MARZ Rising

by FandomPariah

It's been thirty years since Ruby Rose saved Remnant from Salem and almost a decade since it was saved again. Salem is gone yet the Creatures of Grimm remain and now a new generation of Hunters are ready to begin their story... By enrolling at the Breaktide Academy of Menagerie where they'll be trained by legends including Team CFVY and Ruby Rose herself. Part 5 of the Spiral-Verse

72. Search, Rescue And Destroy

RWBY & All associated trademarks are property of Rooster Teeth (RIP Monty Oum)

I claim no ownership of anything except my own original characters.

I am making no money from this.

Chapter 72: Search, Rescue And Destroy

The weekend had been and gone, with Sunday passing in a blur of activity and meagre attempts at recuperation which were hampered by the way the hands of the clock seemed to sneak further forwards than they had any business doing with each passing glance. The inevitable result of this was that Monday morning had arrived, announcing its' presence with a blustery wind and even more biting chill in the iron-grey air which served as an inexplicably and yet undeniably ominous omen for the various students who were preparing to depart for their upcoming missions.

With Team MARZ being amongst them.

"Do you see our Hunter?" Zirconia rasped, the Grasshopper Faunus seeming oddly tentative and apprehensive as the four of them made their way out into the landing pads which lined Halo Academy's private airship terminal, the pads surrounding a series of holographic notice boards where missions were being disseminated with the help of a handful of administrative staff; hearing her girlfriends' tone Athena-Jade gently squeezed Zirconia's hand with her own free hand, whilst effortlessly carrying several bags of supplies that might be needed in the other. Hearing the question prompted Regalia to waggle her eyebrows and tap her goggles in both a silent question and suggestion which Astra shook their head in response to.

"I've met this guy a handful of times before, we'll know him when we see him….Trust me" the Deer Faunus informed their friends whilst casting their sea-green eyes around as they eagerly sought out the Hunter whom they had learned their mission would see them accompanying, this detail alone a matter of some interest as Astra had always been given the impression that this Hunter rarely took missions away from their usual operating area. At present the airship terminal was too crowded for them to get a clear view, the Third Year students would not be leaving for their own missions for a few days however the Second Year students from all five academies, along with those friends, older siblings or partners in a non-Hunter use of the word who had elected to wish them good luck and safe journeys filled the space more than adequately, with Astra catching sight of Team TRQS in the crowd and giving Stygian a brief thumbs up which was happily returned before the Mouse Faunus turned his attention to what Astra at first thought was a tense, possibly volatile stand-off only to realise a moment later that it was in fact a tense goodbye.

"Huh, looks like Tiger's talking to her brother again; good for her" they noted, their personable nature having given them the occasionally unfortunate habit of being involved and invested in much of the gossip around them and as such they could not help but view the scene with a sense of interest, though this was at least tempered with a sense of genuine happiness for their fellow team leader as teams TRQS and SHMR stood in a loose, almost-circle with Snapdragon standing what had clearly been deemed a safe and reasonable distance away with the rest of the respective groups visibly bracing themselves and preparing to act if things turned sour whilst Tiger and Ravi Santara exchanged a few words, Tiger's twin brother seemingly being everything she was not in terms of aesthetic whilst using a similar colour palette and motif; where Tiger balanced flowing clothes and ornate jewellery with tactical armour everything about her brother seemed to speak of effortless and calm coolness, from his slicked back hair to his pristine white jeans, black leather aviator jacket with tiger-striped fur collar and black knee-high boots with bronze armour plating which was all complemented by similar bronze and gem-encrusted jewellery forming the casing of weapons which sat in their dormant form around his wrists and the back of his hands. After a few moments the two had a final awkward goodbye as Ravi reached for a hug whilst Tiger merely nodded, leading to the two fumbling for a moment before going their separate ways with Team TRQS joining their own Hunter.

A sight which made Athena-Jade squeal and yell with unrestrained glee.

"AUNT MISSY, HEY AUNT MISSY IT'S ME! HEY!" thee Bear Faunus yelled frantically, leaping into the air and using a series of Glyphs to elevate herself to a position from which she could be more easily seen as she called out to a brown-skinned feline Faunus with dyed-pink hair, a naginata slung across her back and armour which was practical despite a bright golden colour although it still stood in contrast with her goggles, a pair which put regalia's headgear to shame with their various rotating and adjustable scopes and lenses.

"Hey there AJ….I was hoping I'd run into you up here; I'm running late now though, time is of the essence and all that" the feline announced as she smiled and waved in Athena's general direction "I'll send you a message when we're back; come around any time, Rover and I would love to catch up, Tuscan would love to see you again as well"

"You got it!" Athena answered earnestly, hopping down from her shimmering perch with a final wave as the feline Faunus departed with Team TRQS in tow and whilst the Bear Faunus was, in her visibly elation entirely immune to the snickering her outburst had caused she did however react to confused stare that she received from Zirconia.

"Who was that?"

"Oh!" Athena gawped, plainly mentally chiding herself for her perceived lapse as she explained "Athena Tan, my Aunt Missy….Not really my Aunt by her and my Uncle Rover with both on Team GRAP with my Dad; some of the best search and rescue Hunters in the Kingdom so when Aunt Missy says time is of the essence then it's gotta be important"

"You have more family in Neo Vale and you didn't think I'd want to meet them….If you weren't so pretty when you're happy and smiling like that I might take offence" Zirconia murmured, in doing so forgetting that the moment between the two of them was anything but private though being reminded painfully of this fact by Astra who made a show of retching, much to Regalia's amusement before adding.

"No seriously AJ what gives, you got to meet my folks and hear all the embarrassing stories so when do we get our turn"

"You're a pest and you suck" Athena answered with a tone that suggested that she had solved a particular bothersome riddle before turning her attention to Zirconia "I would love for you to meet Aunt Missy and Uncle Rover….And Tuscan, oh wow she's my kid cousin but she must be so big now; it's gonna feel like I'm meeting her all over again….But hey, when can I meet Mister Nero; I wanna tell him how cool you are?"

"I…." Zirconia fumbled her words, the swooping feeling in her stomach at her girlfriends' words meeting with the sudden realisation that introducing her to Damascus could help facilitate several conversations which needed, but still terrifying "I'll try to arrange something soon, I promise"

"Heh, looks like we don't need to find our Hunter any more" Regalia noted, brining the brief but intimate moment to a close.

"Huh?" Astra's response, inarticulate as it might have been was echoed by Athena-Jade and Zirconia.

"He just found you" the answer came from the Hunter in question as he strode into view, nodding in recognition to Astra who returned the gesture and thereby proving that the Deer Faunus had not been exaggerating when they claimed to have met the man. The Hunter was a Monkey Faunus with blonde hair framing a face with blue eyes, a bright smile and only the faintest of lines despite being somewhere in his mid to late forties, a golden-furred tail wrapped loosely around his waist who boasted an immensely well-defined and chiselled, powerful physique despite the fact that he was a middle-aged man; a surprising amount of which was currently visible as the man's shirt hung open despite the uncomfortable cold. With a series of strong, warm and somewhat familiar handshakes the man greeted each of Team MARZ as equals in turn rather than the way one might expect as teacher of sorts to treat their students before properly introducing himself.

"Good morning Team MARZ, I normally operate on Patch but since I know most of the staff here….Counsellor David-Vasilias is my old partner and his husband was another team-mate of ours, I agreed to do the academy a favour. My name is Sun Wukong and I'll be your assigned Hunter for this mission"

---

Headmaster Lie Ren had, as was his custom started his working day early by rising before dawn, for what little that sentiment was worth in the current bleak and drab season where sunlight was a rarity even for those fortunate enough to live somewhere with proper and regular access to natural light in order to attend to the many duties that would demand his time and attention as the head of a Hunter Academy and a member of the Kingdoms' Council which often saw him take on a role that was as much an understanding and intricate web of agreements as an official position in organising the Hunters in and around the Capital city of New Vale, the majority of whom were nominally self-employed and worked on a freelance basis where they were free to work and roam as they pleased.

