Chapter 12 NIFF.- Recovery

There are going to be a few fan created grimm mentioned in the chapter. I have pictures on my Pinterest account GeraltRex.

It's been a while since I updated NIFF, so here we go.

Welcome back my frosty readers. I have another chapter here as you can see... which is the reason why you are here... in which if you hadn't favorite or followed this story and opened this chapter on your own, I would have had no other way to communicate to you that I have finished writing this chapter...

You know what, feel free to ignore the author's note and move on to read the chapter.

RWBY is owned by roosterteeth. Copy Paste.

=-0=-0=-0=-0=-0

Luna said quite bored as she 'listened' to the lecture as she sat in class. Her cheek was scrunched as she leaned heavily on one of her hands, while the other tapped a pencil against the sheet of paper rhythmically. She really wasn't in the mood to only pretend to listen to the rambling lecture of Professor Port today, or for tomorrow… and probably for the entire month after tomorrow. Physically she was sitting in a classroom at Beacon Academy being a good student, but mentally she was a couple thousand miles away back in Atlas. The Arc glanced over to her teammates; it was obvious to see they were in the same mental place as her.

Ruby, who had a habit of doodling and/or sketching weapon designs, had only drawn a single swirling circle and her pencil constantly retraced the line. Luna also noticed the Reaper had been constantly stealing glances at her throughout the class, not that it bothered her. She knew why Ruby was doing that.

Her team leader Weiss, who actually still took notes in this class, had large blank sections on her notebook for today's lesson, and for yesterday's lessons as well. It was pretty obvious that she was just as distracted.

Pyrrha, always an exemplary student, was leaned back in her seat, arms at her side, eyes glassed over with her facial expression set in pose that could have passed as attentive.

None of them felt like listening right now, which worked out just fine for them since Professor Port rarely called on anyone in class except for physical demonstrations.

It had been three weeks since the ending of the mission in Atlas and there had still not been any word from either the General or her parents. The General of the Alteasan Military who was also the Headmaster of Altas Huntsman Academy, which also put him on the government Council, made him a very busy man, so him calling her every day to tell her that her brother was still in a coma should not be on the high priorities list, fortunately she had someone there who was giving her the reports.

Luna had called the rest of her sisters to tell them the news about their long lost brother. It had taken a week, but by the time the rest of the Arc sisters had made it to Atlas, WRPA had been flown back to Beacon. The Arcs sisters had taken shifts visiting him in the hospital, and Saphron had sent her a picture of her adopted baby, little Adrian, curled up next to his Uncle Jaune on the hospital bed. It was very cute.

Her parents however, that was another issue of anxiety. they should have called someone in the family a while ago. As much as she had faith in her parents, they made great efforts to stay in communication with the family, even when they went on missions where they were far away from civilization.

Their silence was unusual, which meant that something strange was going on in Mistral right now. Luna had asked the General if he could request a status update from Headmaster Lionheart about the mission her parents were on or if he had heard anything from them. He had told her he would make that his next call, but he hadn't been given any information from the Haven Academy Headmaster, which infuriated both of them.

=-0=-0=-0=-0

Team WRPA couldn't stay in Atlas for any longer than their mission entailed, so as strongly as her team had protested, they were still sent back to Beacon.

Luna knew that her parents would be fine in their mission in Mistral they were skilled and always had each other's back no matter what.

She could see the comparison between them and her teammates.

0=-0=-0=-0= 3 Weeks Ago -0=-0=-0=-0

A few hours after the team of Beacon huntress in training had landed back at Atlas Academy, three of the members found themselves sitting next to a hospital bed, while the fourth member rested in it. They had already been cleared and were waiting on the doctor to finish on Ruby who had sustained a severe injury even if she had been healed.

The youngest member of their team had just been finished being checked up on by a very cheerful female Altesean Doctor in a pink and white uniform, with curly pink hair. The name tag identified her as: Nurse Joy, which was strange considering she was a doctor… They were not sure if that was her real name or the nickname regarding her attitude. "There you go." She said in a very sweet voice as she finished up her examination, "You should be all better in no time."

