Tuutje07: Miss Fetish was the short and easy name that me and my friend gave to the character, back when we hadn't thought of a name yet. It stuck :)

Alessa's technique has a limited range. In theory, you could see an item just outside of her range as clear as day, and she would never see it.

Rwbybomb21: Ruby is more involved in the plot than she herself realizes ;)

Sierra110: I see your theory. It's a very good one, though not entirely correct.

A flying tomato: Glad to see you liked it. Blackwood was indeed given the ACE suit, but was that what destroyed his mind? :P

"I can't believe that self-centered {DATA EXPUNGED. No matter how great Greene thinks she is, her fancy Catalyst Program won't be able to help them deal with the ACE's. There is a reason that all three of them are always sent alone. It is because they are, at their soul, wrong. Ruined. All of them have been showing signs of psychopathy since the day one, damnit. ONE! And it's not like someone in that outfit even attempted to explain to me just how they were going to heal integrated mental disorders with a flick of their wrists…egocentric bags of {EXPUNGED]. Guess it's all part of the job in the end. You gain the Themeluesi's approval, you gain infinite resources and test subjects. This was Doctor Azure, formerly in charge of the ACE project. Standard encryption code zero-zero-four-five-seven, entry seventeen B-"

Beacon training grounds -08:44.

"Faster Winchester, faster! You want to die in the mud?"

"Sir no sir!" the brown-haired kid gasped as he ran by for the third time. The four members of team CRDL were lucky this day; because teams RWBY, LACG and JNPR were gone, they had his undivided attention for the entire ninety minutes of fitness training. It was a shame, really. The mud-track was in desperate need of more contenders.

"Move those legs Thrush! You're going to drown!"

"Not drowning, sir!" the boy yelled back with obvious fear. The track had dozens of pieces of wood, metal and stone scattered throughout it, which they could use as cover. Which they should use as cover.

"Damnit Lark, these bullets ain't gonna wait for you to get your ass in cover!"

"I'm stuck, sir!"

"THEN GET UNSTUCK!"

Sergeant-Professor Tanzanite Johnson fired off another three stun-rounds towards the unfortunate Sky Lark, who had tripped over a piece of badly-visible rock. Only one of the rounds impacted on him, as planned. The cries of pain were music to his eyes.

The oval track of mud was approximately half a meter deep; just enough to slow down any students trying to run through it. He had run team CFVY through it just a day ago and, after some initial hesitation on the girls' part, they had completed the first round. Round two entailed him spraying the area with painfully-numbing stun-bullets and round three entailed three AK130 droids assisting him from strategically-placed areas. They had completed all three rounds, but Coco had not been amused.

Sky did not manage to get further through the mud and Johnson aligned the iron sights of his standard-issue rifle onto his abdomen. Perhaps a little bit of persuasion was required?

Seeing that his teammate was about to be nailed pretty hard, Dove Bronzewing jumped out of the cover and started pulling his partner away. The combined effort was enough to get him free and together, the two limped towards the nearest board of cover.

It was an impressive display of teamwork that made Johnson stay his hand for a second. He had spent days trying to get it through these guys' thick skulls that you were dead without your team. He had even gone as far as to screw their entire team over because one of them had gone over the finish of an obstacle course without assuring that the rest of the team was in the clear. To see them finally work together was a good thing to see, in the least. It made him smile as he aimed his rifle at their hands. It was time for another lesson-

"Still busy, I see?" a familiar voice behind him said and he lowered his rifle again. CRDL was lucky today.

"Yes sir," he replied, turning around to face headmaster Ozpin. "We got all the time in the world. How is the dinner-lady?"

Ozpin sighed. "She officially quit. We're looking for new canteen staff. You missed my memo then?"

"Memo? Must have, sir." He caught Cardin taking a break at the front. "One moment sir. DID I SAY YOU COULD REST, WINCHESTER? GET YOUR ASS BACK IN THAT MUD!"

Cardin shakily saluted him and went back to work.

"You were saying, sir? You need me to become dinner-lady?"

"Memo, Tanzanite. As of two hours ago, the Kingdom of Vale has reestablished communications with the northern cities."

"Ah," Johnson replied, relieved. It wasn't that he would have rejected the post –it was just that it didn't fit him. "Excellent news."

Ozpin nodded, his expression solemn. "I wish it was. They implored us for help, of any sort. The situation there is worse than we suspected. We bounced their signal through to Atlas, Mistral and Vacuo, in the hopes that they can bring supplies in time."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

The headmaster shook his head, looking more disturbed than Johnson had seen him before. "I'm worried. Matt and Peter did some research, which ended them up in the hangar bay where Will usually stays."

"Yes?"

The man turned to face him. "It didn't stop there. I also asked Glynda and Bart to search the SDC for any clues. Too many times have I seen that company refer to their business partners without clarifying who or what they were."

"Sir?"

"Did you know that Onyx and the Company have completed many deals together? Because I did not."

Johnson frowned. "I didn't. What did you find out?"

"Glynda told me that her contact, Winter Schnee, handed her copies of a few contracts. All of them signed with the authority of one man: a certain General Eventide."

"Contracts?"

"Oh yes. For the past decade, the Schnee Dust Company has provided Onyx with a solid amount of Dust. Perfectly legal…only for a much lower price than normal commercial organizations."

"That sounds like black money."

"That's the thing, Tanzanite. The deals were made in secrecy, but also in perfectly legal circumstances. But that is not the most important."

Johnson grunted and pointed at Sky Lark and Dove Bronzewing, who immediately started running again. "Onyx is an NGO. Much like PMC's. Wouldn't it make sense?"

"It would make perfect sense if they were simply trading with the Company. But for the past few years, they have been getting their supplies of Dust somewhere else. They refused further transactions."

"What? They're getting their Dust from somewhere else than the SDC? But the Company is already global."

"I know. But here is the thing: they aren't mining in the same places as the Schnee's. They have a hidden supply of Dust. If your organization, already infamous for its labor-forces, is being refused to deliver the one service you can, would you be amused?"

"Not at all sir. I would make sure that the market for other sources of Dust would be known to me, so I can take actions."

Ozpin nodded. "The Schnee Dust Company doesn't know where Onyx is getting their Dust. And one word made them drop the entire problem, including the investigations and lawsuits. Remnant's mightiest commercial organization, scared into submission by one word."

"What word was that, sir?"

Ozpin sighed and watched team CRDL stumble through the mud. "The word was Themeluesi. The entire Schnee family backed off."

Johnson sighed. He didn't care that his boss was currently standing next to him; he whipped out his cigar and lighted it, if only to clear his thoughts. "Well then…call Yale. We'll get the information out of him."

"I have already made the call."

"At least there's good news. I've managed to find to find someone to complement our staff; fits right in with your needs."

"Oh?" Ozpin crossed his arms. "Do tell me. I could use some good news."

Johnson took a long pull of his cigar, before exhaling. Away from his boss, of course. "Faunus Commando. Badass elite unit. She's a hothead at times, but if you want to give the older-years a challenge, she's the one."

"Our older-years have enough challenges. No, I am looking forward to seeing what the first-years will make of this. Good job, Tanzanite."

"Thank you, sir. Look, Winchester is about to slip again."

Northern continent –near unidentified village—15:39

Unfazed by the cold, Ruby Rose pressed on through the snow and approached the ruined village that she had been told about. The wind was howling through the scattered trees around them and she could have sworn that it was getting colder outside. Their thick cloaks protected them against the bite of the cold, but it would not keep them warm for hours. Team RWBY need to find their friends fast, lest they would fall prey to the chilling surroundings once more.

"Up ahead," cried Ruby. "There's the village!"

"Hurry up," Yang shouted at Blake and Weiss, who were lagging behind. "We need to find JNPR!"

Ruby didn't wait for their reply and forged a path ahead. The metal frame of Crescent Rose bit into her back and sapped her heat, but she ignored it. They were close now, closer than they had been before. She could see it –she could see the village. The buildings were destroyed, half buried in snow and devoid of foot-tracks. But she wouldn't let that discourage her; even the freshest tracks could fade away within a few minutes of snow. And the ruined frames of what had once been houses weren't what she was looking for, anyway. It was the hospital. The hospital in the middle of the town, which was bound to have warmth and electricity. She had seen it on Romero's face; he had been hiding things about it.

The young redhead stopped at the front of the building, where she waited for the rest of the team to show up. Blake was having a very difficult time keeping this pace up, which wasn't an odd thing. Ruby knew that having cat-ears would cost much more heat than having normal, human ears. But they were so close now; they couldn't stop.

"Yang, knock," she told her older sister.

The blonde grinned underneath her protective hood and observed the entrance. "Looks like someone barricaded themselves inside. This will only take a sec…" she brought her fist back and bashed through the improvised barricade, shattering cabinets and chairs and breaking the blockade apart. The four of them quickly filed inside of the building, which was as cold as the outside. There was no sign of JNPR anywhere.

"Are they there," Blake asked from behind them.