Currently Ren was situated in his office where its' warm, soft and welcoming atmosphere was a welcome contrast to both the inclement weather outside and organised chaos that was the campus whose grandiose architecture could be somewhat overwhelming even when it was not filled with teenagers and young adults preparing themselves for an encounter with the Creatures of Grimm, with all of the roiling emotions that this brought playing havoc with the Headmasters' Semblance and giving him regular headaches to say nothing of the boundless energy and exuberance of the children who called the anti-gravity platform both the academy and the orphanage he and his wife and founded their home. The office itself was however not quite the safe haven and calming, tranquil space that Ren had envisioned and hoped for and the current distractions vying for his attention unfortunate did not come from Nora, who was currently using the free time afforded to her by the absence of her Second Year students to grade papers and plan lessons; instead Ren was in the midst of drafting several responses to messages to his counterparts across Remnant which were short, succinct and professional, a precursor to more in-depth discussions which would no doubt come at a later date and also served to keep him occupied until the person he expected arrived.

That person being Qrow Branwen, who announced their presence with a knock of the door that sounded distinctly as though it had been delivered by one of the many segmented limbs of his mechanical chair.

"It's open" Ren announced and in response the door to the office was opened, revealing that it was a largely redundant affectation serving only to create a small corridor and waiting area between the office and the doors of the elevator which served as the only commonly known way to access the Headmasters' office, there were other exits of course however it had been deemed unwise for the student body at large to be able to enter the office at will. Blocking much of the view of the short corridor was Qrow Branwen sitting astride his mobile chair as expected, crimson eyes framed by wrinkles, bags and the dark rings which came from a lack of sleep combined with a withdrawal from the dangerously strong coffee that former Professor Oobleck provided the man with.

"Lax security" Qrow noted as he entered the office on a series of many-jointed legs, emitting a faint hiss of working pistons as they powered forward with none of the frightening speed or agility that Ren knew the chair to be capable of when needed.

"I wasn't expecting to be assassinated in my office" Ren noted with faint amusement.

"Then you haven't done nearly enough with your seat on the Council" Qrow answered without missing a beat, the two of them holding one another's gaze before breaking into faint snorts of laughter as they made themselves comfortable; with Ren taking a moment to produce the coffee he had prepared and kept heated for this meeting and wait for Qrow, the far more senior and experienced Hunter whom Ren still considered someone he could ask for guidance and support despite their many differences of opinion and the fact that Ren was now Qrow's employer to drink enough to at least look somewhat alive.

"Well….It's not Barty's blend but it'll do" Qrow declared with his usual gruffness "Am I keeping you from anything important?"

"The heads of the other Academies are aware that we're sending students on missions today and naturally they want updates and assurances that their students are not at an undue level of risk, given that they were not the ones to vet the Hunters the students are shadowing and working alongside the concern is reasonable" Ren paused and studied Qrow's expression, the old man's jaw muscles working silently beneath his beard as he considered a response and for several moments the Headmaster was worried that Qrow might bring up the matter of Carmesi Hueso and the late Grapeshot being permitted to work with First Year students prior to be revealed as rogue agents, which would be something that Ren would naturally have to respond to though fortunately Qrow simply chuckled and offered a dark, mildly sinister grin.

"Tell Winter and Coco and the others that they don't need to worry just yet….The students who shipped out today aren't old enough to take my class. Third Years ship out in a couple of days"

"Antagonising an Atlesian General and former head of the Specialist Branch would indeed increase the amount of attempts on my life….Though I'm not sure it would do much good" Ren noted pointedly to which Qrow merely shrugged whilst maintaining his crooked smile

"Besides, I saw the assignments you managed to have students taking your class attached to….They seem tame frankly, especially in comparison to some of what you've requested before; distracted?"

"A lot of the people I would have spoken to about taking students on a covert or unusual mission are preoccupied….There's the missing travellers that search and rescue teams are still looking for which you know has had a knock-on effect on Grimm activity in the area, then with the tournament coming up there's a fair amount of smuggling that needs to be looked into which it wouldn't make sense to send the students into, they'd be recognised-"

"And also smuggling is one of the vectors you've been using to try and identify the 'Benefactor'….and damn it I hate that we're still calling them that" Ren sighed, Qrow nodding in agreement before answering the implicit question.

"With the exception of the live Grimm most of their smuggling operations were outbound rather than inbound like we're seeing now as people try and bring drugs and other stuff in to sell to tourists" Qrow shook his head

"I was hoping you'd have something positive to tell me" Ren lamented gently

"The positive is that the gang war between the different factions that were being supplied with weapons by the Benefactor has died down….A quick, effective takeover with no collateral damage" Qrow noted, tone darkening as he added "I was hoping that they'd fight amongst themselves long enough for me to get something I can use, that they'd make a mistake"

"Did you learn anything?"

"I know who's running the gang that won the skirmish, got a few glimpses at a face before he vanished back into parts of the city where the cameras are gone before the Benefactor's own tampering cleared the footage" Qrow's brow furrowed, visibly irked at the power his opposite number had within what the old Hunter had come to consider his domain "A gang that didn't even have any history of using heavy weapons before this….A bunch of thieves and arsonists led by some local street punk named Petrol. This kid was in jail until recently, then they got a big-shot lawyer and some funding to get a retrial and have the evidence thrown out….Turns out it was Astra Mars who brought him in, before they were a student"

"Legal technicalities" Ren surmised before focusing on the important aspect "But that's good Qrow….the sudden access to lawyers was most likely the Benefactor buying Petrol's loyalty, using freedom instead of resources"

"There's a connection here" Qrow murmured "There's something going on that I can't put my finger on….This kid is from the part of town where Rhodium Torchwick used to operate, he's old enough that he might have been a lookout when Torchwick and Malachite went to war so normally I'd assume that the Benefactor reaching out to him in prison was a case of prison connections but the thing with the Mars kid, someone connected to a lot of high profile people who just happened to come back to the city-"

"It's an angle to look into" Ren nodded, agreeing that something seemed odd and that there was a piece missing from the equation which they needed to find before they could even begin to fathom the Benefactor's motives; eventually he let out a slow sigh "If you can find Petrol then it would be a simple matter of testing his loyalty to its' breaking point, in the meantime you said the violence is over?"

"It's never over it just pauses" Qrow grimaced "And I don't have any operatives or informants to give me accurate information but it does seem as though this Petrol kid is now running the show….Though he ran people out of town instead of making them bend the knee like other people would; so his people might be stretched thin and possibly licking their own wounds after the fighting"

"Interesting" Ren noted "Then theoretically at least things should be quiet and straightforward for the next few days"

"Never say things like that out loud" Qrow hissed through clenched teeth, giving the younger Headmaster a stern glare "You should know better"

---

The transport which Team MARZ and Sun Wukong had boarded was not the Monkey Faunus's own personal transport, in fact Sun had openly admitted to the students that he owned no such vehicle and staunchly refused to use the family car for work. Instead the small craft, of a moderately outdated yet reliable model which had been modified in a way which suggested its' usual cargo was not living people had been provided by Cosmo-Guild Industries, whose facility the five of them would be based at for the duration of the mission and was currently being operated by a robot with a humanoid design. The sight of the machine piloting a machine without any oversight had concerned Regalia at first, with the Racoon Faunus being far more used to and comfortable with robots which were used more as beasts of burden or mounts, many of which being under the direct control of a rider or handler however these concerns had been abated by Zirconia who had patiently explained that the robot was one Cosmo-Guild Industries themselves, a subsidiary of her guardians' conglomerate had made prior to their fully automated and remotely piloted drone craft, a machine of a design which boasted a service record marred only by interference from the Creatures of Grimm.

At present however Regalia, much like her friends was distracted by the view below.

"Yeah, it's definitely something alright" Sun noted with a grin upon seeing the awestruck expressions on the four teenagers faces as they stared down at the sight of Cosmo-Guild Industries' production plant based in what had been intended as a major expansion of New Vale's territory.

It was vast, but none of them had expected it to be beautiful in its' own way.

The enormous facility was essentially entirely self contained, with only a series of roads littered with convoys of trucks escorted by armoured vehicles which appeared as specks from the air suggesting that the plant required anything from the outside world.

The plant was set in an area that had once been filled with trees and hills before it had been flattened and deforested when viable and usable resources had been found, giving the place the appearance of being naturally fortified with trees intersected by winding roads surrounding it on three sides whilst at its' back was a jagged line of hills which, upon closer inspection could be seen as the important and remarkable feature that they truly were.

