"In any conflict, one's ultimate goal is to win. How one does that is completely up to one's discretion, so do not lecture me on trying to reduce brutality in war because, in my genuine opinion, war is not brutal enough. The thing you don't understand, your honour, is that in war, everything is permissible." - IPC General James Matthews before being acquitted of war crimes.


Amity Colosseum departure gate, City of Vale, 10:55 am local time

Joseph and Angelica were waiting in line to board what the natives call an "Air Bus" to a giant flying structure the natives call the "Amity Colosseum." They had planned to take part in native celebrations and thought that this festival would be a perfect opportunity to study native culture and combat techniques. What they would do with the data after, they didn't know yet. Most likely they would send it to Liu so he could send it to his higher-ups and so on until it made it up to the military where it would be integrated into the training regime or analyzed to easily combat the native huntsmen and huntresses should some... "societal reorganization" be necessary. Or both. Whatever the Technocracy feels like that day. A security officer then yelled out, shaking them from their thoughts.

"Every attendee must put any weapon on their person into the lockers provided to you. Offenders will be barred from entry and fined."

The two didn't listen to his instructions as there was no way that anything on this planet could detect their rifles and pistols hidden within them. About fifteen minutes later they were finally at the checkpoint, surprising because they didn't have the layout of the terminal so they had to spend the majority of their time searching for it. They were greeted by a man of average height, most likely just recently started on the job based on his demeanour.

"Hello sir and ma'am," the guard said. "Please put your belongings on the desk for inspection. Do you two have any weapons by any chance?"

"Heh, our bodies are the weapons," Joseph began to say with a laugh before noticing the wary look on the guard's face and clearing his throat. "No, no weapons here."

"Okay then, let me just see your tickets and you'll be free to go."

The pair showed their forged tickets to the guard who had a look before handing them back.

"Well, all looks good here. Board the Air Bus down the walkway and to the right, and have a great time."

Joseph and Angelica walked down the walkway as the guard directed them, with Joseph noticing Angelica releasing her grip on something; her sedative syringe.

"Were you going to stab him with that in the middle of a high-traffic area?" Joseph asked.

"What?" Angelica responded. "It was just in case."

"Didn't you think about how we were going to deal with potential witnesses?"

"I didn't realize you were one to shy away from mass murder. You did it before, so why not again?"

"Okay, that time was in a residential area and I had the protection of the Technocracy who explained it away as a gas leak. The Technocracy can't protect us here, not yet anyway."

The two then walked in silence until they boarded the Air Bus. It was roughly half as large as an old Earth 747, with about as many seats as a ferry ship. Joseph almost felt sorry for the poor fools in this aircraft, being so close to two extraterrestrials yet not knowing it was the near pinnacle of comedy. With nothing else to do, Joseph leaned back and waited for them to arrive.

Intercepted news broadcast

[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]

The Vale News Network logo appears on the screen before disappearing and being replaced by the top half of Lisa Lavender.

"We have breaking news coming from the Forever Fall forest, two searchers have found the missing Huntsman who vanished on a mission over two weeks ago." The video changes to a panning view of the floor of the Forever Fall forest, emergency workers swarm the area. "The Huntsman in question burst through the foliage in front of the searchers in an insane state before collapsing."

The video changes again to show one of the people who found the Huntsman in an interview.

"He came running out of the trees all crazy like," the man began. "His hair was a mess, he was sobbing and yelling about 'strange men' chasing him in the forest. He passed out right then and there."

The video shifts back to Lisa Lavender.

"The Huntsman is currently at Vale Community Hospital in a comatose state. We will provide updates as they become available."

[END TRANSMISSION]

Amity Colosseum, 11:42 am local time

Joseph and Angelica were taken aback at the sheer scale of the Colosseum. They imagined a building that was similar to Earth's Roman Colosseum which was restored in Earth's Era of Consolidation and repurposed as a museum of biological history and discoveries, but this was similar in size to half a corvette. There were a lot of seats in the Colosseum that surrounded a large center. How the natives managed to construct this structure while not splitting the atom was beyond them. The pair then took their seats before being interrupted by a... proximity alert? Joseph took out his tablet and saw a red dot that indicated a tracker was a hundred meters from his location. He looked around and saw a familiar face; the cat-burglar woman from the tower. She hadn't noticed him yet and Joseph preferred it that way.

"Hey," Joseph said to Angelica. "Left side, our level. There's a black-haired woman with her goon squad."

