" asked Pyrrha.

"Because the Police is too slow to mobilize," said Cho.

"And because we're using the only ship, I guess," said Grace.

"It will take too long for them to get there," said Ren. "We've got the element of surprise. We can put a stop to this."

Unfortunately for both teams, they were welcomed by the sounds of combat as soon as the ship touched down.

"Warn Ozpin as soon as you get back," Jaune told the pilot, who gave him a thumbs-up in reply. They had gone over the plan on the way to the criminal compound; JNPR would move to help RWBY and save the hostages, while LACG was going to stop the enemy troops from interfering. They had spotted several vehicles from the air, both jeeps as APC's and it was decided that they were the best equipped to deal with that, for they had Grace.

"Good luck guys," said Lisa.

"Yeah, you too," replied Jaune. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he nodded firmly and turned around, to lead his team towards the compound. People were shouting and setting of explosives and above all, the steady clattering of automatic was constantly distracting them. It was time to go to work.

"Grace, take Alessa and locate the enemy convoys. Spot where they are arriving and mess them up."

"Got it."

She could hear the distinctive sounds of Yang's gauntlets blasting things and occasionally, she spotted something akin to small iceberg. People were fighting, that was for damn sure. But where? And who? Was this all RWBY's doing? They couldn't be so badass as to outfight an entire base, could they?

As it turned out, it didn't take them very long to finish rigging the grounds. "What," Lisa asked the moment she arrived at her friend's position, "am I looking at here?"

"I'm glad you asked." Her childhood friend replied and started explaining. "There are several scenarios from which we can determine the enemy numbers and quality. In order, one two three. Footmobiles, ground vehicles and air vehicles. I have determined the optimal points of entry with Alessa and we determined that the most likely point of intrusion will be this-"

She pointed at the paved road a few meters away from the forest, leading towards the compound. "From here, the ground vehicles will arrive. We have placed several mines on the road. Those things have enough power to rupture any and all vehicle that is not a tank, but there is a big chance that the enemy will survive the ambush. I do not know about you guys, but I prefer not to blow people up without a situation that is specifically asking for it."

She understood her friend's dilemma. Grace's method of killing would be extreme; either burning alive or blowing to bits. Those kills would be messy, gory and traumatizing for everybody. She wasn't prepared to murder people and her father had always taught her to never kill unless the moment was dire. It was the entire thing he family revolved around; the Adamant code.

"So I replaced my grenades with stun-duds. They will knock a two-hundred pound meathead flat on his can, only to rise after the necessary time has elapsed."

"Said time being twelve to fourteen hours."

"Right. So my lethal explosions are saved for the vehicles only. I don't want to turn into a mass-murderer just because someone else was unfortunate enough to follow orders."

She had to give it to Grace; her integrity was amazing. She was lucky that her own type-25 carbine also had nonlethal rounds, courtesy of her brother.

"Contact." Alessa said and ran to the front, where Lisa was taking cover behind a tree. Cho approached their location and she beckoned him, after which he joined them.

"Alessa…how close?" Grace asked her partner.

"Fifty meters and closing." The blindfolded girl said, much to his surprise.

"Excuse me, but what the hell is going on? Since when does miss blindfold here see more than we do?" demanded Lisa.

"She's been doing that for a while now." Cho said without taking his eyes off the road ahead, where a row of vehicles was approaching them.

"H-how? I mean…how?"

"Not relevant for now." Grace answered.

It probably had something to do with the blindfold itself; it had to function like binoculars, powered by dust or something. It wasn't something people could see through easily and given her tendency to see things before others did, it had to somehow increase her sight instead of decrease it. The only thing she needed to know for now was what its limits were; the why's and how's weren't important for now.

"How far can you see them?" She asked, hoping that Alessa would break her cycle of not answering curiosity-induced questions.

"Fifty meters tops." She replied.

"I see." Lisa checked for the fifth time whether she had properly loaded her weapon or not. She had.

"With their current velocity…approach vector locked in…I guess that they will hit the mines within ten seconds," said Grace.

Ten seconds her Adamant ass. The enemy convoy had several fancy looking cars, two jeeps and at least one armoured personal carriers and it was on them in a heartbeat. The APC looked mean; would Grace's trick crack their armour?

"Uh-oh…" The demolitions expert muttered as soon as she laid her own eyes on the enemy.

"Grace, don't tell me…"

"Fire in the hole!" The brunette said and pressed the button, detonating the multiple landmines littered across the road. Multiple explosions echoed through the air as the convoy was consumed in one sphere of chaos and fire. The leading truck was caught by a particularly well-placed mine and was turned into a totaled wreck. Half a dozen of people crawled out of it and started coughing and yelling orders.

Driver and passenger accounted for. The two APC's were unharmed by the weak mines though; and thundered onwards. Two jeeps were wrecked in the explosions and those too spilled their contents. Damn Aura

"Ambush!" A commanding voice yelled and everybody exited their respective vehicles, causing more and more people to pour into the open. Lisa swung her rifle and –obscured by the smoke and flames- began unloading her magazine into the crowd of people. The high-explosive rounds lacked the punch to outright kill the hostiles, but the large cumbersome rifle served its purpose all too well. The people were effectively suppressed by the powerful bullets and as they flattened themselves against metal, rocks and even soft tissue the cries of injured people began to fill the air.

"I think we got them good!" Lisa said and ducked back underneath her cover to reload the rifle. The gang members had started firing their limited weapons into random directions –their ranged arsenal was still quite formidable- and one of the projectiles sailed right through their cover and embedded itself in the dirt.

Roughly an inch away from her foot. Great.

But the initial element of surprise was fading quickly. The enemy was too distanced to engage in close quarters and even though most of them were, in fact, brawlers, the few gunmen among their ranks would prevent them from properly closing in and fighting them.

Grace deployed her Dragon's Foliage and unleashed a long stream of fire, cutting the criminals off from their right flank and destroying another jeep. Where did these guys get their stuff?

"Over there!" One of them yelled and more bullets penetrated the tree-line.

"Move!" Lisa yelled in return and rolled away from her bush. Cho followed her example, just like Grace and Alessa did. And they were lucky for abandoning the forest like that; a few seconds after they had taken cover between the trees surrounding the road, an APC crashed through it and effectively forged its way towards the second line of defense. She whirled around a broken-down vehicle, hefting her rifle and blasting a bloke right in the face. Lucky for him, he was wearing a motor helmet, probably saving his life.

Cho jumped into the chaos, side-by-side with Alessa. She unfolded her claws and started engaging the multiple armed hostiles in hand-to-hand combat. Her clawed arms were very effective in blocking and counterattacking the men with axes and swords, but less so in long range. But the long-ranged men were Cho's to deal with: as Lisa and Grace engaged the remaining armoured vehicles, he unleashed his electric dust-powered synapse launcher with near-lethal efficiency. Every time he launched the wires and hit someone, he was guaranteed to incapacitate the target. But while he did so, he was vulnerable to counterattack. A criminal came at him, swinging a machete at him.