"But I feel just fine right now." Ruby pouted make a move to get off the bed,

The nurse quickly put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her but firmly back onto the bed. "Tut tut, none of that, you've experienced rapid aura depletion and regeneration as well as physical regeneration in a very short amount of time, and then performed acts of extreme excursion immediately afterwards, this takes a toll on any individual, I don't care if you do feel fine, it is better to be safe than sorry. So, you will rest until you're back to 100%."

A male nurse in a set of blue scrubs walked past pushing a cart with several covered trays of food on it as Nurse Joy was speaking, "Oh good it's here! You must all be famished from your time out in the field, so we have cooked you up something extra special!" She grabbed two trays for them, as she turns away from the male nurse, he just shook his head. He handed out the last two trays and left pushing the cart on without saying a word.

"I hope you all enjoy!" The unendingly happy nurse stated, she headed out of the room to let them enjoy their meal in peace. There was nothing special about their food, it was all regular hospital food: a tuna sandwich, Jell-O applesauce, a small cup of what looked like chicken noodle soup, and a little juice box.

Ruby took only one bite of everything before setting it aside. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, she was, the food was just completely bland. "Ok, I feel better. Let's go get some real food."

Weiss was very relieved that she wasn't the first one to complain about the food, which was absolutely repulsive, she set down the provided beverage. "I wholeheartedly agree with you Ruby. There is no taste to anything here, I am convinced that the carton of apple juice is just water and food coloring."

Luna peaked out into the hallway and once she was sure there were no nurses coming back to check up on them, dumped her tray of food into the trash can. She held out her hand to Pyrrha, who hesitantly handed over her tray, which was promptly dumped as well.

"If I could get access to the kitchen, then I could cook us up a meal that we deserve."

"You two are supposed to be resting, both—"

The Heiress stopped when she heard the clearing of a throat from the taller redhead on the team, the look that Pyrrha was giving her told Weiss that she should seriously reconsider. Just because they had gotten closer over the mission didn't mean that she could relapse into ice hearted Schnee Heiress.

"I mean… as long as you aren't going to do anything too stressful, then a trip down to the cafeteria to get proper food should be fine."

"YES!"

"Alright!"

"I am glad you can be so understanding."

"But first we need to stop by the dorm room provided to us to get changed and showered. This is the longest I have been without bathing and I-"

"DIBS!" The silver eyed girl shouted out once she had heard they were going back to the dorm, she immediately disappeared in a cloud of rose petals as she raced back to the room.

"But I am—"

"As a sister in a big family, you need to understand an important family law. 'Respect the rule of Dibs. Unless parents say otherwise'."

*Sigh* "I am not going to win today am I?"

"NoPe." Repeated the blonde huntress.

Pyrrha tapped her lips pondering for a moment, "Does Ruby even remember the way back to the dorm room? We were only there for about 10 minutes a week ago."

Weiss sighed; this was going to be a long day.

=-0=-0=-0=-0=-0=-0=-0

As they were waiting on Ruby to get out of the shower, Weiss wasn't sure about what to do to pass the time, so she decided to ask her teammates a few more questions, "Luna, who is older, you or Jaune?"

"If you must know, I am older by 2 minutes, we are actually twins. Buuut, since he was pretty scrawny growing up, everyone always called him the younger one." Luna got quiet as she started reminiscing.

Weiss decided to give this particular topic a break for now since they would most definitely be talking about it later and switched to asking about the rest of Luna's family. The most interesting ones were definitely her parents, whom Luna had an infinite supply of stories for.

=-0=-0=-0

Fortunately, Ruby was the fastest when it came to showering. Even though the hot water was pure bliss, Weiss had set a time limit for everyone so that they wouldn't take hours to shower, and she gave a reasonable amount of time.

