I will be changing some aspects of canon RWBY lore for the sake of the story, so if you're about to go: "Um, but actually..."

I probably changed it on purpose, so don't get too iffy.


Angie hummed rhythmically as she piloted Death to Kells towards another Atlesian base. They had recovered a significant amount of materials for on their first raid for Cloud Errant, but not enough to make it fly without risk of breakage.

So while Summer stayed and tuned up her ship, Angie was going to go to a shipyard and strip enough hull to patch both Cloud Errant's gaping holes, and a few of DtK's smaller ones.

Angie and Drei had both agreed this was the best course of action, as allowing Summer and Lantern to tinker in the same room together were what had led to the Tower needing a new barracks. Add a new unstable element to the list and they'd be lucky not to wipe Vale off the map.

Angie slowed down as the base came into view from around a mountain. Angie had to admit, they had picked a good spot for the base. Right on the side of a mountain, it reminded her of Lord Saladin's keep. Natural defences aside, the compound itself had an impressive array of ships. Angie had Lantern briefing her on each type, and which ones were suitable to either use directly or compound their hulls.

Sure, this would be a noticeable blow to the Atlesian navy, but nothing crippling. Angie looked at it as an attempt for humbling. She wouldn't strip every ship clean, and in return, the Atlesians would take it on the chin.

Dropping out of DtK, Angie softly landed on the chilly asphalt and duck behind a bullhead as two guards wandered by. She had chosen to forgo stealth for this raid, as mind games were one of her specialties.

She was honestly very tempted to have Lantern play 'Sympathy for the Devil', and go on a full-frontal assault, scaring the shit out of every Atlas soldier on the base.

But instead, she chose the more subtle approach of waving at every camera she passed and having Lantern freeze the camera's before she got there. This meant she couldn't be caught in the act, and the Atlesian had something fun to watch afterwards.


"Well. I didn't expect this to end like this." Angie commented three hours later whilst being surrounded by unconscious bodies and solar flames were burning away at least three ships, other various damage types having destroyed more.

Smacking her lips and gazing around, she gave a nod before signalling for Lantern to bring their ship down.


Ozpin massaged his forehead after the report James had just given him.

Apparently one of the thieves from the previous raid had shown up again, this time in an Atlas shipyard. They had made no effort to conceal their trace and wound up destroying more than half of the ships there.

"It was obvious that they had hacked the cameras and alarms," Ironwood's voice reappeared in Ozpin's ears, "The guards monitoring them would have alerted the rest of the compound immediately. What's more, was that there was no trace of tampering in the code. Either they're just this good, or, have somebody on the inside..." Ironwood finished grimly.

"James, please, we still can't jump to conclusions here," Ozpin said.

"But it would also be unwise to simply dismiss the fact that it could indeed be her."

"Then what do you make of her new, four-armed, companion that seemingly is able to use elemental abilities without the use of any obvious dust?"

Ironwood had no response to that.

"I know you don't want to admit it, and I don't either, but much like we need to suspect Summer Rose is alive and turned against the kingdoms, we also must face the terrible prospect that Salem has created sapient grimm." Ozpin said. "What's worse, that these two may be connected..."

"What do you mean, Ozpin?" Ironwood questioned with good amounts of suspicion.

"What if Ms Amber wasn't the first victim of that technique?"

Ironwood took a sharp breath. What Ozpin was implying was frightening.

"So you think that Salem stole Summer's soul?" Ironwood clarified.

"It is merely a possibility, not a certainty."

"Well, I want to get to the bottom of this." Ironwood closed the speculation decisively. "We've found what they stole on their first raid by checking missing items from previous inventory reports. That, with the new attack and stripping of ship hulls, we suspect that they are trying to make something, some kind of vehicle. What kind, we don't know, but we already have calculated their next most likely target."

"Good. Should I send Qrow to help?" Ozpin asked.

"That will not be necessary, we will be dispatching a new team of specialists." Ironwood then cleared his throat. "Plus, Qrow could be... emotionally compromised."

