(Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, the franchise, IP or series, only this fanfiction (plus Dizzy and any other characters, companies, gun brands, etc, that I made for this book) ((I mean obviously I own Dizzy, he's just a barely-disguised self-insert I put into this book as the main character, and I'm pretty sure I own myself)), RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth, all rights to the original series are reserved to them, yadda yadda yadda, other legal jargon I need to put here as to not get sued to high hell.)

First Person P.O.V.

Tuesday, 06:13

I wake up in the morning to the sounds of everyone else waking up, various yawns and groans echoing throughout the room as the people in the barracks properly awake, prompting me to get up from my bed as well since, well, I have a job to do today, probably.

Pulling out my Scroll to check the current time, I take note that it is currently '6:13 A.M.' Bright and early, best time to get to doing a job since most people are still asleep by now, so if I do have one today, probably gonna have to get to it soon.

Aaaand right after I say that, I get a message from...Roman, huh.

[Roman]

[Roman: Good morning kid. Come to the warehouse's entrance by 7:00am, Cinder already has our next job lined up.]

"How did he get my number? Did a higher up give it to him?"

Maybe he did something like Yang and snuck it into my phone when I wasn't paying attention, either way, best not to dwell on it.

I put away my Scroll and reach under my pillow, pulling out probably the only thing I'll be eating during the entire mission.

Type D ration units from over a hundred years ago!

How they haven't molten or even still exist is beyond me, guess someone did a good job preserving them before I got my hands on them, don't know why they would keep this around for so long to be honest.

I grab three units of the world's worst chocolate ever made and shove them into my right pocket for later, it not exactly the best tasting thing but it's better than starving, walking away from my bed and out of the barracks right after, heading towards the warehouse entrance to meet up with Roman for my next job.

Once I reach the entrance, I spot him alongside someone who I don't recognize, a, notably short, woman with multi-colored hair and eyes, although for now I just ignore her and approach him, giving him a small salute once I reach him.

"Good morning sir, who's your heterochromatic friend?"

Roman: "Good morning to you too, kid, let me introduce you to Neo, my right hand woman. Neo, meet my new associate."

The woman known as Neo turns to look at me before giving me a nod, arms at her side and a stoic expression on her face as she does, suppose she's more of the professional type, either that or she doesn't like me.

"Oh, well, nice to meet you miss Neo, I hope we can both get along well."

I extend a hand out towards her for a handshake with a smile on my face, with her looking down at my hand for a moment before shaking it, despite her being decently shorter than me, her grip is pretty strong, it's impressive.

Roman: "She's mute, so don't expect her to actually respond to anything you say through anything more than writing on her Scroll."

"Ah, good to know."

That explains a bit.

Roman: "Now, you wanna see the next job that Cinder has lined up for us?"

"So what's the job Cinder has ready for us today? Another robbery?"

Roman: "As a matter of fact, yes. But unlike the last time where it was mainly just stealing Dust from some old schmuck, this time it's more of a heist. We'll be hitting an SDC base that's transporting a special shipment from Vale to a port where it'll be taken to Atlas."

"Oooh, sounds fun, are we attacking the base itself or some vehicle inside of it transporting the goods?"

Roman: "The latter, a train is transporting the items, so we can ambush it and the goods will still arrive at their destination. But what you really should be wondering is what exactly we'll be stealing from the train in the first place."

"Aaaand that would be?"

Roman looks around the room for a moment, looking to see if anyone else is around to eavesdrop on what he is about to tell me, and once he stops, leans in towards me slightly before responding.

Roman: "The train will be transporting a prototype Paladin-290 mech for the Atlas military. Practically nobody knows of their existence outside of the SDC currently, and from what I've heard, they're exceptionally deadly, getting our hands on this would be extremely beneficial."

OOOOOOOOOOH!

"No shit, this is a mech we're talking about!"

I unsling my AK from my back and look at him with a gleeful expression

"When are we gonna go get it?"

Roman: "I'm glad to hear you're excited about this. The train that's transporting the prototype Paladin should be arriving at the Vale station in the next 12 minutes. So we better get going to the tracks so that we can be there for when the train arrives. We also have to get this done fast so the guards don't have time to call for reinforcements once we start working."