"No," replied Ruby. She wasn't going to waste time making decisions. Following the hallway deeper inside, she rounded a corner and ran into a large, heavy-looking set of doors. They blocked the way completely and there was no way that they could blast their way past it. But they also looked like they could keep the terrible cold outside of the hospital. How had JNPR passed this?

Weiss was the first to follow her and she too spotted the doors. But she also spotted something that Ruby had not. "There's a button at the side."

Ruby eyed the walls closer and saw that there was a red button next to the doors.

"No," Weiss then muttered. "That's too convenient…it has to be a trap."

"Doors usually need buttons to open them," countered Ruby. Time was of the essence and being a leader was about making the right decisions at the right time. Indecision could cost lives. "I'm doing it."

Weiss readied her rapier as Ruby reached for the button, perhaps expecting enemies on the other side. The material felt cold and smooth on her skin and when she applied pressure, it sank away into the door with a soft "beep".

"Yang, Blake, we're in," Ruby shouted at her teammates. The doors opened with a hiss and revealed a hallway with weakly-flaring lights. Warm air flushed to her face and she knew that this place had to contain survivors. But if they didn't close the doors again soon, all that warmth would disappear.

When the other half of RWBY had safely passed the doors without setting off any traps, Ruby closed them again with the press of another button.

"That's handy," Yang remarked as she ruffled Blake over the head. "Do you think JNPR opened it?"

"I can't say," Ruby replied, looking around. "I think we should keep going. If we're lucky, we'll find them somewhere nearby." She paused, remembering something important. "So what was that all about with Yellowknife?"

Blake averted her eyes with a dark expression, but Weiss appeared shocked. "I heard shouting, did something happen? Did Will reveal another killing-"

"Don't say that," Yang snapped. "You know that's not true!"

"I know I was wrong concerning the Faunus…but this is something else, Yang. It's happened before."

"That was different!"

"How do you know it won't happen again?" Blake then said as Ruby led the team deeper into the building. "I warned you that he was becoming delusional. The phone, the bridge, Blackwood and now the Major? Yang, don't you see that he's dangerous?"

Ruby stopped walking. The word was out and she could no longer stay out of this. "Blake, did you ever read "A return to war", about a veteran unable to return to normal life after the battles?"

"I did," replied the Faunus.

"The protagonist from the story is suffering from PTSD. On the evening of a special holiday, he gets kicked out of a small community because they don't want soldiers there, even though he was looking for something to eat."

"I think your point is not that Will's just hungry," said Weiss.

"No. Because the police then attack him and he is forced to defend himself in the forests with awesome guerilla warfare. In the end, the media displays him as a dangerous psychopath on the run, even though he was a certified war-hero. Everyone thinks he's a crazy psycho and when his former superior officer arrives, it is revealed that he was traumatized by terrible things in the war."

"Exactly," Yang said firmly. "And if the people had just tried to help instead of establish him as bonkers, nothing would have gone wrong. Besides; Will is young. He's done good things too and-"

"Wait," Blake said, frowning. "I read that book as well. Ruby, did you read it through to the end?"

"Ehm…I don't remember, the last chapter was missing."

"The protagonist dies at the end, Ruby. He got his superior officer to shoot him because he didn't want to keep living."

A cold block of ice dropped in Ruby's stomach, which had nothing to do with her environment. "I…I don't think that is right. You must have read a different book."

"The last scene, in the police headquarters? The veteran holed up with a machinegun, having just escaped from the forest and destroyed the city's generator, shrouding it all in darkness?"

"I…yes…"

"The officer was a Faunus. That was why he could still see the soldier."

"But I never read that!" exclaimed Ruby. She couldn't believe it –it didn't make any sense. The story was supposed to be a point in their friend's favor; that he could be redeemed by help. The moral of the story wasn't that he should get someone to kill him! "That makes no sense at all; nobody would ask someone to just shoot them!"

Yang made a sound that could be interpreted as a soft moan or a pained sigh. "Very few people, yes."

Ruby whirled around. "What do you mean?"

Yang looked at her with a mixture of guilt and sadness. Blake too appeared like she had done or said something wrong. Weiss didn't seem to understand what was going on, but Ruby was slowly puzzling it together. This topic was too sensitive and painful to simply address like that; Blake would have never told her that one of the books she read had such a dower-ending. She was just too nice for that. She said it to make a point. And Yang, who had been fiercely defending the young Operative, would have immediately shot that argument down as well. The fact that she didn't suggested…please no. Not to such a degree.

"He asked someone to shoot him?" she quietly asked, her stomach forcing itself in various, painful knots.

"It wasn't like that," Blake awkwardly said, rubbing her shoulder and looking away. There was some definite guilt there. "I wouldn't have shot him."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Weiss. "What happened?"

Yang sighed. "He had a falling-out with Yellowknife. The two knew each other and there was definitely some bad blood. In the end, Will was about to kill the Major, Blake was about to shoot Will and the Major was telling him to finish him off."

"Wait, you were about to shoot him?" Weiss snapped at her bow-wearing teammate. "And you are complaining why?"

"I was aiming for the leg," Blake unhappily said. "He would have healed, right?"

"But that's not it, was it?" Ruby softly asked. "What did he say?"

"He...he told me to take the shot," replied the Faunus. "I don't fully remember what he said…he could have been bluffing."

"Of course he was bluffing," Yang said, crossing her arms. "There are too many positive things going on for anyone to be suicidal." She shrugged. "He's just confused. That's all."

Ruby hoped that her sister was right. "Blake. When you were with the White Fang, were there humans who helped you? People that showed kindness?"

"A rare few," said Blake. "Many hated us simply for what we were. The humans who helped when they saw wounded Faunus were rare."

"Would you have wanted more humans to show kindness and compassion?"

The girl frowned. "Of course I would. Who wouldn't?"

"Exactly. We will deal with this when we get back to Beacon, but you should remember that you and he are more alike than you think," Ruby said.

Blake remained silent, as she should. This was one of the times were Ruby had to take care of the less pleasant aspects of being a leader. They were here for JNPR, nothing else.

They pressed on deeper into the hospital. There was no absence of power; lights were flickering, consoles were pulsing faintly and every now and then, they would encounter a door that opened automatically. In her mind, Ruby played out several scenarios that could potentially happen if they reach the top of the building. Their friends could be wounded due to frostbite, or hypothermia. They could be perfectly fine. They could not be here, which would mean that they had frozen to death somewhere out there. She didn't want to think of that; she had lost too much to lose her friends as well.

And just like that, memories of her mother took over her thought-processes. Both of her mothers. How they had left and never returned…how Summer might still be out there. How Summer might well be dead.

"Look over there," Weiss said as they reached the top of a staircase, pointing down a hallway.

"Hmm?" Ruby narrowed her eyes and looked closer. She spotted a long coat hanging over a hospital bed, which looked like the coats they had taken with them for the North. "Wait…"

Her heart jumped at the possibility of her friends being alive and she had to bite her lip to not yell their names in her enthusiasm. This might still be a trap. There could be other people in here, people who were not nice. Her team still needed to be very careful, because they now knew that there were people here.

"Yang," she muttered, pointing at the only closed door. "Knock knock."

The blonde positioned herself at the side of the door and waited for Blake to join her, weapons at the ready. Ruby and Weiss stood farther away, rapier and scythe aimed respectively. Then, at Ruby's command, Yang kicked the door in with one violent movement. In a heartbeat, she and Blake had their weapons aimed squarely at the people inside, while Weiss was ready to coat the room in ice. It was only when Ruby recognized the four people inside as JNPR, shields brought up and weapons primed, that she folded her scythe away.

And the next minute was spent by racing into the room faster than it took an ordinary human being to blink, hugging Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren and Nora until they had all fallen to the ground and then jumping up and down enthusiastically.

"I guess it's safe to say we found them," Yang said with a beaming smile.

"It's them!" Ruby exclaimed from on top Jaune's back. "They're alive!"

Even Weiss and Blake had to crack a smile.

"Guess we can return to Beacon then?" said the Faunus. "The city must have contacted Vale with the data-packet we delivered. "

"We'll need our Operative for that," said Weiss. "Where is he?"

"Oh…right…" muttered Yang. "That might be a problem."

"He isn't with you guys?" Jaune asked, occupied with rustling Ruby's hair.

Pyrrha sat back in one of the hospital-chairs. "Where is team LACG? Are they still lost?"

"It's a long story," replied Blake.

"No it isn't," Ruby said as she looked around the room. It was filled with beds and curtains and computer screens. One of the iron beds had been used to barricade the door, but these things weren't built with Yang in mind. No bed was. "LACG found a creepy underground lab that belongs to people experimenting with Grimm, we found the city that belongs to a creepy but badass Major and then we fought off a Grimm attack and one of the Grimm had Yang's semblance and then it was gone and then there was a doctor who could help us find you and here you are and we are all alive!" she paused to catch her breath, eyeing the dumbfounded JNPR. "Wait, where is Will, anyway?"

"Ehm…lab?" asked Jaune.

