Hi-Dilly-Doh guys, and welcome to FFXV- Wait, it's not Final Fantasy?

I'll admit, I never expected to release this kind of x-over to be honest, but when Trigun STAMPEDE began airing this january I already began to write somekind of draft about a possible fic. I'm a lover of Trigun, I watched all the '98 anime and I possess the entire manga, but boy STAMPEDE got me a lot. Even the redesigns are incredible to be honest- Yes, even Vash-, because when the 12th episode aired then everything made sense. STAMPEDE, so far, is far more faithful than the '98 anime series (Since that one is already 60% filler), so I decided to blend all the versions of Trigun into one (But expect a...70% of STAMPEDE, and boy I hate describe STAMPEDE's Vash's appearance, but I think how I did it works?). But why RWBY of all things?

Well, I wanted to actually try to touch Mountain Glenn and beyond since I still need to reach that point with FFXV, so this is more of an experiment than a proper fic...YET this one is so ahead with production that I decided to publish it as its own fic. I had a few problems for actually blend these two series, so I decided to go with a Universal Fusion fic. No "X from Trigun is in RWBY" or "X from RWBY is in Trigun", but "RWBY and Trigun are one single world", and RWBY won the main setting for the story (Sorry No Man's Land/Gunsmoke).

Before I leave you read for the chapter, I have two requests if possible:

1- I'm currently searching a Beta for my fics, especially FFXV and this one. I finally realized that no matter how many times I check the chapter with all kind of translators or even using my knowledge, I can't truly correct any kind of errors. That's why I decided to ask if someone here knows a Beta or want to become my Beta.

2- Although I know my ways with Photoshop and Illustrator, I actually need better covers for my story. If there is an artist out there that takes commissions for Fanfic Covers I'm willed to ask for their works (Of course it will be waged).

Very well, I suppose it's time to start this story. Enjoy! Ja-nee!

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN BOTH TRIGUN (And all its versions) NOR RWBY

The flames leapt around the twins, the castle began to collapse onto itself as the two sources of energy were clashing in the upper floors. Soon, the entire place will become a grave. Yet, she would never lose hope if the twins would be safe.

"Hurry, Vash!" The woman said to one of the two blonde haired boys as they were running through the halls of the castle.

"What's happening?! Why is the castle falling down?!" The boy named Vash asked as the woman grabbed his hand, resuming the run.

"Don't worry Vash, you will be okay!" The woman said before she reached what seemed to be a mere painting of the castle. Yet, when she touched it, the painting disappeared to reveal a secret natural slide made of water and dirt which was leading to the underground river. "Hop in, come on!"

"Only if you're coming with us! I will not leave you!" Vash shouted before the other twin pushed him inside the secret passage. "What—Nai?!"

"We need to go, Vash! This place is going to crumble soon!" The boy named Nai said before jumping inside together with his twin.

"But—"

"Vash, listen to your brother for once!" The woman said, calling the attention of the two twins as she stood before the entrance. "Remember to never lose sight of yourselves, you need to stay strong and together. You two are brothers, together you two can overcome everything. Can you promise this to me?" The two boys nodded and the woman resumed. "Good…I will always love you two!"

The two boys, on the verge of crying, held their hands towards the woman. "Please, come with us!" Nai said.

"There's still time!" Vash concluded for his twin brother.

The woman smiled at them, moving her hands to meet theirs…until she pushed them down the passage. As they were falling, Vash still held his hand towards the woman who raised them like a mother. Yet, she smiled at them without hiding any kind of tear. Her long black hair danced in the air as the flames were going to reach her, yet her purple eyes never closed; she would watch them be safe before dying. "Remember! The ticket for your future…is still blank!"

"REM!"

A few hours later into their mission, things were not going entirely as Team RWBY had expected. Most of the hype they held for working with a professional huntsman was killed the moment they realized that said huntsman was Doctor Oobleck of all people, but the history professor had shown that he knew exactly what he was doing once they had boarded the airship and explained to them why the area they were investigating for criminal activity was perfect for a secret organization to hide in.

Upon arriving at the abandoned settlement of Mountain Glenn, more commonly known as one of Vale's greatest failures, he continued to show this when he explained exactly what they would need to do, and even when their initial plan went out the window, he still kept his cool regardless as he let them eliminate the Grimm that spotted them in their attempts to follow said creatures.

While originally their mission was to just eliminate the Grimm, since they were now also here to locate a hidden criminal base, Oobleck was of the idea that the soulless monsters would lead them to wherever the bad guys were hiding.