"Understandable, so, should we get going now? Would probably be better to start moving as soon as possible in order to not potentially miss the train."

Roman: "You got that right kid, now hop in so that we can get started with this."

Once done speaking, he motions over to a large truck parked nearby us, right next to the entrance of the facility, with both him and Neo getting into it right as he finishes doing so, Roman being in the driver's seat and Neo in the passenger's seat.

I move over to where the truck's door would be (if it had one) and hop into it, sitting down near the edge of the truck as I wait for us to start moving.

Turning around, I spot Neo glancing back at me, once she spots me, she gives Roman a quick thumbs-up, prompting him to start the truck.

Roman: "Everyone hold on tight, I don't like to obey the speed limit."

As soon as Roman finishes says this, he stomps on the gas pedal, the wheels of the truck spinning for a brief second before it starts speeding away from the warehouse off towards the train tracks.

I use one hand to grip onto the bottom of the truck as it speeds off towards the tracks, our drivers reckless movements causing us to nearly hit multiple vehicles in the minutes we spend moving, reaching the tracks only a few moments before the train does, the wind rushing past me as it heads towards its desired location.

Roman: "Alright kid, Neo and I are gonna do the first round of taking out the guards. Just watch over our backs and deal with anything else that comes up, got it?"

"Got it."

I sit up then jump up and grab onto the roof of the truck, throwing my rifle onto the roof before pulling myself up onto it, picking my rifle back up before taking a few steps back and running forward, jumping on top of one of the train cars.

Once on the car, I walk over to the edge of it in order to jump down onto the floor between it and another car, in order to actually enter it, or at least that's what I would be doing if it weren't for this one train worker who just so happened to be at the area I was gonna jump down to once I walked over to it.

Railroad worker: "Um, excuse me? Excuse me! You can't be up there!"

"Says who, the cops? Do you see what uniform I'm wearing? Get off the train before I start firing."

I aim the barrel of my AK at his chest which does the trick and causes him to raise his hands, walking over to the edge of the flooring.

Railroad worker: "Okay! Okay..."

After he finishes talking, he takes a quick look at the ground quickly passing by the train before leaping off of it and onto some grass near the tracks, quickly getting up and running the hell away from said train until I lose sight of him.

Now that he's gone, I jump down onto the spot between the train cars and turn around, grabbing the handle of the door to the car I was on top of before opening it veeeery slightly, just enough to look inside of it.

Inside of the cabin car is various Atlesian soldiers who were probably sent to Vale to help safeguard the Paladin in here for it's trip, carrying pistols, rifles, shotguns, the works, thankfully, every single one of them is facing just about every direction but where I'm at.

"Fuck, hopefully I've got enough ammo for this."

Instead of dealing with the soldiers directly and most likely getting torn to shreds, I locate a small window on the other end of the door, I grab my gun tightly and bash the window open with it's barrel, stick the barrel in through the broke window, and start to fire in all directions, hoping to hit the soldiers inside, using the window's limited visibility to aim at any person I can see.

The bullets connect, and to my surprise, instead of making contact with the soldiers' Aura and promptly falling to the ground near them, like I would expect from past scuffles, they instead...tear right through them.

Bullet after bullet goes through soldier after soldier, dotting their bodies with pinkie-sized holes, leaking blood like a runny faucet, coating the floor of the train car a new coat of crimson, but despite the abundant gore now beginning to flood my vision, I keep on firing, I have a job to do, and I'll be damned if I let a little blood stop me from getting it done.

So I keep on shooting.

I honestly don't know why they didn't get soldiers with Aura to guard a train carrying a damn mech, maybe they thought nobody would be dumb enough to try and steal something this valuable from what is basically the world's largest government so they didn't bother getting good security? I dunno, it doesn't matter right now, all that matters is clearing this car of anything living.

Rounds passing through the bodies of various Atlesian military folk litter any furniture in the car with holes, some causing dents in the walls of the car itself, the ringing in my ears caused from my continued shooting hurts like hell but I'll deal with it, always have in these missions.

Amongst the various bodies now littering the floor of the car, making tiny puddles of their internal fluids as they hit the ground (gross), a singular soldier manages to avoid my fire and goes prone, taking shots at me with a pistol that was holstered around her hip, yelling into something she yanked out of her pocket.

