Sorry no chapter last month here is the new one though. Go ahead and enjoy.

Crimson Imerta looks across her desk at the young Faunus woman across from her. "Miss Lieander, do you know why you are here?"

"No ma'am have I done something wrong?" Mimi replies calmly with a smile.

"Your team is causing me trouble. It seems that your leader has some trust issues when it comes to the military and leadership would you like to explain yourself."

"There is nothing to explain ma'am, the military is easily explained by the situation after the Grimm attack, and leadership in general has to do with our upbringing, you know The Strip is not a calm place and it is not a place that has respect for higher authority."

"Except for your de facto mayor."

"Mayor Tross has more control over The Strip than most, but he still doesn't flex that power often."

"That is very polite of him."

"Ma'am I feel that you are beating around a question."

"I am not, what is your opinion of your team leader Alec Tross."

"Alec is a good man, and he has the loyalty of both myself and the rest of team AMBR. I do believe you have already figured that part out." Mimi smirks as she replies.

"Yes, Mr Tross does seem to have the ability to gather the loyalty of others, I would assume he gets it from his father." The headmistress looks over towards the Tiger Faunus as she gets frustrated.

"Headmistress Imerta, How much do you know about The Strip?"

"Strip is an outlying community founded after the war by surviving Huntsmen and Soldiers, they are technically within the jurisdiction of Vale but it is an open understanding that Strip is an independent settlement that does not rely on Vale for anything but trade. They used to send mercenary forces including Huntsmen on missions, this stopped about ten years ago after a disastrous mission that cost the life of a Huntress and two other mercenaries. Since then any missions taken by member of Strip have been done independently not sent by Mayor Tross."

Mimi closes her eyes, "Do you realize how rare it is for Alec, Beethoven, Raven and Myself to be here?" The Tiger woman stares at the Headmistress, before she realizes that she is not as aware. "Strip does not want its manpower leaving. In reality Mayor Tross did not like a full team leaving the settlement, especially with his son in tow. Him coming with us is the main reason we have such loyalty to him."

Crimson Imerta smirks, "I am fairly sure that your loyalty is secured to Mister Tross for other means."

Mimi leans back, "Ma'am my feeling for Alec are not what has made me loyal to him."

"Would you like to explain?"

"Sure," Mimi stands up, and leans over the desk, "Mayor Tross was willing to let Raven, Beethoven and I go; it would hurt The Strip, but he could leave it be. But Alec has been trained probably even groomed to be the next leader of The Strip. He has been made into what his father considers the best leader for The Strip. He did not want Alec to leave, and Alec did not have a reason to leave. But the rest of us wanted to become Huntsmen, Alec wanted to stay with us. His father gave him an option if he left, he would not be welcome back unless he brought an army. I assume you know what Alec chose. That is why we are loyal to him. He chose us over a fairly comfortable job. We would follow him anywhere."

"I see, I did not know Mayor Tross was so worried about the next leader of The Strip."

"He has been worried ever since his wife died, he never could bring himself to find another wife."

"Thank you, please I am sure you have other activities you have planned."

"Yes ma'am. You know where you can find me."

Alec walks into the mess hall, he looks over the hall looking for the leader of Hannah and David's Unit, the combat team HIDE and their support team KING. Alec continues walking towards the back end of the mess hall. A pair of rabbit ears appear next to him as Hannah joins him. "Harriet is in a private dining area for parties and events on the west side of the mess hall." She smiles as she shifts herself around walking sideways while talking, "I have heard from my contacts that I should be expecting one or two of the soldier boys I will send them over." She stops to turn around, "Oh and thank you for pushing us together." She smiles, "if you ever pull something like that again on me, I will shoot you from such a distance that no one will ever believe it was me." Then she starts skipping off.

Turning towards the room Alec starts walking towards the room. David smiles as he intercepts Alec, "So Room eight is the one; don't let Hari scare you she is a bit extreme but that is what you get out of a spear team leader."

"You all are acting like this is some sort of secret," Alec smirks as he walks with David in a round about route to the meeting room.

"It seems like everything is a secret these days. Anyway, something is up, teams like us should not be being deployed anywhere where we would need to full units, and since the attack nothing has been right. I feel like we are on our own, that Beacon is at war on its own."

Alec stops outside the door, "we are in an odd situation, the Valean military is up to something and it seems like the number of Huntsmen available is incredibly low. We need to watch each other's backs and be ready." Alec steps into the room designed to be a celebration room for twenty or thirty people.

