Hey, so I have the date for the week off I'll be taking in April. I'll be off starting Saturday 15th April and I'll be back writing on Saturday 22nd. I'll mention this on other fics and be sure the dates at the bottom are accurate when that time comes.
Cover Art: Mysterywhiteflame
Chapter 25
Though it had been he who was asked, Ciel decided she would help him teach Ruby how to be a proper leader. He wasn't sure why she felt the need to step in but he wasn't complaining. Any help was appreciated. It wasn't so much that Ruby was a bad student. It was just that she tended to get distracted very easily, and that her teammates could be very distracting. If it wasn't Weiss dropping not-too-subtle suggestions that she shouldn't be taking lessons from him, or that Ruby should go to her instead, it was Blake sitting around giving him evil looks or Yang complaining that Blake was getting obsessed with researching the White Fang again. Simply put, her team weren't helping her and Ruby didn't have the strength – or the inclination – to tell them off for it.
That was why Ciel suggested they have their sessions in the library instead. It didn't stop any of what was happening before from happening again, but Weiss would get told off if she complained too loudly by the librarian, and Blake was quickly distracted by books and newspapers she could be researching for White Fang clues, and Yang was naturally drawn to chase her down and try to mitigate that self-destructive behaviour.
"Why is it always negative things you're saying I have to do?" complained Ruby. "Discipline this, organise that, make them do this. I don't want them to hate me!"
"Because your team is undisciplined!" said Ciel.
"Because it's better to get the bad stuff out the way first so you don't have to worry about it," countered Jaune, trying to be a little kinder about it. Ruby was fifteen, doing her best, and it wasn't fair of Ciel to keep harping on her. Ciel huffed and looked away. "And a lot of this boring stuff takes care of itself once you have the basics down. Once your team learns to trust you and follow your orders, they'll not need to be told to listen, but that won't happen unless you show them why they should listen to you in the first place. No one is a born leader."
"Weiss would say otherwise," grumbled Ruby.
"Then she'd have done a better job in our spar, wouldn't she?" His flat question had Ruby stifling a giggle. Luckily, Weiss was busy trying to help Yang sort Blake out. "Look, Ruby. You said yourself that you knew it'd be better to have a plan in our fight, right?"
"Yeah… kinda…"
"And that Weiss and Blake blew you off?"
Ruby sank in her chair. "Yeah. I get it. If I'd been stricter then they'd have listened to me."
"Exactly. Discipline doesn't have to mean punishments and beating back their personalities, either. It just means that they know to pay attention when things get serious. That can be because they trust you."
"Having it be because they dislike you is self-defeating anyway," said Ciel. "I had to face this with my team. They were a friendship group who hated my being put in charge, and they still do, but I've at least got them to the point where they will listen to me in a fight."
He still felt bad about that. Ciel was a much more talented and hard-working person than he, and yet she had such a bad situation to work with. His team, for all their oddities, were just so easy to get along with. Everyone gelled together. "I got lucky and didn't have that. How did you start, Ciel? Maybe that'll help Ruby."
Ciel hummed and closed her eyes, recollecting. "I started small. Organised spars and training, and set an afternoon work regime. I made sure to ask what times they would prefer so they knew I could be reasonable, but I was also strict that we would train every night at that time. No excuses. I had to show them early that I deserved the role and would work toward improving the team."
"Did they follow your orders?" asked Ruby.
"Initially, yes. Then no. I had to crack the whip and shame them for their lack of effort. You might not have to go that far, but I have a team of proud boys who think they're hot stuff. Embarrassing them is the best way to get them moving."
"I'm sure you can be more reasonable with your team," said Jaune.
Ruby's chin touched the table. "I'm not."
Despair rolled off her in waves and Jaune looked to Ciel over Ruby's head. Ciel shrugged. This was his charity case, she seemed to say, and she was going to let him take care of it. Jaune sighed and tapped Ruby's shoulder comfortingly. "Why not? Your team all seem to be good friends. That's better than a lot of people get."