He dodged the overhead blow by sidestepping and retaliated by swinging his other hand to the man's face. His fist connected, but the man only staggered and quickly swung his blade again.

Retracting the wires back into the wrist-mounted device, the boy jumped backwards to avoid the jab at his ribs. The man swung his blade at him diagonally, intending to slash him from shoulder to hip. He lifted his baton just in time to block the attack –and activated the current running through his material, electrocuting the blade and causing the man to jerk in response. The powerful field of energy ran through his body when it used the steel as a conduit, unable to let him go as the muscles clenched the fingers in a death-grip to the hilt.

He withdrew the baton and the sudden lack of input caused the electricity to violently stop, sending the man flying into the nearest car.

He did not get up.

"Move out!" Lisa yelled, seeing the last guy go down for the moment. She used the bladed edge of her weapon to deflect a thrown knife, before she spun around and slashed the responsible target. Her weapon bashed through the wooden stick of the axe and then she jammed the barrel of her gun inside the hostile's belly, knocking the breath out of him and sending him sprawling to the ground.

Alessa jumped in-between them and used her claws to attack another criminal. She slashed at his chest and rent his shirt open, splashing thin trails of blood on the floor and taking him down. The gun clattered to the ground and discharged, sending a bullet into the air.

Grace appeared from behind the trees, trails of smoke following her as she ran towards them.

"Down! Down!" She cried and slid behind one of the frames of the jeeps. She didn't hesitate for a second and immediately hit the dirt. When a gifted and always cool demolitions expert came running towards you in the heat of a chaotic battle, smoke trailing all the way and yelling for you to get down, you got down. Period.

Cho managed to get close enough to the compound before he jumped to the ground there. Alessa joined Grace behind the metal frame of a jeep and just as she knelt down, something big went off. The explosion was so intense that the air convulsed and sent Cho's body –which was lying on the ground, as flat as possible- sent flying. Again. He landed face-down on the ground with a painful-sounding 'bonk'.

Lisa's ears rang because of the loud bang and the overpressure really hurt his body. Grace and Alessa had been lucky; the ruined car absorbed most of the shockwave and kept them relatively safe. "What-" she breathed – "the hell was that." The remaining criminals that had not advanced onwards or been beaten to their knees were also blasted to the ground by the explosion. What on earth had possessed Grace to do something like that?

"Bit of a boom…" Grace gasped and fixed her hair. "There was one of those tank-things left. Now it's dead."

Cho looked past her and saw that the once-formidable vehicle was turned upside down with its wheels all but destroyed. From the loud thuds and screaming inside, Lisa guessed that the inhabitants weren't dead yet.

"How in the name of the living hell did that thing survive!" Grace yelled, despair lining her tone. "That was a charge C-7 explosive detonation pack. I shaped it myself…h-how?"

"Things happen in the heat of the battle." Alessa replied with a soft tone.

"Somewhere out there is a very dead tree. Well done." Cho said and turned to face the direction of Beacon. "What now?"

"Now?" Lisa said and turned in the same direction. "At least two APC's…dozens of lethal and pissed off mercenary-criminals that were just ambushed? We do what we always do." She whirled her rifle around, popped the empty shells and inserted fresh ones before placing it at her back in one smooth gesture. "We blow shit up."

---

Jaune yelled and instinctively brought his shield up, blocking the powerful strike that was aimed at his head. The metal frame of his shield easily absorbed the worst damage, but the impact jarred his arms and even when he had only been fighting for a few minutes now, he could already feel the limb becoming numb. His fingers hurt and the endless session of parrying blades with his sword and getting saved by his teammates was getting old really quick.

"Jaune, watch out!" Pyrrha cried and thrust her javelin at an enemy that was blindsighting him, causing the man to scream with surprise and parry the attack.

"Pyrrha!" He yelled as he tried to slash at another man, only to have his blade deflected by an axe. His shield saved him once again –but he didn't remember sticking it up like that. Was his arm already so numb that he couldn't feel what he was doing? That couldn't be good. This entire mission wasn't good. They had lost all contact with Ren and Nora and now, stuck in the middle of explosions and gunshots, he felt like they had lost contact with everyone else as well. For some stupid reason, all the criminals in a radius of ten meters suddenly decided to take on them, instead of looking for the person who was actually shooting at them. They couldn't search for any hostages like this!

"Yes?" His partner replied while she performed excellently herself, using her short-sword with great ease and proficiency to block and counter all incoming attacks.

"We need some help with these ones!" Jaune swung his sword horizontally, driving a man back who had been planning and skewering him with a knife.

"We are cut off, what help can we get?" She said.

"No idea!"

Well, this was problematic. He and Pyrrha were practically back-to-back now and without help, even that wouldn't last much longer. At least he was together with the one he cared for the most; he would rather not die any other way. Actually he would rather not die at all, but that outcome wasn't really viable now. These criminals were completely new to him, but nothing could have prepared him for combat like this anyway. He was surprised that he was faring so well; with his sword and his shield he had already knocked out at least seven guys. That wasn't nothing. Perhaps he was just naturally gifted with his arms?

"Heads-up!" Pyrrha then cried and pushed him out of the way, a throwing knife suddenly slashing through the air where he had been a second ago. She caught it on her shield and retaliated with her carbine, catching the man in his leg with her blast. That wasn't fair! His sword couldn't turn into a gun!

He happened to glance to his rear and noticed something that was a welcome sight for sore eyes.

"Pyrrha! Help!" He yelled at his partner.

"I am sorry, but I am already engaged!" She replied. "Hold on!"

"No, there is help!"

The sounds of battle were too loud and she could not properly hear him. Over the sounds of swords hitting swords and shields bashing to deflect metal weaponry, meager things like voices and yelling were impossible to hear.

Actually…whether those people had come to assist them or simply because they needed a fallback position was to be questioned. The strategy had been simple: team LACG ambushed and weakened the enemy forces, fell back to a properly defendable position and kept that position while team JNPR rescued the hostages and assisted RWBY. But that was the plan in theory…plans usually went terribly wrong. So the two persons that were running towards them right now could be indicative of two possible things, one bad and one good.

He hoped it was good.

Pyrrha whirled past her opponent and slashed at his legs, downing him. Then she parried a blow from a second and third opponent, before using her shield to disarm one and using her carbine-form weapon to blast the other one.

If only he could alternate between his weapons like that, he would be so happy…

There were at least eight guys left and two of them suddenly pulled out handguns. His shield might deflect melee weapons with ease, but he did not know whether it would deflect bullets. On the contrary: he severely doubted that.

"Get down!" A voice shouted. He didn't hesitate and immediately dropped to the ground, nearly skewering himself in his sword when his awkwardly placed hand collapsed.

The occurrence of two loud 'bang's 'and the further lack of return fire indicated that something had happened. But what?

"I'm glad to see that you came to our aid." The soothing voice of his partner spoke and a hand entered his vision, obviously meant to help him upright. Had Pyrrha managed to defeat both gunmen all by herself? Before the reinforcements could even come to their aid? That was just so like her. She had saved his hide again.