As he steps in the large woman sitting in one of the seats stands up. At her full height she is two and a half meters tall and about as wide the rippling muscles in her arms exude strength. "Alec it is a pleasure to finally meet you." Her voice is soft and calm, sweet like a sweet church girl, not like the Grimm destroying machine that stood in front of him. "I have been meaning to get you aside and talk to the man that saved Hannah and David. They are my friends and I feel like I owe you a debt."

Alec smiles, "I just helped save them; we all worked as a team to get out of that mess of a day."

"I was told you were humble about that and how about how you dealt with Keller and her team?"

"Keller has some opinions that we both disagree with, but she is reliable." Alec smiles as he changes the subject. "I guess I do not need to introduce myself, and neither do you Harriet. I am assuming you want to hear what this whole thing is about."

"I would like to know." The woman nods.

Alec hands over the file folder with the details, "It is a caravan escort mission down The Corridor the Headmistress has allowed me to get another unit to help me on the mission, that is where you come in."

"Sixteen first year huntsmen, even fully equipped, is not going to be enough to defend a massive caravan. We don't have enough training."

"You are correct, but I have been working on a way to gather a larger support group."

"Who did you get? The Mechanized Unit?"

"No, they will be deployed to another area."

"Where could you get the people to…" Harriet realizes what Alec is saying and starts shaking her head, "No, no, no, we cannot rely on those spies. They are going to shoot us in the back the moment they have a chance." She walks around the table and points at Alec. "I owe you a lot, but you cannot tell me to work with those soldiers after what the General threatened."

"I won't tell you, but I will ask you, look even if only a quarter of them go with us they will provide the manpower of three huntsman units and, with the proper equipment they can provide mass fire support that will allow us to deal with the stronger Grimm. We need them." Alec shrugs as he explains himself.

"Can we trust them?"

"Most likely."

The doors open and the Lieutenant stands straight, with a woman by his side, both salute quickly then step through the door. "Very sorry about our delay I had to get things together." The man stops and looks at Harriet, saluting again, "Ma'am I am Cadet Lieutenant Gregory Smith, Commanding Officer of the First Beacon Security Company and this," he gestures towards the woman standing at stiff attention next to him, "is Cadet Master Sargent Marrisa Knight Commanding Officer of Charlie Platoon."

Harriet looms over the pair, "A pleasure to meet you Lieutenant and Master Sargent, I am Harriet Clo Leader of team HIDE and Unit HIDEKING." She glances at Alec. "Take a seat, we have food coming. It sounds like we will be working together."

Alec sits down, "Lieutenant Smith I take this is mean the General approves of mobilization?"

"The General felt the need to make sure I understood my position. The First Beacon Security Company is a semi-independent military unit on loan to Beacon, and thus I am at liberty to deploy my troops as I see fit. Although this also mean my men are not going to receive normal resupply." He sighs, "As such we have begun working on gathering out own supply resources."

"My unit is beginning to gather equipment to resupply your men." Alec states, "Now we must speak about our mission. Now to make things easier I want to go over what we are bringing to the table, my unit is a multipurpose Huntsman team with a standard support team. We have standard equipment as well as a few armored trucks and an old eighty-eight-millimeter gun we salvaged from the outpost we held during initiation, most of these will be loaned to The First Beacon Security Squadron. We are also gathering supplies to assist in the rearming of The First Beacon Security Squadron to assist them in operations."

Harriet nods, "My Unit is composed of a Spear assault Huntsman team and a more logistically based Support team our armored vehicle has an expanded ammunition space and we have a trailer to keep up with our ammunition expenditure."

The Cadets look at each other before the Lieutenant begins speaking. "I will be deploying Master Sargent Marrisa Knight's Charlie Platoon, it consists of squads seven, eight, and nine. I will be deploying along with Charlie Platoon as an observer. Charlie Platoon will be equipped with all available support weaponry my company has which mean it will have rocket launchers and a full complement of machineguns. I will allow the Master Sargent to explain her Platoon."

The woman nods, "Thank you sir, uh, Charlie Platoon consist of three squads this means that we are deployed with three machineguns, three medics and twelve riflemen including commanding officers. Then there is myself, my XO and my comms officer." If the vehicles are available, I would prefer to not deploy more than one squad per vehicle.

"Alright, this will give us sixteen Huntsmen, eight combat team members, eight support team members and twenty-five soldiers. We will spread ourselves across five vehicles; these vehicles will spread across the convoy to provide an immediate response."