"Grimm with Yang's semblance?" Pyrrha repeated with a shocked expression.

"Experiments?" asked Ren.

"Doctor?" Nora asked with a straight face. When her teammates looked at her, she shrugged. "What? The good questions were taken."

"Ruby, I sort of asked Will to go and keep an eye on Romero," Yang said as she awkwardly rubbed her shoulder. "Guess we need to go to that lab either way."

Ruby was about to reply when Jaune made an exclamation. "Wait, you said Romero?"

"Yes. You know him?" asked Blake.

Jaune and Ren shared a disturbed glance.

"It's probably nothing," Ren started to clarify, but Jaune didn't let him continue.

"Nora cracked a few files on a computer. They belonged to a certain Cyan Romero. He was the head scientist in this hospital. He was talking about some village, but it was-"

"Ransacked by Grimm," Ruby finished his sentence with a whisper. Her enthusiasm turned to distress in a heartbeat and she could feel shivers running down her spine.

"Yes. You knew?"

"Oh boy," Yang said as she sat down. "Here we go!"

"Oh, I'm so stupid!" Ruby shouted as all sorts of pieces of the puzzle were falling together in her head, which felt like it was too tiny to properly connect it all. "No, we're all so stupid."

"Ehm…good to see you too?" Jaune hesitantly said. "What is going on?"

"She's getting there," Weiss said with an unsure smile.

"It's Romero! It's always been him! Yang, why did you say Will was here before again?"

"Wait, he was in the North before?" asked Ren. "He told me that this was his first time."

Yang shrugged. "Yeah, he lied. Gonna talk to him about that. He said that Yellowknife had been staging a coup, but…"

"The city is cut off!" Ruby gasped, not understanding why her team just couldn't see it. "How would Onyx know about an attempted coup? The first thing you do, Blake, is?"

"Cutting the power to they can't call for help, but…" The Faunus's eyes widened and she slowly opened her mouth. "Oh."

"Exactly!" Ruby nearly shouted. "Onyx couldn't have known unless someone was already in the city! So either Will lied again and he wasn't there for Yellowknife at all, OR someone else was Onyx."

"Are you saying that the random doctor in the continent of ice and death belongs to Onyx?" Ren asked with a skeptically raised eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"He was looking for a lab… "Ruby then muttered, trying to piece everything together. "And he said that whatever was in there could change help the people. Doctor's help people…but Lisa said there were Grimm in there. Grimm in bottles…and the place was already open. Someone had unlocked it all and Will was there too and he said that someone had been there and the hospital belongs to Romero too and…and he sent us here…" a horrible realization dawned on her and she whirled around. "We need to go back!"

"Back to the city?" asked Blake. "Ruby, I am not following you."

"Yeah. What's wrong with the doc?"

"He was there in the lab! He wants to be there to get things…but how would he know of the lab unless he was there? And how could Will enter the lab if it was supposed to be a secret lab, which it is, going by Lisa's description?"

"I-" Yang groaned. "Seriously? The lab belongs to Onyx of all people?"

"It makes sense. If they were there because of the lab, they would have known about the city. And what would the doctor want with a locked-down Onyx lab? Everything, because?"

Jaune flicked with his fingers. "The doctor is Onyx!"

"Wait, what?" Ren asked, sounding helplessly lost.

"And why would he insist on team LACG taking him to the lab? Because there is someone in LACG he wants…Lisa is a sister of Matt, who is a famed Hunter. BUT Weiss is the Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, so Romero doesn't want a hostage for a bounty."

"But even if he is with Onyx, what does it matter?" Pyrrha calmly asked. "The worst he did to you is lie. People do that."

"Yeah, but why would he lie? About something that important? Something's wrong and we're going to find out what."

Yang slammed her fists together. "Hell yeah! Finally, some action."

"One problem," said Jaune. "Our coats nearly froze over in the storm. We've been drying them, but…I don't think they'll be keeping us warm for too long."

"How are we going to reach this lab?" asked Ren, ever the voice of reason. "We never found it. You never found it."

"The storm has cleared," explained Weiss, assuming her role as second-in-command. "We could nearly see this village when we split up. If we go back and follow our tracks, we should be able to find them."

"Weiss, that's amazing!" Ruby exclaimed, fighting to suppress the desire to kiss her in front of everyone. "How did you even think of that?"

"You sound surprised," replied the Heiress with a vaguely insulted voice. But her eyes were twinkling with amusement, so she knew it was alright.

"So grab your coats and warm yourselves and stay close to Yang," Ruby then quickly said, "because we are going on a rescue mission!"

Jaune laughed. "Ruby, it's just one doctor. Even if he works for Onyx, what could he possibly do?"

Blake and Yang exchanged an awkward look and Ruby remembered an encounter between a certain fifteen-year-old and a group of twenty well-trained supposedly armed White Fang troopers. Onyx was dangerous in any form. LACG may well be in trouble.

Operative Greystone was walking in darkness. The facility was almost completely shut down, leaving him to take the most indirect routes one could think of. Something had changed since he had last been here. The place felt haunted; cold and merciless. A festering sensation of disappointment and sorrow weighed down heavily on his mind, serving to remind him of his failures. Of the shattered promises and lives never lived. No longer could he feel the difference between her feelings and his own, but he knew that it didn't matter. There was no difference anymore.

Deep down on a rational level, he knew that he was here with a reason. That he ought to be stalking five individuals, one of them who had outlived his usefulness long ago. But he couldn't find them. Stumbling around in the hostile place as he was, the only thing he could do was follow the voices. They were calling out to him, whispering his name. Beckoning him.

He wondered if he was hallucinating. A part of him knew that this wasn't real; that nothing of this was real. But reality itself had broken down long ago, in that rainy night. All that was left of the former unit Greystone was fragments and pieces. A hollow shell, keeping itself together through sheer willpower.

And now that reality was starting to break down, so was that willpower.

Not knowing where he was, Greystone had no choice but to keep staggering on. Somewhere down in the facility, the ever-familiar whining of an alarm was pointing out that something was not going according to plan. Bulkheads were sealing themselves and an automated security command was causing nearby consoles to flash with alert. But none of that mattered in the slightest bit

"Where is she?" he had asked.

"I don't know," they had answered..

And the feeling of hope being lost just when it was so near had shattered them. Not willing to believe the acting scientist, he had ordered both Fireteams Sable to completely pan the facility out. But nothing.

The elevators loomed in front of him, evidence that he had walked in a circle again. Due to the lack of power in the facility, he could not even take a direct route downstairs. Someone had overridden his control, overpowering his Operative status. It was funny, in a way. Almost as if the empty building itself wanted to force him to relish in the absence.

'Over here…'

His body acted without his consent. His legs carried him back through the hallway, away from the glass tube and back to where he had come from. He heard someone giggling and he smiled. Innocence never tarnished by a lost youth or the terrors of war. So much stronger than he could have ever been.

'Who are you?'

Greystone stopped. He recognized open malice and spiteful accusations, for the first open time. He knew it. She knew it. After all, it was his fault that he could not have kept his promise. He had failed.

But he wasn't ready to face that. He hadn't done enough –not by a long shot. He couldn't face her.

'-and suffer for a demon's dreams.'

His hands balled into fists and he felt the edges of his gloved fingers pressing hard into the palm of his hand. The armoured section dug into his knuckles, but he ignored it. He couldn't stop the trembling. He couldn't stop the voices.

But he had made a promise. A promise to someone else. He promised to look out over people…people that were important.

He stumbled against the wall and shook his head. What was he doing? He should be out there, searching for team LACG. Why was he messing around on the second floor when he had clearly seen the team descend to the lowest levels? He needed to find another elevator and make his way down there ASAP. At least he had managed to keep the entrance unlocked, so RWBY could follow him in as soon as they had found JNPR.

Not willing to waste any more time by doing whatever it was he had been doing, he broke into a run. His boots echoed loudly through the dark hall, each step he took creating a dull 'thump' as armour met metal, but he did not care. He was neither a hostile to LACG nor an unfamiliar presence.

A nearby camera tracked his movements and as soon as he spotted that, he stopped.

That was odd. There should be no active cameras in this section. The only certified personnel to take control over the facility were…well, him. Had someone hacked this network? It was a low-level facility, shallow and poorly funded, but that didn't mean it was lightly guarded.

A screen flared to life next to the camera and the spectacled face of Doctor Romero appeared. He looked stern, but that might well be because of the bad connection. For a few seconds, the man stared at him. It was only when Greystone lost interested and turned away that he spoke.

"Operative Greystone. I can see you, you know?"

He hesitated, his upper body turned away and his lower body still standing. How did this man know who he was? Had LACG told him that? They must have.

When he brought his index and middle finger to his temple, the doctor nodded. "I can hear you too."

Strange. That was an Onyx gesture. This man was smart that he could figure out the nonverbal sign. Still, he was wasting time. Civilians shouldn't be wasting time of military personnel.

"Look, it's no use hiding it anymore. My name is doctor Cyan Romero. Ring any bells?"

Greystone slowly shook his head.