Ruby came out of the bathroom wearing another red and black combat dress and combat skirt, but with a faded and well-worn jacket in hand, she handed it to Luna who folded it before gently putting it on her bed. The Arc's looked downtrodden for a moment before she walked into the bathroom for her turn.

When the blonde girl came out from her shower, she looked refreshed and at peace.

She had pushed those emotions aside, which was surprisingly easier than she would have thought, but a hot shower did wonders for a person's psyche. Even though her brother in every sense, had just come back from the dead and he may die before she knows what happened to him.

She didn't get dressed in her armor, even though she had laid it out, instead she got dressed in a white blouse with a small bow on the collar. Long black skirt that went down to her knees with black stockings. Her clothing style was rather simple. She decided to put the jacket on over it even though it didn't match with what she wore but they all knew that she didn't care.

Pyrrha had chosen a puffy red jacket with gold highlights on it with long pants to match. She was not used to the weather here, and while inside the building was a moderate temperature, it was still cooler than Vale, which in turn was cooler than Mistral.

Weiss changed into a clean dress that was identical to the one she had been wearing before once she was refreshed.

As they walked Ruby was still curious about Luna's comment about cooking.

"So where did you learn to cook?"

The question brought a smile to Luna's face as several memories surfaced from while she was growing up, "I grew up in a large household, with six other sisters… and Jaune, until the incident. We had a schedule to take turns in cooking meals for the family. Cooking is a good skill to know especially since mum and dad regularly go out on missions together and sometimes leave one of my older sisters in charge."

The others smiled, however two of those smiles help more of a sad undertone to them.

Ruby was more perceptive than the others would have given her credit for, "You think you could cook for us when we get back? Then we could have dinners like a family." She then gave all three of her team members hugs, which caught them off guard. They needed that more than they realized.

Luna nodded rather quickly, thinking back to the 'meal' they had just been served. "I'd love that but first, Weissy, you're gonna need to clear it with Professor Goodwitch and the kitchen staff so I don't get detention for doing you'all a solid." She rustles Ruby's hair who playfully swats her hand away.

"That would acceptable, may I make a suggestion on what we should have?" Weiss had perked up at the idea of having freshly cooked meals again. She had a list of menu options ready, but Luna immediately shut that down.

"Sure thing Ice Queen. You can make any suggestion you want, doesn't mean that I'ma follow through with it or know how to cook anything from a five-star restaurant."

Weiss pouted, "Ice Queen! Where did that come from?!"

"Yang." the others laughed; Weiss should have seen that one coming. Often during the first week at Beacon, Ruby had retreated to her sister's dorm to avoid her. She would have to have words with the blonde brawler when they got back about that nickname.

As they followed Weiss, who CLEARLY knew where she was going, to find the cafeteria, Ruby decided to break the ice a little more by asking about their families.

=-0=-0=-0

Luna by far, had the most interesting backstory with six sisters, a resurrected brother and two huntsmen parents. Her father specializing in exterminating unique and extraordinarily dangerous Grimm while her mother specialized to fight people.

They had met during a Mistralian tournament series known as Dead or Alive and fought to a draw. Helena was the superior fighter, but Geralt was a much craftier fighter who really didn't like to lose. The points they accumulated in their fight allowed them to be paired up in the upcoming duos round in which they then found their fighting styles very much complemented each other carrying them to victory.

Less than a year later, they had met again at a grim hunting competition known as the Count of The Wild Hunt. The main target of the Hunt was an Eldritch Mooncrawler; a very large tri-legged grimm with a torso mouth and tendrils as long as its body.

There had been an unforeseen migration of Hunters and Balors into the hunting grounds that were only noticed when the Hunt was well underway. Due to the increased danger, Geralt and Helena had partnered up to organize everyone involved in the Hunt.

Helena's group focused on the Hunters and Balors which were surprisingly close to humanoid, while Geralt's group had focused on the Mooncrawler. Even with the coordination and expertise, over half the hunters perished in the hunt, that year had been considered one of the deadliest hunts in two decades.

