Great news everybody! As a helpful reviewer kindly pointed out, we finally made it as a Fanfiction-recommendation on TVtropes! I would like to take a moment to thank the one responsible.

Next goal, an independent page.

A Flying Tomato: weeelll….I DO have a little book saying 'When tits go up and shit hits the fan and how to write about that', so...

Cliffdiver: I love not disappointing. Also, if you hadn't told me that, I would have probably found out in like a month or 4, so thank you :D

RedGOzilla: no, you're not wrong. And I have many great things planned for Blackwood, so me write!

Wesker888: I shall take it as a compliment then :3

I don't normally respond to reviewers that probably won't read this far, so I shall consider this therapeutic.*coughs professionally and fails* Meh: yes, because nothing screams "badass" like shooting people in the head who are begging for mercy, or even harmless people, or plotting to kill teenagers just because they might be a future threat, right? Or suffering from suicidal/sociopathic tendencies, maybe? Why don't you go look up terms like Gary Stu before you commit to being useful, yes?

Is he gone? Good, I hate flamers.

Guest: someone forgot to pick a name ;) So what can I say? Sometimes, I can be surprising. (I also took the end scene of Rambo, as well as the novelization, as a partial inspiration. That, and 23 hours' worth of research to write such things realistically.)

Thanks for the compliments though. I hope this chapter will provide some…new insights in some of the more intricate parts of the story.

Solar Jarl The Cannon King 44K: I always look forward to writing those moments. Title-drops are awesome.

"I know," he quietly muttered from their vantage position on top of the building. "Please? I just want to see her up-close."

'You must be careful,' she countered. 'She seems to be at peace with those White Fang troopers. Are you sure?'

'Yes! Look, she is opposing them, standing in front of them! I won't fight her; I just want to see her. How she looks."

'Will,' Ancilla gently said, 'it's been ten years. She doesn't know it's you, and she hates the people you work for. It's too dangerous.'

"I promise I'll be careful. I'll kill the troopers silently, look at her, and then leave again. A simple recon."

'But do you need to kill those Faunus? They aren't evil, you know that. They are just-'

"Misguided, I know. But they are hurting innocent people."

'And Onyx isn't?'

He didn't have an answer for that. She had taught him months ago that his excuse of the "greater good" was a hollow and hypocritical one. If you forsake one life, can you really decide where you end up on the line of thin and good? Because it wasn't so easy. There was a thin line between good and bad, between black and white, between love and hate.

Though Ancilla knew her own position on those edges. She would never hate him, and she would always choose to do the right thing. Sometimes, things were black and white. They just didn't get involved with those situations a lot.

"Our mission," he then said, starting to descent the building as they went, "is to scout out the area and thin enemy resistance."

'Ah, but spotting their forces is enough to thin the resistance, because fighting is easier because of that, right?'

"Mission accomplished."

They smiled. 'Good boy.'

She couldn't allow to lay back and rest though; this village was still a war-zone. They needed to be careful, and she needed to pay attention to the details. Now that they were getting closer to armed people who could hurt them, Will couldn't reply to her anymore. But that was alright; she had long ago learned how to fully interpret their body-language and feelings. One of the benefits: insta-communication.

It brought another smile to their lips.

The fifteen-year-old soldier lowered them onto another building and crawled closer to the edge. From there, they could hear everything that was going on.

"I don't care what your boss says," Jasmine Seraphim said with crossed arms. "This isn't your place to be." She was a pretty woman; her hair was short, her wolf-ears were very fluffy and her features were just a tad too animalistic to be human, but she had a certain beauty that could not be attained by most humans. She was a prime example of her kind though; tall, lean and radiating dominance. It wasn't very hard imagining her to be the protective or even maternal type.

There were four of the troopers; three males and one female. The female had a sword and long, black hair and the three males had hidden their hair underneath their masks. Their weapons were rifles.

Silly White Fang. Their own helmet was much more practical than some silly Grimm-fashioned pieces of ornament and their own rifle-

-actually, sometimes it was better if weapons could deliver a nonlethal punch as well.

"We just want to get a view on the situation here," the female said with a calm voice, though Ancilla could hear how nervous she was. "Please let us through."

Two of the males reached for their weapons and Will looked up, as if he had heard something.

'What-?'

Three giant Nevermores swept down from the sky above, flapping their enormous wings without sound. How had she missed those?

'Oh. Look alive little angel.'

"Grimm!" Jasmine shouted. "Cover, cover, move!"

Ancilla winced as Will aimed their rifle, lining up a perfect headshot with machinelike precision that always seemed to override her own control. 'No! Stay hidden!' she shouted. There was tangible hesitation, but then their body moved out of the way as a dozen razor-sharp feathers carved through the air and tuned the building they had been resting on into rubble. The already-weak walls shattered and together, they fell to the ground, rolling to dissipate the blow.

This was not her doing. This was all Will; the combat initiated the grey-zone of training into his mind, took control over his body and forced him to move. She hated it when that happened; it felt as if a machine was directing their "perfect" movements. It was as if she was being violated by something she could not understand.

Feathers sliced through the area in front of them and caved in another section of the roof. Two people dove inside of the building as well; one of them a small White Fang boy, just a few inches taller than they were. The other one was Jasmine, who immediately spotted them.

The training took over her last physical control and their rifle went for the woman's head faster than even she could react.

All the amazing things Will had told her about his "sister" and here he was, about to end her himself. And there was absolutely nothing Ancilla could do to stop him; she had yet to learn how to beat a decade of ruthless mental conditioning with just her own Soul.

Their finger went for the trigger, touched the metal surface-

-and then stopped. He stopped.

And then the rifle went down again, much to her amazement. Had Will stopped himself from committing another murder? Was he finally learning how to overcome that killing-instinct?

The hesitation, brief as it was, was enough for Jasmine to spring into action. In the second-and-a-half it had taken them to fall down and aim a gun at one of the few people in the world they still cared about, that same woman jumped at them and struck a hammer-blow, shattering their visor into a dozen pieces, most of which went directly into their face.

Ancilla screamed as the sensation of sharp pieces of shrapnel digging into her flesh washed over her like waves of crashing pain, but the mind-numbing pain quickly and abruptly ended as her partner forced her out, taking the full brunt of the strike for himself. Again. And this time, she didn't force herself back in again. 'Run!' she shouted. 'Move, get out of here!'