Angelica looked and saw the woman with the silver-haired man and the green-haired woman she saw at the event the pair went to.

"I see her," she said back. "You recognize her?"

"...somewhat."

"You didn't start hitting people up already, did you?" Angelica asked with a raised eyebrow and smirk.

Before Joseph could punch her in the face, a massive booming voice erupted from hidden speakers.

"WELCOME TO THE VYTAL TOURNAMENT!"

The resulting cheers nearly caused the pair's nanites to dissociate from the sonic force alone.

"OUR FIRST MATCH... TEAM RWBY VS. TEAM ABRN! SHOW THEM YOUR ENTHUSIASM!"

If the first round of cheering was deafening, this round was so loud that it would probably be detected by Liu on the observation post if sound waves could travel through space. Angelica used the distraction to deploy a small drone that could breach the forcefield protecting the spectators. It would hover high enough to evade the attacks used by the competitors while low enough to still gather data on their fighting styles and weapons. The match began as soon as both teams entered the center, which had ice and fire each covering one-half of the center. As the crowd was busy cheering on the teams, Joseph and Angelica were analyzing the data being recorded by the drone as well as every weapon used by each team. The round ended when a blonde girl punched three members and eliminated them. The next match wasn't nearly as smooth. The team's leader, a blonde-haired boy, was all over the place, had no idea of his surroundings and was, for lack of better terms, incompetent.

"R-R-Retreat!" he yelled.

The pair rolled their eyes. In an actual conflict, he would be one of the first ones to die, if not even the first. The rest of his team wasn't nearly as pathetic as him, however, especially the woman in spartan armour, complete with a javelin and shield. They were dealing with their competition with tremendous ease but they would be far outclassed by Punitive Corps members. At least the blonde boy was a good coordinator, which was probably his only redeeming quality. The match ended when an electrified hammer-wielding girl slammed down on the other team, with her targets more than likely breaking something. The rest of the rounds flew by without issue and the pair found that while there were some decent combatants, if the Technocracy decided on a full-scale invasion, it would be less than a walk in the park. After the celebrations for the day ended and as the pair flew down back to Vale, Angelica spoke up.

"I'm gonna follow the first team," she responded. "See where they go after a successful match."

"I'll tail the black-haired woman and gather some more data for Liu," Joseph responded. "Shit's fantastic."

Angelica nodded then went to tail team RWBY as they went along their business.

Beacon Academy courtyard, 8:44 pm local time

Angelica was tracking a girl in a red dress and a girl with a white ponytail towards Beacon Academy, being sure to leave enough space so that they wouldn't notice her following them but close enough that she could still hear any conversation they had. She scanned the pair out of sheer curiosity.

Name: Rose, Ruby
Gender: Female
Awareness: Ignorant
Threat Level: Pathetic
Relatives: Rose, Summer (deceased), Xiao Long, Taiyang (Father), Xiao Long, Yang (Half-sister), Branwen, Qrow (Uncle)

Recommended Actions: Safe to ignore, do not terminate; absence will be noticed.

Name: Schnee, Weiss
Gender: Female
Awareness: Ignorant
Threat Level: Pathetic
Relatives: Schnee, Nicholas (deceased), Schnee, Jacques (Father), Schnee, Willow (Mother), Schnee, Winter (Older Sister), Schnee, Whitley (Younger Brother)

Recommended Actions: Safe to ignore, the Schnee family is very influential, potential future bargaining chip.

Before Angelica could do anything else, a ship began to land in front of the pair and she ducked behind an archway with her pistol materialized. The door of the aircraft opened and out stepped a stern woman who bore a striking resemblance to the ponytail girl. The woman was also accompanied by a dozen human soldiers and dumb AI (by the Technocracy standards) soldiers that appeared to be for show only and posed a minimal threat to, well, anyone. The ponytail girl, who she now knew as Weiss Schnee, immediately ran up to the woman, evidently having a personal relationship with her which made her wonder if this was the Winter Schnee that the scan told her about.

"Winter!... so... see you!..." Angelica couldn't hear much from her distance but Weiss did confirm that this Winter Schnee was in fact the same one from the scan that described her as Weiss's sister. Weiss then suddenly curtsied, indicating that respect had a large influence in the Schnee family which was something Angelica respected. What she didn't respect, however, was Weiss's partner trying to both salute and curtsy at the same time, failing miserably in both. Angelica rolled her eyes. Weiss's partner obviously had little discipline when in the midst of her superiors. The situation wasn't helped by a drunkard stumbling into the group, who was identified as Qrow Branwen, uncle of Weiss's partner.