"There's Dust deposits in those hills" Athena-Jade declared with certainty, noting the way what she had first taken to be frost gleamed in the light and the clouds of mist and vapour that formed unnaturally around their low peaks, creating shimmering rainbow refractions even in the limited light available.

"Glass-Ridge Hills" Astra nodded, being vaguely aware of the place through snippets of conversations and news articles they could remember "Ice-Dust and Lightning Dust in the same place there's a stream feeding through it on the other side; there's a little mining town with a processing plant and hydroelectric-Dust power plant on the other side of the hills"

"They probably supply solely to the plant, look a the size of it" Athena noted, gesturing down at what was a marvel of architecture if only for its' sheer scope and brutal utilitarianism which rendered it beautiful in a harsh and stark way set as it was against such remarkable scenery; with the plant being roughly the size of a small town in itself and consisting of a foundry which belched smoke into the air which the transport was currently flying beneath the worst of, along with several dozen massive, multi-layered buildings which must have contained assembly lines, machine and fabrication shops, testing facilities and their attendant offices along with enormous warehouses and facilities for vehicles, including a series of landing pads located within the high perimeter wall of the plant which the transport was steadily nearing as it continued to descend.

"We're almost here" Astra noted, breathing the words out with a sense of finality as they hoisted a bag onto one shoulder and rolled their shoulders back, giving Team MARZ a single, silent look which saw the four of them gathering around them before turning their focus toward Sun Wukong "So….What's the plan; the outline we got from the academies' briefing didn't give us much?"

"They still like being vague then? I remember those" Sun chuckled

"Heh….Mission briefings basically come on a pair of exploding sunglasses and a message that starts with 'Your mission, should you choose to accept it-'" Regalia noted with a snort whilst Zirconia merely huffed as she covered her lower face with her shawl, leaving only her mismatched eyes visible between its' dark fabric and the jade green on the bandanna around her head which had once belonged to Athena which in turn was partially covered by her ebony hair.

"There is a time and a place for trying to be mysterious"

"You'd be the expert Hops" Athena noted playfully, sliding an arm around her partner's waist until Astra cleared their throat to refocus their team, to which Sun nodded appreciatively before continuing.

"I don't know if you kids have heard, the media's playing it down because we still think there's a chance that this can be salvaged but here's the deal; there's settlements all over the forests around here in clearings, this was all supposed to be one big city but Unions' didn't want it being a company town so now things are more scattered with a few little farms, a logging company and stuff like that, there's regular travel between the different settlements and the Capital. A few days ago an entire bus load of people coming out here from the Capital went missing….We've found the wreckage but no sign of the people, we think they've gone off of the roads-"

"There's Grimm in the forest?" Astra interjected.

"Exactly" Sun nodded

"We're gonna help look for those people right?" Regalia demanded, well aware of the risks those lost or stranded faced be it in her home of the Menagerie Wastelands or here in the sprawling forest below.

"No" Sun answered, raising a hand to hold off any outbursts "I get it, you want to help; we all want to help and we're all doing out parts. There are already Hunters searching for the missing people, who we do still believe are alive somewhere out there-"

"Aunt Missy" Athena beamed with pride at the thought of her honorary Aunts' actions.

"The problem is that an increase in Hunter activity in the forest, especially if we start panicking or getting desperate is going to stir up the Grimm" Sun continued "Increased Grimm activity is a danger to everyone, the missing people, the villages and the mining town on the other side of those Dust-filled hills. That's why we're setting up here, at Cosmo-Guild's plant"

"We're going Grimm Hunting" Astra gave a savage grin upon realising that this mission was in fact exactly the kind of work that they had been privately hoping for.

"Yes" Sun nodded "As well as a small amount of security and perimeter defence work, along with coordinating with the people guarding the other villages and the search parties; effectively you're gonna get a little bit of experience in a lot of parts of the job….But also we're gonna be doing sweeps of the forest and keeping the roads clear by picking off any Grimm we can find; with Cosmo-Guild being gracious enough to supply some additional support"

"This is their mission as much as it is ours" Zirconia rasped quietly, to which Sun cocked his head and considered the idea for a moment before a distraction came in the form of the aircraft lurching faintly with an explanation being provided by the digitised voice of the pilot-robot.

"Now beginning final approach on our destination. Please return to your seats and fasten your safety harnesses"

"You heard the bot" Sun gestured to the seats whilst Astra couldn't held but roll their eyes as they flopped dramatically into a seat and let out a sigh.

"Y'know, if we're hunting Grimm to help save some missing people and we're basing at a giant robot factory….I was hoping we'd get a more dramatic entrance"

---

Team TRQS were preparing themselves for a dramatic entrance.

Professional and experienced Hunter Artemis Tan studied their movements closely whilst managing to appear nonchalant, an impressive feat given that she was leaning in the open hatch of a moving an airborne transport in such a way that one shoulder was entirely outside of its' confines. Thus far she had gathered that the students in her care were something of a jumbled assortment whose personal interactions painted a picture of a team that had failed to find a rhythm within itself after a year together, an assessment which the feline Faunus noted was at odds with the admittedly thin files she had been upon agreeing to bring students on this venture. There were Rye and Amaya whom appeared to be the adorable couple whom Artemis decided with a private grin were almost an obligatory addition to any young team, despite how odd a pair they seemed and then there was Stygian, the Mouse Faunus being loud, brash and flippantly unconcerned to a degree which suggested a level of overconfidence with the three of them being led by Tiger whom Artemis had found to be stern, curt and highly focused yet lacking the ephemeral and hard to define quality that turned merely capable leaders into great leaders.

There was little time for her concern however as Tiger unfurled her Trident and took a position at the centre of the open hatch, bracing herself against the howling winds with the rest of Team TRQS falling into place behind her, hands moving to weapons yet never drawing them and acting with a sudden cohesion and sense of purpose which reassured Artemis that the students now in her care were as good as promised.

"You haven't given us any specifics on the mission….We've been given poor information before, I would prefer that our working together goes more smoothly than that" Tiger stated, polite yet firm and to the point in a way which Artemis could respect and if she were honest found less tiresome than the usual ego-driven theatrics of teenage students.

"Grimm sighted ahead, small pack nothing you can't handle" the older Huntress began "The files I was given don't give me a proper sense of what you can do; I like having workable information too Santara so I want to see the four of you in action first hand. I'll give you the full details when I join you on the ground"

"I understand" Tiger nodded in satisfaction, lowering her black veil from where it was stored in her jewelled headdress to cover her face in a single fluid movement "Stygian, when we approach the Grimm I want your eyes. Find any others than might be hiding nearby, no surprises"

"Got it" Stygian's voice was lower and more serious now, as he positioned himself beside his partner and dropped into a crouch with a peering and intent look about him, his jacket worn as it was without his arms entering the sleeves blew dramatically out behind him and was held in place only by the harness of his weapon which the Mouse Faunus still clutched at, electric blue eyes narrowing in concentration even as braids of royal blue hair whipped around his face.

"There's the pack" he indicated to several obsidian shapes streaming out the treeline to congregate on the road that the transport was flying directly over before rushing after the aircraft as if to give chase with their hateful red eyes gleaming in the gloom caused by the canopy and gloomy sky.

"Just Beowolves, no Alpha that I can see….Can't rule out anything airborne" Tiger mused, considering her options whilst being all too aware of the fact that she and her team were still in motion and were being judged by the Hunter responsible for them; eventually she chose to fall back on a tactic that had served well enough on several occasions before.

"Amaya, Rye take point; you know the drill" she instructed firmly "Set up and create a hard point in the Grimm ranks to break their momentum. Stygian, follow them down and pick apart any weak points in the Grimm's defences. I'll take up a vantage point and provide cover fire if anything else comes"

"Not a problem, Amaya you ready?" Rye asked his partner as the two of them moved into place, with Tiger and Stygian standing aside to accommodate them; the mammoth of a boy whose dull and neutrally coloured armour and clothing stood in sharp contrast to his partners' more imposing attire of midnight blues and purples and the occasional trace of pink set against glossy jet black running a hand through his fluffy hair and taking a single steadying breath.

"Let's go kill some Grimm" Amaya Quasar answered, reaching up to kiss her boyfriends' cheeks before un-holstering her weapons which were hidden within the various chains and adornments hanging from her studded belt.