Soldier: "We got somebody else on the train! All security personnel, head to car 3A! Protect the Paladin at all costs!"

"Oumdamn it, ain't got time for this, need to regroup with Roman and Neo."

After a short pause, I move the barrel of my gun and zero in on the prone girl shooting at me, firing the last five shots from my magazine into her back (pretty sure I heard her vertebrae breaking, gross) and finally putting her out of commission, once the sounds of gunfire die out, a door on the other end of the car opens up, with Roman poking his head out from it and into the car before looking at me.

Roman: "I thought I heard gunfire from this direction,"

He walks around the car for a bit while looking over to the dead soldiers on the ground, a small smile on his face.

Roman: "Good work."

"I aim to please, only issue, the rest of the people on this train know we're here now, the girl I just shot told them to open fire on this car, so we should hurry."

I step into the train car once done talking and sling my gun behind my back, walking over to the corpse of one soldier and turning them over, pulling their gun off of their body and giving it a quick one-over, or at least I would have if Neo didn't just open the door behind me and scare the shit out of me.

Looking over at her, she walks over to Roman and quickly types something onto her Scroll before showing it to him, causing him to turn around and speak to me.

Roman: "Neo says there's only 10 more soldiers guarding the car with the Paladin, and from what I saw earlier, that's the last car of this train."

At least that's what I think he was saying, only really payed partial attention as I starting inspecting the gun in my hands soon after he started speaking, it's a shotgun, pretty old from the looks of it, as evident by the-

WAIT.

I recognize this design from anywhere.

This is, quite possibly, one of my favorite guns from the past hundred years.

This is the thing that I've been dreaming about owning since I was 10.

It's a J&T Model 54 pump action 10 Gauge shotgun.

"Ohohohoh, how did you get here, beautiful? I thought that they stopped making you around the 2050's."

I whisper this as I hold the shotgun close to me, dragging one finger up and down it, from forestock to receiver, I swear if you looked at me right now you would probably see stars in my eyes as I hold this thing, I have no idea how that soldier got his hands on it but I don't care, it's mine now and I am not giving it up for anything.

From the corner of my eye, I can spot Roman and Neo glance to one another as I inspect my new weapon before Roman decides to speak up after a few seconds.

Roman: "Are you just gonna... whisper sweet nothings to that gun? Or actually use it for the job at hand?"

"I was getting to that."

Is it too much to ask for a little time to spend with my new weapon?

As I finish speaking, Neo puts her Scroll away and opens the door that I was previously shooting out of, motioning for me to move and open the one to the next car.

Wait, just thought of something neat.

Before I move to that door, I reach into my back pocket and rifle through it for a bit, finding just what I was looking for, an orange marker.

With one hand, I pump my shotgun until all of it's shells are ejected and place it on the floor, picking the shells up one by one and scribbling the same little phrase on each one before loading them all back into the shotgun and picking it up, putting the marker away once done.

I lift one leg up and kick the door open, being greeted by the sight of two soldiers in the center with rifles aimed onto said door I just kicked, being startled slightly from my entrance before one yells to the other.

Soldier 1: "It's them! Open fire!"

Shouldn't've spent time speaking, since in the time they took to say that, they are only able to get two inaccurate shots in each before I fire and promptly punch a hole in the one that was yelling, pointing the barrel of my shotgun at the other and quickly pumping it while holding the trigger down, giving him the same treatment as the other guy with some good 'ol slam-firing.

Monty, they should've gotten better defense for this place.

Apparently I spoke too soon as once I finish firing, eight more soldiers pop up from the middle of nowhere and start to fire at me, Roman and Neo, I hold down my shotgun's trigger and get rid of around four via slam-firing while slowly retreating, getting nicked in my right shoulder and legs a few times in the process before moving behind some objects in the car and taking cover behind them, leaving the rest of the fighting to my superiors

That was apparently the better course of actions since after a few moments of firing and what sounds like stabbing, the other half of the soldiers in the room are quickly taken care of by my higher-ups, causing me to get out from my cover and back over to them.

I shove my shotgun behind my back and unholster my rifle as I reach them, quickly replacing the empty magazine in it.

"Wait, why am I fighting so aggressively? I'm supposed to be covering you two, not trying to one-man-army this thing."