"Well, that doesn't matter. What you should know is that I am the current Chief scientist of the Onyx North division, and I-"

"Credentials," spoke the Operative.

"What?"

"If you show me your credentials, sir, I can help."

"Oh, right. One moment."

The doctor then flashed a dark badge in front of the camera. The soldier looked closer and saw that it was, in fact, the identification badge of an Onyx scientist. But who? The man in charge had been executed roughly four years ago, at roughly the same time it had been abandoned. Two and a half years ago, only a few more scientists had remained simply because hadn't had anywhere else to go and they barely had any access.

Still, this man was technically his superior. But he wouldn't remain at his service for long. Greystone snapped a salute and said, "Romero, sir."

The doctor smiled. "Excellent. Now, Greystone, there are two active consoles that I need shut down. One on the fourth floor and one on the third floor. They are limiting my access to the facility and just a moment ago, team…LACG I believe, was separated from me by an automatic security signal. The kids must have accidentally activated it when we entered."

A security lockdown? In such a small-scaled laboratory? Strange…that hadn't been there upon the facility's deactivation. And where were the other scientists, anyway?

"Consider it done, sir," he replied.

"Good. I think I can send the service-elevator up, but you should be careful. The access shaft to the service-elevator is exposed. You'll see it when you get near. When you find the active consoles, shut them down. Oh, and Greystone? Make sure you hurry. And not just because the elevator will go down automatically after four seconds once it's up. Security reasons and all."

"Yes sir." He moved on before the scientist could give him more orders. He didn't know why, but he hated people in lab-coats. There was something inherently appalling about them. The elevator-shaft should be up ahead, that much he got. But he didn't understand what the man meant abut an exposed access shaft. As far as he knew, there were no access shafts anywhere.

He heard footsteps and someone casted a shadow on the wall, a few meters away from him. It was right at the point of a corridor, grotesquely misshaped due to the intersection being in the way. The elevator should be just around the corner.

'Come find me.'

He shook his head as a killer of a headache set up and had he not been wearing his helmet, he would have reached up and rubbed his temple. His vision blurred and for a brief moment, he wasn't in the underground laboratory. He was in what had once been a thriving neighborhood, eyeing a ruined apartment block. The entire city had been laid to waste, the walls breached and the citizens butchered. The once-beautiful place had been annihilated, simply because it had not been prominent enough to be included in the Kingdom of Atlas –and just a few dozen miles away from its borders at that. Later investigations had revealed that half of its inhabitants had been evacuated. At the height of its pride, twenty-thousand people used to live there. Now it was a ghost town.

A figure with long, pale-blond hair was walking towards the entrance of the rundown apartment building, more stumbling than walking.

'Help me.'

He started running, his feet echoing even louder on the steel that had become concrete. She was sobbing. It was a loss, the first personal one to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The opening was right there. She shouldn't walk in there alone, there were Grimm there!

'I don´t care anymore…kill them if you want.'

"Gladly."

He was about to reach for the frail girl when the environment changed again. Instead of the ruined apartment building where dozens of Grimm had made prey of the civilians, he was now about to step into the empty blackness of an open elevator shaft.

Greystone stopped himself just in time for the tips of his boots to dangle over the dark nothingness. Approximately half a dozen meters below, he spotted the elevator itself.

His heart-rate, which had fastened during his approach, calmed down again. Once more he had stared death in the face and once more, it had blinked first.

Then, before he could even determine a way to go down the shaft, he felt a freezing cold hand on his shoulder. He turned around just in time to see a long-haired apparition. She had long, blonde hair that was as pale as her skin. Her eyes weren't visible to him at that point and safe for a ragged cloak over her shoulders, she wore nothing.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, not knowing what else to say. She wasn't supposed to be here.

Instead of replying, she reached out for him with her other arm. She placed her hand on his sidearm and carefully, almost lovingly, pulled it out of its holster.

He reached out for her as well. "I failed you…"

She shot him. The bullet impacted on his chestplate and the force knocked him over the edge, sending him falling down into shaft.

His combat instincts kicked in without him ever becoming aware of it. Years of training took the control over his body and he felt himself twisting in midair, reaching for the cables that suspended the elevator between the second and third level. In the last two meters, he managed to slow down enough that he didn't break his bones upon impacting.

Still, his impact rattled his teeth and nearly caused a dent in the sturdy elevator. The entire thing shuddered violently and when he groggily rose, his head was shaking due to the sound his body had made. He grabbed his pistol, which was lying next to him, and observed his plate. The bullet had bounced off of the ceramic plate and left a noticeable indent.

Will quietly looked up and saw nothing. He muttered softly under his breath, which turned into active cursing as the elevator suddenly activated. Frantically searching around, the Operative stopped a vent at the elevator. An emergency escape-way should hostiles bear on the elevator. Even the smaller labs had one, it appeared.

He kicked the hatch open and dropped inside, scanning the interior with his rifle. There was nothing. Waiting until the elevator had ascended wasn't going to be good for his patience, so he jammed his knife in-between the closed doors, pried them open and squeezed through when there was still space left.

Only when he rolled over the smooth floor of level three did he realize just what had happened. What he had just experienced. It didn't make any sense –and it frightened him. It frightened him that she, whoever she was supposed to be, could touch him. General Eventide had told him that he was going to experience some mild hallucinations after his surgery, but that had been…four years ago. So much had happened since then…of course he had had plenty of hallucinations in those four years, but those had been pleasant ones. Nothing as solid or frightening as this one.

It couldn't be her. It couldn't possibly be her. She was gone and that was his fault. This…this had to be some form of mind-control. But the resemblance was so extremely uncanny that it could not possibly be foreign influence. It…it had to be her. She was the only one who had ever been capable of influencing his mind. But that couldn't be…it couldn't be.

He was scared. Honestly, truly scared. He had half a mind to run away from this place. To run away and never return. But he couldn't. How could he possibly face Yang if he did? Self-sacrifice was part of the job. He had done it a hundred times and he would continue to do so a hundred times. And putting his own desires and needs aside for people he that were so precious to him was definitely a no-brainer.

But he swore; after this he would go to Yang, tell her that she was a lovely person and then not leave her side again.

For now, he had some buttons to press. Perhaps he could lift that security lockdown that was separating LACG from the Onyx doctor in the meantime. That ought to help unite them.

~0~

It was with the throbbing headache of someone who had taken too much stun grenades to the stomach that Grace Auburn woke. Her limbs were numb and her head felt like it was being used as target practice for Beowolves. It took her a few moments to recollect herself. Memories of gas and a betrayal poured into her mind and she shot upright.

She remembered now! That backstabbing, scheming bastard! The lying son of a bitch had screwed them over and…and…and he had Alessa.

Grace scrambled to get her weapon, but it wasn't there. Romero must have disarmed her when he dumped her…wherever she was now.

She looked around and saw that she was in a small, cubic room, roughly four by four meters. The upper part of the wall, from her waist to the ceiling, was made out of semi-translucent glass. The lower part was plain old steel. She guessed that she couldn't just smash her way through the glass if she had been locked in here. There was something else, too. Red barrels and crates were scattered throughout the room with her and the recognized the all-too familiar symbol that was printed on them. Danger, high-explosive.

Had that man locked her in a room with high-explosive material?

Did he have a death-wish? He had provided her with exactly what she needed to get out of here! That stupid idiot. Didn't he know that she was a demolitions expert? Or did he think that she sucked at her job? Moron. Were it not for the shrapnel and fire that the crates would create, she would have busted them up then and there; her Semblance would keep her safe.

Grace reached for the door and saw that it was locked with a security lock. A four-digit code was required to open it…or a certain explosive. She looked back over her shoulder and sighed. No weapon, her grenade-bandolier had been taken…no fuel to burn through the lock. It was time to improvise.

Tucked away in a small pouch, attached to the underside of her bra, was a sample of the explosive compound that Onyx had used. She didn't know how much power it held and it was sort of her trump-card, so she would have to use something else. But that was alright; that idiot Romero hadn't bothered to search her. Probably didn't feel right to manhandle a sleeping girl. Or his ego was too inflated for him to realize that she had a small satchel of thermite hidden on her. Of course, Cho had also been confused to learn that she liked to carry her explosives in…unorthodox places. It wasn't very comfortable, that was true, but it was useful.

She was glad that there wasn't anyone around to see her undo her pants. A small leather pouch was easily hidden away with underwear, but it was an awkward job to retrieve it again. Still, totally worth it.

Grace peered at the lock and frowned. No holes, just a handle and the pad. There was no saying how much locks this thing had. But she was willing to bet that a door to what had to be a storage-room wasn't of that high quality. She carefully slapped the stuff in a pattern around the lock and triggered the thermite. Then she ran for cover.

The intense heat of the burning goo was enough to burn through solid metal, but it was very localized and wouldn't set of an explosive if it was pressing its nose against it. Of course, not enough to set off an explosion didn't mean that it couldn't cause uncomfortable heat or flying pieces of molten metal. The barrels were protected against that, she was not.