It certainly made sense, given that Grimm were attracted to negative emotions, something that bad guys doubtlessly had in abundance, but unfortunately, every time they located a pack that could lead them to their prey, they ended up getting spotted very quickly. Not that it was too much of a problem, as Team RWBY were all armed and ready to fight at a moment's notice, and easily dispatched of every one of the deadly creatures when they attacked.

Still, after going at it for so long at almost a nonstop pace, the girls were starting to get a little worn out, but they were a little more annoyed that Oobleck was not really doing too much to help them fight.

For the most part, he just seemed to be taking samples of various plants and debris from the area, while looking around like he was a scout that was investigating a battlefield after the battle was already underway. The only other thing he really seemed to do during their bouts was take a few more sips from his ever-present thermos that was most certainly filled with his usual coffee. Needless to say, Team RWBY was starting to get a little annoyed with their professor.

"Excellent work, girls," Oobleck suddenly praised them when they finally gained a chance to catch their breath. "Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any signs of criminal activity or operations in this sector. Oh well! Moving on."

While most of her teammates just stared at their teacher, wondering if that coffee was affecting his brain to the point where it made him think he did not need to do anything to help them, Ruby simply holstered her scythe with a quick twirl, waved for Zwei to follow her, and happily skipped after him.

"Eeehm, Prof—Doctor Oobleck?" Blake, quickly correcting herself, called out the doctor.

"Yes Miss Blake?" The Professor turned his head towards the Faunus.

"I heard rumors that the Humanoid Typhoon was the reason for Mountain Gleen's demise. Is that true?" Blake asked, receiving a confused glance from Weiss.

"Excellent question, Miss Blake! I admit I never knew there were still people that believe in the existence of the legendary Humanoid Typhoon" Oobleck admitted, fueling Weiss's curiosity about the topic. "But unfortunately, there are no evidences of his presence in Mountain Gleen that could appoint him as the culprit behind this failure"

"I see" Blake closed her eyes in contemplation.

"Why did you come out with that question?" Yang asked her partner.

"Today marks the fifth year without any sighting of the Humanoid Typhoon" Blake explained.

"Who is this Humanoid Typhoon you're talking about?" Weiss finally admitted, gaining glares from everyone. "D-Did I say something bad?"

"You're kidding, right?" Everyone said at the same moment, confusing Weiss.

"Uuh, no?" The heiress said.

"We're talking about the most infamous criminal in the history of Remnant! You've seriously never heard of him?!" Yang stated with surprise as Ruby suddenly threw a poster to Weiss, shocked that Ruby seemed to have pulled it out from nowhere.

"Hey!" Weiss shouted before she looked at the poster. Although it was an official poster, the image was clearly a drawing of a spiky blonde haired man with a red coat laughing like a classic villain. As the white haired girl analyzed the poster, Ruby spoke. "If you meet him, you're done for. He's a walking disaster! That's how he got that nickname: The Humanoid Typhoon!"

"Vash The Stampede…" Weiss read the name until her glance fell over the price of the bounty. At first, she thought he read it wrong…then two…then three…even after twenty times, she couldn't believe the bounty. Her hands were shaking as she shouted. "T-T-Twenty…billions Ⱡ (Lien)?! Is that even possible to get such a bounty?!"

"His bounty is worth for what he did, after all…" Blake stated, waving with one arm. "He's the reason for the presence of the Great Hole between Vale and Vacuo" Weiss trembled for fear when Blake spoke about the crater hundreds of kilometers wide located in what is the border between Vale and Vacuo. She had never heard of Vash before, and Oobleck resumed Blake's stating.

"The City of July, the first city that could've become a whole new Kingdom as prosperous as it was. But one day twelve years ago, it just disappeared from everything, left the desert and a few survivors, who said the culprit was 'a blonde man wearing a red coat'. That's why Vash is called Humanoid Typhoon and why his bounty is so high"

"Incredible….how could a man do it?" Weiss asked as she gave back the poster to Ruby who grabbed it.

"No one knows the reasons for what he did, Miss Weiss. That man is the biggest mystery in the entire history of our planet so far, and probably no one will ever know the truth…" The doctor said before he looked back at their path. "Come on, we have a mission to fulfil!"

Yet, it hasn't even been an hour since Team RWBY resumed their mission when something happened. Something that would change the fate of the planet itself for eons in the future. Indeed, destiny played its hand that moment—

"Oh poor man…" Oobleck said from nowhere as he glanced west.

"Huh, doctor?" Ruby tilted her head at the doctor, which began to walk towards that direction. The four girls glanced at each other before shrugging. The man was truly strange even for their tastes, but they followed him.