=-0=0

Soon after that, they had married and started traveling all around Remnant, where they had kids born in Vacuo (at Shade Academy medical facility), middling towns of Vale, and in various cities across Solitas. The places they had been, would put the nomadic tribes of Vacuo to shame. Currently most of the family was staying in Mistral.

0-= 0-= 0-=

Ruby had a much different childhood than the rest of them imagined. For starters, her name was originally Ruby Xioa-Long. She didn't remember much about her mother, Ruby and Yang were one of the many sad but common cases where a parent hunter or huntress goes on a mission and doesn't return, she had been four at the time. Her father had fallen into a depression and shut down, which had left the two daughters alone. Yang, who had taken it upon herself to care for her.

Her uncle had come by about a year later and dragged Tai back to reality.

Years later on her 11th birthday, her father had given her the last name Rose and a picture of her mom. She showed them a picture saved on her scroll. It was surprising to see that Ruby was a near carbon copy of her mother, except that her mother had a white cloak and her weapon. Ruby showed them two photos of her mother's swordstaff-DMR, Crusader, in both forms.

0-= 0-= 0-=

They all knew about Weiss's older sister Winter, since they had met her, what they didn't know was she also has a younger brother named Whitley. She had a falling out with him when she had chosen the path of a huntress overstaying at home and studying to inherit the SDC family. Weiss was the reason behind the strife with Whitely was that it meant that she was effectively leaving him alone in a broken home. But she did not mention that last part out loud.

The others noticed that whenever she mentioned her father, it was with distain, and she avoided mentioning the word 'mother' except for her name, Willow Schnee.

Ruby told the trips that their father Taiyang took them on outside The Patch. In which they visited the Forever Forest a few times and she made sure to add the few embarrassing stories about Yang that she had for good measure.

Weiss was quite reluctant to share her, less than pleasant childhood with her teammates, but eventually with Ruby's gentle persistence she decided to describe what her parents were like did stop them from asking any more questions. While she didn't l exactly share much, the fact of what she didn't share explained A LOT to the rest of them. The conversation passed in silence for a moment as they looked to the Mistral champion.

"What about you Pyrrha? What was it like growing up in Mistral?"

Said huntress was a little hesitant to answer, but she was willing to give her new sisters of combat the chance to prove that they could be, friends.

She took a breath, "My life as a tournament fighter is not as glamorous as you may think. Yes, I won great fame and fortune as a Tournament fighter, but it came at the cost of loneliness. Once I showed aptitude for combat, my mother started my training despite that I was 7 years of age."

The others were quite surprised at what she said, that was pretty young for someone to start strict training even if they showed promise. But they did not interrupt; allowing her to continue.

"While I did enjoy fighting, that was all I had time to do after a while. And it only became a more difficult challenge once I won my first real tournament when I turned 14… I just became untouchable and sought after for my fame. It only intensified as time went on."

They walked in silence for a bit after that,

It was definitely not the glamorous life that Ruby or Luna had expected. Luna remembered Pyrrha's first tournament year, her mother had wanted to see the upcoming talent since the list of combatants had been promising. Pyrrha had held back until the finals round where she completely dominated the fight.

With everything that Pyrrha said about her fame, it made her think… Did she come at Pyrrha too hard?

Even Weiss had imagined it differently, even though she had an abundance of experience dealing with people who wanted to get to know her for her wealth and fame. A Schnee's dealing with fame was unfortunately a little more cynical. As they were of the upper echelon in the aristocrat society, and the young heiress had always been surrounded by people who believed or at least made the appearance that they were all near equals, but in reality, they were always looking to gain favors.

"Aren't you all supposed to be in the medical wing?" The deep voice of General Ironwood stated with an amused smile on his face. They turned to see General Ironwood and Winter walking down an intersecting corridor.

Weiss stepped forward to answer "We would be sir but—"

"The food was sooo tasteless!" Ruby cried out Weiss bit her lip at the interruption.