"I could kiss you!" Jaune tested his bravery when the hand pulled him up, a little bit rougher than he had expected. Perhaps that was uncalled for, but he was really grateful and technically spoken he did not lie. He really was physically capable of kissing a person. And girls liked brave men.

He looked up and expected to see the beautiful face of his friend and sister in arms, complete with her pretty green hair and tidily kept hair.

He did not expect to see the unemotional, manly face of Jason Cho.

"No thank you." The boy said and dropped his hand.

He swallowed and felt blood rising to his face. It hadn't been Pyrrha who had helped him up…it had been him. And he just told him that he could kiss him…

The image popped in his mind and he suddenly felt nauseous.

"I'd almost pay to see that!" The loud voice of LACG's teamleader Lisa said and he noticed that the two individuals that had been sent to help them were indeed members of LACG. "But not right now."

"Nor ever." The male said, not doing as much as even flinching from that comment. His facial expression remained the same as ever, but he could not have been amused.

"Sorry…figure of speech…" Jaune mumbled and awkwardly scratched at his arm. "So…what are you guys doing here?"

Ignoring the fact that they were still fighting an enemy with the advantage in numbers, they kept on clashing. Pyrrha incapacitated two enemies with quick succession and Cho smashed another one in the face, before using a ranged weapon with wires to take out a second target. From the blue sparks that jumped off his weapons, he gathered that the student used electricity in his weaponry. Exotic.

Lisa blocked a few strikes with her unfairly developed weapon and then shot two round between the remaining goons, sending them flying.

He had been cursing the fact that he couldn't use a rifle and a bladed weapon at the same time and here Lisa simply went and used a combination of both! A rifle with a knife attached! That was so cheating.

"I take it that you repelled the enemy then?" Pyrrha asked the other teamleader when the remaining forces were taken care off. They made their way to one of the buildings and Lisa kicked the door in.

"Nope. Our position got overrun and our team got split off. "

"You came across Ruby then?" asked Jaune.

"We came across nobody," replied Jason.

"What about the other two?" He cautiously tried, really wanting to hear some good news. "Are your teammates alright?"

"We lost Alessa and Grace somewhere near the other buildings. No idea where there are, but I'm sure they're fine."

Jaune sighed and looked around. The building was reminiscent of a warehouse, only much emptier and somewhat creepy. "So what now?"

The doors on the other side exploded and there appeared Nora and Ren –closely followed by at least another dozen of goons.

"This gang does not give up easily then…" Pyrrha sighed.

"Where did they even get those guys!".

"Nora!" yelled Ren.

"Ren?" asked Pyrrha.

"Pyrrha?"

"Ren!" exclaimed Nora.

"Of course…" muttered Jaune. From the corner of his eye he could see Lisa and Cho make eye-contact with each other and he was sure that his team wasn't making the best impression as of yet.

"Now we're all together!" Nora happily cheered. "Let's all die now!"

Ren leaned over to her and whispered something in her ears.

"Oh sorry, wrong text. Let's all win now!" The girl then corrected herself.

"That's the spirit!" Lisa then said and reloaded her weapon.

"This is gonna get messy…" Jaune sighed and brandished his weapons, ignoring the ache in his shoulders and the sudden increase of weight in his shield.

---

21:33

"Move it Weiss!" Blake yelled and threw her weapon towards a large tree, pulling herself away from the open field and towards a broken piece of metal for shelter.

"I know!" The Schnee girl replied and activated a glyph, sending her speeding after Blake. The battle had been going so well; between Grace and Alessa showing up to aid them in the conflict and Ruby returning to help Yang destroy one additional APC, the remaining dozen of criminals had looked like they were cooked.

Yet there had not been any hostages anywhere. The entire compound was devoid of anything that even remotely resembled a civilian. Dozens of bodies, dead or unconscious ,but no innocent people. And just as Grace had destroyed the final armoured personnel carrier –Yang had simply torn the turret off of hers, turning that thing into little more than a blind bull – a wild gushing sound had suddenly dulled the sounds of combat.

Hundreds of leaves had suddenly been blown over the battlefield and the three pairs –Yang and Ruby, Weiss and Blake and Grace and Alessa- had all felt a rising sense of danger; a little nub at the back of the mind that screamed "Get out!"

And just when everybody had properly reunited with each other and prepared for round two, round two had come.

Two attack choppers had lifted off from a point somewhere in and started hosing the area with machineguns and rockets, throwing up tons of debris and forcing everybody to fall back. They didn't seem to care for friendly fire.

Blake didn't see where the rest had gone; the only person that had been rapid enough to follow her out of the compound was Weiss. The two helicopters were too out in the open and they couldn't simply engage them without getting cut down.

She had seen that kind of attack heli's before: a long time ago during a severely bloody conflict. They were fast, deadly and built like a tank.

"Blake!" Her now-partner yelled. "Where are you going?"

She was jumping over the branches in the trees, utilizing her weapon to gain as much distance between herself and those flying death-machines as possible. She wasn't simply running away though; judging by the wild gusts of wind that stalked her, the enemy chopper was still following her. And that was precisely what she wanted to do.

If she drew the thing away from the school, the other-wise invincible duo would be broken up, enabling others to get the drop on at least one of them.

A flying monstrosity like that would mercilessly destroy anything in its path and it would not be taken down by small arms fire. Unless she could somehow fling herself up in the air to attack the pilot himself, she wouldn't be doing much fighting at all. "Drawing that thing off! It's too tough to fight on our own!"

"But we are running away from it!" The pale girl complained. "How are we going to take it down without help?"

Fighting two heli's on open ground would be complete and total suicide. If they could successfully draw this chopper off long enough for the other teams to take its partner out, they would have the advantage.

She could hear the miniguns spinning up again to deliver another lethal burst and she knew that she would be cut down if she continued that straight path.

"Weiss! Get to cover!" She yelled and activated her semblance, creating a near-solid clone of herself to distract the chopper. There was a downside to that useful ability though; she had to keep them close to her own body, or they would vanish. That made her a big target to the chopper. But she had had years to practice with it; she wasn't going to fall to some human with a toy.

"What are you going to do?" The girl nervously replied.

"Keep it busy, so you can attack it!" She said and sent her clone jumping into the trees, taking great care to follow it before its distance grew too great to sustain it.

The helicopter fired its guns and she quickly jumped to the left, confusing the gunner and taking refuge in the branches.

Weiss activated the dust containers in her rapier and did something…but Blake couldn't see what it was. The dust-user activated a white glyph and summoned a hail of ice, using them to blast the incoming chopper. But half of the projectiles were lost in the leaves and the remaining half was simply bounced off of the armoured plating.

The APC's had not been very though; probably hand-me-downs from some old war. But these helicopters looked new; they were well-maintained and had a skilled pilot. Whoever was flying that vehicle wasn't foolish; they kept their distance from the possible Hunter's on the ground and aimed for simply shooting the living daylights out of them with the turrets. Luckily the pilot hadn't realized that his or her rockets would be the best choice in flushing them out.