And then, everyone gasped in terror. Yang tried to close her sister's eyes, but it was too late. Everyone will never forget such an image from their minds: A blonde haired young man in his twenties hanging upside down from a light pole. He sports a knee-length red coat and black clothes under it with brown boots, a left crystal-like prosthetic arm and a bit comically huge round shaped orange sunglasses, tied around his chest and. Weiss couldn't repress a retch, Yang put a hand to her mouth to hold what she ate a few hours ago, Blake was most sane on the other hand for her past…

"This is the work of the Bad Lads Gang…" Oobleck stated as he analyzed the scene.

"Bad Lads?" Blake asked. "Aren't they the bandits that steal only dust from caravans and such?"

"Indeed. That is clearly their work—Miss Ruby, come back!" Oobleck shouted

…And Ruby managed to slip through them to reach the man. His left hand seemed to fall a bit to Ruby's height, like he was trying to handshake with her, yet he was dead…right? Slowly, like she was in trance, the reaper grabbed the hand….which were completely pulled off from the arm. "Need a hand?" And the man spoke.

When he spoke, Ruby seemed to snap out from the trance and shout for fear, activating her Semblance to go behind Yang. To be fair, everyone jumped back in terror when several birds hovered around the man who slowly turned to the Huntsman and the huntresses-in-training, laughing like a maniac as the shades of his glasses covered his eyes. "Fuahhahahahahhahahahahahah!"

"Why did you helped him?" Yang whispered to Ruby, but it was loud enough that whispering was useless.

"I don't know; I just did it!" Ruby whispered back with equal intensity.

"That's so creepy…let's go" Blake said suddenly, shocking everyone, even the man who spoke.

"Wait what?! Hold it, you can't leave me here!"

"Aaaah! I really needed it!" The blonde haired man, now with his hair swiped down (still resembling needles in a way), let out a satisfied burp as he dropped the can of ration which rolled to his side, earning the glances from the young huntresses-in-training. Clapping once, he bowed a little with his head. "Thank you all for the food!"

"No need to be thankful! It's our duty as huntress!" Ruby put her hands over her hips and smiled proudly at the man. "Especially if you have such a cool robot hand!"

"Oh this? Thanks?" The man chuckled nervously before his mind realized. "Wait, Huntresses?" The man glanced at the girls with a surprised face when he compared Ruby with the others. Pointing at the youngest of the group, the man continued. "Incredible, and you're so young! What are you, 16?"

"Actually 15—"

"So young, and yet so determined to save…" The man gave a bright smile to Ruby. "You'll be a spectacular huntress then, I'm sure of it!" He said with a mechanical thumb up.

Ruby smiled at the man. "Thank you!" She was happy to be praised by the man she saved, but her teammates were of a different idea…

"Are you kidding us?! Ruby, he completely ate all of our rations!" Weiss angrily pointed out at Yang, who was holding the empty backpack once filled with rations, while Blake was looking dead at the sky. The man ate even her secret fish-filled rations.

"Ups, my bad heh…" The man chuckled a little, fueling the girls' rage towards him. "I promise I will repay you all soon!"

"Yeah sure, you don't have even a single Lien on you" Yang spitted out, letting the man groan in pain.

"That is not what happened, I swear!" He said, trying to explain his situation.

"Then why did the Bad Lads Gang attack you? From what I heard, they hang people with bounties" Finally back in the world of the living, Blake was glancing at the man, who gulped.

"W-Well—"

"Calm down guys" Ruby stepped between her Faunus teammate and the man they saved. "Clearly Mister…" The girl turned her head towards the man, who pointed himself with the prosthetic index.

"Oh, my name?" The man gave a little goofy smile. "My name is Vash, nice to meet you all"

"Nice to meet you too. And Mister Vash clearly doesn't want to—" Ruby resumed speaking when the gears inside her mind began to work. ". . ."

All the girls looked at the man who called himself Vash. Then, slowly, Ruby pulled out the poster of the infamous criminal and looked at the drawing. Then back to Vash. And then back to the poster once again.

"Uuuh, did I say something wrong?" Vash asked, his blue eyes hid behind the pair of orange sunglasses glanced at each girl. Then, exceeding the speed of light, all weapons were aimed at Vash's poor face. "W-W-Wait a second!"

"I can't believe we gave our food to a wanted criminal in all Remnant!" Weiss said, clearly shocked. "At least I demand he pay back for the food!"

"He must repay the fishes I bought too!" Blake exclaimed, glancing at her teammate.

"I got a better idea" Yang said, loading Ember Celica with a gesture of the hand. "Let's get the glory for having captured the Humanoid Typhoon!"