The Atleasan Headmaster and the Specialist both chuckled at the outburst of the silver eyed girl.

"The nurse did declare us physically fit and her concern was focused on aura exhaustion." Pyrrha spoke up in support of her leader, "None of us believe that going to the cafeteria would be strenuous on our aura levels."

The older Schnee chuckled understanding the experience, "It is supposed to be so that those who want to skip out on performance exams or try and get out of their duties have an incentive to leave the medical wing as soon as possible."

"I hope you don't mind if we join you, there are details we need to go over concerning your mission."

As the group of six started out towards the cafeteria, the General received a call on his Scroll, which he answered. The Specialist recognized the slight twitch of his right eyebrow and the drop of his smile. This was definitely a governmental issue, likely someone in the Council was calling him.

"Send me the document, I will review it as soon as I can." He answered holding back a sigh. He hung up the call and addressed the student huntresses, "Please Ms. Schnee, take your team to the cafeteria and eat an actual meal, we will debrief the mission later, in a more comfortable setting. In the meantime, all of you should take the time to start on your Mission Report Log."

The looks he got told him that Weiss is the only one of the four to not look confused. So the General nods to the team leader of Warpath to explain, which she does, "Whenever huntsman go on missions, whether they are students or licensed, they are required to fill out a report on their mission, this is part of every Academy's curriculum. We are being taught to become accustomed to writing paperwork after missions."

Luna snaps her fingers in understanding, "So it's like a first responder logs; law enforcement write police reports and fire fighters have NFIRS (National Fire Incident Reporting System)?"

Weiss nodded, "In a manner of speaking I suppose it is the equivalent to that."

The tall blonde smiled back as she turned to the others, "The basic idea is Huntsman Mission Debrief (HMD) is for CYA; Cover Your Ass. If something were to happen or go wrong in a mission, and not just Grimm missions, our reports are our word of honor of what happened, that can be used to cross reference other reports on the incident. HMD's can also be used by the Academies as lessons to upcoming trainees to learn from the mistakes of older huntsman.

"That is quite insightful of you Luna."

"The fact that we all have to do it and they can't be identical explains why I had to listen to my parents swear for hours while writing those reports. Gods, talk about an unexpected vocabulary lesson for a 12 year old."

"But you don't swear, right?" The reaper questioned with a slight head tilt.

"Not around you Ru." The girl blushed slightly at the nickname.

"Since this mission was an outsourced to another huntsman academy, you all will be required to submit your mission reports to both Beacon and Atlas. The reports are individual specific meaning each of you will report on your own actions, perspectives, and what you believe you could have done better. I would recommend using the time you have resting to get started on it, but for now I will take my leave." And with a nod, Atlas's Headmaster turned and walked away with his second in command following him.

"Soooo." Ruby stated, bring attention back to her, "Any more family surprises we should know about Luna?"

"Well, a few more actually. I would say that mum and dad are the best Huntsman of their generation, but that, well, it's not the right way to say it since they both were granted their licenses despite never setting foot in an academy. But I have seen how they have earned their licenses."

There was a momentary pause as the other three members digested was their blonde teammate said. And then, they responded all at once.

"Huh?"

"Pardon?"

"Could you please repeat what you said?"

Luna smiled at the looks of bewilderment on her teammates faces, this was something she always took much pride in explaining.

=-0=-0=-0 30 minutes earlier =-0=-0

James Ironwood walked through the halls of his pristine school. One of the benefits of having a military and a huntsman academy combine into one was the ability to ensure effective coordination between hunters/specialists and soldiers during military operations. Anyone who did not qualify for the huntsman academy could be enrolled into the military being paid the bonus of having their aura unlocked. Further incentives for graduating huntsmen would be: granting them the rank of Specialist that came with a consistent high pay rather than being paid by the job, which did draw many of the Atlas's new huntsmen into the military.