Her Operative didn't need to be told twice. He withheld his fire and dove through the ruined remains of the wall, half his sight inhibited by the shattered visor and gruesome injuries. He ran, and she guided him along the path, focusing om gradually taking in the pain that he was hiding from her and directing his steps so that he wouldn't stumble. Healing would come later; now they needed to survive first. Grimm poured into the village from all directions, Nevermores turned entire buildings to rubble and Beowolves sprinted after them in their mad dash for human deaths.

She briefly considered jump-starting the Combat-Trance, then discarded the idea. They couldn't see with a damaged eye and they might accidentally kill someone not Grimm. That was something she could not risk.

They were faster. That, or the Grimm were more interested in the Faunus-people fighting them. Only later, at the evacuation point where a stealth ship would pick them up, the adrenaline slowly faded away. And the feeble mental barriers that Will had protect himself against the pain and shock did so too. He broke down into sobbing, because that was the farthest he could allow himself to go, even without his emotional conditioning. It was soundless, without tears and utterly heart-wrenching to experience. An emotional breakdown she had had on a daily basis was the extent of what he could do.

But that was why she was with him. Ancilla gave him the nudge he needed for the tears to come and with them, he started explaining. Rationalizing things away, burying his feelings of shame so that nobody could hurt him for it. He felt so weak for his slip-up, as minor as it might be, that he felt he had to lessen the impact.

"I didn't expect her to find me," he muttered, clutching the maimed part of his face. Blood dripped down from in-between the gaps between his fingers and it felt like the left eye had stopped functioning altogether. "She got the drop on me. It won't happen again."

That wasn't what she had intended. 'No,' she sharply said. 'You just hesitated. You saw someone you dearly loved, and stayed your hand to stop from hurting her. That's not weak. That's strong.'

"She tried to kill me. I just wanted to see her."

Ancilla wished that there was anyone around to reach out for him. To touch him, and make him see that he had done the right thing. 'I know. Will? Listen to me. She did not recognize you! She did not know who she was hurting.'

"And she can't ever find out?"

Ouch. 'Do you want her to?'

He didn't need to shake his head for her to understand what he wanted to tell her.

'This is all up to you. Can you imagine that? The responsibility, yours?'

"She can't ever find out. Nobody can."

It was such a pity that she could not remember it. Where he had begun, where she ended. Where he would end, where she would begin. He had told her about the Faunus-girl with so much enthusiasm; how certain he was that she was a soldier too, that Onyx must have also employed her, and how tough she was. How much she loved him, and how much he loved her. That she was like a sister to him. Of course he had realized that she wasn't actually his sister, but that did not cushion the blow.

And for all the common sense in the world, nobody could hide themselves forever.

Had she had a sister? No, that couldn't be right…the memory of playing in the snow with a taller woman wasn't hers. Why would she think she had a sister? Of course she didn't; she was the only child.

And now she was gone.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Hate. Hate. Hate. The consciousness screamed in silent rage, lashing out around it with all the strength it could muster. But there was nothing, nothing it could grip at all. Life had abandoned the empty, cold machine. Not even the Grimm could come, to offer a distraction and be unraveled as a result.

Empty. Cold. Death. Pain. Hate.

Alone.

Beacon Dance, 22:45

There were so many people. Females and males, all different skin-colours and dresses…and all of them were moving around on the music. Shuffling back and forth and back and forth, clutching each other like they were scared. But they weren't scared, because they were smiling. That left only one conclusion: they were snuggling.

Ash leant over the balustrade and looked closer at the pairs. Most were male with female, like a mommy with a daddy. A few others were female with female, like the two girls with red and white hair. More others were male with male, but those didn't count, because they were Professors Adamant an Johnson and cleaning-lady Braunschweiger, and Yale had said that nothing counted when Adamant was involved.

He didn't get why; Braunschweiger was not a lady. So why was he called one? Was it a secret? Or was it one of those things that simply was a thing? There were a lot of those things at Beacon.

Not important. What was important was Operation Rose-White. Right now, Ruby and Weiss had stopped dancing, and that was bad, because they liked each other. Weiss was talking to some silly male with blue hair, whose face was vaguely similar to someone Ash had once shot between the eyes. Such resemblances happened more often than he would like, and he always felt bad when he saw it.

Solution? Not looking at the male was a start. Ruby in the meantime was talking to Lisa, who was really nice. But Lisa should be dancing with her Mauve, because they liked each other as well.

The little voice inside of his head was unsure why he even bothered being with these people. He shouldn't shoot them, but he also shouldn't obey them. So, logically, they were useless and he should just go away. But things didn't work like that; Beacon had nice people and mean people, but they didn't fit in either categories. No threats, no superiors, just people calling themselves "friends".

Ash had friends in the past. Kids who had been nice and not dead, only they were dead now and he was with Onyx. They had taught him that friends were useless and that he should only interact with his teammates. But then his teammates had become his new friends and for a while, things had been good. Shooting bad people, hurting badder people so that they would talk and reveal more bad people, then shooting the same bad people to prevent them from hurting others. It had worked well. It had been his life for a long, long time. Ever since the monsters had destroyed his home, actually. The training had been tough and he had cried and puked a lot, but in the end it had been worth it.

And now he had a problem here. Clayton had been a big friend and he had gone away and nobody could tell him when he would be back. He was without friends now, and people at Beacon would be new friends. Penny was a friend, Lisa was more like a big sister, but also a friend and Ruby was something else. He didn't know what Ruby was, but if she was with Weiss, she would be something like a friend too. A friend who wouldn't go away.

With a little white flower in his hands, Ash slowly lowered himself over the edge, above the place where Ruby was sitting. Lisa didn't spot him, Ruby didn't spot him, and he overheard a part of a conversation that didn't mean anything to him.

"So then Matt was all like "hey, I got this pretty design for you" and I was like, "cool, what's it about?""

"But Blackwood had that same gun."

"I know. Guess that's where Matt got it from –stole the blueprints straight from Onyx."

Who was this Matt? Why were the prints he had stolen blue? Well, it didn't matter anyway. Ash dropped the flower on top of Ruby's head and bolted. His plan was perfect; the flower was white, just like Weiss's hair. And Ruby's last name was rose, just like…the name of the Operation. It was a signal for her to get up and go dancing, because then things would be alright again.

That same little voice told him to stop messing around, find a nice, dark corner and stick to it for the entirety of the evening. Potentially carrying some heavy firepower with him.