"Hold on, hold on!" Vash waved several times with his hands, clearly worried for the current situation. "Why are you aiming at me?!"

The girls looked at him with a plain and emotionless stare. "Why? Man, you're Vash the Stampede, the biggest criminal in the entire Remnant!" Yang stated like it was the obvious thing in the world, yet her words pierced the man faster than a bullet.

Lowering his head a bit, the faint ray of light of the twilight sun shone through Vash's glasses, hiding his eyes. "But…I…" A slight mutter just akin to a puppy already convinced the girls to lower their weapons.

"Is he…crying?" Blake tilted her head, confused by the man's actions.

"...Are we really talking with the actual Humanoid Typhoon?" Weiss asked her teammates, gaining their attention. "He doesn't look really bad"

"I don't know…the name and appearance are the same" Yang seemed to activate the safe of her trusty gauntlets. "But I guess it's up to our leader"

"Fueh?" Ruby glanced at her sister with a surprised expression.

"It's up to you Ruby. You're the leader after all" Weiss confirmed with a nod.

"Ruby…? Ruby…Rose?" Raising his head to meet the reaper with the eyes, Vash muttered her name as Ruby looked at him in confusion. How could he know her surname? "You…have silver eyes" With a strange tone of voice, Vash repeated the same words that Ozpin said months ago to Ruby when they first met in the police station.

"Uuuh, thanks?" Ruby stepped a little back, feeling a little scared how Vash similarly used the same tone of voice as Ozpin back then. Glancing at her teammates, Ruby then looked back at Vash. "Let's wait until Professor Oobleck is back from his research, okay?" As Ruby told her answer, Vash seemed to resist the urge to smile a little to the girl…

It had barely been more than a few minutes since they had parted ways from the others to secure the perimeter, and while the ruins of Mountain Glenn did have a certain charm to them, the girls quickly became bored with how little there was to do on this patrol while pulling a Vash with his arms tied to his sides with a rope, an idea of Oobleck since there was no guarantee that Vash was or not was a criminal, and the surprising thing is that Vash accepted it. Oobleck was not really much help in avoiding their boredom, or distracting them from the uneasy quietness that they were feeling at the moment, and Vash was pretty much the same way, even if he was humming a little tune that neither of them could name at the moment, despite how familiar it sounded to Yang. His humming eventually came to a stop when they reached a small cliff, and it was around the same time that Ruby's eyes were met with something pretty amazing.

"What is that? It looks awesome," Ruby gasped in a near whisper.

"That, my dear girl, is a Grimm," Oobleck replied.

Sure enough, there, stomping through the distant tree line was a small pack of massive, elephant-like Grimm, growling loudly as they marched. Their animal form easily helped the huntresses to better identify them as Goliaths, and while they had each seen pictures of these giants before, this was the first time either of them had seen a Goliath in person, let alone ones that were as big as these seemed to be. The tops of the tallest trees around these dangerous pachyderms barely even made it past the tops of their legs, and the added height they gained from the spikes on their backs made them seem even more intimidating. When one of them slowly turned in the group's direction, its burning red eyes gave Ruby the impression that it was liable to charge at any second, but instead, it just stood there for a few moments, until it finally turned away and continued following the others.

Glancing at each other, the Team was confused as to why none of these Grimm were moving to attack them, even after one of them had clearly seen them, but they were not complaining, because it gave them ample time to arm up and prepare for battle. "Let's hurry and kill it," Ruby decided, her scythe now ready in its sniper rifle mode.

Yet, Oobleck cast that idea off very quickly. "I'm afraid that your sniper rifle will do nothing more than agitate a Grimm of that size, Ruby"

"But what if it attacks us?" Yang asked in concern.

"You have no reason to fret, Yang. Those Goliaths are not concerned with us," Stepping to the edge of the cliff, Vash assured the girls. Seeing that the students remained unconvinced, Oobleck glanced at Vash who decided to delve a little deeper into the reason for his lack of concern. "Not every Grimm is mindless. The Grimm you see before you are so powerful, so superior to the Grimm I'm sure you've each fought up until now that they've undoubtedly lived hundreds of years."

"Hundreds of years" Weiss repeated, wondering why no huntsmen have tried to destroy these Grimm before now.

"Yes, and in that time between killing humans and attacking our borders, they've done one important thing: they've learned." The probably Humanoid Typhoon continued.

"Learned…what?" Ruby asked.

"That when they attack our borders, they're likely to die, and what we lack in strength, we make up for in will. And most importantly, that killing one human, will only bring more" Oobleck continued Vash's explanation. "Essentially, they've learned that in order to continue surviving, they need to avoid our borders and attack humans as much as possible."