"Hm." Ozpin hummed. "I see your point, but Qrow may become even more adamant about revealing that it isn't Summer."

"And if it is?" Ironwood asked.

"Then we may have to start fearing for the worst."


1 Week Later...

Summer and Angie were back in Death to Kells, this time on their way to an Atlas dust refinery. They didn't actually need any of the dust, but the machinery they used to refine the dust was far more useful to them, as certain parts could be used to substitute Cloud Errant's own fuel processors.

"This should be the last place we need to 'borrow' things from before Cloud Errant is safely flyable." Lantern informed the rest of the group. The guardians nodded whilst Drei grumbled about them stealing. It wasn't like this was the first time the had stole things. Angie stole things from the Fallen regularly, heck, most of the stuff in Death to Kells was stolen from them.

"Now, are you sure that what we're grabbing is useable for our level of fuel?" Angie asked.

Drei sighed, unable to think how he had let the situation get this out of hand. "Not the machine itself, but the parts it has to make it worth more to grab it in one go than to get them from multiple places."

"The only thing out of the ordinary is the unusually high amount of chatter going on around the refinery," Lantern added.

"What do you mean?" Summer asked.

"No idea," Lantern replied, "But something's going on down there. Be ready."

Arriving at the refinery, Angie had the Royal Straight holstered around her waist, and Summer was holding up Thorn. Much like their first raid, they activated stealth and silently dropped down into the facility. Unlike the first time, or second for that matter, the refinery wasn't owned by the Atlas Military, but instead by a private company and supported by the said military. Some of the subsystems were on different servers, but Lantern and Drei assured it wasn't anything they couldn't handle with ease.

"Now Summer," Angie said through their comms, no noise slipping through her helmet, "This time, do not drop your invisibility, and pay attention to your surroundings."

"Yes, Mom..." Summer's voice groaned back. Rounding a corner, avoiding two... Faunus? Angie believed to be what those humans with animal features were called. She then made it over a gangway that was suspended above large running boilers, Angie entered some kind of break room to find five people in there. The reason these people were so interesting to her was because of how different they were to the rest of the people in the facility. Instead of the usual overalls like the workers, or the bulky armour that the guards wore, these people were a little more expressive with what they wore, if not all following the same colour scheme.

First was a dark-skinned faunus with a dog tail that wore a white double-breasted coat, red ascot and dark blue trousers, and had some kind of boomerang on their back.

Next, a pale man with little hair and tattoos on his face. He was also wearing a white coat and blue trousers, except his coat was shorter, and he had a red sash as well as silver bracelets and necklaces.

A bulky tan girl with messy brunette hair stood next to the man, large enough that Angie could have mistaken her for an unarmoured titan. She had a white crop jacket that only covered her right arm, silver metal vambraces, a dark grey shirt, white pants, and no shoes to speak of.

The other girl of the group contrasted the giant rather well. While having similar if not darker skin, she was far shorter and had must of her hair shaved except for a short brown mohawk with a blonde crest. She had a sleeveless white double-breasted vest, dark blue shirt, white shorts and dark blue chaps which exposed part of her thighs.

The last was a well-built fair-skinned man with brown hair. He had, yet again, a double-breasted sleeveless white coat, white pants, a rabbit's foot on his belt and a four-leaf clover badge on his chest.

These were certainly no regular grunts, actually, they bore more resemblance to the person who Summer fought bake at the first base.

"Lantern, bring up the helmet footage from the first raid, I want a look at whoever Summer was fighting."

"On it." Came the reply from the phantom.

"Mom, is something wrong?" Summer asked through the comms, most likely already having reached the refiner part she was tasked with.

"Hopefully not, but I think there are some people here doing a job below their pay grade..." Angie answered just as Lantern brought up the footage. The white-haired 'huntress' matches the style of these people. From Drei's report of that mission, it meant that these people were Atlas Specialists. Not as much of a pushover as regular soldiers.

"Summer, I need you to keep digging out those parts, my share too," Angie spoke into the comms.

"What? Why?!"

"Remember that woman you fought back at the Atlas R&D base?"