It was what she would have done in the pilot's place.

But Weiss wasn't done with her attacks; she activated the red dust in her rapier and thrust forwards, unleashing a powerful fire-attack to the flying craft. The wave of fire missed it, but it gave Blake an idea on how to deal with it.

"Weiss, can you launch me up to the chopper?" She yelled at her teammate.

"Sure thing, but why?" The pale girl yelled in turn.

There were multiple ways to take down aircraft like that. You blew them out of the air with missiles, shot them down with high-caliber rounds or, if you were skilled enough, disabled them with a single good hit. You could slash the fuel lines, destroy the rotors or simply hijack it.

And that was exactly what she was planning. Destroying the secondary rotors would send the vehicle into an uncontrollable spin.

And that would be the end of the enemy's reinforcements, probably meaning a swift victory for Beacon's forces. Funny how things like these could go.

"Ready?" The Dust-user asked her and jumped into a clearing when the helicopter flew overhead, having temporarily lost them.

"Yes." She said and readied her weapon. She would use her cord to launch herself towards the vehicle and then slash the tail with her cleaver, ending the fight.

"Alright then…don't miss."

Wait a minute; Weiss was the one who was supposed to be doing the aiming? Why would she miss?

"Excuse me?"

"I said don't miss."

"I won't be aiming."

"Then you will be in trouble."

"YOU will do the aiming."

"I know that. But you can mess it up if you do it wrongly!"

"Then I won't mess up."

"That's what I said!"

"You said don't miss."

"Same difference."

Blake sighed and readied her weapon. "I'm ready."

Weiss created a red glyph and she quickly jumped on top of it, trusting the Schnee Heiress to not mess up as she turned to face the cycling helicopter.

"Let's go," She said.

"Good. Be careful." Her teammate said and launched her into the air. The sudden acceleration lurched at her stomach. She had done this kind of stuff before and she knew how to handle it. She controlled her breathing and focused on the target, making sure that she would not miss it. As soon as the chopper came within view, she launched her Gambol's shroud at the tail and smiled with satisfaction when it wrapped itself around the metal frame.

But then the chopper took a sharp turn, nearly causing her hands to let go of her weapon. She took a wide swing and attempted to get a grip on the chopper, but the pilot was too smart and she couldn't get her body near it. If only-

A blue glyph appeared in front of the aircraft and it crashed into it, causing bits of glass to jump out of the windshield and a pained groan to run through the metal.

She whispered a silent 'thanks' to the Heiress and made use of the temporarily shift in movement to get on top of the chopper, already having her cleaver in her hands. Taking a moment to determine the best place to strike, she then smashed the thin metal frame with her weapon. Much to the material's credit, it held. But she wasn't one to give up that easily and she was already lifting her sword to strike a double hit when the attack chopper made a sharp turn to the right, somehow managing to get the drop on her and throwing her off again.

But as she held on to the ribbon the prepare for a second swing, the pilot steered towards the other direction and used her momentum to send her towards the spinning blades, intent on goring her with the same rotor she had been intent on slashing in half. Irony on its finest. She did not appreciate it.

So there was choosing between dying in blades or letting go now and risk landing on the ground. But that was her thing; making long jumps and landing on her legs without getting hurt. Besides: Weiss might be able to help her out with that.

She released the chopper and hoped that the damage she had done would be enough to cripple it for coming hits.

---

21:26

What were these students doing here? Why did they have to show up on the worst possible moments? There was nothing here for them. Had they believed the thing about hostages that easily? Come here to meddle with affairs they did not understand? They couldn't see him here. They couldn't be allowed to spot him.

Operative Greystone dropped the body of his latest kill and walked away from the window. They looked like they could handle themselves out there, but it would only be a matter of time before they opened their eyes and saw the many, many bodies that littered the grounds. He had done his best to conceal as many of them as possible, but stopped doing that halfway through the operation. There was no need for any Beacon student to be here now. In fact, they were only making his job harder. Throughout the shootout, he had constantly been keeping on the move, never staying in one position for longer than a few seconds. But with the likes of JNPR here, every single criminal in the compound had a position to converge on. And now the choppers were airborne, too. Another mess to deal with.

He dropped down from the upper floor and scanned his surroundings. Boxes, old gear and parts, thirteen dead bodies and metal caskets. He had made short work of the chain of command for these organizations; without their leaders, they wouldn't be bothering Vale for a long while.

On his six, a dozen meters behind him, the metal wall exploded outwards in a fiery explosion. He whirled around with his rifle at the ready, standing by to eliminate whoever had spotted his location.. The pungent smell of C-X Havoc Charges confused him; he knew of only a few select groups that used those and all of those belonged to the same organization.

Hell; they were just starting to spread their influence across the Kingdom of Vale, the city was still out of their reach. He should know.

He tensed up as a figure walked into the room, somewhat obscured by a thin veil of smoke. It was slim; looking like a female to him. She wore the same special-operations suit that he did, but with less of the bulky up-armoured components that he used himself. Foregone protection for movement-speed

She was also wearing a helmet, albeit a slimmer and sharper version than his. And of course, hers was undamaged.

He knew her. She did not belong here, this was his operation.

"Mantis."

The other Operative had a calm air of confidence. She moved with an elegance and grace that was unique to her and her alone. He had not seen anyone move the way that she did before and he doubted whether he ever would.

"Greystone." She said with a voice that tolerated no nonsense or disobedience and yet….and yet there was something else there. A certain playfulness that lay deeply burrowed in her tone. He did not like it.

He couldn't see it, but he knew that she was smiling underneath her helmet. There was no reason for her to be here –no reason at all. Unless she was part of the exfiltration team that was supposed to come here in case his cover was blown. But if she was, she was both too early and in the wrong place. He was supposed to meet the exfil team in the woods, not here.

"Messing around with students are you?" She said with that same cold, merciless voice.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, ignoring his body's prompt to pull the trigger and shoot her.

"Looking for you, actually. I need information."

He lowered his weapon. Lethal as she was, she was no threat to him. She was an ally. "Why don't you use the Network?"

"Because I can't use it anymore, moron. I'm surprised to see you're still serving. I thought you were unfit for duty?"

She couldn't use the Network anymore? That was nonsense; every Operative had full access. Something was very wrong here. "I'm always fit for duty."

"Are you? That's not what you showed, eleven months ago."

He swallowed, not knowing what he was going to say to her. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with anyone, let alone her. He did not remember anything from that long ago, but perhaps that was the problem. Why couldn't he remember the last time he had seen her?

"What information do you need?" he asked her. Every fiber of his being was telling her to shoot this girl, but he did not know why.

"Actually, I don't think you can supply it anymore. If you committed yourself to selective-amnesia, you're of no use to me."

Of no use to her…"Are you threatening me?"

"Perhaps," She said and with slow, exaggerated movements, pulled out a combat knife. The silence in the warehouse was deafening; only interrupted by the faint sound of a blade rubbing against fabric and the distant whirling noises of attack choppers.