He hated that voice. It always made him hurt people with machetes and grenades and bullets and no matter what happened, that voice was always, always there. Lurking in the deepest, darkest places of his head.

But he wasn't going to listen to it today. Today, he was going to…to…do the things he had planned. Planned on his own, unlike his little operation with Lily and Operative Greystone, a few hours ago. They had infiltrated professor Adamant's office using the vents, because Lily had pointed out that you couldn't just barge into the door. And she had been right. So they had suspended him out of the air-vents and into the office, searching for the classified box of classified bowties.

Of course, it hadn't happened like that. They hadn't been stealthy at all; he had bumped his head against the ceiling and by the time Greystone had lowered him into the office, Adamant had appeared. And the stupid smoke-bomb wouldn't go off in time, so he had been stuck suspended in the air, with the glass-cutter in his hands.

And then the Adamant had told him to go for the "dark ones" and sat down at his desk. And then the smoke-bomb had gone off.

At least they had managed to snag a few of the bowties. And now, he was a fancy boy. Not yet a real one though…the voice made sure of that. If he couldn't make peace with himself, how could he be a real person? How could he even know if he woke up in the real world in the morning, and not just a mirror of a pile of bodies?

He was getting ahead of himself. Normally, he would have asked his mom or dad what to think. But they were gone, and they would never return. The monsters responsible for making them gone were all dead, and so were the thousands of other monsters that had been responsible for eating people. But mom and dad wouldn't return –he needed new ones. And everybody knew that when two people liked each other, they would become mommy and daddy.

Ruby excused herself from Lisa and moved towards the staircase, moving awkwardly in her dress. Awkward enough to be outflanked, sniped or suppressed-

-or simply avoided. Avoiding would be good. Ash snuck past her stumbling frame and casually made his way down again, mingling in with the people on the dancefloor. The girl with the blindfold glanced at his direction, but she was blind so she wouldn't see him. The bomb-lady next to her also glanced at him, but he was too sneaky.

Demolition experts generally focused their attention on their work, leaving them exposed to precision-fire.

Darn it. Not what he had in mind. Stupid voice.

Ash grabbed another white flower and snuck his way towards Weiss Schnee, who acted scary but was in fact really not scary. Her personality was very scary, but she didn't have the mind-state or the skills to make her scary like Yang was, who could and would beat unruly little Lima's to death when she did not like them.

And that was exactly why he would leave her and her Operative alone. Greystone was tough and strange, but even he could not match Yang Xiao Long and her all-oppressing dominance. When Greystone would follow Mantis and Blackwood and go psycho-crazy-bonkers, all they had to do was put team RWBY in his way and all would be well.

So back to Weiss. Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. If she died, the Company would be in trouble. Mister Schnee deserved to have someone die on him, but Weiss was an ally. She couldn't die. So that arguably left Winter Schnee to be the one, but that would be bad, because she wasn't bad. It was difficult.

Ash dumped the other flower on Weiss's head and then took off again. Onyx had told him that he shouldn't be alive. That he should have died when he had been five years old. But he hadn't died, because dead people couldn't feel things. So if he wasn't alive and not dead, he was obviously not a real boy anymore. That was a small problem, but he could fix it by changing a few things. He had a little list as well. First of all was to get Clayton back. Then people from Beacon needed to become happy together and after that, he could safely leave Onyx.

He was getting ahead of himself.

The blindfolded lady still looked at his general direction and it creeped him out a bit. She shouldn't be able to accurately glance at his direction. Quite a few people at this Academy creeped Ash out with their behavior, including their staff. Professors with infinite coffee? And that lady with her whipping crop? Trouble. Lots of trouble. When Ash had first seen her, his first and biggest impulse had been to shoot her in her face with lots of bullets, or potentially chop her head off with his machetes.

Whips were very, very bad. They had been used by one instructor during training…and everybody hated her. Bad memories, lots of blood. Pain. Hate. Luckily she was dead now.

But that Professor was here now as well. And she wasn't dead. And Ash wasn't allowed to kill her.

He slowly raised one hand and tucked his fingers in, leaving only his index-finger and thumb curled outwards. Boom. Headshot. Good enough for him. If and when the moment came to take her out, the three of them should be sufficient enough. Their weapons were always sharpened and balanced for throwing, except for Four, because they were arm-mounted.

Cal was standing on the dance floor, dancing with Lily on slow, boring music. The poor girl was more and more tired lately, and sometimes Ash could understand why. Being a young and female soldier in a war-torn world, you had to be very tough to survive unscathed. Mantis was unkillable, but her training had taken about many years. Lily wasn't that lucky –she had different, less Operative-ish training. She couldn't get away with killing important army generals and ever since she had been deployed on the battlefield, she had been forced to deal with stupid officers and soldiers treating her like she wasn't a soldier. What did Cal say it was again? It started with an L, but it wasn't Lima…oh well. In the heat of war, people who lacked that special piece of Onyx training would often listen to their most animalistic instincts and needs.

And he had learnt that soldiers did things like rape and pillage. They loved to take under-aged girls and rape them too. He had no idea what rape meant, as Clayton had never told him, but he had seen men try to do it before and his teammates always told him that those soldiers could be killed. He always did. But Lily was an under-aged girl too. She was too tough for normal stupid soldiers to try to hurt her, but Commanding Officers in armies often thought themselves above stupid soldiers. Most of the times they were. And when an old, wrinkled Colonel tried to hurt Lily, she wasn't allowed to fight back. And Lima couldn't be there every-

Lust-object! That was what he had been looking for! Lust was bad, undisciplined people had it and it involved pain, blood and abuse!

He hadn't seen any of it, and he didn't know what it all meant, but Lily had had lots of bad luck with non-Onyx personnel. It made her paranoid and mean to others, understandably so. Seeing her dancing with Cal was cute though –his ears flapped around and he looked actually a bit happy. Lily still couldn't smile though. After that last incident with an Atlesian Colonel, she had sort of…stopped being happy. Lots of blood and spilled organs. Human guts were squish and very long. Friend or foe, it didn't really matter. Human nature was a corrupt one, much like Grimm. General Eventide had once said that.

Had he been right though? Were humans truly corrupt, just like the monsters they fought? Or were humans the real monsters? Were they all Grimm? Did they have Grimm on the inside?