Huntsman were superhuman in almost every sense, they could shrug off lethal blows, causally move faster than the best of runners and lift far more than any body builder. But their critical weakness was that they were often solo combatants and when their limit was reached, they would die, alone. By putting them in with or alongside a military unit, huntsmen would be given the support and respite they needed in those critical moments. They didn't solely benefit from this exchange, the fireteams assigned to them now had the ability to kill grimm that would normally require them to carry heavy weapons in which they would have limited ammunition.

As he walked into a white laboratory, he suppressed a shudder, he could never be comfortable in laboratories. Back when he was mortally injured, he had been sent to an engineering laboratory instead of the Trauma Center. Needless to say, the Engineers who were developing the experimental cybernetics that they implanted into his chest cavity, hadn't give him anesthesia or even the correct doses of pain medication. In fact, records of the tor—procedure had shown that they had used the bare minimum to keep him from moving, which wasn't much considering he had been missing half his chest at the time.

Doctors had been put into the teams so that these treatments would be humane. But that experience of hell made him shudder every time he entered the lab. This reaction happened often as the cybernetic General was also required to go back to said laboratories for both checkups and upgrades. Fortunately,there was only one person in the lab right now, and he was just the person James was looking to talk with. "Doctor Kishitani, what is the condition of the members of team WRPA?"

Doctor Shinra Kishitani he was one of the youngest doctors in Atlas, being only 24 years old, but he was a genius. He had been granted his first MD at age 20 and his second at age 22, driven by the passion instilled by his father Shingen Kishitani.

Shinra's appearance was almost unremarkable, he had shoulder length unkempt brown hair, a white lab coat, green slacks, and rectangular glasses that magnified the passion seen in his brown eyes. He also was the only person in this particular lab, and tapping away on a holopad in front of a large screen showing pictures of the Beacon student huntresses. He didn't even look away from the screen as he replied to the General.

"Well, the good news is that all of them are only showing symptoms of aura exhaustion and someone is going to have a cool new set of scars. The bad news is that Luna Arc is suffering the worst backlash, even though she won't be outwardly showing it." He finally turned to the General. "Due to my experience, I would conclude that she is a Catalyst. Her type of abilities are fascinating… but I have seen individuals with her capabilities would experience severe emotional backlash from being in contact with four other people's auras at once. Even though she seems to be the exception, I am not taking any chances." He typed on Luna's sheet:

Recommend follow-up appointments with psychologist and aura specialists experienced in working with Huntsman.

=-0

"I will send a copy of these records to Dr. Nightengale at Beacon."

He handed the holopad to the General who looked over each one with a thoughtful expression. "Is it possible that the emotions of those she has connected with could canceling each other out? I've met with her team, outwardly they are different, but they all have honest souls."

Shinra put an index finger on his cheek as his eyes glance at the ceiling ignoring the white noise around him, "I don't know if it is because of who her aura has interacted with or if she already has experience interacting with multiple auras at once, she probably trained it with her family. If she was one of your students, I would recommend that we conduct some tests to see to what degree she is affected or influenced. However, since she is currently being treated here, I could probably still run those tests, medical necessity and all." His mind started to wander, completely ignoring the man in front of him, "Would her eating habits change, or her dressing style, how soon would she notice these changes herself? I would think—"

James knocked firmly on the counter with his metal hand, startling the young scientist doctor. "Dr. you're rambling. If you could get back to the point please."

The scientist sighed, "I suppose I can wait and ask the doctors at Beacon to keep us updated on her condition. The point is that they are all fine and will continue to be fine barring being sent on any more suicidal missions."

The General's face fell into a flat expression, "They were the key to this mission being successful, and I stand by that statement, especially since they were successful. I also took the initiative to have a response team of Atlas's best ready if case they were to run into… complications."

"If you say so, if you have any more questions, my door is always open for you to stop by."

"You know I don't come down here unless it is strictly necessary. Your father is to blame for that for putting science above ethics, and the fact that you are his son does nothing to put my mind at easy my mind."