When the thermite was gone, it had taken the entire lock with it. She could see a cute little figure burnt into the door, through which she could see what lay on the other side of the door.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered and gave the door a small nudge. It opened without any problem and Grace proudly stepped through. Not only had her skills gotten her out of a mess, they allowed her to save someone she cared for deeply. No man was going to get his hands on her partner. The timing couldn't have been worse; Alessa was just opening up. Mellowing out. She was no fan of mutilation or torture, but she was going to burn the shit out that doctor if he wasn't going to tell her what he had done to the girl in the past.

She started down a hallway, but she had no idea where she was. There were lots of other rooms adjacent to hers and all of them had that weird glass-metal combination. She could see microscopes, fridges, jars and other nasty stuff, but nothing that indicated where she needed to go. There was a map attached to a wall up ahead, which described where she was, but not where her partner was. She needed to get her weapon back if she wanted to get out of here. But Romero was bound to have it with him.

Alright…so according to the map, she was still at level five. She was stuck in a place called…bio-lab A. There was a large bulkhead to her left, which led to another complex.

Deciding that that was probably the best shot, Grace walked up to the bulkhead and observed the console that was integrated into the wall next to it. It didn´t have any power. The bulkhead was too heavy to blow through even if she had her weapons, but it looked like there was a small office next to it. It was just like the last time a door had blocked their way in this lab; a lever in the office had been responsible for opening it.

But when she reached for the lever, a small screen in the upper corner of the office activated and she stayed her hand. It appeared that she had someone's attention.

"What are you doing?" said the annoying voice of Cyan Romero.

"You know; breaking out, blowing stuff up, planning your painful death. The usual."

"Cocky. How did you escape?"

She smiled, but the smile never reached her eyes. "Think you can just keep a member of team LACG locked away?"

"I thought so. I did some research on your wayward gang. A former police officer, the bastard-child of some terrorists and an Adamant. Not exactly the team of holy defenders of mankind that you would expect, right?"

If he was trying to piss her off, he was getting dangerously close. "If you read our file, you should know not to mess with us," she countered. "Heck, even the goofy brother of our leader did more than you could ever do. And he is obsessed with bowties."

Only Romero's upper torso and head was visible, but she could see him frown. "Yes…that meddling fool. Who do you think took Midnight away from me, all those years ago? I had expected him to be terminated a week after he took her from her village, but I guess I can't be bothered to depend on anyone these days. And when it got overrun with Grimm, I was forced to relocate from the village again."

Wait…Matt had spirited Alessa away from her village? The small village where the hospital stood? Why would he do that? Had he saved her from Onyx's grip, or had he been fooling around again?

"If you know him," she slowly replied, trying to think of a way to get more information, "you don't even know the storm you're about to get yourself in if you mess with our group. Let Alessa go and I promise I won't let Lisa mess you up."

"Please, do you think I'm some ignorant fool? This "goofy brother" as you call him already had his hands drenched in the blood of hundreds. And all he could do was spirit Midnight away from her cottage in the middle of the night. You don't know what you got yourself into."

"Oh I do," she growled as she observed the in the office. The bulkhead separated two hallways, both of which were visible to her. If she could blast through the window, she could get to the other side. But the window was not only bulletproof, but also blast-proof. She did not have enough ordnance on her to blow her way through…unless she used the Onyx sample. The Havoc charge. "I do and I don't care."

"Then why?" he mockingly said. "I have full control over this facility, your friends are locked out and the other children can't reach you."

"Because she has a name," Grace snapped as she planted the black, easily-malleable substance on the thick window. "And it's not midnight." Even though she was wearing gloves, she could still feel it faintly pulsing underneath her fingers. She had never before felt an explosive compound that tingled and it caused her to pause. Onyx's policy seemed to rely on overkill. She didn't know how much of the stuff she needed to use; for all she knew, this sample could destroy the entire laboratory. She had roughly fifty grams and she knew that half that number was enough to do in any lock that came in her way. But this…it gave her a bad feeling. Should she use it?

"What are you doing there?" asked Romero, pissing her off even more. "Didn't I tell you that the glass was bulletproof? You won't get to me, moron."

She growled under her breath and shaped the sample into one point of the window. She hoped that Onyx knew their explosive stuff¸ because her semblance would not allow her to survive a total collapse of the facility. But hey, she had to risk it, right?

There was jet-black detonator that came with the sample. Romero hadn't seen that one either, the stupid tit. Here was to not dying.

She inserted the cable into the substance and set the timer to seven seconds. Then she pressed the button and ran like hell. She rounded the corner of the office while counting down in her head and activated her Semblance. Four seconds remained and she arrived in the complex where she had woken up before. Three seconds were left and she ran towards the hallway. One second was left as she dived in the corridor that mast the farthest away from the bulkhead.

She closed her eyes and hoped that she hadn't just screwed Lisa and Cho over. A heartbeat later, an explosion snuffed out nearly all her senses and caused the entire floor to tremble. Shockwaves with enough force to send her ass crashing to the ground washed over her and only because of her Semblance, did she remain standing. All oxygen disappeared and a secondary explosion followed a second later, as the barrels in the storage-room detonated.

Slowly, the muscles around her abdomen unclenched and she was able to breathe again. The air was thin and tasted like plastic, but at least she could breathe. Had that explosion been thermobaric? That was insane! That was…that…

Grace laughed as she walked back to the office. She had honestly expected the little charge to blow the entire wing to hell, as expected of Onyx. But in the end, her Semblance wasn't even needed. The shockwaves couldn't have given her a headache, let alone pulverize her organs. She had been standing at least three hallways away from the detonation, of course, but still. A thermobaric explosion…geez.

When she reached the bulkhead, however, she noticed the degree of damage that had been done and she could feel herself grinning like an idiot. The bulkhead was still intact, but the entire office had been blown to bits. The so-called blast-proof windows had been obliterated and the walls had been blasted to bits. Scorch-marks were everywhere she looked and the explosive residue was heavy enough to cloud her vision.

Fifty grams of thermobaric charges that would normally be good enough to blow a weapon to bits had destroyed a reinforced office with blast-proof windows. Had it not been developed by Onyx, with all the obvious results, she would have laughed aloud. It was too bad that she had used all of the stuff in one go, but at least she could keep moving now.

Beyond the ruined frame of the window lay another large chamber. A signboard at the top of it identified it as the "Medical bay". It was a double set of doors, with tinted glass in the frame. Even as she approached it, she saw that it could not possibly be another blast-proof area. She had reached the sensitive stuff; she had reached the place where Romero had nowhere left to run.

A nearby screen flickered a few times, before the face of the bastard himself appeared.

"I know what you think of me. But I am not a evil person," he said.

"You kidnapped Alessa and used her as an experiment from!"

"It wasn't my fault. She was born with an exceptional Aura-quality. Do you know what that means? It means that she would have been drafted into the Catalyst Operation. It means nothing to you, but her life would have been over, had that happened. I saved her and made sure that she was put to good use. I allowed her to stay in the village, even though her citizens in that place no longer cared for her. Besides; it wasn't her entire life. The procedures started when she was about eight, and she barely noticed. The village did more harm than I did."

"Don't you bullshit me," she snapped at the screen. "You don't use people for experiments! Don't justify yourself like that!"

"I used to think like you. But the creatures of Grimm forced our hand. My ocular research has blessed the girl with a gift and the civilians of the village used it to defend themselves against the Grimm."

"I saw the results of your research. Don't you see that she wears a blindfold? That she's too ashamed to show herself because of you?"

"Think, girl. Think. Did you see her eyes? What happened to you?"

She sighed in frustration and opened the doors. It was obvious that they were meant for civilian use. "I don't know! It happened too fast."

"No, it did not. It happened normally, but your brain processed it too slow. That's what happened. The research we did in this lab reached a climax."

"You know what? Stuff it where the sun don't shine. I'm getting her out of there."

Grace stepped through the doors and looked around. She was walking in a hallway that ran in-between two sets of labs. Two to the left and two to the right. She couldn't see Alessa anywhere, but she saw a lot of active consoles. And one of labs contained her weapon.

"Sweet," she muttered. She lashed out at the window with her leg, shattering the glass with ease. Dozens of large shards fell to the ground, causing a lot of noise, but Grace ignored that. She shook the glass off of her leg and stepped through the hole, taking care not to cut herself on the protruding edges. Of course this was a trap. No way he was going to dump her weapon here for her to find. He couldn't do a thing with it himself and he couldn't safely dispose of it. So he had to dump it and make sure that she wouldn't find it. If he wanted her dead, he would have killed her when she was KO'ed due to the gas. No, he just wanted her gone.

Though that did not explain why he had rigged it with things that resembled mines and gas-grenades. She could see the thin wires that blocked her way, which would detonate the explosives the very second she passed by. There was a problem though; when faced with a pair of live grenades, she always stuck her hands near them.