He mimicked her gesture, reaching for his own knife. Something inside of him was screaming to attack her. People were always like aliens to him; he didn't understand them and neither did they him. But he did not care about just people. This girl? She was something he could have never ever understood. And that was trouble. It made her even harder to fight; there was a reason that her callsign was 'Mantis'.

What was she even doing here? She should not even be in the city of Vale. Had the plans changed without his officers letting him know about it? That was not very likely. This Operative was either involved in a very secretive operation, or she had gone AWOL. And if the operation was truly so secret, there would have been no reason for her to be here. She had gone AWOL, but why?

With a lightning-quick gesture, she drew a second knife and threw the first one at his head. He sidestepped and, with one hand still on the trigger of his rifle, opened fire. But the opposing Operative was fast; faster than anything he had ever fought before. In the time it took him to blink, she slashed three times at his helmet.

The solution would be not to blink at all. He blocked her attacks with his rifle and, when she wrenched it from his grip, retaliated with his own knife. But she had two knives.

Her strikes were like thunderclaps; coming in with a greater force and speed than humanly possible. It was like the flash of the blade came before the sound of the clash, making her faster than sound. It was impossible, but in the grey blur that was this fight all rules of what was possible were discarded. There were only the rising sensations of stress in his stomach and the burning of his muscles as he struck, evaded, blocked and counter-attacked. Behind his helmet, his face was a mask of concentration. Every single strike was intended to kill him and if his concentration wavered for even a split-second, he would die. She had her Aura and her Semblance and he had nothing. Her bladed weapons were shorter than his one, but unlike several soldiers he knew she could actually handle two knifes at once with relative ease. It meant that he was always on the defensive, always blocking and evading and never pushing the enemy back. Step by step he was getting pressured backwards, losing ground with every swipe.

Aside from her training, she had her combat-trance; a Zen no-thought trance, where every single thought was tranquil and she felt nothing. Fluid, serene, like water. It was a state that she had been training and honing for years, making sure that her reflexes grew to inhuman levels. In this trance, she could weave the most intricate patterns of movement into her attacks and only have them increase her prowess.

But he was no pushover either. Even though he couldn't enforce his blows or defenses by Aura, his technique was better. His blows were stronger and fiercer and with the extra range, he could have kept her at bay for long enough to think of a plan.

But she was only warming up. For two minutes straight they exchanged blows with their blades, appearing like blurring ghosts to the people that might be watching them. Now that she had fully committed to the fight, his means of attack would only lead to his death. Every second her knifes lashed out and every time he blocked it with his knife, slowly backing away to gain more reach over his foe.

Her attacks reached a climax when the two knifes were deflected by his own combat knife: she spun around low and delivered a sudden, crushing kick to his feet. During the two intense minutes of clashing with her, Greystone had slipped into a trance of complete and utter concentration, making sure that every single muscle in his body would be tailored to just blocking her attacks and staying alive. She was not troubled by such a focus in her trance and was free to do whatever she wanted to; as evidenced by her sudden deviation in the pattern.

He almost lost his balance and was forced to execute a sideways roll to keep facing her. The swiping kick had not been very damaging, but it had served its purpose to destabilize him. He reached for the ground to stop his motions and jumped back to his feet, while Mantis threw her knife again. He stepped forwards, slamming the palm of his hand into the weapon's handle and brushing it aside.

And Mantis pounced. Like water she moved towards him and delivered a powerful underhanded blow to his helmet. He stepped to the side and countered with a few jabs of his own. She pinned his arm to his side as he struck and struck with her elbow to his throat, but he redirected her attack to the side and kicked her in the back.

She performed a forwards roll to keep from falling and was on him again in a heartbeat. For a few moments, the two Operatives exchanged a series of furious blows. He scored a few glancing hits to her stomach, gaining him the advantage again. But she forced him back as she whipped an additional knife out again and stabbed at his face.

And then, in the middle of her movement, she aborted it. Which was not possible. Her attack had already been layered with momentum and such a movement was just not stopped. Just how far had she honed her reflexes?

Now that his own movements dedicated to an attack that never came, she was free to strike yet again. With her active arm she delivered a punch to his crotch, before her other hand lashed out and deflected his own defending arm. The two hits were not enough to incapacitate him, but they only served to breach his defenses. Once again she pinned his arm to his side and she snapped out with her leg, which caught him against his chestplate. It cracked, but held. The intense power behind the attack was enough to send him flying at least two meters backwards.

The spinning knife that Greystone had deflected fell down again and Mantis snatched it out of the air.

He landed on his back, rolled over his shoulder and instantly jumped up, upon which he tore his pistol from its holster and started firing at the opposing Operative. She did not hesitate and sprinted towards the nearest cover. He fired three shots and all shots panged off of the wall, three times an inch behind her. He charged forwards and rounded the corner of the large box with spare parts that she had taken cover behind, intent on scoring a direct hit on her helmet and ending the battle right there. But things were never simple like that and she performed a backflip over the crate to avoid his shots.

She was so impossibly fast. He could not track her in time; her Semblance made her too sharp.

Greystone twisted around and kicked the Operative away as she appeared him. He needed to remember how she fought, he needed to remember how to counter her.

Staggering, Mantis presented him with an opening. He brought his hands together, brushed her arms away and then slashed at her throat. He scored several direct hits, but he could not penetrate her Aura yet. Faster than he could count on, she jumped back to avid his last attack. .

Two minutes the two of them fought each other in intense close-quarters, him using his pistol and his knife while she used her own two knifes. His powerful sidearm was well-built and could withstand a few hits. He used it to block and redirect her knife, which only succeeded in causing shallow, weak cuts.

He started squeezing the trigger. The weapon discharged four times and the bullets ricocheted off of the floor before they flattened themselves against all kinds of random objects. On the dawn of the fourth minute, he delivered a frontal kick to her stomach before spinning around and striking her with a roundhouse kick. In the middle of his movement she jumped to the side, catching him in the early stages of his next move. Her hand struck him faster than he could register and connected with his throat, just underneath the seal of his helmet.

The hit knocked all air out of his lungs and he gasped, unable to breathe properly. The sudden pain in his throat was bouncing through his organs, making him gag and wheeze in an attempt to clear his head. A moment later, he banished the sensations and focused on the fight again. Raising his pistol to finish her off, he struck with one arm to make her block and then spun around her and kicked her in her back, sending her tumbling forwards and making his aim easier. But then she instantly spun around again and threw one of her knifes at him, nearly skewering him in his chest. He only managed to avoid the hit by twisting his body sideways. Then he aimed his pistol and tried to get off another shot, but she jumped forwards again and proceeded to engage in close-combat once more.

During the fight, she managed to deliver two more hits to his already weakened chestplate, damaging it further.

He cursed under his breath as every single blow he tried to land at her failed. She was jump-starting her Semblance to new levels and he could not keep up. In the end, he brought up his sidearm again and prepared to shoot her in her head just when she was about to slash at him with her knife again.