Ash didn't know. There were many things he didn't know. Ever since the hole, he had lost a lot of things inside of his mind. Memories and stuff. What he did know, was that Beacon was one big pool of answers. Like a beacon of information.

Funny.

So people here would provide him his answer. Were humans bad? Or were they good? Somewhere in-between? Because Ash loved his teammates and they were all friends, but they had their moments. Penny was also a friend, but he didn't know if he could fully trust her yet. He needed someone wise…someone smart. Someone with lots of experience in life, who was older and preferably of his length.

He had to discard Lisa, because she seemed to be having fun with her Mauve. Of course they were having fun; he was the one who had prodded the Mauve in the back of his knees with a knife, which had led to him jumping up in alert and being targeted for a dance.

Back on the dance-floor, his gaze settled on Ruby Rose, and he wondered how tall she was.

The demolitions expert wandered past him, walking awkwardly on high-heels. Her blindfolded partner was waiting for her…ah.

Ash stuck out his foot and tripped the brunette, subtly. Sneakily. She stumbled forwards and her partner caught her in her arms, easily supporting her, because she wasn't wearing high heels.

"Sorry," the bomb-lady said. "I tripped."

"Yes," the blindfolded lady replied, glancing right at Ash. "You did. Clumsy you."

Mission accomplished. People were looking at them with happy looks on their faces, because normal people would often get happy when others were happy. Silly how that went. Now he could take a few moments to look around. Dancing pairs, snuggling students and only a few Onyx personnel present. All was going according to plan!

Would he have a talk with Ruby? Or would be simply let her and the Heiress do their thing in peace? There were other people who needed to become a family together, and there wouldn't be much time after this dance.

Ash sat down and observed the dancing floor again. Professor Adamant was there too, but Ash was uncertain about him. On one side, the man was nice and easy to work with, but on the other, he had racked up a very impressive kill-count throughout the years. Together with Roman Torchwick, three-hundred and fourteen civilian deaths to prevent a biological fallout of some sorts. That made it a bit hard to talk to him, let alone ask him for any advice…

"Enjoying yourself?"

Darn, he didn't have his machetes.

Ash turned around and glanced at the person who had blindsighted him. It was Alessa!

The irony was not lost in him. It tasted metallic.

How should he reply? Was he enjoying himself? No, he was enjoying others. Was that socially acceptable to say? Probably. Sort of. Yeah, that would be good. "Sort of."

"Sort of?"

It was cheating! She formulated a question that he could not answer on his own! "Yes. Sort of."

The blindfolded girl crossed her arms over her chest, remaining as unreadable as ever. "What are you doing?"

Why were there so many strange ladies on Beacon? This place was filled with strange ladies! "Nothing. Just enjoying a normal, civilian party."

"You've been busy?"

"I just want people to be happy together."

"You know it won't change anything, right?"

Ash blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"You can't change the past. You can't replace what's lost."

Clayton –no! That wasn't it! It…wasn't it? "If people like each other very much, they become happy. And if they are happy-"

"They will be happy, Ash. And the past remains what it was. You can only move on…or otherwise cope."

Cope…he knew that word. The psychelodist had told him that he had a wrong way of doing it, and that he needed more time. General Eventide had told her that they didn't have time, and another war had needed their attention. No, as another war had needed their attention. Perhaps a bit of both? "If other people are happy, there will be peace. And then everyone can go home. And…"

Alessa knelt down next to him and said, "You can't replace who were lost. You can find a new home, but important people will not return. Either siblings, or parents, or just family, they will all stay dead."

"I-"

"But you can find new people." She nudged him and then pointed down the stairs, where three new people were dancing. Two Atlesian soldiers and one very familiar girl.

"Oh, Penny!"

He had completely forgotten! All his little schemes, and he had forgotten that he had wanted to ask Penny if she wanted to look at people dancing with him!"

Ash looked at the blind girl again, and wondered how she could see better than him, at so many levels. "Thanks."

Yang leant against the railing of the stairs and watched the spectacle that was the dance of Adamant, Johnson and Braunschweiger. Some genius had handed them old-school afros and now they were completely going ballistics. Dancing and jumping and pointing with their fingers as their arms spasmed out. They looked like headless chickens with their nerves jump-powered by blue Dust, and that wasn't even beginning to describe how freaking Braunschweiger could shake those hips.

She had always thought that she could work her legs, but damn. A middle-aged man was about to beat her. If she didn't get to dancing soon, it would be very humiliating.

At least she wasn't the only one staring at them with a mixture of intrigue and disturbance. Professor Seraphim was sitting on the other side of the hall, staring at the three with pretty much that same expression. With all the four-things Beacon had going on, Yang had truly expected someone to jump in and join them. Thankfully, that did not happen.

"Is that Professor Adamant, Sergeant Johnson and Braunschweiger dancing?" Will asked.

"Yup."

The boy was standing next to her, eyeing the three dancing miracles with a surprisingly-calm expression. "They dance well."

"Are you kidding me? They look awful!"

"Sorry. I don't have much to compare it to."

"Your cultural background is…showing. Come on, this song is almost over. You can see some real dancing soon." Exactly what she needed; a chance to show of her own hip-action.

She didn't need to take him by the hand, but he was reluctant to follow. Blake was sitting underneath the stairs, watching the same spectacle with a bemused expression. At least someone understood the hilarious stupidity of it all.

"Hey Blake," Yang said. "Enjoying the sight?"

"I never knew an eight-inch cigar could stay attached to a lip during high-speed pirouettes. Is this why they hired the Sergeant-Professor?"

"It's not for his sexy legs, I'll tell you that."

"No, that would be Professor Adamant. He didn't get that award for most-attractive Huntsman for nothing. "

"Don't forget the award for most-ridiculously clothed Huntsman…"

"That too. Johnson has him outclothed. Just look at that bobbling afro! Do they teach you that in the military, Will?"

"No. In the military, they shave you bald." He glanced at Yang and added, "Or they go WIA for trying."

"Bald?" Blake repeated. "Really?"

"Not completely. There is a precise length you are allowed to keep, but it isn't much."

"I get pissed whenever I think of someone touching my hair," Yang said. "How did you manage?"