"If that's the case, then why are they still so close to the city?" Blake pointed out.

"Waiting." Oobleck answered with only one word before looking at Vash. "I'm impressed that you know so much about them too. Truly incredible! The Humanoid Typhoon is actually someone with an impressive IQ!"

"Well, I'm more of a pacifist to be honest. It just happened to have crossed paths with Goliaths and they didn't mind me at all" Vash chuckled a bit. "Although I actually studied quite a bit since I was a kid back then"

"A pacifist, you?" Yang asked, receiving a nod from the blonde man before she glanced at the man's waist where he was sporting a holster with a huge revolver inside. "Then why with the weapon? Aren't you a gunman?"

"I guess, yeah? But I'm not much of a fighter, it's more a memento than anything" The upbeat personality of the man seemed to fade away a bit, leaving room for a melancholier one. "At least for myself" After that, a silence fell over the group as they resumed walking for a few minutes until Ruby spoke again.

"Doctor Oobleck," the young, red reaper called out, getting a hum of wonder from her professor. "I was wondering…"

"Why have I been interrogating each of your teammates all day?" Oobleck guessed before Ruby could finish.

As curious as she was about that, it was not what Ruby wanted to ask. "No, I actually wanted to ask…why you wanted to become a huntsman?"

Oobleck had to admit, he had not been expecting to have his question turned around on him like that, and he had to smile a little to show Ruby how impressed he was that she had done so when he replied. "Tell me then; what do you see when you look around at our current surroundings?"

"Umm…Lots of old buildings…empty streets?" Ruby answered with a little uncertainty. "Oh, a bunch of plants growing out from the ground in places that they normally wouldn't be…"

Seeing the girl struggle to find an answer that may satisfy him, Oobleck finally took pity and gave them his own answer to the question. "I see lives that could've been saved, and dreams that were cut short before they had a chance to be realized," the doctor informed his students. "As a huntsman, it is my job to protect the people, and although I am capable of doing it with traditional weaponry, I believe I can make a much larger difference if I do it with my mind. As a teacher, I am able to take knowledge, the most powerful weapon of them all, and place it into the hands of every student that passes through my classroom. I look at this wasteland and I see lives that could've been saved, but I also see an opportunity. An opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy, and therefore become stronger." He then turned to his students again, and proudly declared, "I am a huntsman, Ruby, because there is nothing else in this world I would rather be, and I believe I am right to assume that the same can be said for you"

"Heh…" Vash couldn't hold back a chuckle when he heard Oobleck as he glanced at the plants that were growing in the middle of the destruction. With the ghost of a smile on his face, the blonde haired man spoke. "You just sounded like someone I knew, don't worry"

"Interesting. May we know what this person did?" Oobleck asked, intrigued about this person the infamous Vash the Stampede was talking about with such regard. "If you want to talk about it, of course. I'm not pushing this"

"No, it's okay" Vash shakes his head. "Because that person always wanted to make sure that they could have saved as many people as they could, even if it was at the cost of their life" Vash explained with that faint smile as he turned to look at the girls. "They made me believe there's always a chance that someone could fall down the wrong path, and I believe that so long as we all hold onto our faith in what's right and in the people closest to us, we can overcome even the greatest darkness"

Ruby smiled widely at hearing these answers, feeling very satisfied by the response that they had given, and from there, they proceeded to finish their perimeter patrol in silence, save for Zwei's panting and quiet barks. At least it was quiet, until Weiss decided to ask Vash about something else she was wondering for a little bit now. "Hey Vash, what was that song you were humming just a moment ago?" The heiress asked. "It sounded like it was something really pretty."

"It is," Vash confirmed with a nod. "It's actually a song that my mother would sing to me when I had trouble sleeping, a long long time ago, when I was really little. Every time I had a nightmare, she would always at least hum that song for me" He then smiled a little bashfully as she requested, chuckling. "Just don't ever tell them I told you about that, please? I kind of want to never say anything about it to anyone."

"Our lips are sealed," Ruby promised, making a zipping motion across her mouth to further prove that.

"It actually reminded me of something I've heard a few times before somewhere," Yang then admitted. "Any chance you could sing a little bit of it for us?"

Vash was at first surprised that someone asked about it before being more than happy to grant that request, and the group was soon entranced by the sound of a very beautiful song filling the air via the self-called pacifist gunslinger's incredible singing voice. "As of today the flowers that blossom in front of me are singing a song of praises to you~. A song of joy and hope~. Yes, I reached out for your hands, but you've become a part of the stars so high above~"

A rather somber mood was in the air that night after our heroes had set up camp, but not all of it was due to how they had been unable to find anything. Oobleck's questioning had stuck with Weiss, Blake and Yang. Ever since they had been asked those big questions, there was this odd weight on their minds that they could not shake, telling them that the teacher knew that they were holding something back in their answers as well, while at the same time, were looking for something else in their answers as well.