But then she did…something with her knife. It simply disappeared out of her hand and the next thing he knew, it had embedded itself in a wall and he was left with a bloody gash in his left shoulder. He grunted as blood poured out of the wound, but she was not done yet. Mantis reached out and placed her hand on top of his gun, pushing it down just as he pulled the trigger, causing an otherwise-lethal hit to nail her in her leg instead. Then her grip hardened and she wrenched the weapon out of his hand, breaking his thumb and his index finger in the process.

---

"Ruby!" Yang screamed and watched as her sister opened virtually all of her trick-boxes to avoid the chopper that was tailing her. Blake and Weiss had managed to draw one of the attack-helicopters away, but the second one was still very active and still very much aiming at them with its guns. "Get out of there!"

Even though the red-haired girl was easily the fastest one of her team, nobody evaded bullets for a long time. It helped that Grace and Alessa were there to assist them, but nobody could take the tough flying tank out that was actively trying to murder them to death.

"I know!" Her sister yelled back and managed to get herself in cover behind a particularly large building; which was close to collapsing. The compound was filled with items that could be used for cover, but not for very long. Those heavy guns tore through everything that they could possibly place between themselves and them. She had virtually no idea where JNPR was and that was almost as worrisome as the sight of her sister dancing around trying to avoid the hail of bullets.

"Get down!" The demolitions expert of team LACG yelled at them and dove to the ground. Alessa took her example and slid behind a fallen sword that belonged to a once-whole statue. During the initial onslaught, the buildings had offered some shelter from the attacks. But while the small-arms fire of certain criminals with pistols and submachine-guns had been effectively blocked, the heavier caliber rounds of the APC's and the Choppers had proven to be too much to simply block and they tore the buildings to ribbons.

Exhaustion fumes left the two packs that hung at the sides of the aircraft and Yang knew that it had fired its rockets. They impacted on the ground and the explosion sent shockwaves and heat scorching across the landscape. Luckily, she was impervious to most if not all sources of heat. Sure, a rocket to the face would probably be bad for her health, but at least the waves of overpressure that seared the ground were harmless.

At least to her.

"We need to take that thing down!" Ruby popped up from behind a fallen statue.

"How did you-?" She would have sworn that the young girl had been taking refuge on the opposite end of a collapsed building.

A painful scream sounded from a dozen meters away and her sister turned to look at her.

"Trouble!" She yelled and disappeared again. But she knew that little trick too; if Ruby wanted to blitz across the battlefield, she was on.

The chopper was circling around, trying to get a better shot at them. If they were to move to another position, now would be the time.

Yang jumped out from behind her cover and ran towards the direction that her sister was headed. Someone had screamed in pain like that for a reason; most of the attacking gangmembers had left their area to swarm JNPR's location, but there were still a few left popping caps at them. "Ruby!" She yelled as she charged over the open plains, hoping that they could get to the two other girls there before the chopper did.

"Yang, keep it busy!" Her sister told her and ducked behind a statue again, seeking cover from the flying aircraft. "Grace's been hit!"

What? She had been hit? By what, a bullet or a piece of shrapnel? "Is she alright?"

"I'm fine, it's just my left arm. I can still fight!" The weak voice of LACG's demolitions expert echoed over the battlefield.

Yang worried about Grace; she was a nice girl and they were well on their way to becoming friends. But she couldn't afford to linger on that; the helicopter was their first objective. If they couldn't take that thing out fast, they wouldn't be doing anything anymore.

She jumped on top of the nearest statue and launched a few rounds at the aircraft, getting its attention easier than she had wanted to. She could see Grace sitting on the ground from the corners of her eyes, a pained expression on her face and a bloody tear on her left arm. The blindfolded Alessa was helping her with the wound; tying a few bandages around it to keep it from causing even more blood-loss.

The incoming chopper obviously had a better idea on how to stop its enemy; it was coming around for another run and with its guns rapidly spinning up like that, she knew that something would be going down very quickly.

She jumped into the air and used her Ember Celica's to propel her further, hoping that she could catch as much height as possible without getting splattered or shot by the chopper.

The guns fired and the deadly trail of bullets worked its way up to her –and not her friends, thank god for that- but by the time she had gotten enough altitude she was already too high for the helicopter to shoot her. She sailed over the streams of destruction and nearly landed on the chopper. For a student, she flew pretty good!

If only she could actively hijack –no, skyjack the aircraft she might even get a chance to actually drive it! That would be so cool; to fly through the sky in her new ride, blasting all the baddies and saving the day for everyone!

Well…she would probably crash the thing at the very first second of sitting in the cockpit and destroy it in a huge explosion, but still.

It would be totally worth it.

Yang grabbed a hold of the metal, crumpling it in the process. Then she flipped herself over to the side and landed on the rocket-pod. She had caught several rounds and blows during the engagement and the adrenaline was flowing. With one fell movement, she tore the weapon off its wing and threw it in the rotating blades above.

She was rewarded with a small explosion and flames. Time to abort. She sighed and briefly wondered whether team JNPR had to put up with things as frustrating as this. Probably not…

~0~

"Cho!" Lisa Adamant yelled as she clutched her bleeding leg. "Get to cover!"

"I'm busy!" The Cho replied as he tried to untangle his electric synapses from the three enemies that were trying to beat him to death before he zapped them all by accident.

"Pyrrha, tank!" Jaune screamed and flung his body to the side, desperately trying to avoid all kinds of projectiles that were flung his way. He had lost his sword somewhere and he was not skilled enough to bash enemies into submission with just his shield and his face.

"I see it!" Pyrrha replied to her friend as she was simultaneously dragging the wounded body of Lisa –who was firing like crazy to keep the many enemies with ranged weapons suppressed –and trying to determine where to go. Ren and Nora had disappeared AGAIN when two armoured vehicles had showed up. She was sure that Ren had had the idea to draw them away so that he and Nora could destroy one, taking the heat off of them but she was not too sure.

Still, it left her with an unarmed Jaune, a shot Lisa, a struggling-not-to-get-killed Cho and herself, who could not properly defend and attack seeing as she only had two hands. Reinforcements were very welcome now; there was little cover between them and the new wave of enemies and even though there was only one tank out there firing at them, they were slowly being pushed back.

"I know that the others have it easier than we-" Cho growled as he played a cat-and-mouse game with the four hands that were trying to choke him to death.

---

She supposed not. At least her hitchhiking ride on the chopper had been good for something; she had crashed the thing in the forest, pretty close to where Blake and Weiss were prancing about. They had a small window of opportunity to get the hell out of there and return to the compound with relatively better cover, which she promptly did.

There was a problem though. As she took Weiss and Blake back to the rest of the good people, one mean-looking chopper noticed them and promptly started gunning at them again.

"Inside now!" Yang shouted as soon as she saw Ruby, Grace and Alessa in the open. They all dove inside one of the larger buildings and took cover against the wall, while the rounds shattered the roof and pelted them with shrapnel.

"Ruby?" Weiss yelled as she saw her partner.

"Weiss?"

"Yang?"

"Blake?"

"Is that Grace?"