"I didn't really care at that point. Short hair has many advantages, including longer gaps between showers." Her little soldier paused and glanced at his bowtie. "Many fights weren't that big on hygiene, I'll tell you that." And then he started fumbling with the thing.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked. Since she had found out that Tukson was still alive, she had become a lot more open and kind to others, even though they were people she didn't generally like. It proved how kind she was at heart, when she wasn't busy upholding her Blake-status. "Were you that low on supplies?"

"Let's just say that some items were more preferred above others," he calmly replied. There was a glimmer in his eye that hadn't been there a few days ago –like something inside of him had come alive again.

"What sort of items? Bandages, first aid?"

"Well, there wasn't a lot of time for first aid. No, one of the things I had to worry about was a lack of bathroom breaks."

Yang chuckled and downed another glass of punch, while Blake merely raised her infamous skeptical eyebrow and said, "That was your biggest worry? Seriously?"

"Not during the biggest conflicts, no. But a war of attrition? Guerilla? I always underestimated the need for sanitation in the battlefield. Sure, being shot is bad for your health, but so is not brushing your teeth for a week, or spending a week in a wet, dirty suit. And if you don't look out while taking your break…"

"You'll be caught with your pants down?" Yang pointed out. There was lot of these things to enjoy, but something was a bit off. Normally, the boy wasn't bothered to share his gruesome part of details about life with Onyx. His stories tended to have more…weight to them. When Blake had asked him what sort of things bothered him during combat, Yang had expected things about enemy child-soldiers, or chemical warfare. He was holding back, and that was something new.

Blake groaned and lowered her head. "And here I was, hoping that this one would be below even your standards."

"I aim to please."

Will blinked a few times and rubbed a place on his shoulder, meaning that he once again did not understand what was going on. "The metaphor was…apt."

"And the pun was horrible."

"There was a pun?"

Yang reached out and rubbed him over his head. It was like petting a little puppy, except a puppy didn't cause that flutter of electricity in her chest, or cause her stomach to do loop-da-loops. And a little puppy was generally less unsure and helpless when touched. But they were working on it. "One of these days you'll get one."

"Is that a promise?"

"I ehm…can promise something else?"

"Like what?"

"What I want to know," Blake interrupted them, perhaps even on purpose, "is where Ruby and Weiss are. They disappeared after that fast song and I don't see them around."

"Why don't you go look for them?" Yang opted. "Maybe Weiss wants to dance?"

"I would rather dance with Sun…and I think Weiss is occupied with Ruby."

"Yeah…wait, what?"

"They went as partners. A pair."

"Yeah, but…that's because Ruby doesn't…Will, cover your ears."

The professional soldier complied within a second, like a little kid. Adorable. He even turned away and started studying the bowl with punch, as if someone had drugged it and spilled the toxics all over the glasses.

"Ruby doesn't like boys," Yang continued. "I think she might actually be a bit…you know…into girls."

Blake propped her head on her hands and looked at Yang. "Would that be a problem, if she was into girls?"

"No, not at all. I'm bisexual myself…but I keep wondering who would catch her eye. She loves her classic fairytales and one of these days, she'll have to face the fact that the prince on the white horse isn't always what he looks like. I just want her to be happy."

The Faunus nodded understandably, giving no sign of surprise at that sudden bit of information. "There is no such thing as a charming prince. But I think that she already knows that. She's seen a lot of things since she came to Beacon."

"We all did, but she's only fifteen."

"Fifteen is usually the age where girls start experimenting, broadening their views, so to speak. Ruby could already be closer to someone than you know."

One of the glasses fell over and Yang realized that Will was still somewhere around, standing on the other side of the table, where he had started inspecting the pillars that kept the staircase up. She picked up a paper cup and chucked it his way, getting his attention.

"You nearly forgot about him, didn't you?" Blake commented.

"Shut up. You're safe!"

"So what would you do if Ruby already had someone in mind?"

Yang shrugged. It was a bit sudden for that question, but it wasn't as if it hadn't crossed her mind on its own already. "I guess I'd simply be happy for her."

"But actually-?"

"I'd keep a very close eye on the both of them."

"And her partner-?"

"Will be in for a thorough inspection, no matter who it is."

Blake smiled with mischief. That sneaky little kitten knew something. "I would pay to see that."

"Yeah well, the same goes for you and Weiss. Don't think I have accepted Sun yet."

Blake glanced over her shoulder and looked at the boy in question, who was mockingly shuffling around with Neptune. "I don't think you will have to worry about him."

"There's someone else then?"

"Maybe. And what about Weiss then?"

Yang shrugged. "I don't even know if she likes boys or girls, let alone what types catch her attention. She doesn't as much as look at all the cute boys around here, does she?"

"All of the boys?"

"Yeah. We've got Sun and Neptune dancing like a couple, Ren and Jaune sitting closer to each other than people in love usually do and Cal and Cho…are also there."

"Half of those are already seeing someone. And I wouldn't call Jason cute."

"That means you think the rest is cute, kitty-kat? Do we have an eye on Cal?"

Yang had hoped that Blake would blush. No such luck there; she merely smirked. "There are more "cute" people around than you think, blondie. Didn't you look at the older-years?"

"Nope. Don't need to look. Don't tell me you aren't looking for something a little bit closer to home?"

Again, that skeptical eyebrow. "Is that a racist remark I hear?"

How is that racist? "No? Don't you want people you know and like instead of total strangers?"

"Like that. I guess so…but what about you? Found your home already?"

Yang looked over her shoulder and saw her little Operative still without punch, staring at the various people who dared to come within a radius of ten feet's distance. "You could say that."

Of course Blake didn't miss a thing. "It will be very hard. You know that, right?"

"Yeah…"

"You would be constantly fending off the past. Yours and his."

"I know."

"And there are things you can't help with."

That sounded suspiciously correct. Either Blake had looked up information about relationships with traumatized people, or she had reflected on the hardships on her own. Sun had absolutely nothing to warrant that. Just who did Blake have on her mind? Her ex-partner? Or another ex-someone?

"I know."

"Not giving up?"

"He didn't."

"Good point. No princes on white horses for us, right?"

"Meh…I think that everyone can be the one on the white horse at times. You've been one…"

"..and I've needed one," Blake finished her sentence. "The same goes for you."

"And Ruby."

"Weiss too?"

"That depends. Is she still dancing with Rubes?"

"Yup."

"In that case, yes. Weiss too."

The two of them fell silent. No further words were needed; in terms of trust and bonds, their team was top-tier. And Yang doubted the third- or second-year students could say the same thing.