"It's because I'm younger – or I'm their little sister. Weiss and Blake listen to me, but they don't listen. Weiss is better, which is weird because she used to hate me being team leader, but she's better now. Blake just listens when it suits her, though. If I say we're doing homework or sparring then that's fine, but if I say we're going out into Vale then she'll try and get off it, or if I – or anyone – tries to tell her to stop being so obsessed with the White Fang then she just blanks me. Or gets aggressive if you push, like what Yang does."
"And don't get me started about Yang," whined Ruby, face down. "I love her and she's great and supportive, but she's my big sister and she knows it. If I give orders, she either teases me or gets all proud and talks about how great I am, but that's embarrassing and it makes everyone laugh and ruins the moment. And she knows all the best ways to get around what I say or make me change my mind or distract me."
Huh. That sounded rough. He hadn't thought an age gap would be that big a deal, but he supposed it was. The difference between 25 and 27 was a lot smaller than the difference between 15 and 17, and Ruby wasn't even old enough to drink. Legally, anyway. He imagined Ciel's team with Ruby as the leader instead and winced. Even Flynt and Neon might take issue with it, though he was sure Penny wouldn't care in the slightest.
I'd probably be upset as well. Not at Ruby but at myself. Having someone with two years less education on the team is fine, but being told they're a better fit for team leader would make me feel really pathetic.
It was a thorny subject. On the one hand the best fit for leader should lead, but on the other hand you couldn't ignore how people would feel – and it looked like everyone on Team RWBY had been at the same baseline for leadership, much like his team had. But where Atlas had let them elect their leader, Beacon just decided who it would be and let them deal with it.
"Did you even want to be team leader?" asked Ciel.
Ruby looked up glumly, chin on the table. "No…"
"Do you think you should have been?"
"No…"
"Why?"
"Because Yang is a better huntress than me in every way – and I'm not being all sad and jealous! I'm just saying we grew up together, we both got trained by my dad and uncle Qrow, and she's had an extra two years in Signal. It's not like Yang is dumb either, she's really smart, and she stands up to Weiss and Blake."
All good points. "Why do you think you were made leader?" asked Jaune.
"I don't know. I thought at first it was because Ozpin was playing favourites."
Jaune's brow rose. "Really?"
"Yeah. He took me into Beacon and knew my uncle, then he makes me team leader. I'm not dumb," she said, pouting. "I knew straight away it didn't make sense for me to be the leader, but I decided to try my best. Now, I think it was an improvement thing. I was bad at talking and social stuff before, and they're teachers, so maybe I was made leader because I had the most to grow and they thought it would make me improve faster."
"That's an interesting idea," said Ciel. "More responsibilities do imply a greater workload. Still, I'd be a lot more supportive of that if this wasn't life or death scenarios. Your team could suffer very real consequences if they're managed poorly in the field."
"I know." said Ruby. "That's why I've been trying my best to get better."
Flailing around in the water. That was what came to Jaune's mind as he listened to Ruby. The girl had been thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim, and credit to her – she'd done her best to tread water for this long. Without proper instruction or advice though, all she could do was try not to sink. To look at them now it was easy to think he was just a better leader, but the difference was that he'd been led into the shallows by a firm hand, given a flotation aid, and then taught how to swim for months before he was allowed into the deeper end. Ruby would have been a much better fighter than him too, and likely still was, so if she'd had the same help he'd received then he was sure she would be incredible right now. Even more so in two years when she was his age.
"I'm going to have to lend you some of my old lesson notes." said Jaune. "I can send them over from my scroll to yours. I think the big thing for now is that you need to talk to your sister. Weiss and Blake are a pair you can deal with, but if Yang is unintentionally undermining you then tell her in private. I doubt she means to, and she might be able to help you wrangle the other two under control."