And then in perfect unison the two of them leapt.

Rye Fairfax's landing strategy was an interesting thing to behold as he did not reach the ground so much as bring the ground to him with the use of his Semblance which involved a limited and admittedly somewhat crude form of geomancy which, upon seeing it in action Student Counsellor David-Vasilias had noted might be a manifestation of the walls the boy had put up around him over his formative years. The road erupted up to form a single pillar of stone which broke the armoured boys' fall as he landed crouched upon it, forgoing his own weapon and instead reaching out to grab Amaya's as she fell; his partner wielding a pair of oversized and highly decorated revolvers whose grips sported gleaming and curved sickle blades and were also connected and formed into a single weapon that served multiple purposes without truly transforming by a cable of adjustable length running between the two of them.

"Clear 'em out and give me some space to work!" Rye yelled as he took one end of Amaya's weapon, 'Auriga Epsilon' and used to swing her downwards in a controlled descent towards the base of the pillar and upon landing Amaya quickly began swinging twin sickles out in slashing, sweeping attacks that cleared the space around the pillar Rye had created before pulling them back to herself and beginning to shoot at any Grimm which had escaped her initial assault. The pack of Beowolves, now far less numerous but still enough to be troublesome gave the pair a wider berth, saliva flecking the ground as it flew from snapping jaws of monsters which circled the Hunters and sought out any weakness or opening until a few brazen or desperate members of the pack began to lunge and pounce, thereby signalling for Rye to move into the next stage of the plan and leap from his pillar as he drew his open weapon.

"Heads up!" his soft spoken voice transformed into a booming, confident bellow as he sailed threw the air and unsheathed a sword which whirred and clacked as it was drawn and revealed to be far larger than should have been possible; a broad-bladed Zweihander he had named 'Chivalry' whose size would have looked ludicrous and impractical in anyone else's hands and whose archaic design still bore hints of something more advanced within. The first of the lupine Grimm to draw close to Amaya perished before it could act as the blade of Chivalry pierced the top of its' skull and exited its' chin before stabbing into the ground and from there Rye ripped the blade out and forward, cleaving the Grimm in half in the process of transforming his weapon; its' blade splitting and angling as its' handle reconfigured until the entire assembly was a compact rail gun which spat forth a projectile that was in fact a single thumb-sized crystal of roughly cut and unrefined Dust which struck another of the Beowolves, one in the midst of a crowd skulking towards the rear of the group with explosive results.

"Perimeter, keep their focus on us!" Amaya called out, to which Rye answered by silently dropping into a crouch and once again activating his Semblance, slamming the palm of one hand into the ground and causing another wall to erupt around the two of them, this time a circular construct which enveloped the pair but in compromise was also far shorter and was in fact capable of being scaled by the ravenous and now furious monsters outside, as evidenced by the sounds of snarling which were quickly joined by those of claws scrabbling for purchase.

At which point Stygian Blue entered the fray.

The Mouse Faunus's Semblance was a bizarre form of teleportation which spoke of some deep-seated issues which likely lay at the root of many of the boys' actions and dealings with others to a lesser extent; specifically he could teleport but only directly towards whatever his Semblance deemed the most dangerous threat or obstacle in the immediate area with that same Semblance offering no form of retreat. At present the first Beowolf to peer, sniffing the air above the rim of Rye's impromptu defences had been identified as a danger and the dark-skinned young man appeared with only a faint rippling of the air and a possible a blur of blue light that none of his team-mates where ever quite sure if they had seen; crouching on the stone-wall beside the Grimm with his weapon already in hand and poised to deliver a killing blow.

Stygian, in a decision that suggested he had embraced his Semblance entirely and made it a fundamental part of his fighting style used no ranged weapons, instead his weapon in its' current form was a katana with a series of Dust chambers fitted beneath its' blade one of which was supplying the Ice Dust which left blade glowing a ghostly white tinged with blue and trailing smoke like dry Ice as it passed through the neck of the Grimm before the beast could react; Rye and Amaya had only a moment to look up and see the blade of the katana, which Stygian had dubbed 'Sharp Cheese' much to the dismay of his team-mates shift to a glowing, almost molten shade of red as Fire Dust was introduced to it before the Mouse Faunus vanished again, no doubt reappearing on the opposite side of Rye's defences to continue cutting down the remaining Beowolves.

"The air is clear, nothing incoming!" Tiger announced her presence with the information as she landed atop the pillar which Rye had initially created and drew Fearful Symmetry in its' pistol form; opening fire into what Rye and Amaya could only assume were the Grimm drawing nearest to the wall Rye had raised and gunning down half a dozen before snapping out irritably.

"Damn it Stygian stop showing off! You know I hate it when people don't take this seriously!" below her Amaya and Rye, who had been remaining on guard and ready shared knowing looks.

"I bet his doing the bullet catching trick again" Amaya noted with an amused grin, referring to a habit Stygian had developed upon realising that his Semblance would, logically identify a moving bullet as a severe risk and using his teleportation to not only appear between the bullet and its' intended target but also cut down whatever his partner had been aiming for and either teleport away again or in some cases actually catch the bullet and return it to Tiger, much to her supreme indignation.

However the effectiveness of the trick, which had begrudgingly been somewhat accepted as a combo move could not be denied.

"Almost clear!" Tiger called down to hear team-mates after a few more moments of shooting, seeing the final member of the Beowulf pack slink out of where it had been attempting to avoid attention and bound forward, scaling the side of the circular stone wall in a matter of only a few paces and prepare to pounce; in response Tiger smiled coldly beneath her veil and shifted her weapon into its' trident form, rearing her arm back to throw it and impale the monster which she saw with some satisfaction that Stygian seemed content to allow her to do without interfering and stealing the satisfaction from her.

The Grimm was destroyed before she could act regardless, its' skull being reduced to fragments by a bullet fired from a sniper rifle passing through it before Artemis Tan leapt down from the transport which had circled around in order to rejoin the students in her care.

"I had that" the student noted tersely as she raised her veil back into her headdress.

"Sorry, force of habit" Artemis apologised before looking down at the scene around them "I was hoping we wouldn't do too much damage but this is gonna be a road closure"

"Rye" Tiger called down to her team-mate, not needing to specify what was to be done and bracing herself as the pillar and defensive wall the hulking young man had made were dragged roughly back down into the ground with only minor cracking of the roads' surface to suggest that anything had happened at all; the leader of Team TRQS noted to herself that it was petty to have neglected to warn Artemis however no more so than denying her the last of the Beowolves had been.

"Team, fall in. Any injuries?" Tiger enquired

"Besides your bruised pride?" Stygian snorted, appearing beside his partner with his Semblance in a way which made it clear that her patience being tested made her a threat; Tiger herself however chose to ignore the teasing with little more than a dignified huff before turning to Artemis who was currently waving off the transport which had brought them to this stretch of road.

"You still haven't told us exactly what we're doing here"

"Search and rescue, a speciality of my husband and I….He would be here with us but someone has to be home when our daughter gets back from school and I'm not expecting this to be a quick mission" Artemis studied her students faces and saw no sign that any of them were about to complain despite the cold and unpleasant weather and the increased likelihood of being subjected to it for an extended amount of time, allowing herself a faint smile of approval she continued

"A bus from the Capital which was ferrying people out to the various settlements around here, Glass-Ridge Hills and the smaller ones near it never reached its' destination….The bus was found destroyed-"

"But you think the people are alive?" Stygian asked incredulously "Sorry boss, I'm from Menagerie….If people go missing, you find bodies or nothing-"

"The settlements here were intended to be a single city" Artemis cut the Mouse Faunus off as she continued to explain "Which means that shelters were one of the first things that we built out here….A lot of those shelters are usable and were hidden off of the beaten path and in the forests in case of situations exactly like this. If a vehicle breaks down or you get chased off of the road by Grimm you've got somewhere to hide. The fact we haven't found bodies suggests that someone, likely the bus driver or a local coming home knew where the nearest shelter was"

"Our mission is to check the shelters and find the missing people?" Tiger asked.

"Exactly" Artemis agreed "The complications are that a bus full of people running scared, followed by Hunters in the area and everyone in the nearby villages getting nervous has stirred the Grimm up which is why the search is taking so long; we're having to rope in other Hunters to sweep out the Grimm while we look. The protection on the shelters and bunkers is also a problem for my Semblance"

"Your Semblance?" Rye asked.