She disarmed the poorly-made trap with a few flicks of her fingers and pocketed the gas grenades, thinking that she would need them. The mines she placed somewhere else; they were too dangerous. Meanwhile, the words of the doctor managed to penetrate her thoughts. How he had made Alessa's life an experiment to save her from another life of experimentation. Onyx…experimenting on children. It was disgusting. Sickening.

It explained a few things though. The unnatural pattern in her eyes…the fact that she could see with a blindfold on…her attitude. Her entire damn childhood, of which Grace knew nothing at all. Who had ordered it? Who was Romero's superior officer? Onyx was bad, but they weren't evil.

And Matt had snatched her away from underneath Cyan's eyes. Why? Why had he been in the North? Had his heart bled at the sight of a neglected, pained girl, or had he taken her because of her so-called potential? That had to be how Alessa knew him. But there was more. So much more. She needed to find Lisa and Cho; she needed team RWBY and JNPR. This place was evil.

She lifted her Dragon's Foliage and checked its contents. The fuel was still there, the Dust-injectors had not been messed with…the grenades were gone though. She should have expected that; the handle that ejected the rounds, spent or not, was too obvious. But at least she was armed now. Romero would not catch her again.

With her weapon at the ready, Grace made her way through the laboratory. She wanted to torch this entire place down, but she had neither the fuel nor the time to do so. Alessa needed her.

The next chamber contained another television set, which Romero gladly abused in an attempt to get her to change her mind.

"You don't know what you are doing. Who you are messing with. The Grimm are coming to wipe mankind out. You know that, I know that. Why go for one girl if you can save thousands?"

She didn't reply. There were two doors ahead, one of which had to lead to Alessa.

"This research is vital to the war-effort. If you obstruct it, you undermine mankind's attempt at survival. You will cause more harm and suffering."

"Oh shut up," she snapped. "Child experimentation. No matter how you put it, that's what you did, you glorified asshole. Hunters and Huntresses are there to save mankind and guess what? They also exist to take down creeps like you."

"So be it. Know that I will be forced to take measures to defend myself."

In her anger, Grace tried to kick in the next door. Her leg rebounded painfully and she cursed, nearly knocked off balance. She swore as she unslung her flamethrower and burned the lock out. Then she kicked the door open and aimed the barrel of her weapon down the next room. A gun discharged and she automatically jumped out of the way of the incoming fire. The round impacted on the wall behind her, but she couldn't return fire fast enough.

"Alessa," she yelled as she took cover by a crate. The gun went off again and the box shook when it impacted. "You there?"

"This entire continent is going to be swarming with Grimm soon," said an annoyingly-familiar voice. "Eventide is going to need every advantage he can get. You are not taking my ticket out of this hellhole with you!"

"One way or another, you're going down," Grace yelled in return. "You can come easily, or with third-degree burns!"

"I don't have time to deal with this. I've dealt with an execution team, two search-squads and Yale! What makes you think you're going to get me?"

"Watch me," she shouted back. She pocketed one of the gas grenades and popped out from behind her cover to see where the doctor was. A second later, he popped up as well and took a shot at her. She yelped in surprise as the round impacted on her shoulder, luckily stopped by her Aura. He was a crack shot, but she was better. The hurled the grenade at the piece of cover the doctor was currently hiding behind, without actually priming it. She couldn't risk gassing all three of them.

The explosive flew straight and true and impacted right behind Cyan. Grace waited two seconds before coming out of her cover again and firing a burst of flames towards the doctor. The searing fire never reached its target though; the second the grenade had impacted, the man had bolted.

She made sure that Romero was gone before she dared to fully reveal herself. The wall on the far side of the room was scorched, but the man had escaped. He wasn't going to get far.

Grace spotted her partner lying on a table, her blindfold torn off and her limbs strapped down. She felt a sickening feeling of anger and resentment towards the people that were responsible for the girl's treatment. They would all pay.

"Grace?" breathed the girl.

"I'm here," replied the demolitions expert. "I'm here…I've got you." She reached for Alessa's head and gently rubbed her hair. Alessa had her eyes closed, which Grace now knew was because of the harm that she would cause if someone looked her in her eyes. What a terrible thing; to never be capable of looking someone you loved into the eyes. To be forced to wear a blindfold in public like that…

"My blindfold…give me something to cover myself up."

Grace started undoing the leather knots that tied the girl's limbs to the table. It was no use asking her if she was alright; this was bound to leave scars. She had spotted instruments lying on the table next to her, but none of them had been used. Thank the heavens.

"Here you go…"

She left her partner to don the piece of clothing and then watched her equip her retractable claws.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I should have known that he would stab us in the back. I saw it coming, yet he still got us."

"It's not your fault," Alessa quietly responded, holding herself remarkably calm. "I didn't recognize him. I should have…"

"That village that RWBY is searching…was that yours?"

The girl nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," the girl brusquely said. "Nothing was lost there."

Grace had not expected to hear that; shouldn't you be sad if your hometown was ransacked by Grimm? "What do you mean?"

Alessa clenched her fists. "It was not a pleasant time there. There is a reason I hate…bullies."

The demolitions expert recalled the doctor's words. How the citizens had used her as a defense against the Grimm, but also how they no longer cared for her. Had she been neglected? Perhaps now wasn't the best time to talk about it. "Look, we're getting out of here. Can you hack that console and call Lisa and Cho?"

"No," she girl shot back with surprising aggression. "We're not getting out of here. We're hunting him down."

Grace took a deep breath. She didn't want her partner to go through this, but she wasn't going to abandon her. "Right. That first. We'll need Cho for that, okay? Just call them."

This time Alessa didn't object, though Grace supposed it was more because of her mentioning Cho than any other reason.

Midnight…midnight was dark. Dark-blue. Alessa had white hair, with blue streaks. Why had she been called Midnight?

"Alessa? Can I ask something?"

"What?"

Grace hesitated, before asking, "Why did he call you Midnight? I mean…apart from him being a crazy asshole."

The girl shivered as if suppressing a memory. "Later." She pulled the cover off of the console and started messing with the wiring.

Grace anxiously waited as her partner fumbled around with the computer, all kinds of thoughts running through her head, until she was finally done. Then she immediately went for the external speakers.

"Lisa, Cho! If you are hearing this, do not trust the doctor! I repeat, do not trust the doctor! He's an asshole and a psycho. He-" she paused. "He kidnapped children to experiment on for Onyx!"

"That was unspecific," Alessa softly said when Grace was done.

"They don't need to know unless you want them to know," she replied. "And for what's it worth…you can trust me. I'll help you take this guy down."

"Then we need to hurry. He is getting away."

With the rest of the team on alert, Alessa overrode the door control and allowed the two of them to go after the fleeing doctor. He had taken one of the glass doors out of the laboratories and though he had a large head-start, Grace knew that he could not outrun them. But for every door that Alessa hacked, two more stood in their way. And he only needed to reach an elevator before he could lock down the entire facility. He didn't have anywhere to go, but there was no way of knowing if Onyx wasn't going to provide him with cover and protection. They would never find him again if that happened.

They managed to circumvent a few of the security commands, but it cost them precious time each and every time they did.

"So what did this guy want with you?" Grace asked as Alessa attempted to open a bulkhead that led to another hall. "I meant now. When did Matt even safe you?"

"Four years ago," answered the girl. "I didn't trust him, so I ran into the forest. It took him hours to get me."

"But why? Did he ever tell you why he did it?"

"No. Or perhaps he did…I don't remember."

Grace sighed. She remembered the ocular lab at the top level; the description of Dust being fused to human eyes. It was horrible. It was inhuman.

"Did he want to continue his research?"

"I don't know!" Alessa angrily replied. "But I intend to find out."

"And what about your eyes? What happens if you take your blindfold off?"

The girl sighed. "Back with the villagers, they found out that the creatures of Grimm couldn't move like they normally did in my line of sight. Something with my eyes messes up the brain of whatever looks at them. Can we go now?"

Grace gently placed a hand on her teammate's shoulders, but she didn't know what to say. What could you say about that?

The door opened and revealed a large room littered with small tables and chairs. In the distance, Grace caught the flicker of a white coat disappearing around the corner, which washed away her curiosity and replaced it with adrenaline and anger.

"There he is," yelled her partner, breaking into a sprint. Grace didn't hesitate a moment and ran after her. Normally, her stamina didn't really compare to the likes of Cho and Lisa. Sometimes, even Alessa could outrun her. But not now. Now, Alessa was slower than she was and it looked like the doctor was actually going to get away from them. She couldn't afford to linger on the reason behind that.

"He's around the corner," gasped Alessa.

"Keep moving!" Grace shot back. They rounded the corridor, charged into another series of offices and finally spotted the doctor running a few meters below, from on top of a railing. He was going for a large, sealed door.

The two of them jumped down and rounded on the doctor just as he whirled around and pointed a gun at them. He had his back to a very large door that said "core access". To his left lay a small kitchen and to his right was another hallway.

"Stay back," he told them. He didn't even look out of breath, while Alessa was visibly shaking. Though that could also be because of her anger.

Grace chuckled. "What, think you can deplete our aura before Alessa guts you like a fish?"