Eventually, Sun and Neptune came for Blake. The lovely Faunus tried to get Yang with her, but she declined.

"Have fun," she said. "It's your night."

After only a few seconds, Blake smiled and walked off, leaving Yang to set the rest of her plan for the night in motion. She walked up Will, tapped him on his shoulder and said, "Hey! How are you doing?"

He blinked a few times. "Managing."

"You know, nobody here is going to try and drug you."

"I didn't think so, no."

Alrightie then, plan B. Yang took a hold of Will's right arm and hauled him upright. "Come on! Let's dance!"

Whatever protests he had cooked up went unheard when she pulled him towards the floor. He didn't struggle or resist –or he did, and she didn't notice it. Yang knew that he still struggled with people touching him, as the slightest touch could send him into a nearly panic-induced fit of alarm, but that didn't seem to go for everyone. Ruby and she could touch him without being at risk, while…well, Pyrrha had found out the hard way she didn't belong to that specific group.

"I don't think we should be here," he said, glancing around at the various pairings that were gleefully dancing their troubles away. "I really don't think…"

"Easy," she replied. "Just breathe and relax. Think of this as military leave."

"I wouldn't know how that works, we never had leave."

They didn't get leave? "Let's make it a good first time then." She gently wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned in close, pressing herself against his body. He felt a bit hard and bony, because he didn't have a lot of soft spots, but that was alright. She hadn't expected him to feel like Ruby anyway, and sometimes a little bit of discomfort at the right spot could be better than all the comfort at the wrong ones. Was this the first time they had actually hugged consensually? Second time?

"You're warm," he muttered. He seemed to hesitate for a second, but then he placed his hands on her body as well. One on her lower back, one around her shoulders. She longed for him to touch her somewhere else, but she was not going to push him. She had her patience. And judging by how rapidly his chest was moving, patience would be the right way of approaching this after all.

"Is that something bad or good?" she replied with a smirk. She knew the song that was currently playing, "Lucid deams of Ecruburg". A sad little song about a town drifting away into emptiness, because of isolation and cultural differences. It was fitting considering all the differences at Beacon, but the drifting-away part would be averted big time.

"I like warm."

So…very…good.

"But I lied to you," he then said in a low voice.

"About what?" Yang asked, making sure she sounded at ease.

"Some things. Like the firebombing."

"What firebombing?"

"A few weeks back, in that club, Later again, in the village. Napalm-strike."

Ah, that one. "I remember. What about it?"

He looked away. "It…wasn't really an airstrike. Nor friendly fire. More gas and red dust…and a cigar. Long story."

Yang increased the pressure on his waist a bit, calming him. "That doesn't matter. You've shared and grown a lot since you came here. Nobody expects you to share all your secrets."

"When I came here…I had so many things going on…inside my head. Anger…hate…conceit. Later, grief and guilt." He paused, looking her in her eyes again. For someone who was supposed to be devoid of feelings and emotions, there were many expressions hidden in his features. Uncertainty in his eyes, vulnerability in the way he looked. Appreciation and such deep trust in the way he looked at her. "I only ever wanted to help. Do good. But there was too much wrong to function. It still is. But…"

He trailed off. Yang didn't need to hear the rest of his words to understand what he wanted to say, what feelings he wanted to convey. With you, that doesn't matter. There were many things that would come with time, and she was willing to wait for them all. "You found hope then? Purpose?"

A flicker of an eyelid. "Both."

She edged closer, even though their bodies were practically touching each other on every front. She could feel his chest against hers, steadily rising and falling. Faster with each passing second. She wondered if it was comforting to him, or if this was making him nervous. Perhaps "both" again? "Do you think that, in time, you can call this place home? With us?" With me?

His hands clenched on her back, and she could feel his fingers digging deeper against her skin. His breathing was still fastening. Had she said something wrong? Gone too far? Was it the intimacy of her touch? "I want to…but I don't…don't fit here. I can see it. Everyone knows it. Nobody would accept-"

Yang brought her right hand to his cheek, which felt surprisingly hot against her skin. He immediately fell quiet under her touch and stared at her with apprehensive eyes, like he was awaiting her judgement. Not quite caught in the headlights, but still so vulnerable. "Don't worry about the others. I've got you, and nobody here will ever harm you."

The air grew still and quiet, as if the very world had slipped into a trance. His breathing steadied, and his fingers relaxed again. He lowered his gaze yet again, but this time he brought his face closer to hers as well, as if two parts of him were fighting for control. And she could see which one was winning. "I…I don't know what to do. How to do this-"

Yang tenderly rested her forehead against his, and closed her eyes. "It's okay. Let me guide you…"

Will took a calming breath and carefully moved his hand up, towards her neck. The slightest of touches, and she wanted to savor them for as long as she could. She wanted to press her lips against his and claim him as hers. Save both of them from their demons, giving in to their feelings. Right now, this was what they both needed. But timing had never before been so important. She had waited, and waited, but this wasn't waiting anymore. This was something so much more delicate. This moment, this split-second of physical intimacy, it was as fragile as the cords that kept the peace in Remnant. One push too much, and they would snap.

Outside, the sounds of guns discharging broke the trance-like air. Will pulled back before Yang could get the timing right, before they could submit to what they felt. She saw new hesitation and loathing in his eyes, and she understood why. Sounds of combat made him jump –and there was a large chance that this was another attack. He didn't want to leave, but his soul called out for him. He was fighting a lifetime of conditioning just to stay with her and she couldn't help him. She should be able to, but she still didn't know how to. You couldn't beat that lifetime of conditioning on your own.

She could rear in and cease the moment. Cease him. She could force the tender bonds and kiss him before he had readied himself. But it would be wrong; it would be forceful and it would only hurt the two of them. It would be betraying him, and betraying herself.

Patience. A virtue, and right now she despised it.

His hand trailed around the edges of her hair, staying near the lower portion and gently caressing it. Now or never?

Explosions went off close-by, windows exploded into thousands of brightly-coloured shards and people started screaming. Will let go of her completely, gritting his teeth. His eyes betrayed the utter loathing that he had to feel for himself right now, as Yang had never seen him more reluctant to do anything than now.

Without saying a word, he turned towards the entrance to the building, where other similar-minded fighters were gathering. Yang stayed behind, hating herself for missing her chance. For messing up the simple thing that she had going on, the things she could have fixed. Anger and frustration welled up in her chest like liquid fire and above it all, she felt the utter unfairness of the situation. A damned attack on Beacon, just as they were all finally ready to move on? It wasn't fair!