"Look, its team RWBY reunited!" Grace replied with a hint of sarcasm. "Can we focus on not dying

"Down!" Alessa spoke up and sought cover behind a rock. The second chopper started its gun-run and shattered even more of the roof, robbing them of what little cover they had left.

"What about JNPR?" Blake asked her.

"They are probably securing their side as we are speaking." Yang reassured her partner. She had no idea what was going on with JNPR and their side, but the heavy amount of fire that had been sounding from their direction was worrisome. It was still a wonder that there were so few injuries though: Grace had been hit by a flying piece of stone, Blake had a few nasty bruises and scrapes and Weiss looked like she had just returned from a three-day survival trip in the jungle.

At least Alessa and Ruby looked like they were alright, so they could still put up a fight.

This was something completely different from the fight with the nevermore; the only thing that they could do in this fight was keep the enemy distracted and hope that the right opportunity presented itself. It served to show them just how much training and experience they still needed. But unless they found a way to beat those attack helicopters, no such training would ever come.

"How are we going to beat them?" Yang asked her sibling.

"Gimme a moment," Ruby muttered as her eyes flashed back and forth between the roof and the chopper. "Alright. Weiss, you and I are going to suppress it. Yang and Blake will then outflank it from outside and-"

"Ehm…girls? Something's coming?" Blake said.

"What?"

The chopper stopped firing and moved away from the building, giving Yang the opportunity she needed to break the front-door down and run outside. Now was the time to…to…wow.

There was an airship approaching the compound. It was a plane with a dark grey colour, nearly impossible to distinguish from its surroundings. It was rapidly growing in size now, to the point where she could see that it easily dwarfed the two chopper. It was hovering at approximately a hundred meters distance and it looked like the chopper saw it too, as it approached the strange vehicle.

And then something happened that was both shocking and very satisfying. The chopper started spinning up its multi-barreled miniguns, but before it could even get in range of the new ship it got simply blasted out of the sky. The new contact had opened fire with something but what that had been was completely open for debate. Whatever it was though, it had to have been extremely powerful. The Chopper was completely ripped to shreds by the enemy fire and the few remaining pieces of debris were too wide-spread and far away to be of any harm to them.

"What…" Weiss muttered. "Who is piloting THAT thing?"

"Our reinforcements!" Blake said, appearing to their left side. She was giving them one of her rare smiles and despite of her injuries, she looked pretty happy. "Headmaster Ozpin must have managed to pull a few strings."

"What is that?" Alessa softly asked.

"Looks like some serious military tech…think that it belongs to our helmeted friend?" The wounded demolitions expert said, looking paler with the second.

"That…was pretty damn impressive. " Ruby said and sighed with relief. "So that's it? Fight's over?"

"I guess so…" Weiss said and put her Myrtenaster down.

"Wait a second…" Blake muttered and squinted her eyes. "What is it doing?"

The ship flew to the middle of the compound, where it descended. The criminals that the teams had managed to capture or incapacitate were all scattered around the buildings, some of them slowly gaining consciousness, all of them out of the fight for a while. There hadn't been a single hostage to find.

"The hatch is opening." Alessa said. "Five people are exiting the cargo bay."

"Who are they?" Yang asked her. "What are they doing?"

The five people that had exited the apparent dropship were rushing down the fields a speed that was hard to keep up for her exhausted team. And Yang had to admit; she was tired too. The past half hour had been very taxing on her and these people had obviously spent their entire journey sitting and waiting. Of course they would be bursting with energy.

"Hey!" She yelled.

The people ignored them, but the large ship flew overhead and moved on to JNPR's location, probably to assist them too.

"What are they doing?" Grace asked, but she got her answer very quickly. The five people were clad in the same black suit that the teamless student had been wearing virtually all the time, minus the armoured components and the helmet, which was completely different. They did resemble him in a distant way, but they still looked very different. Were these guys…military? But the military had NO presence in Vale. And that would make mister grumpy-face also military. Ruby had a very romanticized vision of these guys…it was about time to put that to the test.

When the few remaining criminals turned around to face the new threats, the dropship opened fire and destroyed the APC that had been firing on JNPR's entrenched position. The resulting explosion and the combined display of power was enough to scare the attacking terrorists out of their skins, causing many of them to drop their weapons and surrender while the rest simply fled.

"Alright!" The muffled voice of Jaune yelled. "We got reinforcements!"

What happened next however, was something that only fit in her view of terrorists, not soldiers. The five men promptly opened fire with their assault weapons, executing all criminals in sight. Unconscious, surrendered, it didn't matter.

Yang couldn't bring herself to stop them. The sight horrified her and she felt her body freeze, unable to move. The attacking group hadn't even given them a chance to surrender; the black-clad warriors had simply gunned them all down. Murder.

Ruby was too shocked to even speak; and judging by the resulting silence from the rest of the teams, she wasn't the only one.

"Lima Two-Zero here, front yard secured." One of them said with a heavy voice. The man had to be speaking in a radio, because the reply was silent. The only indication of their confirmed response was the fact that all five of them moved onwards, not even bothering to do anything with the bodies.

"Ruby…" Blake whispered, but the girl didn't respond.

And Yang couldn't get the sight of a dozen men screaming and dying out of her head.

---

21:40

Operative Mantis came in closer to him and opened up with a flurry of kicks aimed at his ruined chest-plate, most of which he either dodged or countered using his left arm. His ribs hurt and he couldn't take any more hits like that; one hand was compromised and the many slashes and gashes in his body were putting a major strain on him. The blood-loss made him slightly slower than normal, causing his own reflexes to dull and his body to become groggy.

His boot connected with her chest and he sent her stumbling backwards. He didn't stop and pressed on, punching her two times in her gut and then kicking her in her face. A crack appeared on her helmet and she immediately performed a backflip to get away, lashing out with both of her legs in the process. He blocked her attack with both arms, but the impact jarred him and he felt his hand. Still he persevered, throwing her to the ground with a barely-failed armlock and throwing an uppercut at her throat.

She dodged his uppercut after his initial attack had caught her by surprise and then she performed her checkmate on him. She whirled around him and grabbed him by his neck, pulling him out of balance and throwing him to the floor. He jumped to his feet, kicking at her in the process, but she took two big steps forwards and pressed her own attack once again.

Her lightning-quick roundhouse kick send him stumbling again and her next attack even send him airborne. She had unnatural strength behind her hits; she was either being extremely technical or simply brutal. It didn't matter; as soon as she jumped in the air he recognized her move.

A fraction of a second too late. Mantis spun her body around and twisted her torso so that she was facing him sideways. Then her left foot lashed out and smashed into his head, sending him crashing face-first into the ground. His visor cracked and a major breach appeared on the front, obscuring his vision.

She calmed down and looked at him. During the fighting, her helmet had come off. He could see her sneering as she brandished a grenade. He tore his helmet off and he could once again see –apart from the incidental blurring of his sight and the lancing pain running through his ribs. That kick she had utilized to send him into the air…it had probably broken a rib. He was in a seriously dangerous situation and if he didn't get out of here soon, he would surely perish.

He coughed and a droplet of blood exited his mouth. "What do you want?"