"I can see Aura, it's why my husband and I work in search and rescue. Even an unlocked Aura gives off some light that I can track….But with the layers of armour and the fact that they're underground the bunkers are creating some interference; I can't spot the missing people from the air" Team TRQS took the information in for a few moments, each of them quietly rechecking their weapons and shouldering but not sheathing them and peering into the dark and dense forests which lined the road they had landed on, forests teeming with monsters that they were prepared to fight their way through to save lives.

"Let's go. Where's the nearest shelter?" Tiger demanded with a sense of pomp and importance which caused Artemis to smirk, the leader of Team TRQS did have some of the expected teenage theatrics about her after all.

Though they were certainly a credit to her in this instance.

---

Team MARZ had taken to the field several hours ago and had to show for it they had a small collection of scratches and bruises which were of no consequence, muddy clothes, a good deal less ammunition than they had set out with but most importantly of all they each several dozen more Grimm kills to their name.

Though the current engagement was not going quite so smoothly.

The Creatures of Grimm were, by their nature difficult to adequately track; especially in an area where there was no known Spawning Pit present to continue producing more of the monsters which would serve as an epicentre for them to move outwards from however Sun Wukong, upon arriving at Cosmo-Guild Industries' base had managed to identify a series of likely areas that the Creatures of Grimm would inhabit by using his own knowledge of how the nightmarish beasts behaved in the woodlands of Patch where he had now resided for many years and comparing that with years worth of data detailing the routes and places on roads between settlements most troubled by the Grimm and the logs of the production facilities' own forays into the forests, which the manager assigned to liaise with Sun and by extension Team MARZ had explained were conducted at irregular intervals or at the request of a customer who wished to see the companies' machines proven in a live scenario rather than a more routine test battery. With the information they needed the four students had accompanied the Monkey Faunus out into the barely tamed wilderness and ventured away from the relative safety of the roads, taking a route that saw them pass deliberately through several of the areas expected to be Grimm-infested, destroying any Creatures of Grimm they encountered in order to create a buffer zone between those places and the steadily widening search area where search and rescue teams were still looking for the missing passengers of the destroyed bus.

Things had been going well until Cosmo-Guild Industries had decided to offer their support by sending a squad of their battle robots to rendezvous with the Hunters.

"I thought you said this company made good products? Holy shit one of these junk-heaps was flying our ride here!" Astra declared in indignant disbelief as they were forced once again to halt their attacks against a lumbering, roaring Ursa as a robot whose onboard ammunition supply would explode if struck managed to get in their way. The robots that had been sent to join Team MARZ were each roughly elbow height when planted on all four of their spindly limbs ending in circular pads which were intended to allow them to traverse hostile terrain; the things bodies were a dull gunmetal colour and lacking a final coat of paint, with their rounded yet still cumbersome oblong forms boasting a small sensor array of blinking red lights towards the front and an adjustable turret on their backs which increased their height to the point that made fighting alongside them difficult, especially given that the things were acting on a series of pre-programmed responses without any real strategy or intelligence. This lack of intelligence had made clear from the offset as it was the robots who had attracted the group of rampaging Ursa's that the team were currently facing simply through the noise they made.

"These are an older design; possibly from before the company was bought out by the Conglomerate and relocated" Zirconia deadpanned as she weaved beneath the swipe of a massive claw, pausing as Sunriser Cain announced the coming attack in its' digitised voice before she drove the weapon into the spine of the Grimm "Would you like me to give you the number for the customer service department"

"Definitely old, definitely trash; sorry babe" Athena laughed as used the base of her hammers' shaft to put out the eye of an Ursa before twirling the oversized weapon to bring its' head crashing into the monsters' skull with devastating results "The old Bee Zero-Five Dynamic, I remember my Aunt Winter laughing about these things with my Dad when I was a kid….They were supposed to be a cheaper answer to Atlas Knights. Obviously that didn't happen"

The sound of another Ursa roaring demanded Astra's attention.

"I've got this one!" they declared with certainty, elbowing and shouldering their way through the Cosmo-Guild robots and bracing themselves as they levelled Buckshot Ares with its' guns already cycling up to open fire at the monster barrelling towards them, only for the opening salvo to tear into the muddy ground at their feet as Sun Wukong leapt over the Deer Faunus and used the surface of Buckshot Ares's shield components to vault forward, twin guns combining to form a staff and in the same instant activating his Semblance. Astra let out a wordless groan of annoyance but found that they could not be overly disgruntled upon seeing Sun at work, the man being surrounded by transparent and glowing golden copies of himself who clambered nimbly across the armoured skeleton of the Ursa and began expertly breaking the monster apart limb by limb without the risk of a stray gunshot striking anything potentially dangerous nearby.

"Less talk more Grimm-killing kid!" Sun called out to Astra, who found that they could in fact be mildly irked by that at least.

"Right!" they shot back, retracting their weapons' guns and extending its' arm-mounted blades instead and peering around the chaotic mass of noise and violence that the forest had become and seeing yet another Grimm come surging through trees that were bent and cracked in its' wake on a collision course for the Cosmo-Guild robots whose gunfire was blasting away chunks of bone and flesh but with little result. Cursing under the breath the Deer Faunus leapt onto the turret of the nearest machine and mimicked Sun's early vaulting to send themselves flying towards the Ursa, their first slash ripping into the Grimm's face, their second cleaving its' chest before finally they delivered a finishing blow in the form of a spinning-hook kick which slammed the monster into the ground with enough force to sink it into the rain-softened mud and leave an indent as the monster faded away; though the sense of victory was brief and quickly diminished as Astra scanned their surroundings and noted an important absence.

"Where's Regalia?"

An explosion of splintering wood answered them.

"I was hoping this wasn't gonna be like the revenant" Regalia exclaimed in a pained gasp as she lay on her back in the midst of what had been a tree a moment ago but was now little more than shavings and debris as she held Apex Scavenger aloft and horizontally so that she could jam its' shaft under the chin and defend against the jaws of the Grimm currently upon her; an Ursa which dwarfed those around it with ease and bore a chitinous exoskeleton far more pitted and scored with age which also boasted elongated and more jagged spikes, the upper most of which were littered with tangled vines from where it had crashed through the forest along with part of the rusted and weathered armour of some long-dead opponent, an Ursa Major and a particularly large one at that.

"Team MARZ, are you sure you have this?" Sun demanded, twirling his weapon whilst his clones rushed out and began tackling over the Cosmo-Guild robots whose automated responses had seen them begin turning their weapons on the Ursa.

"We've got this!" it was Athena who answered, foregoing her weapon and conjuring an Ice-Dust infused glyph around the jaws of the Grimm, freezing them and allowing Regalia a chance to shift her weapon into its' shotgun form, though she was forced to simply shoot up into the things' underside as her attempts to use her harpoon to drag herself free were countered by its' massive claws.

"Astra?" the Bear Faunus called out again "What's the plan-"

"I've got it" Astra was in motion even as they spoke, eyes beginning to glow with the light of their Semblance as it began to take hold and extend around them; their strides lengthening and trees being smashed aside without a thought as the Deer Faunus closed the distance and reached down with their freshly formed Aura construct to grasp the Ursa Major in a hand large enough contain much of the monsters' torso despite the cracks and fissures that spread from the points where spiked armour pierced solidified Aura and, in a single monumental display of power Astra reared back and pitched the Grimm above the tree line and reduced its' form to an obsidian comet which would almost certainly burn up as it fell or else be utterly obliterated on contact with the ground.

"Heh, you're killing me Smalls" Regalia laughed through pained wheezes as she pulled herself to her feet, addressing her partner the moment they had released their Semblance.

"That's not how that quote….never mind" Astra laughed, seeing that Regalia was unsteady on her feet and taking her arm so that they could drape it over their own shoulders to support her.

"Nice pitch, might give my cousin who plays baseball a challenge" Athena-Jade noted with a chuckle as she, Zirconia and Sun drew close; her demeanour becoming stern as she addressed Regalia "What exactly were you doing?"