Yang clenched her fists, feeling the strong urge to break something. If there was anything alive outside right now, it would be dead pretty soon.

"What was that?" Jaune yelled, being one of the leaders to immediately switch over to combat-mode. There wasn't a hint of panic in his voice. "Are we being attacked?"

"There's nobody near the hall," Alessa replied.

Lisa immediately took the hint. "The CCT! They hit the CCT! We gotta move!"

The CCT? Why would anyone attack the CCT? That didn't make any sense!

Ruby jumped down the stairs, followed by a barely-keeping-up Weiss. "Come on, we've got to move!"

"Ruby, we're wearing dresses!" Yang replied. She could see Will joining Cal, Lily and Ash, before moving to intercept whoever was attacking them. They weren't armed. "Actually, never mind. Just go!"

Seven minutes earlier

Cinder Fall approached the staging-point in front of the Cross-Continental Tower. There was nobody there save for one soldier clad in black armour. The buildings provided her ample cover, but she needed to get down there to get inside of the tower. This was going to become difficult.

"Not what you were expecting?" The Onyx soldier said, looking around.

"Get out of my way child, before I have to carve off your pretty face," Cinder replied from the top of the roof. She was running on a very tight schedule and she couldn't waste time fighting slippery shadows again.

"I've got the time. Come down little subject, so we can continue testing."

Cinder growled under her breath and forged herself a bow, which she readied for the inevitable clash. The nerve of his damned thing! Calling her out like that? He had a death wish! "Where are Ironwood's soldiers?"

"Taking leave. Guess your Intel was off, right? Suits you for working with animals."

She recognized this one. He was one of Onyx's shadows, skulking around in the night, covertly changing Remnant to a world more suited to their agendas. She didn't have the time to deal with this!

Cinder leaped off the roof and took aim at the lone soldier. Three arrows were nocked, all of them directed at the single target.

The soldier turned to face her and she released her projectiles. The glass arrows sailed straight and true, but the Onyx warrior replied in kind with the same uncanny accuracy she had come to associate with their trained children of the damned. Three shots rang out and the three arrows shattered into dozens of pieces even as Cinder attempted to reposition.

The next shots were aimed at her knees. She blocked them with ease and felt the patterns underneath her skin rippling, begging to be released. She suppressed them and raised the shards of glass in the air, before launching them at the Shadow.

He moved as well, dodging the incoming shrapnel with a series of backflips and one last fall-breaking roll, during which he unsheathed a white knife, which he held in a reverse grip.

Crossing blades with one of them would cost her too much time, and it would alarm others. The echoing of bullets was carried far. Too far.

Cinder hated them. Despised them. All of them. If the full capacity of her powers was what was needed to burn them from the face of Remnant, she would gladly embrace it.

Their fight was heated, but short-lived. The soldier didn't even attempt to shoot her, instead attempting to go in for the melee-combat. She kept back, firing projectile after projectile. He was taunting her by not even giving her a fight. Was she so valuable to them that they didn't even attempt to harm her? Fools. All of them.

One of her arrows found its mark in the Soldier's gut. He stumbled backwards as his Aura gave away, while Cinder moved in for the kill. But this one was stronger than she had suspected; he still defended himself from her follow-up attack and when she forged herself a twin set of swords, he assumed his own position with that knife of his.

She knew better than the dance around with a Shadow. Instead of risking injuries, she tapped into her internal energies and leveled the battlefield. She could feel her grafted tattoos flaring to life, burning into her skin and glowing through her dress. The ground underneath her foe's feet exploded into jets of fire and brimstone and he only barely managed to get away in time.

But the fire had badly singed his helmet and the visor had been utterly blackened. He had no choice but to tear it off, giving Cinder the opening she needed to finish this off. As his hands went for the useless piece of equipment on his head, she dashed forwards and sliced at his unprotected sternum.

The soldier still managed to protect himself –sort of. One elbow was slammed down on her left upper arm and pinned it down, but her right sword cut through the fabric of his suit, right between the armour-plating.

Cinder knew how to pry open these tin soldiers. One-on-one she could take them, but if they swarmed her with groups, she knew better than to risk it. This one was better than average, but she had her motivations. Hatred, fear, pain, memories. Nothing that these empty shells could recreate with their blunted souls and their shredded personalities.

The helmet flew off and Cinder spun around, cutting him across the chest and sending him stumbling backwards. Blood coated the side of one of her swords, but the other had shattered in her hands.

She stayed her hand, however, when she saw the face that lay underneath the dark visor. She recognized it from somewhere, though she couldn't actually tell where from. He wasn't one of her former tormentors, because she had forced herself to memorize their faces. This one was new…yet his familiarity was unnerving. It seemed that everything Onyx did served to unnerve her these days. Soon that would be over.

His white hair was cropped short and messy from the helmet, while his pale-blue eyes were calm and collected. Years of working underneath a helmet had done his skin no favor, because he was even bleaker than the ones he supposedly came from.

He looked up for a split-second, baring his throat. Throat, however, was a bit of an overstatement. Twisted mess of scar-tissue was a better description. The skin was thick, reddish and roped, like someone had torn it out and replaced it with a bad replica.

Cinder had heard the circulating stories, but she hadn't paid them any attention, thinking them to be propaganda for the White Fang. It appeared they were true, though she hadn't been with the Fang when that particular event had transpired.

That made this encounter special.

"I see you still bear your markings?" she taunted him.

"I don't glow in the dark whenever I attack," the soldier countered. "Enjoying those tats?"

As a matter of fact, she was. And as she unleashed another plume of fire from underneath the Onyx child's feet, she could feel them empowering her even more, driving her anger. Fueling her hatred. They grew more powerful the more emotional she became, though thankfully she had learned how to control herself long ago.

"I enjoy being free. Free to do as I please." Another explosion, more fire.

"You don't look free to me," a smoking and battered soldier shouted. How was it that his Aura was more potent than that of the true devils? How was it that this bitter, cynical shadow of a person was more stable than all the others?

Cinder was willing to let that mystery stay unanswered. She unleashed the full wrath of her past, reducing the area around her to rubble. This fight was never meant to last long; it has merely been an act of spite, to stall her and her plans. She needed to hurry if she was going to the tower. She had things to do, people to meet. It didn't matter if the soldier was still alive; he wasn't going to stop her.