Maybe. Jaune, Ciel and Ruby all paused as Blake burst into another angry rant about how "no one was doing anything" and "the authorities don't care". She was quickly approached by the librarian but, seeing her coming, Blake snarled and rounded about, marching out the library before she could be told to leave. Yang chased after her while Weiss huffed and faced down the stern woman, apologising for her teammate's interruption.
"Looks like you've got your work cut out for you," said Jaune.
Ruby whined piteously.
/-/
Team JCKP were interested in the training with Ruby for differing reasons. Penny wanted him and Ruby to become the best of friends; Flynt was curious of how bad Beacon's system was. Meanwhile, Neon had more immediately pressing concerns related to their mission.
"Are they going to get in our way again?"
"It's hard to say," said Jaune. "Belladonna is definitely determined to, but I get the feeling Ruby and Yang, and maybe even Weiss as well, are very much against getting any more punishments. The whole team is getting tired of her antics but the problem I'm seeing is that it doesn't seem to be having any effect on her."
"Does she care that little for what her team thinks?"
He wanted to say no, but that was just him being polite. Blake Belladonna… well, he had little idea what she was normally like because he'd only ever met the White Fang obsessed version of her. Ruby claimed she was quiet, witty, and relaxed before.
He'd believe that when he saw it.
"I can't say for certain what'll happen but I'll ask Ruby about it on Friday – frame it as me asking how she's doing with her teammates and Blake in particular. That should give us an idea if they have anything to go on for the weekend."
"I mean, wanting to get involved is one thing," said Flynt. "But how are they going to find the White Fang? They don't have a whole department behind them like we do."
"Didn't stop them two times already," Neon pointed out.
"Well let's hope third time isn't the charm."
/-/
By the time the weekend came rolling by, Ruby had started to get a bit more confident about her giving out orders. It turned out Yang had taken their little talk really well, instantly siding with her sister and toning down the teasing – at least when it came to orders – and taking a more disciplined bent to put Weiss and Blake on the back foot. How much of it was faked was up in the air, but Yang wanted her little sister to succeed, so Jaune didn't think it would crack anytime soon.
They'd agreed upon more training slots, and even on homework times, which Ruby was quickly assured would slowly build a sense of her being in charge. Weiss, apparently, took to it well enough after a bit of nudging from Yang, but Blake was proving a problem. Getting her to the training wasn't the issue, nor was making her take part, but the problem would come after when they were meant to be discussing what they did wrong and how to improve, and Blake would apparently try and slip off to do her own thing.
Her own thing being White Fang related, of course.
It hadn't taken long for Warden to get an idea of how big a problem she was being and look into why, and they'd only taken a day to dredge up her background and a probably backstory for her. Daughter of former White Fang leaders Ghira and Kali Belladonna, warden had two competing hypothesis: the first was that she was antagonistic toward the White Fang because of what they'd done to her parents and their betrayal, and the second was that she might have been "involved" in some way – details were scarce – but she'd quickly soured to the reality of it all and turned against them. Neither was necessarily bad for Vale or Atlas or Team RWBY, but both made it clear that they couldn't expect her to turn a blind eye if she caught wind of them.
Neon was of the opinion they should anonymously blackmail her into silence, and that had led to Flynt having a much better, and more reasonable, idea. One that Warden had taken with glee and run away with.
"Yeah," said Ruby. "Um. We'll be out in the city tonight so we might be back late or even tomorrow. Can we do our lesson later in the day?"
"Sure thing," said Jaune. "What are you up to?"
"Ah! Uh. N-Nothing wrong. Just, you know, girl stuff."
He really needed to talk to her about coming up with better lies; this was the same one she'd given Penny before and they saw how that went. He'd have felt a lot more upset about her ignoring his lessons on being cautious if there was any real danger. "Okay. Have fun, then. I'll tell Ciel." He hung up and looked to his teammates. "They took the bait."
"Good," said Warden, chuckling on the other line. "It wasn't easy to falsify and leak rumours of a gathering and ensure she got a hold of it, but it looks like it worked out. They should be on the opposite end of Vale to where you'll be tonight, so even if they decide to wander there's little chance they'll get in your way."