"Heh, my Semblance pointed the Alpha out as the weak point, take it out and all the others go….I tried to get higher up in the trees but it just knocked them down"

"Slate….You really remind me of your mother, I've heard her use that exact tone with every member of Team RWBY" Sun noted, using Athena's momentary indignant sputtering to focus on Astra and Regalia "So, the Aura body trick is definitely impressive….Might be feeling a little emasculated right now; Russet are you sure you're okay?"

"Just a sore rib and shoulder, I'll be fine" the Racoon Faunus sighed, rubbing her hands together as her bushy tail twitched behind her.

"Well she's doing better than the robots" Zirconia noted, gesturing to the heaps of twisted scrap that lay strewn around them where the machines had been unable to evade Astra as the leader of Team MARZ charged. Sun pursed his lips at this before nodding to Regalia again.

"Your Semblance, you just said it gave you an answer to something?"

"Look-See, I focus on something I want to achieve and it gives me a marker; no information or direct route so it works better from a vantage point"

"Could we use it to find Grimm or the missing people?" Sun's voice was suddenly hopeful.

"If I focused on Grimm it'd probably just highlight the entire forest" Regalia answered "Missing people….I don't know for certain, maybe; depending on how big the forest is and if they're all still together and how I define lost or those people think of themselves or-"

"Okay" Sun raised a hand, getting the general idea "Here's the plan….Astra just made a clearing so I'm gonna call for a transport; we head back to the plant, take all of these busted robots back, get patched up and get something to eat and maybe an hours' rest, then we see about switching over with one of the search and rescue teams and seeing if Regalia's Semblance has any luck. Everyone on board with that?"

"Sounds good to me" Astra nodded, looking around to see that their team-mates were also on board before giving a final nod of agreement and assent and adding "Just one condition?"

"What is it?" the Monkey Faunus arched an eyebrow, unused to students so readily trying to set terms and ultimatums; the Deer Faunus merely fiddled with the points of their dyed-black Mohawk before popping the collar of their sleeveless leather jacket as they smirked.

"When we come back out here….We don't bring any fucking robots"

---

Artemis and Team TRQS had found the first of the Grimm bunkers located deep enough in the forest that they had not already been searched only for the place to be the subject of unwelcome and yet unfortunately all to predictable attentions of the Creatures of Grimm.

Located in a small clearing in the forests, no more than a dozen meters in diameter and flanked on all sides by a veil of trees whose thickness allowed little light to penetrate the entrance to the bunker could be identified a circular and domed hatch topped with a dense and durable wheel which, for those without Aura at their disposal would take two hands to turn. Below this hatch, once opened the Hunters could expect to find a ladder connected to the wall of a small chute which would lead to another, more conventionally arranged yet reinforced door; with the covered hole, narrow as it being intended to serve as a rudimentary and cost effective way of keeping the Creatures of Grimm at bay; with the entire thing covered over by a series of of tarps and sheets with foliage woven into them whose presence was nonetheless conspicuous in the centre of an empty clearing, which the Creatures of Grimm had obviously realised with the more cunning amongst the monsters lying in wait to ambush any that might approach.

At present the sole attacker was a lone, massive Beringrel which pounded at its' chest with its' oversized fists to create a reverberating tremor as it roared and bellowed in defiant rage at the Hunters.

For the moment Artemis was content to watch, the Feline Faunus being entirely convinced that Team TRQS had the matter firmly in hand as she perched upon a circular wall of condensed and unnaturally solidified mud which Rye had raised from the ground with the use of his Semblance to engulf the outer edge of the clearing, both limiting the Beringrel and keeping other Grimm from joining the fight; the armoured and hulking young man himself crouched low to the ground as he maintained the impromptu arena with a degree of focus that was clearly taxing him to some extent whilst his partner stood close by, her pistols in hand and being twirled periodically as Amaya prepared to either shoot or simply hurl them at an enemy. Stygian and Tiger had entered the confines of Rye's Semblance-induced trap and were the current source of Artemis's attention as they had elected, through an almost superfluous process of deliberation that they would be the ones to destroy the current Grimm infestation.

Though Tiger clearly wanted the honour of the final blow for herself, likely still miffed at Artemis's previous interference.

"Opening?" the stern and demanding team leader called out as she and her partner braced themselves in response to the gorilla Grimm thundering against its' own chest, her trident at the ready whilst the Mouse Faunus twirled his sword in a graceful display of skill that masked his nervous energy.

"I want it to move first" Stygian answered simply only to be granted his wish a moment later as the Beringrel, with a snorting snarl which saw steam billow from its' skeletal nasal cavity began barrelling forwards, its' knuckles sending mud and stone out in all directions.

"Now!" Tiger snapped and Stygian was in motion before the word could be completed, vanishing in an almost perceptible rippling of reality and emerging ahead of the Grimm and to its' right side at such close range that the monster was forced to skid to a halt as it reared back on its' hind limbs only for its' leg to slashed so deeply that bone and tissue was almost severed entirely and be utterly annihilated in the next instant as the Gravity Dust which had changed the blade of Sharp Cheese to a bottomless void of black deeper than the Grimm's own tissue and resembling a tear in reality itself created a crushing vortex and gravity well which caused the entire leg of the Grimm to implode.

"Look out!" Tiger's warning was met with another use of Stygian's Semblance even as she sprang into motion upon seeing the Grimm rear back one of its' absurdly powerful arms; the Mouse Faunus reappeared closer to the offending limb and perched on the shoulder of the monster with his coat flapping about him dramatically and his blade returning to its' normal metallic state before being thrust down into bone and flesh. The Beringrel roared and thrashed in pain, flinging Stygian to the side yet he managed to throw himself into a roll just in time to land in a crouch and watch as the final blow of the fight was delivered.

Tiger closed the distance and leapt, precision and power meeting as she thrust the blades of her trident through the face of the Grimm, reducing its' skull to fading wisps of acrid smoke which the rest of its' body soon gave way to as it slumped, headless to the ground.

"Good job!" Artemis announced her descent to the ground as she landed in a soft crouch close by, her rifle still at the ready and feline ears twitching at the sound of the ground reforming as Rye released his Semblance, still flanked by Amaya as he caught his breath.

"We are capable of dealing with the Grimm" Tiger noted pointedly which Artemis chose to ignore and instead gestured towards the prize they had secured.

"Then let's look, see if we found anything" with that she strode to the tarps and sheets which went some way to hiding the entrance to the Bunker from view, already feeling doubt settling into the pit of her stomach as her Semblance gave her no sign of any Aura beyond those of the team of students where she would have expected the survivors they were searching for to be visible to her additional sense at such close range even despite the interference of the bunker. Confirmation that something was amiss came as she heard Tiger's gasp at the sight of the domed hatch, or more accurately what was left of it.

"The Grimm have already been here before" she stated, something which could not be denied given the way the steel of the hatches' cover had been warped, twisted and burned until its' deformed and mangled remains, whilst not giving way and allow the monsters to access what lay below had been rendered inoperable as the hinges and individual portions of the hatch had been liquefied and melded together in several places.

"Shit" Stygian whispered, sword-arm falling low in a defeated sagging motion; his words and demeanour stripped of all of his prior swagger and confidence whilst Artemis simply shook her head and paced around the exterior of the hatch.

"This doesn't mean anything….this isn't conclusive. Not yet" she muttered the words as much for her own benefit and forced herself to ignore the disbelief of the teenagers' beside her in favour of focusing on her goal which she found hidden and tucked at the base of the raised dome of the hatches' cover in a small, hidden compartment which she exposed by shifting her weapon into its' naginata form and using the blade to remove the panel.

"This is like the black-box on an airship, keeps a log of everything important" she explained as she removed the small, digital device within and began to work "This should tell us when the bunker was last opened, how many people were in it and how long it took Hunters to respond to-here it is, I've got it"

"What does it say?" Tiger struggled to maintain a composed appearance of detached aloofness, as though she could possibly regard the matter with anything other than utmost urgency.

"Nobody has opened this bunker in over a year" Artemis answered with a relieved smile.

"Which means that the missing passengers didn't come this way" Tiger breathed.

"Or they did, saw the fused hatch and kept moving deeper into the forest for the next bunker" Stygian offered.