"That'll work but the convoy is going to be large, a Grimm attack will be able to hit us hard. Especially if they hit us in an organized fashion." Harriet replies fidgeting with her weapon.

"Am I missing something?" The uniformed man asks, "The Grimm are not organized they would need Salem to lead them."

The stares from both Alec and Harriet scare the two uniformed cadets. Alec speaks carefully, "Why do you think you are here Lieutenant Smith."

"The briefing before deployment told us we would provide additional security as needed. We were under the understanding Beacon needed an expanded security force to deal with new situations. We assumed you had an infiltrator problem, I was thinking an organized bandit group or possibly another Kingdom."

Harriet looks at Alec, "We have to tell them."

"I know."

"Um I feel like we just might have been shorted some mission critical information." The Lieutenant stands up his voice raising. "Now I need to be read in or I will pull my people from this mission."

Alec stares at him then to the woman beside him, "You do need to be read in, Harriet, can you please pull up the reports on your scroll."

"Yeah, I can't believe The General didn't tell you."

"I can't believe the Headmistress didn't tell them. I am going to make a call to her, Tell them everything. Leave nothing out."

The large woman nods, "Yes boss."

Alec step outside the room and pulls out his scroll and dials, "Headmistress it's Alec."

"I know, your scroll number is in my contacts. What is it."

"Did you know that the Cadet Lieutenant was not read in on the Grimm situation."

"I assume that he is being informed as of now."

"Yes, ma'am. We are reading him and one of his Platoon Master Sargents. The General knows about these events right."

"I would assume so, if not before today he will know soon enough."

"You did the right thing." The call hangs up and Alec sighs.

"That is a bit tough." Hannah says walking up behind Alec.

"You know listening in is rude." Alec turns to step back in.

Rude yes but I would rather be rude than trapped. Hannah replies quietly using her semblance.

Alec smiles and focuses his thoughts on a reply, Keep your mind focused on the Cadets. Sitting down he refocuses on the room. The shocked looks on the soldiers in front of him, "I take it that the reading in on need-to-know information went as well as could be expected."

The Lieutenant stares at Alec with fear, "My people are not equipped for this situation, we have been equipped and deployed to deal with human and faunus threats, we only have light machineguns and some rocket launchers."

The woman next to him stands up, "Millions died, kingdoms fell, you huntsmen became monsters to defeat Salem and now you are telling me she is back. Why the hell aren't you doing anything, why haven't you told everyone. You are acting like Ozpin was, Keeping secrets, fighting a secret fucking war with civilization as an unknowing shield and sword."

"What do you think," Harriet says calmly, "Go out into that city and tell them that all that death all that sacrifice. The suicidal defense of Vale. The Breaching of Atlas. The firebombing of Menagerie. Mantle's Last stand. Vaccuo's Bloody charges. That it was all worthless. Tell the few veteran huntsmen left that they became monsters, cold calculating beasts that their decisions their choices meant nothing. Every Huntsman in this school knows what is happening, and we know that will get worse, not better."

Alec stands up, "I believe the General knows about the situation, he seems to have spies or informants in Beacon."

Lieutenant Gregory Smith stares at Alec, a snarl on his lips, "You believe it, straight through. You think we were sent here to do something else. We weren't equipped to deal with Grimm, that is why you are starting to reequip us." He looks at his Master Sargent, "but we were armed to be able to take out Huntsmen, no mortars or artillery, but Rocket launches can burn though aura pretty effectively."

She stares at him with fury, "And we have been given more than enough Aura Penetrating Ammunition." The Woman stares at Alec with the same fury, "What did we get dragged into."

Alec takes a breath he salutes as straight and true as any of the Cadets, "A war, I am sorry."

"Don't be," She stares at her commander, "I follow your orders sir. No matter what side we are on."

The Lieutenant stares surprised at his Sargent, "Go inform the Company of the situation, we will have to start a full reequipment, we need more anti-Grimm weapons, and start looking for armored vehicles. Tell First Sargent Ammada that I do not care how we get it."

The woman salutes, "Will do I have already copied the files. Some of them might walk sir."

"Then they should right now." The woman walks out of the room with the strict movement of a soldier moving quickly but nor running. The Lieutenant turns to the pair of Huntsman Leaders. "Now I will support you Alec Tross, I will believe you on the general. I will trust you because I was sent here undermanned and unarmed for the threat that is standing before us. But if Salem is really back, we are going to need more than a couple hundred Huntsmen and a hundred cadet soldiers."