She smiled and pulled the pin. "See if this will pull the Themeluesi out of hiding." She held on to the grenade. His eyes went wide as realization dawned on him what she was doing and he ran for it, hoping to find cover soon. If you were fighting one on one and you planned on using a grenade on the enemy, you couldn't risk them throwing it back again or it simply missing. If she held on to the life grenade for long enough before throwing it, the projectile would detonate just before it hit the ground.

She would blow him up with a one-hundred percent certainty. That was unacceptable.

He changed his direction towards Mantis and hoped that the danger-close detonation would be too risky for her to attempt it.

But he was too slow, or she was too fast. Either way, she threw the explosive towards him and even as he threw his body sideways to pass the grenade, it exploded and he felt the armour around his legs buckle and give away. A second later the blistering heat took his sensations and he felt pieces of shrapnel enter his right foot, tearing through the battered Kevlar layers with ease.

She charged forwards right through the shrapnel, using the lit of a large box as cover. Smart devil; the mechanical components were carried in bullet-proof cases, with an airtight lit to seal them. That thing would not get pierced by shrapnel.

She punched him in his face and swiped his body sideways with the large improvised cover, moving too fast for him to block. She had always been the fastest.

His vision blacked out for a second from the initial hit, but a searing blade being drawn past his ankle brought him back to his senses. He felt his body hit the floor and after an initial attempt to rise, a boot kicked him against his wounded chest and he instantly curled together, trying to retain his breath. He attempted to lash out and kick Mantis off of him he came to a horrifying realization.

While his right foot was perfectly responsive, his left one didn't work. It simply didn't respond to his wished and it kept still, bungling uselessly.

She had slit his Achilles tendon.

"What do you want?" He hissed through clenched teeth. "The Themeluesi's not in Vytal."

"I know. But this should serve as a message to him…and a wake-up call to you." She raised her boot in the air. He was about to try moving one more time when Mantis kicked him on his head, enveloping his world in darkness once more.

---

What had happened between the newly arrived soldiers massacring the defenseless criminals the teams regrouping happened like it had taken place in a dream. Blake could remember that Ruby's Scroll had registered an incoming message, telling them that airships were coming to get them. And then it had started raining. Team RWBY had been lucky enough to stumble upon a big hole in the wall of a large warehouse, large enough for them to enter through an

While Ruby was in a semi-catatonic state from what she had just witnessed and Yang was trying her best to calm her down, they had all moved towards that opening. The moment they entered, Blake knew something was wrong. She could smell flesh blood, the chemical odor of explosives…and she could hear a faint, ragged breathing.

Were there people still alive in here?

"Blake, you seeing this?" Weiss asked her nervously.

"Yes…and I smell it too." She replied. The stench of blood was thick and rich, but there was also something else. It was all wrong. Of course the recent string of murders had been taxing on her, but unlike her leader she knew how to get past her own feelings and remain functioning properly. At least for the moment.

And then she saw something.

"Oh god!" Weiss yelled and clasped her hands for her mouth. And this time, she agreed with the Schnee girl. There was a body lying on the ground…the poor bastard, taken down all on his own. The black-clad body belonged to the student with the helmet. The silent one who had been fighting without a team. The one Ruby had seen, who had gone to this place to find hostages all alone.

What was his name again? Had he even given one?

There was no way that this boy could have survived…whatever it had been that took him down. He was bleeding profoundly from several places and one of his feet looked like it had been chewed on by an Ursa. His face looked bruised and a thin trail of blood was leaking from between his lips. Two of his fingers at his right hand were positioned extremely unnaturally, like they had been snapped. And his black chest plate was completely destroyed, indicating extreme trauma to the ribs.

"What…" Yang muttered from her position near her sister. "What happened?"

Ruby was too shaken to say anything, but Blake was fairly certain that this time, someone actually needed them. She approached the body and found out that it was indeed him, responsible for the faint breathing. So the boy was still alive? He was a tenacious one, that was for sure. But that wouldn't stay for very long; death had a particular smell and she could already feel it appearing. Soon, she would smell the pungent stench of the dead and there would be another person she could add to the list of the people she knew that had passed away. "You knew him, Yang." she told the worried sister, hoping that she could get back here and help properly identify the body. He would need a name before he died, otherwise they could not honor his name.

"I never knew his name…" Yang replied and managed to pull herself together long enough for her to join them, trying to see anything that might indicate what had happened in this disastrous conflict. Or she was simply searching for something that could distract her shaken mind; an emotional person like Yang could not stand the recent events.

Weiss couldn't even respond; the intense violence of the day had caught up to her and she was simply staring blankly ahead, not focusing on anything except the ruined form in front of herself. Her eyes were starting to get wet and her hands were trembling.

"Hey…" Blake whispered and wrapped an arm around her. "It's okay…look at me? It is alright, we couldn't do anything to help him."

"Who did this…" Weiss said, suppressing her tears and trying to maintain herself. "Was it the soldiers?"

Yang didn't reply to their conversation; she had found something that interested her and while the rest was discussing what to do, she was messing around with it.

"Yang?" Weiss eventually asked. "What are you doing?"

"Look…" She said and grabbed the helmet, a very faint mile appearing on her face.

Blake looked at the black piece of equipment and shrugged. "Put that back…it's disrespectful."

"No!" Yang replied and walked over to the prone form of the student. "Hey manners-man," She said softly and knelt next to him, managing to push her raging torrent of emotions back to keep calm. This was a testimony to how much she cared for Ruby, to keep up the façade of calmness like that.

And what was she even going to do? It was Ruby with the people-skills, not her.

The young man opened his eyes and looked at them. His eyelids fluttered once but then kept looking at Yang's eyes, not wavering despite of the injuries.

"This is yours, isn't it?" Yang then said. The older sister took a look at the inside of the helmet and smiled her warm, bright smile again. "It has your name in it."

Blake narrowed her eyes when she heard that. The boy's name? Now her interest was piqued.

"Will…that's your name, right?"

The dying boy did not do anything but blink with his eyes; the only indication that he had heard her or that she would be right.

"Well…Will…I don't know who you are, but you came here to save the hostages, right?"

'Will' closed his eyes and tried to move, but Yang stopped him.

"Don't try to move, you'll only make it worse."

A soft grunt was her reply, but it was enough to bring the blonde off her apropos. She looked back over her shoulder and her eyes settled on Ruby's small form leaning against the wall.

"There were no hostages. I don't know what happened, but…you are going to be alright now." Weiss told the boy, adding to Yang's words.

That wouldn't be reassuring to her and she doubted whether Yang or Weiss were actually comforting him, but at least he wouldn't pass on without people knowing what his name was.

His lips moved and Blake could see Weiss frowning, probably trying to take in what he was saying. But there wasn't any sound coming out of his throat and while the Dust-user could do many things, lip-reading was likely not one of them.

The loud echoes of guns firing sounded outside, indicating that the five soldiers that so closely resembled this Will were also 'helping ' the rest of the compound.

Things were going downhill very quickly in Vale.