"Exactly" Artemis answered "This is most likely old damage, not connected to what we're looking for. The passengers are still out there somewhere and we're still going to find them"

"Then let's keep looking. Team TRQS, move out!" Tiger barked the instruction harshly though Artemis was impressed to see that it was followed without question and with haste tempered by caution as the four teens made a concentrated effort to cover one another as they moved forward, something which Artemis realised pointed to the fact that their caution was hard-earned and likely the result of injuries they had sustained at the hands of the monsters they fought. At that particular moment however the Feline Faunus was forced to concede that it was a moot point and only the results were important as they sought to rescue those beset by the Grimm.

Privately each of Team TRQS was equally determined to find the missing people, though they had all noted that nothing in Artemis's assessment of the situation suggested that the Grimm which had warped and fused steel had ever been defeated or left the area.

Meaning that it may yet prove itself to be a problem.

---

Petrol was not a man who gave much consideration to the natural beauty of his surroundings, the appreciation of such things being a casualty of the fact that his surroundings were so rarely natural within the depths of Neo Vale; however here at the base of the Dust-filled and nature defying Glass-Ridge Hills he could admit that he did in fact see the appeal.

Although the beauty of the scene was certainly complemented well by the presence of what he had began to consider his forces rather than a simple gang of thieves.

"How long is it going to take until you're scumbags are in position?" the low and fearsome, guttural rumble of Carmesi Hueso intruded upon the seabird Faunus's unusually peaceful and content musings and brought a scowl to his features, more petulant than imposing when compared to the natural and resting expression of the older man striding into place beside him.

"Longer than it would take if you didn't dick around being deliberately vague with details and stopped dropping jobs on us on short notice man...I don't like working like this. Let me case the joint and do my job properly" Petrol stopped himself, well aware that any attempt at what he might consider a reasonable request and matter of professionalism in whatever capacity he as a criminal might understand would only by met by either sneering contempt or outright violence from Carmesi. After a moment of silent glaring as if annoyed by the mere presence of the hired guns he had been forced to tolerate by the realities' of their shared Benefactors' plans Carmesi merely grunted.

"We have time to ensure this is done properly, time is important but wasted opportunities will cost us more. You've had hours to look at the plans and schematics, decide where you want to make your move from and begin moving into position"

"We should have had days….Fuck it" Petrol huffed before spitting a gob of corrosive slime onto the ground far enough away from Carmesi's feet that it couldn't be taken as a challenge or threat before turning his attention back to his assembled associates and their assorted equipment. Whilst the logistics of choosing and gathering his own team for this job and transporting them out beyond the city limits out into the relative wilderness which Petrol had never had reason to explore had been left to the younger man Carmesi, from his position in the back of one of the nondescript moving vans that had been chosen to move their equipment and also carry away the loot they hoped to take, had managed to provide something more useful than his usual distaste in the form of usable intelligence which Petrol, in a display of ruthless cunning had steadily formed into what he hoped was a workable plan.

His forces were smaller than one might expect for such a brazen operation, though given that the attack was little more than a distraction for the true objective it made little sense to risk more than was needed and as such Petrol's team of assorted criminals consisted of less than a dozen of the various battle-suits he had managed to steal from various gangs and enterprises he had conquered in his swift but bloody seizing of the Capitals' underworld, a mixture of hastily repaired and salvaged machines of various designs and origins all of which had been heavily modified to reflect the tastes and modus operandi of their previous owners; they were not the entirety of what Petrol's outfit had at their disposal not were they the most dangerous but they were functional and would not be too sorely missed whatever they outcome of the days' events might be, furthermore they were simply what was currently available given the limitations of his gangs' ability to actually pilot the war-machines. Beyond the battle-suits stood a small contingent of thugs with aspirations of being elevated to something more renowned, if not exactly more dignified or reputable; the hi-vis jackets and hard-hats they had worn during the journey being exchanged for the typical dark and unremarkable clothing that the gang wore when working which was now layered with body armour that had been recently purchased, this contingent was not all that Petrol had brought though this was once again what could be spared as he was far from foolish enough to even consider leaving his trucks without drivers or a proper amount of security. Eventually, after a moment that seemed to linger for far too long the avian Faunus took a slow, steadying breath and allowed himself to appreciate just how fresh and different to that of the city the air was, chilly as it might have been before finally setting himself into motion and addressing Carmesi with only the most cursory of half turns to look over his shoulder in a carefully measured show of disrespect.

"Okay you had the maps and you that there's the mines further along these hills nearer to the town itself, then there's some footpaths and shit near the bottoms of the hills….Take a couple of the guys still watching the trucks, you're gonna go low and my people are gonna create a distraction and an opening. Be in position when we make the move" Petrol explained with a degree of confidence and casual aloofness marred only slightly by his sounds of exertion as he reached one of the stolen battle-suits, a squat gorilla-ish thing with oversized and crude arms to replace its' original limbs which was left perpetually leaning forward by the weight of its' back-mounted weapons which the ruffian quickly began to climb and finally perch himself precariously atop, using exposed cables as handholds and preparing to direct his gang forward as though he were some historical General leading from their chariot.

"Wait" Carmesi rumbled, giving Petrol a chance to delight in a rare look of confusion on the rogue Hunter's scaled features "Where are you planning on launching your attack from?"

"Nearer to the top of the hills, gonna come at 'em from out of the mist….It'll be awesome" Petrol replied with a smile full of stained and crooked teeth before proving that his plan was not simply the product of vain and ill-conceived notions of grandeur by following up "The factory has got its' own air support and high walls but no shields, I'm guessing they can't get that much Dust out here without supply chain problems….So the plan is that we fire from the top of the hills with our big guns, its' gonna be a lot easier to get around their walls if we can just angle and shoot over them and with any luck we can either pick off their air support or force it to come to us which means there's less people on the ground for you"

"That's all well and good" Carmesi snarled, hands twitching in the direction of his weapons "But did you forget to consider that the hill you're planning to die on is a Dust deposit? It's filled with Ice and Lightning Dust, raw, unrefined and highly explosive!"

"Which is exactly why they won't shoot back at us" Petrol made to fold his arms casually only to ruin the effect by having to quickly catch himself as the machine he perched upon began to lumber forwards, expertly recovering and adding with a sense of finality "We're stood on-top of heap of dynamite that's gonna blow up a town and cost the Hunters or whoever they send about a half a billion Lien if they accidentally hit it by shooting at us. You've been a Hunter, you know that the job pays….Would you take that risk?"

Without waiting for an answer Petrol rapped forcefully against the hull of the battle-suit as a wordless instruction for its' pilot to move faster, a sign for the other looted machines and cohort of armed criminals to gather and follow his lead. In truth it was a paltry rabble of shambling, ruinous machines accompanied by a gaggle of petty crooks with its' oldest members barely beyond adolescence and the idea that they could hope to pose any real threat to the defences of Cosmo-Guilds' production facility would be laughable were it not for the fact that this entire endeavour was being orchestrated and managed, with all parties being played against one another with varying degrees of knowledge of this reality being the only difference between them.

Carmesi violently unsheathed Vindication and Retribution and let out a wordless snarl, utterly galled by the fact that Petrol's plan, along with the speed with which he had asserted his control over Neo Vale's criminal gangs once his hand had been forced by events at Forever Fall showed that he possessed the rare blend of insight, calculation and sheer gung-ho and brazen determination that would likely see him succeed, the younger man rapidly proving himself to be a valuable asset whom Carmesi was loathe to admit he would likely have respected and took under his wing if he were anything other than the kind of criminal who, in the Reptilian Faunus's mind was at the root of Remnant's ills.

The rogue Hunter once again cursed the calibre of the scum he was forced to work with in the service of Nero's goals but quickly controlled his emotions and began to plan his own advance, soothing his temper with the knowledge that soon enough he would see the bright new tomorrow that Nero planned to build, one where no families' were sundered and children orphaned by the likes of wretches such as Petrol and his ilk.

The plan was everything and the plan was already in motion, there could be no room for failure now.

Author's Notes:

And now we're getting into the thick of it, the missions are underway and as I'm sure you can already imagine multiple points are set to intersect and collide in some fun ways.
This is the finale of Vol.04, which is gonna take us up to Chapter 75.
As much as having Chapter 100 be Vol.05's finale would be fun I feel like it's gonna end up somewhere in early-mid Vol.06 and I'll try to make it a fun, milestone chapter but no promises….The first two times I've hit 100 chapters the milestone has ended up basically being filler.
Also...After finishing Worm/Ward by Wildbow I gave Pact a try, wasn't my thing but now I've made a start on Twig and that's feeling much more like my kinda thing.