The only thing that made it more confusing was that Ruby had not been asked about her reasons for wanting to become a huntress, but before any of them could ask the couple about it, they had already moved to take the first watch of the night while bidding their friends good night.

Afterwards, the group had all eaten their small, packed diners and crawled into their sleeping bags, thinking that a good night's sleep might help them to get over the whole thing. Unfortunately, the whole matter was just too well burrowed into their minds that they could not conceive even a second of nodding off, let alone sleep.

While inside the tent the girls are processing question after question regarding their professor's intentions, said professor was sitting in his tent along with the still tied up Vash, helping the blond haired young man to eat. "Say, Mister Vash, why are you wandering through Remnant without a precise destination?" He asked, gaining a confused glance from Vash. "Why are you spreading chaos? I'm sure that you are not a bad guy. In these few hours I already realized it easily"

"...If you promise to keep it a secret" Vash lowered his head, he didn't need to see Oobleck when he nodded. Glancing at his boots, the blonde haired man closed his eyes- he saw the same hell of many years ago before he began to explain. "I have a twin brother. Millions Knives…have you ever heard that name?"

"Millions Knives…" Oobleck crossed his arms, then he shook his head. "No, I haven't heard his name before, but…this means that it's not you the culprit behind all the incidents around Remnant!" Vash nodded. "Instead, the real culprit is your twin brother?" Another nod. "Who looks exactly like you?" Another nod, again. "...I'm sorry, Mister Vash, but it seems too much convenient without a proof"

Vash yelped like a little pup when he heard Oobleck, trying to cry in order to make the doctor react to change his mind, but unfortunately there was no time when Blake suddenly opened the tent. "Doctor Oobleck, hurry!" With the men's eyes locked at her, the Faunus spoke. "Ruby is missing!"

"What?!" Oobleck stated with shock. Grabbing his thermos/weapon of choice, the scholar rose up. "Quick, we must find her! Mister Vash, if you truly are not the man—" Then, what surprised both Blake and Oobleck was that Vash already dashed outside the tent, but what surprised them is that his arms are free from the rope which was laying in the tent.

Turning his head to the two, Vash waved with his prosthetic arm, sporting a worried face like them. "Come on, hurry! We have to search for her!"

"Hold on, you could've freed yourself all this time?!" Blake said shocked, looking at the rope and then back to Vash.

"Seriously, you're more worried about that?! Maybe we don't have enough time!" Vash groaned before he shakes his head. "Trust me, please. I just want to save her like you all!"

Blake gave a quick glance at Oobleck, who gave a slow nod. "Only if you promise to reveal the truth to the Council, Mister Vash"

"I will, I promise" Vash confirmed.

In a matter of seconds, the three reached the edge of the camp and reunited with Weiss and Yang, who looked at the freed Vash with hesitation and worry as Oobleck explained why he was freed. "Wait a sec, can we trust him?" Weiss asked, clearly doubting the Humanoid Typhoon's actions.

"We can trust him" The professor confirmed with a nod. He was already beginning to suggest a plan of action to find the missing leader when Zwei suddenly rushed into the camp, barking frantically as he ran up to anyone who might give him attention.

"Zwei, what is it?" Weiss asked. "What's the matter, boy?"

The corgi could only whine sadly at them, and like that, Yang grew a little more worried about what had happened to her sister. "Something is definitely wrong," she told the group. "Ruby would never let Zwei go very far without her knowing it."

"I'd say that settles it then. Everyone grab your weapons. Your leader may be in trouble," Oobleck ordered to the girls while Vash silently approached Zwei. The corgi at first stopped to bark in order to look at the blonde haired man as he kneeled down, his flesh hand held towards the dog.

"Wait man, I don't suggest you do that" Yang stated when she noticed it, it doesn't seem so but Zwei knows a criminal when he sees one…yet the dog licked Vash's hand, who released a chuckle.

"Good boy, good boy" Vash said before he got up again. "Can you bring us to Ruby?" The corgi barked before he started to run towards a direction.

"I never saw Zwei act like that to a stranger" Yang said, surprised.

"Oh well, huh, I just like animals, hehe?" Vash shrugged before he began to follow Zwei, followed by the others. The WBY looked at each other before looking at Vash's back. The Humanoid Typhoon is a complete mystery.