"You! ...talking to... queen!" Angelica could hear his drunken rambling and smell the alcohol in his breath. She winced, ever since she received her nanite augmentations, alcohol had lost its effect on her body as the nanites treated it as a poison and destroyed it before it would ever reach her stomach. It was one of the few things from normal life that she missed dearly. Winter then moved to initiate a fight, which was Angelica's cue to leave.


At the same time that Angelica was shadowing her targets, Joseph had found the black-haired woman's dorm room and found a bush to hide behind where she couldn't see him but he could see what she was doing. The rest of her goon squad entered the room shortly after and Joseph decided to scan her and send all the data to Lin.

Name: Fall, Cinder
Gender: Female
Awareness: Ignorant
Threat Level: Inferior
Relatives: N/A

Recommended Actions: Potential terrorist, continue observation

Before Joseph could begin the data transfer, the black-haired woman, Cinder, talked.

"And you're sure."

"Bad hair, used a scythe and smelled like my dad after a long day. It was him." Goon #1 replied.

"What do we do?" Goon #2 asked.

"Nothing. We stay the course. They have no idea who we are, so we have no reason to worry. Besides, the last of the heavy lifting is being taken care of thanks to our clever little friend." Cinder said while pulling out her scroll. The picture changed from an image of the same chess piece Joseph had seen on a computer in the tower to an image of the stern military man Joseph had seen at the dance to finally a matching board for the festival Joseph had just attended.

With that, Joseph had decided that he'd seen and heard enough. He finished uploading the data to Liu and headed to their residence. Something was going to happen at that festival, something big, and the Technocracy had the capability to stop it. Maybe they would. Maybe they would bring Antaria IV into the galactic community where they belong. Maybe he, Angelica and the rest of Wraith Squad could finally be heroes.


Information Data Logs

Messages from Johnathan Liu to Steven Zhou:

To: Steven Zhou
From: Johnathan Liu
Date (in Earth time): November 21, 2434
Subject: Antaria IV's civilization and resources

Good day sir,

I have the results you are looking for and have attached them to this message and I will summarize them here too. Our mission around Antaria IV has been a successful one so far; the natives, now confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt, are human and appear to not notice us yet, although there was a "near miss" scenario with the natives discovering one of our analyzers and the corpse of a field research team member, but they have successfully retrieved the device, destroyed the body and eliminated both scientists responsible for studying the analyzer. We have successfully abducted the other scientist responsible for the study of the device. She is currently at our capitol awaiting memory wiping and integration into our scientific community which is more than eager to accept a new member. I have attached an image to this message so you can identify her should she get a posting at your location. We have also wiped the memory of the other subject we have abducted and released him, although the wiping was done by an incompetent researcher who has since been reprimanded.

The tests on the substances in the vials are most intriguing. They essentially act as volatile motes when in any atmosphere, each colour representing a different ability, or "element," and can prove to be very powerful when used by a trained individual but are useless when in the coldness of space. However, we found that by mixing the "Dust" as the natives call it with normal volatile motes, the effects of the "Dust" are not only preserved, but it enhanced the effects of volatile motes by a significant margin. By replacing the normal volatile mote primer in a standard XM-599 bullet with the mote-"Dust" mixture, we found that the bullet flew 35% farther with an additional 45% penetrating power. I need not tell you what a boost this would be for our armed forces. We would be, for lack of better terms, utterly unstoppable if we could obtain a steady supply of this "Dust." This sample was retrieved by Aristotle Squad who is currently in the infirmiry after losing six members to a quote "fucking explosive underground train."

The weapons and tactics that the natives employ are also equally intriguing and I have attached the designs of all available weapon scans and combat data to this message as well. I had just been informed of a potential terror attack against one of the native's major population centers and I think it makes a perfect time to reveal ourselves to these unsophisticated natives.

I eagerly await your response.

Loyal specialist to the Technocracy,

Johnathan Liu

Forest Cooper's suicide note (recovered by Joseph Andrews of Wraith Squad):

It has been six days since I woke up

I keep having the same dreams over and over again and it's all the same thing

Tall, pitch-black figures chasing me through the Forever Fall

I wake up every time feeling like it was real, but it can't be real

I see shadows moving out my window

It must be real, why can't I remember? WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER?

I must be going crazy

Please, let me be crazy

I fear the alternative too much

Please, please, please, please, I beg the brother gods, let me be crazy