The doctor pushed his glasses higher up his face. "No. But those things can."

"Alessa?" Grace muttered, not wanting to take her eyes off of a psycho with a gun.

"Barrels," the girl muttered. "Nothing important."

Barrels? Oh crap…

"Still unable to see that which you can't feel, are you?" sneered the doctor.

"Hey, who said you could talk?" Grace snapped at him.

"The gun did. I wonder…how much did she tell you?"

"I said shut up!"

"No you didn't. If I shoot those barrels, we're all dead. Now…isn't it funny how I told you more than your so-called friend? She ever tell you just how she could spot that seemingly-invisible ambush fifty meters ahead? Or how she spotted you yawning from across the room with her back turned to you? Sounds like a gross invasion of privacy, doesn't it?"

"If you don't stop talking, I'll break your jaw," the demolitions expert growled.

"Again, you won't. Because you need me alive for answers and I need her alive for obvious reasons. You see, some people are born with a rare defect in their genes. It creates diversity in Semblances and, sometimes, in the Aura itself. Those last people are very rare. And if something is rare…" he grinned. "It belongs to Onyx. Just like Midnight over here. Don't worry; she's far from the first. Now it you'll excuse me-"

The massive door behind him groaned and slid apart. Standing in the opening were Lisa Adamant and Jason Mauve Cho, both of whom looked pissed off. Alessa's shoulders sagged –a signal that only Grace spotted.

"-I have somewhere to go."

Cyan Romero turned around and nearly bumped into Lisa, who was just as tall as he was. "Hello asshole," she said. Before he could do anything, she decked him in the face, kneed him in the stomach and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"I´ll take that," Cho calmly said while pulling the gun out of the man's hands. He was shorter than the doctor.

"Didn't expect that, did you? It appears you left the door unlocked," Lisa then said with a big grin as she threw the doctor across the room.

"Lisa!" Grace exclaimed as the doctor went flying. "How did you find us?"

Lisa walked into the room and pulled her into a tight embrace. "We stuck around. When the doors started opening, we heard an explosion. Then your message. Then Cho, making the most awesome series of deductions ever. And we brought some friends, though I don't know where they are…we split up to breach."

For a few seconds, Alessa appeared as if she was petrified. But then she started moving towards the doctor, who was fumbling around near another door.

"You gonna finish it?" he barked at her. "Huh? In front of all your friends?"

Lisa watched Alessa bear her claws with deliberate slowness. "What's this idiot talking about?"

Grace, watching her partner as well, carefully answered. "It's a long story. Alessa, you don't need to kill him. He can rot in jail for what he has done."

"No," the white-haired girl growled. "He needs to pay now. For everything."

"Hold on, what?" Lisa stepped towards her teammate and grabbed her arm, giving the doctor time to scurry away alongside the wall. "No killing, remember? Adamant Code? Worthiness?"

Grace spotted something that she did not like. "Guys?"

"I'm no Adamant! I am not your brother!"

"No, but you are family! To me and this team! And I won't let you stain yourself with a little piece of shit like him!"

Alessa fell quiet after. But as much as that statement warmed Grace's chest and filled her with pride, she had to point out the negative side of the situation. "Guys? He's sort of-"

She was about to point out that Romero was trying to escape, when the door behind him exploded outwards in flames and blazes. A heated shockwave passed through them all and then a very familiar person appeared.

"Hey guys," Yang Xia Long shouted as she walked into the room, her curvy body practically oozing fire. "Guess who?"

Lisa was perplexed. "Yang? That you?"

After that dynamic entrance, seven more figures marched into the room. First entered the rest of team RWBY, after which team JNPR quickly joined them.

"That's JNPR!" Grace exclaimed while reaching for Alessa's shoulders again. "You guys, you're not dead! That's awesome!"

Even better than that, they looked pissed off. They fanned out at a flick of Ruby's wrist, after which the redhead walked towards the staggering form of the doctor. "Romero," she said, all traces of her normal, cheerful demeanor gone. There was no doubt about it; she had heard Grace's transmission.

Cyan groaned as he rose, clutching his head. "Rose?"

Ruby crossed her arms and Jaune scratched the back of his head. "We're going to search for a way out of here," he said. "We need to get to the authorities with this, and quick."

Ruby glanced at Alessa, who was angrily staring at the doctor. Then she looked at Grace, who could feel her knees start to tremble due to exhaustion and the slowly-fading adrenaline. Eventually, the girl's eyes locked onto the doctor's and she frowned.

It was that moment that Grace understood why Ruby had been chosen to attend to Beacon, which stood alone at the top. Her eyes were cold and filled with contempt. There wasn't an ounce of empathy or confusion. It was the very first time Grace ever saw her like that and she wasn't too sure if she liked it or not

"Grace, what did you find out?" asked Blake.

"I uhh…" damn, she felt tired. "Romero was involved with Onyx's experiments concerning children, biological research and…Dust applications."

Ruby nodded. "Cyan. Is that true?"

"Why, of course not!" She doctor exclaimed, enraging Grace. "I have no idea what you are talking about!"

Grace was about to walk over to the man and break his face when Cho grabbed her shoulder. She looked up, furious that he would stop her, but he simply gestured at Ruby. Everyone was dead-quiet as the girl shook her head.

"Oh, you're a stone-cold psychopath. Even I can't see if you're lying…but we know the truth. Will told us that Major Yellowknife was staging a coup and that Onyx was going to interfere. Except that Onyx couldn't have known about that, If not for an inside-source. This lab, here? It's Onyx. And someone opened it –the same someone who made all those trips to the hospital. And…" she trailed off, looking around. "Heiress to the Adamant family…childhood demolitions expert…former cop…" she settled on Alessa again and her expression grew solemn. "I'm sorry. Alessa. I'm so sorry."

Grace closed her eyes. She hadn't wanted to share that her partner was the one who was the victim here, but she should have known better than to keep anything hidden form Ruby.

For a second, Romero's face was pale and expressionless. Then he smiled and chuckled, still leaning against the reception-desk. "Humanity had abandoned the North to the Grimm. It was easy…Onyx supplied me with everything and in turn, I would find them a way to defeat the Grimm. Midnight over here had an excellent quality, but I didn't want her to waste away as a Catalyst. None of you would understand. None of you knows that the road to victory isn't just a happy, comfortable place. There will be sacrifices."

"I've had enough of people saying that," Ruby said as she closed in on the man. JNPR was still gone, Yang, Blake and Weiss were still dead quiet and Cho didn't let go of Grace. "The last one who gave me that nonsense honestly believed that and he changed. You don't even believe in self-sacrifice. Your sort never does."

"That leaves us with a problem," laughed the man. "If you kill me, you will be just like me. Then how much integrity do you have left? You hypocrite."

"I'm not going to kill you. That's not how we work. But I am taking you to justice. And you will pay."

Ruby didn't threaten the man. She didn't boast. It was a statement, simple as that. Ruby was stating a fact; the girl would make Romero pay.

Grace could feel a heavy burden dropping off of her shoulders. Ruby understood. They all understood.

Another door opened and for a moment, the demolitions expert thought that Jaune had returned, bearing good news about a new exit. But it wasn't the kind-hearted boy that walked inside; it was a figure clad in black, whose footsteps barely made any sound as he strode into the room. A figure that brought trouble.

"Hey," Operative Greystone, the prime example of Onyx, greeted them. "What are you all doing here?"

"Greystone," yelled the doctor, pointing at Alessa. "I order you to arrest that girl!"

The soldier's arm jerked and as one, team LACG aimed their weapons at him.

"Don't you even dare," Lisa snapped.

Greystone stopped in the middle of his motion. He was normally much quicker on the draw. Had they intimidated him?

"Do it!" urged Romero. "I ordered you to arrest her!"

The boy's arm trembled for a second, locked due to obvious hesitation. Since when did he care that other people were taking aim at him? Why was he hesitating?

"Why?" he asked.

"Will," Yang kindly said before the doctor could respond, "could you not arrest Alessa? Romero is just an asshole madman who lost his lab."

"Operative, as your superior, I am ordering you to arrest that girl!"

The soldier hesitated no more. He turned around, aimed his gun at the doctor and said, "Chief scientist Romero, on grounds of gross incompetence and crimes of humanity, I am relieving you of your command and functions."

"What?" Exclaimed the doctor, staring furiously at Yang, who only closed her eyes and smiled smugly. "How dare you! I'll show you incompetence!"

The Operative didn't bother with defending himself against the man as he jumped up and reached for the pistol that he had dropped during RWBY's entry.

Alessa however, did. The doctor had barely lunged for his weapon when she grabbed his wrist and broke it.

Ruby flinched. For a few moments, it appeared as if she was going to interfere. Then her expression hardened. "Blake, could you find Jaune and tell him that we have the situation under control?"

"Sure."

"Weiss, I want you to take pictures of the labs we've encountered. We'll rendezvous back at the exit."

"Got it."

"Yang? We're briefing Will on the situation. Perhaps he can tell us more about this place."