But anyway, let's summarise shall we?:
I feel like my opening sentence was the perfect description on what a Sunday with a hangover feels like when you know you've got work on Monday morning.
The fact Astra has met them before should have been an indication that we're getting a canon character cameo for the mission, there's only so many people it can be and we know that they studied on Patch; if you read FADE then you can guess who.
Had to throw in a little shot of Team TRQS and Team SHMR having their awkward moment, 'cos for scenes like this the main characters aren't the 'only' main characters, every team of students at that terminal is about to go do some protagonist shit.
Also, our first real look at Ravi Santara in their usual Hunter gear.
Artemis Tan, formerly Blush….A member of Team GRAP, my first RWBY OC team from 2016 who featured in the first story in the Spiral-Verse; her and her husbands' team-leader was AJ's Dad, Tuscan was a baby the last time we saw her in FADE: Legacy so her reappearance here should be fun.
So AJ and Hops are at the meet the family stage.
Reading it back I love how I gave the description of Sun but held back him introducing himself by name like it's a reveal….As if you didn't all know who it was.
I realise that every new detail I throw in to describe Neo Vale makes the city sound even shittier….Which honestly wasn't intentional, but at the same time; it's probably accurate.
I feel like it makes sense, the Kingdoms' Hunters (Outside of Atlas) are free agents but the Kingdom does have some pull over them in the form of their old Headmaster being a member of the Council; basically someone they know and respect enough to listen to.
Also yeah, Ren's Semblance around kids and students is gonna give him a headache.
If you're in politics and haven't had at least one attempt on your life at the hands of one industry or corporation or another then are you really a man of the people?
Qrow and Winter will always antagonise each other for fun.
Showing how little Qrow and his faction really have to work with….They finally know who Petrol is and have an idea of how dangerous he is now that he's got resources and backing, but they don't know who he's working for or the objective and the fact that Petrol and Astra have history is getting exactly the kind of attention that it was intended to; it's a red herring on Nero's part.
Petrol would be old enough to have been one of the younger gang members, maybe a lookout or a runner for a drug dealer back in FADE Legacy when Rhodium Torchwick was a major threat.
Qrow is right, you never say things like that out loud.
Well Team MARZ are heading to the exact place Petrol and Carmesi are about to attack; fun times.
Regalia is used to the robots the Aiktishaf uses, which are pretty much early relics that function like pack mules and sled dogs; or the occasional mount. She's seen battle robots together but a robot just casually flying a plane is new….But also, we did see them driving a truck in Canon Vol.07.
Okay but the scenery though….Seriously the floating islands in Vol.05 showed off just how much can be done with the idea of natural Dust deposits.
Athena-Jade's knowledge of Dust Vs Astra just knowing Vale because they're a local.
Yes there's a time and a place for being mysterious, there's also a time and a place for quoting Mission Impossible….That was definitely the time and the place.
And here we are, a little more scene setting just to give an idea of what's what and now we're getting into the meat of what this mission is going to be; there's a few Hunters and student teams (Including Team TRQS) in the area split between search and rescue and search and destroy….Hence the title.
"This is their mission as much as it is ours" Hops is getting steadily less subtle dropping lines like that but at the same time it can be explained away; Cosmo-Guild is owned by the Conglomerate Nero is the head of and Chairman Damascus Nero has a proven track record of philanthropy and is genuinely a believer in helping people.
Astra you've had enough dramatic entrances.
Team TRQS were preparing themselves for a dramatic entrance….I genuinely love doing writing equivalent to smash cut transitions like that.
Blake and Yang, Rover and Artemis, Arctus & Diamond, Olivine and Ether, AJ & Hops, Honey & Yuki, Amaya and Rye….It's true, there's always a cute couple.
And here we go, a pretext to finally seeing Team TRQS in action.
Team MARZ is an all Faunus team, Team TRQS have only got Stygian's enhanced senses to rely on.
Okay so Rye is partly a product of me reading Worm by Wildbow and is at least partly inspired by Theodore Anders Aka Golem; hence him being a big guy as a result of a lot of training and having a Semblance that lets him literally put up walls as a manifestation as part of his psyche.
Amaya's weapon is basically something similar in concept to Gambol Shroud, with another Gambol Shroud on the other end of it which she does yo-yo tricks with, the name Auriga Epsilon is from one of the stars in the constellation of Auriga aka 'The Charioteer' which makes a kind of sense given that Amaya and Rye instantly pull a variation of the Bumblebee move/
Chivalry….More sword than should fit in that sheathe, just a ridiculously large Zweihander that uses its' archaic appearance to hide a rail-gun that fires raw Dust; this guy is just an all round heavy hitter.
Stygian's Semblance is one that's also inspired by Wildbow and the Parahumans series, in this case the character Axehead whom we never actually see until after she becomes the Titan Skadi….Danger sense plus a one-way teleportation; the funny thing is we've actually seen Stygian use this twice already and both times took them toward Tiger.
Sharp Cheese….I'm not fucking sorry; look when you've got a Katana that channels Dust through the blade and a Semblance that means you don't need a gun then you can call it what you want and still be at least a little bit bad-ass.
"The bullet catching trick".
"I had that" and "Sorry, force of habit" are just me having a fun little homage to my early writing because "I had that" and "I know" was a trademark interaction between Artemis and Rover when she stole a kill.
So Team TRQS are a rescue team, now we know exactly what we're looking for and there's actual hope in the form of the shelters/bunkers which whilst yeah they are absolutely a plot convenience they're also not entirely unreasonable in a world where Grimm are a fact of life….As for the bunkers being the first ting to be built, even before clearing the area to build a city, well yeah because levelling the forests is gonna disturb Grimm and the people working are gonna need to take cover at some point.
Sun knows his shit, definitely grown up a long way from being the goof-ball we know from canon.
The Cosmo-Guild robots….Sent out into the field right before Nero has Petrol stage an attack.
Also B05 Dynamic….Yes that is me taking a deliberate shot at Boston Dynamic and their fucking dancing dog robots that have already had sniper rifles fitted to them and been sold to the police.
The difference between fighting in Menagerie and fighting in New Vale….Menagerie has a lot more space, there's no dense forests there.
"I was hoping this wasn't gonna be like the revenant" I've missed having Regalia say dumb shit like this, she was quiet with the movie stuff for a couple chapters.
Okay so I initially liked the idea of having another big Team MARZ set piece combo...But the idea of Astra just having enough, going all out with the Semblance and literally pitching a full sized Ursa Major was too good to ignore.
I mean Sun's right, AJ definitely has her Weiss moments.
And now they're heading back to the plant they're using as base camp….Tired, worn down and about to be in the middle of the incoming attack.
So that's what the bunkers are like, nothing special but enough to hide in for a while...Naturally there's already Grimm there.
Any excuse to bring a Beringrel into it.
Tiger and Stygian are both definitely capable, but even when they're fighting together it feels like they're both just doing their own thing and the most cooperation is them getting out of each others' way.
Did you really think it would be that easy?
Wonder what kind of Grimm could melt and warp the metal of the bunker….Come and find out next chapter.
Honestly I'm kinda with Petrol on this one, all those views people tell me are beautiful really don't do anything for me.
This is where having to make deals and arrangements where you know every party is considering fucking over every other party becomes a pain; you have to play everything so close to the chest that import intel gets missed.
Still, Carmesi brought some fun toys.
"Which is exactly why they won't shoot back at us" or to quote Merry/Pippin in Lord of The Rings "The closer we are to danger, the further we are from harm" It's ballsy.
Carmesi is hating his life more and more and I'm hear for it….But he's still loyal to the plan.

Thank you to OrcPaladinArthur for their review on the last chapter.
Gotta have some college dorm antics and nonsense in your filler chapters.
I mean in Nero's position a healthy level of paranoia is what's gonna keep you alive.
Ooh, ship names for ships I wasn't considering…..let's see, Stitch and Astra would absolutely enable each others' worst qualities, it'd be Wolfram all over again, Stygian has a weapon with a pun name and Astra likes to try and give clever one-liners in a fight so "Oh dear, oh deer" as for Regalia and Honey I've got nothing right now.

As always thank you to everyone that reads this, with a special thanks to those of you that follow, favourite and review.