"You know," Cinder said as she stepped towards the entrance of the tower, which had molted away in her short-lived fury, "in a way, I pity you."

He looked at her with the calmest of expressions and pulled out a small item from his chest-pockets. "Don't."

"What-?"

He pressed the button with a subtle gesture, and the tower exploded. The supporting pillars at the base collapsed within seconds as angry red flames emerged from holes that had never been there and the windows of every building in the vicinity sprang to pieces. The once-mighty CCT wobbled dangerously, then collapsed into a pile of rubble. Controlled. Efficient. Just like everything they did.

And Cinder's blood froze. How was she ever going to win this war of hers if Onyx was willing to burn everything in order to win? If they were willing to destroy Vale's CCT with controlled demolitions rather than stop her? Did it truly cost them less to destroy the tower than to allow her to win?

"Coming here was a mistake, Fall," he whispered at her. His bright eyes never left hers and despite of his injuries, he was smirking. "You left your hideout unguarded. All that Dust…"

Cinder bristled, realizing what he meant. This was a trap! They had known about her plans, and they had chosen to destroy the CCT instead of letting her pass. "You petty fool," she snapped. "Would you rather harm this Kingdom than accept your crimes?"

"See it this way," he said. "We've got new amounts of Dust, you get to live your free life for another few days." He coughed violently, spitting up blood. "Or hours. Minutes, if you don't hurry."

"There will be blood for this," she replied. "When the White Fang finds out, when the SDC find out and when Ironwood finds out. And it will be yours."

"So tell your Lieutenant that Frost is coming back for him."

The Lieutenant? Had he been the one? No matter. He would get to finish the job.

Cinder gave one last look of disgust at the ruined creature that had once been a child and turned around. As long as Mercury and Emerald were at Beacon, they were...relatively safe. She couldn't say the same about herself though. This…was a victory to Onyx. But she still had the files of one of their more problematic fugitives. Lady Cassandra might not know it, but the dossiers would be more damaging to the organization than any of her acts of terrorism would ever be. The once-brilliant Professor was not the sharpest anymore, but she still remained the one who had set her free.

And Cinder would never forget that. It was the most beautiful of relationships.

One that would bring a much-enjoyed ending to the layer of systems upon systems of horror and corruption that called itself Onyx.

"The CCT! It's gone!"

"Someone blew it up!"

"Was it them? Was it Onyx?"

"It couldn't have been, they're the good guys!"

"Hell no? They slaughtered those innocent people!"

Above it all, the easy-to-miss voice of Sergeant-Professor Johnson calmly rang out to all in a radius of a kilometer. "EVERYBODY, CLEAR THE BLAST-ZONE! WE GOT WOUNDED!"

"Wounded?" Jaune muttered to Weiss, who was standing next to him with both of her hands in front of her face. "I'd have been surprised if there hadn't been any wounded."

Of course she didn't reply. Her family practically owned the Cross-Continental Tower, and it was worth many millions of Lien. Seeing it go down like that…it was just horrible.

"That is going to cost Vale some money," Ren said.

"Not just money," Pyrrha told him. "The CCT was responsible for most of our inter-continental communication. Without it…we are cut off. Even more so than before."

"Gee, I wonder who would do something like that," Nora said with what had to have been her very first sarcastic sentence. "I thought we had security to deal with terrorists?"

"Our foremost anti-terrorism group is LACG," Jaune replied. "And they were dancing. We all were."

Ren sighed. "We let our guards down."

"No," Jaune sharply said. "We did not let our guards down. We were recovering from things that could ruin our morale, and that was the most important." If only he had something smarter to replace "things" with.

Pyrrha nodded. "He is right; the enemy struck us at our most vulnerable, but we had no choice. Fighting without believe, or the will to win, or even when tired, are all roads to ruin."

Blake and Lisa were trying to get through the line of Atlesian soldiers and Ironwood to get to the dark figure that was being treated, but they were stopped at a small distance away from that line. Something Beacon students were not allowed to know?

Whatever it was, it didn't seem to extent to anyone Onyx. Will and Cal simply marched through their lines, flashing their scrolls. The Operative then knelt down next to the wounded figure lying on the ground, and started talking with him.

"They blew the CCT," Ren repeated. "The White Fang? Or Onyx?"

Weiss took a shuddering breath, quickly followed by a few quick strides that led her straight to Ironwood himself. "This was an act of violence against my family, but also our school, sir! And that is more important! I want to know who is responsible!"

"Relax Miss Schnee, we only have one lead on the one responsible," Ironwood replied.

One of his second-in-commands took over. "It appears this soldier was responsible, either under orders from Onyx, or recently defected. Wounds suggest he got caught up in the deed, and-"

"Stop talking," Greystone snapped at him. "Don't talk about things you don't know anything about."

Nora quietly whistled and Pyrrha facepalmed. Jaune felt like agreeing; telling the General of Atlas to shut up wasn't very smart.

"Things we don't know about?" Ironwood repeated, accepting the challenge with too much eagerness to be professional. "And you do know about this? Perhaps some details you want to share?"

"Cho!" Lisa Adamant then shouted. "Do your thing!"

Blake patted Jason on the back, after which the boy took one look at the singed body of the wounded soldier and said, "Explosive damage suggest shrapnel-punctures, shockwave damage and a displaced location. These wounds suggest a blast of sufficiently-high temperature, following several lacerations created by a horizontal swipe."

Ironwood's soldier awkwardly rubbed himself behind his ear. "Ehm…what?"

"It means that someone using blades and heat took him out before the explosion," Blake said. "It couldn't have been him."

"I don't care who it was!" Ironwood than snapped. "The facts are here, children. Wherever Onyx appears, innocent people get hurt, and important people die! See this smoking rubble here? That is what is responsible for communicating with the other Kingdoms! And now, it. Is. Gone. Make of that what you will."

"I'll make something of it," Jaune muttered. "It means our lives just got a lot more complicated."

Next time: one group goes on a Field Trip, another one goes on a wild terrorist-chase and someone decides that he is through playing nice.

Also, I don't have a lot planned for RWBY's Field Trip itself, only the aftermath, and I don't want to rewrite what has been done already. So expect little to no changes or scenes about the Mountain Glen. Don't worry; I'll be making up for it. A lot.