"Is there anywhere where they're going or is it a dead end?"
"There have been some White Fang robberies over there. Dust stores. We had to make the information believable given you've said she would do research. They'll be headed to an old abandoned area where there have been some police reports of anti-social activity. The VPD investigated and found it to be a place used for drug deals – small time, nothing a team like theirs shouldn't be able to handle."
Penny looked relieved, and he was a little as well. They all wanted Team RWBY out the way but they didn't want them in trouble. Though, if they went and started another fight and got called up by Ozpin and Goodwitch then that was their own fault.
"What's our mission, then?"
"You'll be making a play to neutralise the Paladin tonight." Warden's words had them all sitting straighter. They were going in-? Already? Jaune swallowed and leaned in closer. "This will require a little work to make sure it's where we believe it is, however. We've tracked the vehicle they escaped on but they could have done a hand-off."
"How are we going to get the huge thing out?" asked Flynt. "Or are we blowing it up? We'll need ordinance for that."
"You'll be doing neither. The Paladin is designed for us by Atlas personnel and is designed to be used with our hardware and software. In the cockpit there is a slot for a scroll to fit into. Not a commercial scroll, but an Atlas military model. Like yours. This was designed to enable better pilot authentication and communication. Any commanding officer contacting your scroll would be brought up on the screen in the cockpit and played through there. It's both a convenience and a strategic design choice. The White Fang are likely ignoring it because it doesn't offer them much."
"In one hour, I will be sending a virus file to each of your scrolls. Do not open these or it will absolutely annihilate your scroll. This was designed in-house and it's not a forgiving piece of software. It'll spread like wildfire and destroy everything indiscriminately. Your ultimate goal is to insert it into the cockpit, open the file and fry the systems. Your scroll will be replaced by Winter after you claim to have damaged it somehow."
"Will that be enough?" asked Jaune. "The robot will still be in their control. Won't they be able to make a new OS for it?"
"Yes and no. It'll take them weeks to do so and they'll need some very specialised software to even pull it off. This isn't something you can hold a button in for ten seconds to get a factory reset on. That software is bespoke. The Paladin will be out of action."
"Can't you do even more if we get inside?" asked Neon. "What about remotely piloting it?"
"Possible, but still fraught with risk. While we could try and take control of it and lead it out, there are problems. Firstly, if we try and fail then the White Fang will still have a fully operational machine. Secondly, even if we succeed there will be an element of panic across Vale, and we'll be held directly responsible for it – and after we agreed not to stage any attempts to reclaim it."
"-but if it's found like this then it'll look like they did something wrong and broke it," said Flynt. "And you can say they tried to use a non-authorised scroll and it bricked the system. Some kind of failsafe you guys put in that they activated. Clever. Atlas comes out the heroes with no proof we were ever involved."
"Exactly. We believe if this works that they might even abandon the mech. Make no mistake, it is a powerful weapon and a force multiplier, but it is only a weapon. The effects of its armaments can be replicated with conventional guns and explosives, so whatever plan the White Fang have in place it should not rely on our technology. The Paladin will simply make their job easier."
"Got it," said Jaune. It was a good plan – and simple, too. They wouldn't need to destroy it or fight it, only sneak in and insert a scroll. They could do that, assuming Torchwick was asleep or away and the only ones guarding it were White Fang. "Send us through the map and we'll make our way there, sir. Do you want us to make contact again when we're close?"
"It's best you do. We will keep you updated of any suspicious movements, and we have our resident hacker tracing Team RWBY's progress as well. We will alert you well in advance if they start heading your way."
Perfect. This time there wouldn't be any nasty surprises.
/-/
Vale was dark out by the time they reached the place Warden had sent them to, and it was darker still for being far removed from Vale's nightlife. Roman obviously didn't want a bunch of drunks stumbling on his pad and causing a mess. They set up in an alleyway a few buildings over, a safe distance from their destination, and huddled together while Penny connected the call back through to Warden to let them know they'd arrived.