Ruby groaned, waking up on the ground with rope tied around her arms. Her head was in pain, but the clear memory of being captured by some grunts and being hit by that girl who saved Roman back in Vale was clearly vivid in her mind. About Roman, the criminal held the end of his cane to her cheek as she shook herself awake and tried to get up, but just rolled around more. Her legs weren't bound, but she was still in such a dazed state that she couldn't bring herself to sit up.

"Wake up, little red." Roman glared as he prodded her with his cane again and she groaned, now looking around the room.

"Where…am I?" She asked.

"C'mon Red, Neo didn't hit ya that hard." Roman chuckled as Ruby turned around to see the pink and brown haired girl called Neo standing right behind her with that devious smirk on her face.

"Oh... R-Right." Ruby shook her head a bit before managing to sit herself up slightly, at least as much as she could with her arms bound behind her back.

"I wouldn't try anything sudden if I were you, Red." Roman stated as he blew some smoke out of his cigar and right at the young huntress's face.

Ruby coughed as Roman then flicked his cigar off before lifting Ruby's chin up with his cane. "Now then, tell us who else might be here."

Ruby remained quiet in defiance before Roman struck her with his cane.

"You know Red, I could hit you all day till you decide to talk." He taunted.

Ruby just smirked a bit and started laughing. She was starting to sound hysterical with how much she was laughing.

"What's so funny, Red?"

"Oh, it's just that you think you'll even HAVE all day to beat on me." Ruby smirked.

"Do elaborate for us kids in the back." Roman leaned on his cane.

"Once my team finds out I'm missing, every huntsman in Vale will be on their way here and you'll have nowhere to run!" she taunted before Roman struck her over the head with his fist now while she kept laughing before he then hit her again, knocking her off the chair and onto the ground.

"You were a pain dealing with, Red, but without that oversized gardening tool of yours, you're as easy to deal with as any, helpless little girl" Torchwick said smugly as Ruby was glaring defiantly. "But seriously, how did you find this place, Red?" Torchwick asked in a friendly tone, which was betrayed when he pointed the tip of his cane into the underside of Ruby's chin. The red reaper grumbled at the criminal, before vanishing in a flurry of rose petals.

"What?!" Torchwick looked around frantically, before turning around to see Ruby running away from the room. "Neo!"

Sighing at the escape, the criminal's female partner suddenly disappeared from Ruby's sight for only appear behind her. And then, Neo grabbed Ruby's hood, effectively halting her run with a yelp before painfully slamming her into the ground

"I see you got some tricks up your sleeve," Torchwick mockingly complimented, before taking a more menacing expression, "But let me make just one thing clear to you." Torchwick waited until Ruby was at his feet again before delivering the rest of his words, "We're not through here just yet."

"Boss!" A grunt called Torchwick who groaned and glared at the new arrival inside the room.

"What?!"

"The Humanoid Typhoon! He's here!" The grunt said frantically. "Merry had sighted him this morning in the outskirts of the city!"

Hearing the name of the most wanted man in the entire Remnant ruined the mood of the elegant criminal, who cursed. "Damnit, are you serious?! Why did you told it to me just now?!" Without waiting for an answer from the grunt, Torchwick pointed at him with his cane. "I want half of the men to search for him! Find him and bring him to me, alive, am I clear? That bastard will die today by my hands"

"Yes sir!" The grunt acknowledged the order and ran away.

"Capture him?" Ruby muttered, glancing at Torchwick. "Do you hate Vash the Stampede?"

"Hate? Ha! Hate is not comparable to what U feel towards that man" Torchwick stated. "I was a member of a syndicate back in July, and Neo was a mere kid when that guy popped in and freaking annihilated everything!" He said, slamming his cane against the girl who let out a painful groan. "You don't know the feeling of seeing everything you have vanish into nothing overnight! And all for the hands of one single bastard!"

"Ju…ly?" Ruby muttered the name of the city destroyed by Vash, or so the history says.

"Exactly Red, we are a so-called JuLai: A survivor of the City of July destroyed by the Humanoid Typhoon, Vash the Stampede!"

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Weiss asked her friends who were following Zwei. "I'm not seeing any signs of a red hood…excluding Vash" She said, since the man's knee-length red jacket has a hood.

"No takes, Miss Weiss" Vash said with a small smile as they followed Zwei. He was just as worried as Weiss though, because admittedly, they were in the middle of nothing.

Yang was about to voice her own concerns when they suddenly heard Zwei barking. Turning to the dog, the blonde powerhouse quickly spotted the same thing her dog had, and called out, "Guys, over here! It's Ruby's scythe!"