With that, everyone but team LACG left. Lisa sat down on the table and crossed her arms, while Cho leant against the wall, casually messing with his Scroll.

Grace sat down on the ground, opting to watch as Alessa worked off years of abuse and neglect at the doctor. Normally, she wasn't one to enjoy violence in any form. Sure, she appreciated a good explosion and fire always made her happy, but violence wasn't her thing. At least not human-on-human violence. This time, she was willing to make an exception.

"So how did the doors open?" she muttered softly to Lisa, who was watching the spectacle with an amused expression. A cry of pain cut her off, but she continued nonetheless.

"I don't know. Cho and I were caught in some command room, but everything was locked down. The windows were freaking bulletproof."

"I know. It was pain in the ass."

She chuckled. "At one point, we even heard a gunshot in the distance. But the doors eventually unlocked. I thought it was you."

Grace shook her head. "We tried to, but we…we didn't want to let him escape."

Lisa rubbed her head. "Good. The mission goes first. Anyway, we met up with team RWBY and team JNPR. Ruby had deducted that Romero was with Onyx and that he wanted someone in LACG. Then we heard your transmission…and Cho here quietly reasoned that Romero must have experimented on Alessa. He only told me though. Ruby just found out on her own."

"So what now then?"

"Now?" Lisa shrugged. "This facility is just about back to normal. We'll take the main elevator in the core access –that's where we came from, through a vent- and go back to the surface. Then we either call Vale for a ride, or Will calls Onyx for a ride. Either way, we'll be back in Vale in just a few days."

Grace sighed and rubbed her eyes. The stress of the situation was getting to her and she suspected that she was still feeling the side-effects of being gassed. "Good."

The limp body of Romero smashed into the table and Alessa bowed over his body, searching what next to break or twist. Then she halted. "He's unconscious."

"You should have gone easy at first," Lisa grinned.

Cho stepped forwards. "I could resuscitate him."

"No," Lisa firmly said. "Enough is enough. We need to go now, I bet JNPR is waiting for us at the top. Mauve, grab that bag of dirt. Alessa, grab yourself. We're going."

Grace didn't understand why, but she felt so relieved that her team was here, supporting them. She and her partner were both outcasts in a way; Romero's remark about her parents had hurt her more than she had let on and even now, as she looked at his broken and bloodied body, she felt angrier than she had felt in ages. But she was too tired to act on it. She couldn't bring herself to do a thing.

The journey to the surface went by in flashes. She knew that she and Alessa had taken the left elevator, while Lisa, Cho and the doctor had taken the right one. She knew that Alessa had broken down in the ride back up, sobbing and quietly crying. She knew that she had done all that she could to comfort her partner, going as far as to cut off a part of her clothes to serve as a new blindfold, because the old one was worn out and damaged. It was a nice tint of brown and it was not drenched in tears.

After that, teams LACG, JNPR and RWBY united at the entrance, where Will was waiting for them. It was only when the door opened and subjected them to a freezing wind that she managed to recollect herself.

And the second they stepped outside, they were greeted by the sight of a dozen Onyx soldiers clad in black, all of them with their rifles aimed at the exiting students.

Grace froze, as did team JNPR and RWBY. The entrance of the lab, the small metal shack, was completely surrounded by soldiers. Large spotlights were aimed at them, blinding them from the gunships that were flying overhead.

"Geez," Yang cried out when she saw that. The sounds of a dozen safeties being clicked off indicated that they were being taken under primed rifles. "Talk about a warm welcome! Will, did you call your friends?"

The Operative took a few steps forwards. "Friendlies, watch your fire," he told the soldiers.

"That's Operative Greystone," one of the soldiers called out. His voice was slightly higher than Grace was used to.

Grace saw that there were at least three ships floating in the air, all of which had powerful spotlights aimed at them. The sky was dark, the sun was setting and they were being blinded by the sudden light. Were these people here for them…or for the doctor?

One of the helmeted figures walked forwards. "Stand down, Operative."

Will saluted. "Sir, we identified and captured the rogue scientist Cyan Romero."

"Who's that?" whispered Lisa.

Cho shrugged.

The man stepped up to Will and jabbed a finger his chest. "You are out of your boundaries, soldier. This runner was not up to you."

"Sir, with respect, my mission was so accompany the students to the North. The rest is irrelevant."

"Normally, yes. But due to extremely-hostile actions taken by former Operative Mantis, your privileges were suspended by General Eventide himself. You knew this; your scroll had acknowledged the order."

Greystone lowered his head. "Sir."

The unknown soldier, who appeared to be high in rank, gestured towards the unconscious doctor on Cho's shoulders. Two soldiers broke off from their ranks and marched towards two, moving to retrieve the doctor from him.

"Wait, what?" said Lisa. "Who are you people? What are you doing here?"

"It's alright," replied Will. "They're Onyx. They're here for the doctor."

"Not happening," Ruby firmly said. "I am not giving them that criminal so that he can continue experimenting on people."

"Relax," said the officer. "This guy here is on our blacklist. Things aren't going to become pleasant for him."

"What will happen to him?" asked Jaune.

"He's either going to the Hellgrounds, or he'll be executed for his crimes," said the Onyx soldier. "Either way, we're done here."

"You said something about Mantis," asked Blake. "What happened?"

"She ambushed one of our gunships. We've lost control with the pilot and the ship was last detected on a trajectory to Vale," said the officer. The hovering ships killed their lights and touched down, one of which opened its rear hatch. "The rest is classified."

Grace blinked a few times, trying to get her vision to clear. The ships vaguely resembled fish; they had short, stocky wings and a pointed cockpit. The engines protruded over the access hatch, providing cover. She saw that the two soldiers carried the doctor towards the middle ship. "Hold on," she said. "You people…did you know what Romero was doing? Did you…did you give the order?"

The commander gestured a few times and the soldiers pulled out, splitting up and forming two tight formations. "Operative Greystone can brief you on the way back to Vale," he said. "Vale received communications and Ozpin wants you back. Blue nine-eighteen will bring you home."

Grace was too tired to object. It was all too vague and no matter how much she would demand it, she wouldn't get information. Lisa noticed that and, after a brief moment of nonverbal communication with Jaune and Ruby, the offer was accepted.

"What's the Hellgrounds?" she heard Yang ask.

"A prison-complex for individuals who are too dangerous for society. Mass-murderers, war-criminals and bio-terrorists. And now Romero too."

"Can he escape?"

"Never."

That was good enough for her. Something called the "Hellgrounds" sounded like the one place for the doctor to stay. She hoped he would never see the light of day again.

The dropship that was waiting for them was about as large as the one that had carried them across the ocean. The difference was that this one would carry them all the way back to Vale. Once she sat back in the black seat, now familiar, she let her thoughts run free again. Everything that had happened since they had stumbled upon the lab, everything that had happened concerning Alessa…the things they had found out.

"So," Jaune said the moment the hatch closed behind them. "Mission complete?"

"I would agree," Pyrrha said with an awkward smile. It surprised Grace that they weren't going to ask questions about Alessa or Romero yet. Perhaps they realized that it would be a very painful thing to talk about?

"The North is enlisted in Remnant's communications network, the four Kingdoms will soon work to keep it stable and we brought a literally evil scientist to justice," Lisa summed up. "I'd say we did a pretty good job."

"How do we know that Onyx will keep the doc' locked up?" asked Blake.

"They won't let him continue that abhorrent research, will they?" Weiss replied with a shocked voice.

"No, they won't," Will said with a voice that said more like a whisper than anything else. He had removed his helmet again and he was currently sitting next to Yang, with his helmet on his lap. There were dark bags underneath his eyes and his eyes had a haunted, vulnerable look to them. "This facility went rogue, four years ago. Onyx found out and executed sixty percent of the staff, for crimes against humanity. It was thought that they had killed Romero as well, but he escaped. Two and a half years ago, the facility was being used as a shelter more than anything else.

Four years…that was about the same time that Matt had saved Alessa. It couldn't have been a coincidence; the Professor had followed Onyx there, saw the misery and pain and decided the save Alessa.

"Crimes against humanity? Onyx cares for that?" Lisa asked with barely-hidden contempt.

"We do. Don't forget that Onyx's sole purpose is the protection of man- and Faunuskind, whatever the cost. And sometimes that cost is too high." The soldier sighed and closed his eyes.

"Well, there's only one thing left to do, right?" said Ruby.

"What?" asked Jaune.

The redhead smiled mischievously. "To write a report on the past week."

The two other leaders groaned in frustration and the ship took off, finally taking them back home.

"This is Vanilla Five-Actual. We are circling around Blackwood's takedown-site, but we're not picking up anything. There are definite signs of battle…damn, these students absolutely leveled the area. There are no signs of armour-residue anywhere. Repeat, no sign of Blackwood anywhere."

"Frost copies all, Vanilla. We received word from command that a High Valued Individual in Beacon might have ties to the Operative. We'll request a recon-operation stat."

Next time: a small timeskip, a massive foodfight, a very awkward introduction and peace that lasts a day.