Roman had chosen his hiding spot well because this place was close to abandoned at night. The numerous factories with their walled-off compounds would have been busy during the day, but no one wanted to have a residential district near so much noise and pollution and that meant the area was as quiet as the grave. Perfect for masked faunus to come and go, and for no one to ask questions if a factory that ought to be closed at night rumbled its metal gates open and disgorged a flatbed truck with an unusual cargo.
"We've got soft confirmation the mech is in the building," reported Warden. "We've confirmed its arrival sixteen hours ago and we've had people watching the cameras ever since. Nothing has left, so unless they dug a tunnel underground and took it through that, it's in there. Keep in mind your best approach is the stealthy one. We have no reason to believe Torchwick will be in there but there could be White Fang. Exercise caution."
In an ideal world it wouldn't be Team JCKP going in at all but the Atlas strike force they'd been promised. For something like this though, that just wasn't necessary. They had the skills needed, and anything more heavy duty would be seen coming from a mile off.
"We'll commence the mission soon. Team Jackpot out." Penny hung up for him. "Okay, I'm thinking we scout the building first to identify entrances and any sentries before breaching. We'll go in as a group of four and try to avoid detection, but if things get loud we stick together and cut a way through to it asap. Neon, you'll oversee shutting the machine down. Any problems?" Heads were shaken. "Any ideas to add?
"If things go loud, I can cause a mass distraction with my music," said Flynt.
"Good call. Go for it. Anyone else?"
"I should be able to scan for scrolls before we enter and determine if and how many people are inside," said Penny. "I'm too far to do so now."
"Your Semblance, right? Yeah, that'll work out well. We can have you scan at all four corners while we're scouting the place. Are you okay with your role, Neon?" Their faunus teammate flashed him a thumbs up and a confident grin. "Good. Looks like we're all set."
Plan made and everyone in agreement, they rushed across the street and to the compound wall, and then along it to the already open gate where they slipped through. The factory's main door was closed, its lights off, but Penny skidded to a stop when they got close. "Too many devices!" she said, loudly. "I can sense over forty devices inside!"
Jaune stopped as well. "Are you sure it's not the factory equipment?"
"No, they're-" Penny looked back at him, then her eyes widened. "LOOK OUT!"
There was no time to consider her warning but his body, trained by Atlas, had an automatic response in hurling his aura up like a thick cloak. It was something he no longer had to think about thanks to Clover's brutal sessions, and it saved his life. Something sharp struck his back and exploded in a ball of fire, hurling him off his feet and right into Penny's arms. The impact was not as soft as he'd have wished, and she was sent skidding back while Neon and Flynt, a bit ahead of them, quickly split up to create a wider spacing between them.
"Archer!" reported Penny. "Rooftop – black mask."
Another sentry-? No, if that was an explosive arrow then it was a huntsman's weapon. Too eclectic to be a normal grunt's when a gun would have done just as good a job. Had the White Fang brought aid-? That wasn't the main thing, he realised suddenly. It was the fact they'd known Team JCKP would be here.
"We've been rumbled!" snapped Jaune. "Retreat now!"
An explosion rocked the factory wall and caused it to burst outward with a gout of fire. Metal skidded on concrete, carving great furrows into the ground as several tonnes of metal and technology hurtled out of the hole it had just caused. Red laser light scanned over them, highlight Jaune from head to toe and back again. Steam escaped as gears whirred and a huge weapon began to spool menacingly. White Fang members poured out around it with weapons drawn and masks flashing in the firelight, and behind them heels clicked as a dark-haired woman in black with a bow walked slowly through the open gates.
"Jaune," whispered Flynt. "Ideas…?"
No. Of course not. They were outnumbered, likely outmatched, and ambushed. There was only one correct answer. "We try and run the moment we can – and we hope Warden are watching this and doing something about it."
Bet you're wishing Team RWBY would be around to interfere now, eh?
Next Chapter: 1st April
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