"What?!" The others all shouted as one while chasing after Yang so that they could see for themselves. Just as she had said, Crescent Rose was lying on the ground, right at the edge of a large hole, and they all quickly came to the same conclusion.

"You don't think Ruby fell down there, do you?" Weiss worriedly asked.

Blake and Oobleck were both over at the edge of the hole in seconds, and the others would have joined the two at the same or similar positions had Vash not heard the ground start to crack again. "Wait! Stay back!" The gunman warned, making everyone freeze where they stood. "It doesn't sound like the ground's very stable around here"

"So I guess it's safe to assume that Ruby probably did fall in" Weiss reasoned.

"Underground…Underground…" Oobleck repeated under his breath, until he finally gasped in a clear ah-ha moment. "Of course! Of course, of course, OF COURSE! How could I have been so blind? So stupid!"

"Hey Doc, calm down," Yang soothed.

"No, no! Don't you see?! It's not the fall that I'm concerned with, it's what awaited them after the fall," Oobleck quickly clarified. "The very reason why we're here in the first place!"

"Doctor Oobleck, what're you talking about." Blake asked, now even more worried.

"Mountain Glenn!" Oobleck stated, launching into a recap of what they knew about the area as an explanation. "An expansion of Vale that was inevitably destroyed by creatures of Grimm. Previously home to thousands of people. Working people, commuting to the city, the main city, developed a subway system to the inner city. Grimm attacks increased! Population in danger, now desperately searching for shelter. City evacuates into metro tunnels and what do they find?!"

"Ummm…" Was the only thing that any of the others could have said if Oobleck had paused long enough to let them.

"The South-East quadrant of Vale is known for wild forests and deep caves," Oobleck filled them.

"Doctor, take a breath and just tell us what you're trying to say-" Weiss pleaded.

"My dear, we're not just looking for an underground crime network. We're looking for an UNDERGROUND crime network," Oobleck finally shouted.

"You mean that they've been working in caves?" Blake asked.

"No, no. Far more than that," Oobleck waved off. "Mountain Glenn was Vale's first serious attempt at expanding the kingdom, and it worked for a short period of time thanks to an aggressive perimeter defense, and unique transportation. The city developed an elaborate subway system to carry citizens safely from the new territory into the main kingdom."

"But without the natural barriers that protected Vale's borders, Mountain Glenn was doomed to fail" Vash said with a strange tone of voice, surprising everyone a little again. "What? Like Doctor Oobleck says, history's important."

"Exactly! And I'm glad to see that you have such a knowledge about Vale," Oobleck quickly praised. "Back on topic, as the end drew near for Mountain Glenn, the citizens living in the territory made one final attempt at survival. They took up shelter beneath the city, in the massive caves that they had cleared out for the subway, and they then cut themselves off from the surface."

"Are you saying that they built an underground city?" Yang asked, admittedly awestruck by the idea.

"In a manner of speaking, it was more of a village than a city, at least in the eyes of some people," Vash corrected the blonde.

"Well I guess if you were to compare this place to Vale," Weiss reasoned.

"So what happened," Blake asked. "Are they still down there?"

"Sadly, no," Oobleck sighed with a mournful look. "It was a safe haven for a time, until one day, when an explosion opened the mouth of another cavern. A cavern that was filled with subterranean Grimm. After that, the kingdom officially sealed off the tunnels, creating the world's largest tomb."

Vash went silent, while the others could do nothing more than hang their heads in respectful, sad silence. Sure, this was not recent news for the girls, but it was still a sad thing to think about. There was at least one other emotion they were all feeling right now though: anger. Anger at the criminals who dared to use a place like that as their base of operations. It was like they were practically desecrating a grave, and none of them were willing to stand for that.

The only other thing they could feel right now was worry, and that was probably the strongest feeling of all, even before Vash next spoke up, saying, "And Ruby is likely down there right now, with all of those Grimm and the criminals we're tracking."

"Yes, which means only one thing" Oobleck concurred. He then pulled out his thermos, making everyone think he was about to get another drink until it expanded into a long, club-like weapon, right as he said, "We must do whatever it takes to find and save them."

"Whoa, hold on a minute. Your thermos is a weapon?!" Yang exclaimed.

"Of course! Why else do you think I would've brought it out right now," Oobleck asked like it should have been obvious.

None of the students were willing to answer that right now, and they were all thankful that Vash voiced their thoughts for them. "I really don't think you want them to answer that question, Doctor Oobleck."

"Yes, I do believe you're right," Oobleck admitted, having apparently realized what assumptions they might have made just after he had asked his question. "Now let's get moving everyone."

Bullet 1: READY, STEADY, ROLL!