"I am not my father. I can't apologize for him and won't. Anyway, this is far more complicated than I thought. The best I can give you is the results of his physically recovery, the resulting scans from the readings of his aura are so confusing at best, mind boggling as that I had to send the file to Dr. Hazama."

The General sighed, "In that case, I will leave you to your work, but before I head over to… him. What can you tell me about Mr. Arc."

"He will survive. What will happen next to him we can only speculate. However, my estimations, which I know are wrong, are that he should recover physically at the rate of a civilian. That is because I cannot get proper readings on his aura."

Ironwood raised an eyebrow, "According to the medic, Jaune was hit by a rock the size of a basketball to the chest… there isn't a possible way he could have survive without aura."

"I know that he has aura, but the first time I scanned him, his aura restraints were activated and I couldn't get a proper reading. But the next time-"

"Go back a moment Doc, did you say or restraints?" Ironwood was not gonna let that slide without explanation.

The shorter man nodded excitedly, pulling out a file with several pictures on it. At first, they look like silver bands on Jaune Arcs wrists, but there were other pictures showing them in a 'vambrace' style. "These are aura dampeners, the Technology involved in making this is so complicated. There's only one other mechanical doctor, that I know who could potentially decipher what these are. They are also made of some of the strongest materials on Remnant."

Ironwood looked over the list of materials identified: gold titanium, tungsten, coltan, microgenium, philipantherium. These were some strongest metals in the world, especially the dust infused ones, whoever made this did not want it to come off.

"There are more metals, but I can't get to them, this technology is brilliant and requires a specific aura signature to unlock. But even with it on sleep mode, whenever I scan him, my equipment goes haywire; telling me that his aura is at one level then almost nonexistent, then at different levels. I can't do anything with this information. Sorry James, but I had to forward that information to Dr. Hazama, everything that is going on is way out of my ability to diagnose. I am running my own simulations to see if I can recreate the results, but that will probably take weeks."

"I understand and thank you, but would kill you to turn on your scroll while you are here? Say hello to Celty for me." He said before leaving the laboratory. His scroll chimed, an alert from Dr. Nurse Joy, informing him that Team WRPA had left the infirmary without being cleared.

The military Headmaster chuckled, they were still children who didn't want to be tied down to a bed. Technically he could be overruled when it came to issues in the medical field, but and it was his Academy and he had just gotten another doctor's opinion on their health so, he decided to let it slide and check on them later.

"But now, I guess that means I have another unpleasant doctor to talk to now."

=-0=-0=0-=

Out of the 70 plus years of the history of Huntsman academies, there have only been a small handful of Hunters that had been granted licenses without going to an Academy, excluding the first five years after of The Great War where licenses were issued almost to every soldier. Where the greatest commanders and soldiers decided that they would use the skills they honed to wage years of bloody war, to kill monsters and hunt down those who committed atrocities during the war. They had not needed training and had been sent out into the field as soon as they were licensed. Being granted a license back during the time of after the Great War was much simpler than today. The qualifications of the time were: being trained to fight, knowing when to kill, having the will to, and being able to survive out in the wilderness unsupported.

There have since been significant updates to the Huntsman qualifications.

When it came to Non-Academic hunters, Luna and Weiss were the only ones who were the best learned on the subject, one because of upbringing and the other because of extensive tutoring.

Team WRPA has gotten their food and found an empty table in the cafeteria and starting sharing more stories as they ate.

"If your family lives in Atlas, when will we get to meet them?" Ruby asked

"Unfortunately not anytime soon, we've lived in Atlas the longest but all of them are traveling through Anima right now and last I heard from them, they had just left the city of Mistral."

"So where are they now?"

"I'm not really sure. A couple days ago while we were still on mission, they sent me a message saying that they were going to take a couple of missions to earn some extra lien. The rest of the family is there, but they are staying with some family friends."