Alec smiles, "You forgot three squadrons of fighters and an old frigate. The hope is that what ever we are dealing with is still at its beginning stages and we can deal with."

Harriet sighs, "You also have to remember that Beacon is a goddam fortress, with hundreds of staff and the theoretical ability to hold off a massive force."

Alec raises his hands, "we have a mission to prepare for, we need to get our supplies together to being to load up our vehicles. Gregory, I think it would be a good plan for your company to have their meals with us in the Mess Hall. Also, your Soldiers need to start carrying their rifles with them everywhere."

"Won't that make everyone less comfortable?"

"Every person in Beacon has a weapon that they have spent their entire lives learning how to kill with them. Huntsmen and Huntresses respect weapons, we respect the capacity to use them. If any of your people have personal weapons or specific training for non-standard weapons, they should carry them. We are used to personal custom weapons, and if any of you can separate yourselves from the uniformed mass of a hundred heads. Trust me I know it seems odd but the more individual you each seem the more you and your people will be accepted." Alec stands up, "and start adding personal stuff to your uniforms. We will spend the rest of our free time getting everything we need together for the mission. We all know how to contact each other." He sighs, "I would request you prepare your other Platoons for emergency mobile support."

"How would they get anywhere? They are stuck here at Beacon unless they plan a force march."

"From what I hear the lady and gentleman pilots of our Cadet pilot squadrons have gotten very close with some of your people. I would ask them."

"I am so sorry, that is unprofessional I will get them to stop them." The Lieutenant looks worried.

"Why?" Harriet asks as she is getting up, "it is normal, I bet by the end of this year just about everyone will be getting very close," she leans close to the smaller man, "anyway it is getting you connections. Just don't piss off those people they are really your best friends. Also, every one of the first years owes them their lives and if any of your people hurt them, I don't think even Alec could stop the violence." Harriet jumps back and smiles, "but other than the fact I still am not sure that you are a spy, I think you all are smart enough not to get a violent response."

"We are not here to spy on you," The Lieutenant says as her starts to walk out.

"That is what a spy would say," Harriet replies singsong as she chases after the man.

Alec shakes his head as he walks out after the pair. "Harriet," the tall woman salutes and turns around, "what do you think about him? Can we trust him."

"Yes, he seems more than trustworthy but his loyalties do not lie with you, he still sees himself as a soldier."

Hannah sashays over, "Nah he is cool, at least he isn't going to go spilling the story to the General. But I wouldn't rely on his troops if it came to facing military or the General. At least not yet, the woman that left a bit ago was not happy about their situation, but she has close loyalty to that Lieutenant. She is also mentally preparing for war." Hannah shrugs, "The Lieutenant was more worried about the risks to his people."

"Alright, we have things to do." Alec looks at Harriet, "We have to get those soldiers that new equipment, have your people talk to mine. I probably am going to be called upon by the Headmistress or Assistant Headmaster. Can you please keep an eye on the soldiers when they come in for dinner?"

"Of course, we will keep an eye on them." Harriet, salutes, "We have your back."

Hannah slaps her leader, "don't you dare think that, You would break him."

"Get out of my head Hannah," Harriett pushes the rabbit girl.

The girl stands her ground, "Not my fault you are truly screaming your thoughts, That poor boy."

Alec stares at the pair of girls and starts stepping away as the bickering girls start reaching for their weapons. David hears the yelling and hears the Mecha shift weapons activate, "we should run, before they really get at it."

The pair turn around and begin briskly running away at full speed, the yelling grows louder, and the words, "that poor boy," can be heard and the clang of weapons can be heard. Alec looks at David, "This normal?"

"Uh, yeah, Harri gets passionate about things and you know Hannah get everything in a flash. And the thing is Harri apparently gets a little bit passionate about the things that Hannah usually brings them up."

The yelling becomes screaming, "You don't have to say anything about what I am thinking."

"Crap," David turns around and starts running back, "I am going to calm them down."

Alec keeps walking away shaking his head. Looking ahead he sees Mimi and Raven are yelling at each other as they walk towards him. "No, We are not going there again. And I will hit you again."

Alec sighs as he sees Raven start to levitate with the Dust in her boots, "You could try."

Alec grabs Raven by her leg and Mimi by her arm, "No fighting, lets go."