Summer made a noise of confirmation.

"Well, now there are five of them. I'm going to keep an eye on them, just in case something goes wrong."


"Ugh!" Harriet groaned in annoyance as she tapped her leg impatiently. "Our first mission as a specialist team and we're sent to guard a dust refinery in the middle of nowhere!"

"Well like you said, it is our first mission," Vine replied calmly as he meditated. "Don't expect anything too grandiose."

"But we've been here for five days, Vine! And nothing's happened!" Harriet threw her hands in the air. Elm suddenly slung her arm around the small woman, crushing her bones as she squeezed her.

"Hey, come on Harriet. It isn't all that bad. Just think what we'll be doing three years from now! We'll be the best team in Atlas!"

"Might I remind everyone why we were sent here?" Marrow interjected, "These 'Rouge Huntresses' have caused mayhem in two other Atlas facilities and defeated a fellow specialist. I think it'd be best we'd all stay on guard."

"Hey, easy there Marrow," Clover patted the faunus' shoulder. "Just because we're a little lax doesn't mean we're slacking off. Let's just do our job, and surely we'll be able to handle it."

"That's if they even show up," Harriet mumbled.

"Look, it's about time for a sweep of the base, so how about we do it a little early so we can stretch our legs?" Clover suggested. All the others gave their agreeing responses, picked up their weapons and headed out of the room.


"Hmm..." Angie cupped the chin of her helmet in thought.

"What's wrong, boss?" Lantern asked her guardian.

"Something about them is bugging me. Like a distant part of my mind is attempting to show me a hidden memory..."

"Should we follow them?"

"Yes, we should..."

Angie gripped the pipes on the wall and began scuttling around the room, slowly as not to break her active camouflage. Trailing the specialists didn't do much, but the veteran Vanguard knew better than to completely dismiss a potential threat. After all, doing so in the past had led to the creation of the gun Summer now had. Angie still bore regret for the guardians her inaction had caused.

Angie dismissed her helmet briefly to smack her cheeks. Mind on the present guardian!

"You were thinking about it again." Lantern remarked.

Angie sighed as her helmet returned. "Yes. I was." Returning to prowling after the specialists, Lantern gave a sigh.

"He wasn't your fault."

Angie didn't respond.

"Angela. Listen to me; He. Wasn't. Your. Fault." Lantern repeated.

"I know, I know, it's just..." Angie said weakly.

"No just. Only here and now." Lantern interrupted. "Keep your eyes on the prize, Boss."

Angie heeded the instructions and returned her attention on the patrolling. Soon, the group had led her outside into an open part of the refinery. Angie did a weapon check on them.

Boomerang.

Chakram.

Warhammer.

Full arm bracers.

Fishing Rod? What?

So mostly a melee group of specialists, not a good mix if they wanted to beat her. If a guardian decided to get into close range with an enemy, it usually meant disintegration one of three element types, four for herself. Wait, now that she thought about it, was freezing and then shattering into millions of unfathomable pieces counted as 'disintegration'?

"Excuse me, Drei?" Angie asked into the comms.

"Yes, Angela?"

"If I killed with stasis, would it count as disintegration?"

"I don't think so, but I'm not sure..." Drei answered. "I'll look it up" Drei went about doing that whilst Summer was still humming and taking apart the refinery. Angie turned her attention back to the specialist's conversation, now taking a break on an overlook of the yard.

"So, who do you think theses rouges are?" the large woman, Elm, asked aloud.

"Probably White Fang. Did you see the four-armed one?" the short girl, Harriet, leaned on the railing. As the two women were discussing the possible identities of Angie and Summer, the brown-haired man, Clover, had taken out his 'weapon' and was making practice casts with it, whipping it around before trying to hook something across the yard. He kept repeating this action, harmless in and of itself, but it gave Angie a weird feeling. It was the same kind of feeling whenever she went somewhere with high amounts of temporal energy, somewhere with the ability to change fate.

Angie was so caught up in her musings that she almost didn't see the hook coming directly at her.