"Do you know the specifics?" Pyrrha asked trying to surprise her surprise, 'Why is Mistral in need of calling upon huntsman of other kingdoms for higher class missions?'

Luna fiddled with a couple strands of hair around the back of her neck. "Apparently it was directly assigned by someone in the Mistralian Council, so they had to be pretty vague about the details until they accepted the mission. Even after they did there wasn't much they could tell us."

"What could they tell you?" Pyrrha asked

She continued to fiddle with her hair, "Weirdly enough, the qualifications were specific but the mission parameters were vague: a search and rescue in an area with a high grimm population, decent reward for a single hunter with no less than 15 years of experience. Academy years not counting, but my parents never do missions alone, so mum was the one they saw accepted the job and papa joined her afterwards."

"Well maybe you can call them when they get back and tell them that Jaune is back, created a Legend of himself while he was gone called the Winter Knight, and also gave himself the nickname Glacé."

Luna paused for a moment and seemed to depress slightly. "If he survives."

…

"Nope."

The blonde's eyes widen, "What?"

"Nope. It's not an if, but a when." Ruby stated with absolute confidence. "Jaune cares for you, even if he is really bad at showing it, you give him a strong reason to fight to keep fighting."

Pyrrha nodded in agreement, "I believe his last moments of consciousness were spent in your defense . With those memories in at the forefront of his conscious, that will give him the sense of need to come back."

Luna smiles and wholes away the tears forming in her eyes, "Gods, when did my noodlie younger brother grow up so much?"

"How much younger is he than you?"

"We are actually twins, but since he was always kinda scrawny growing up nobody else questioned when called him younger."

Weiss decided to give this particular topic a breaker and switched to asking about the rest of Luna's family. The most interesting ones were definitely her parents.

"I would call mum to introduce you except this is a long term mission deep in Anima's wilderness, they may be gone for months. Which means Daisy and Iris will be staying over at Adom's house back in Atlas, he and his wife Lavan are… mmm, had been family friends for as long as I can remember.

The rest of my sisters Sonya, Saphron, Seras, and Leone, are also in Mistral right now. They would be staying at Saphron's vacation home just north of Mistral until mum and dad get back from the mission.

"My mum is Helena Douglas-now-Arc, three time international combat tournament champion who you actually took the title from Pyrrha, and papa is Geralt Arc the White Wolf Hunter. They some of the fiercest hunters you will ever meet." Luna stated,

Pyrrha started to feel a bit more self conscious about her hard fought for title again as Luna gave her a large smile.

As they continued walking, Luna's mind wandered; Would her parent come visit?… What kind of a question was that? The moment that they heard that Jaune was alive, they would go racing back to Atlas to see him, maybe they could strong-arm Headmaster Oz to let her go along, he did owe them a few favors after all. It seemed that everyone owed her parents favors, maybe it came with being a high ranked huntsman who constantly traveled around the world.

Ruby tapped her on the arm, interrupting her train of thought with a sly smile. "Bet my dad is tougher."

Luna had to laugh at the idea of a fight between their parents. Not only did her dad fight effective, but he also fought dirty, which is one thing he engrained in her, "Fighting fair is for the dead and morons."

During one of their family trips in Mistral, before the… incident, she had seen her father knock out two arrogant and well armored huntsmen in less than 10 seconds for committing the cardinal sin of interrupting their family dinner. And much to the chagrin of Weiss she responded with, "How much do you want to bet?"

Ruby giggled in reply, "I don't have any spare lien to bet, and both Yang and dad would be very disappointed if I started gambling."

"We don't have to bet lien, we bet with chores, that's what we did at home. Anyways, even though I doubt your dad is tougher, next time I get a chance I'll have to ask if they ever fought before."

Ruby nodded in response thinking about it, although Luna had one more thing to add, "Also have any of you ever heard of a Bloedzuiger before?"

=-0=-0=-0=0-

AU:
Did need to make slower chapter, still more to come following this. Working on getting out of Atlas, but it is important for this first section of the story.