Roman: "Are you complaining that you got to get some action?"

Neo just gives me a look and a quick shrug of the shoulders, also, since when was she carrying a parasol on her? Does she just have that on hand at all times?

"No, just wondering why I'm unnecessarily putting my life at risk, probably has something to do with adrenaline."

Roman: "Fair enough."

I walk over to the front of the car and open the door, with a quick glance inside, it appears this car and the one with the Paladin are connected, and after looking backwards to make sure that my higher-ups are entering with me, I push the door open and dash inside, rifle raised as I am greeted by-

Nothing.

The whole room is devoid of life, simply containing the Paladin itself in it's what seems to be 20-foot tall glory alongside a bunch of miscellaneous crates, other than that though, there isn't really anything else.

"...This feels wrong."

I raise my rifle up to the Paladin as I walk over to it, there doesn't seem to be anyone in it waiting to jump us, the thing seems to be powered down, which is probably for the bes-

*SNAP*

Turning my head over to the source of the sound, I spot a camera mounted near the Paladin, in a blind spot, blocked from the door from whence I came in here from by a bunch of crates, the red light of the camera is flashing, clearly indicating that it wasn't just an automated security thing that caused the photo to be taken, someone is watching me.

*BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!*

I fire three shots at the camera, aimed at the lens, causing it to break before they could do anything else, before turning back to Roman and Neo who are currently closer to me than I originally thought.

"They had a camera here, took a photo of me."

Roman: "A picture of you, huh?"

He says as he lights his cigar that he put in his mouth some time when I wasn't paying attention with the tip of a zippo lighter from his pocket, a small smile on his face.

Roman: "Well I hope it got your good side."

"Yeah, I'm not photogenic, now let's get this thing outta here before they send more people to put us six feet under."

I move out of the train car and pull out a Burn Dust crystal from my pocket, placing it near the hinge that connects the car to the rest of the train before backing up and shooting the crystal with my gun, the shot causing the crystal to ignite and then explode, breaking the hinge with surprising ease and causing the car to wobble around on the tracks for a bit before eventually moving off of them and to the right, into a section of woods the train was currently passing by.

The train car reaches a stop when it crashes against a relatively sturdy tree, chucking the three of us (mainly me) around a bit, causing me to crash into a nearby crate, the thing hitting my back which then lets out an audible pop, thankfully it didn't hurt that much though, that might just be the adrenaline talking though.

Roman walks over to the open door and looks out of it, looking at the rest of the train moving right past us.

Roman: "That'll do."

"Sure will, now we just need to lay low until Cinder or whoever gets here to pick us and the Paladin up, thank Oum that the car landed next to some dense foliage."

Roman: "You got that right,"

He says as he takes a puff from his cigar.

Roman: "Now all we have to do is wait, and hope whatever forces they have left don't send a patrol over here while we wait for them."

Oh yeah, they can do that.

Welp, might as well loot the place.

I turn around and look at the crate I recently crashed into, opening the lid of it and looking inside to see what they were storing inside of it, which appears to be a...black box of sorts, with silver lining, some buttons, and the outlines of a sliding cover on top of it, the SDC logo proudly displayed on said cover alongside the numbers '230'.

"The fuck are the Schnee up to this time?"

This thing looks important, not exactly something I would just want lying around for anyone to grab, so this is either a decoy and will probably blow up if I try to open it, or the SDC potentially did something reaaaally stupid accidentally.

In order to find out what the hell this thing is or has in it, I start to mash random buttons on it until it does something, testing out a bunch of different patterns until I eventually hear a small, satisfying 'click,' alongside the cover on top sliding back, a holographic screen much like that of a Scroll popping up, displaying a single file that I can access.

Project 230.

I stare at the screen for a few moments before hesitantly reaching forward and clicking on it, waiting for the file to load, which it eventually does, displaying a long list of text.

[Project - Silver Eye Prototype #230]

Skimming a bit.

[A new model of the Silver Eye device, though unlike past models which contained a single silver, crystalline substance, this model contains a new-]

"What the fuck is a Silver Eye?"

Scrolling through more text to try and figure out what this thing is, it appears to be a weapon made to combat Grimm created by the SDC's weapons department, it's still a prototype as of now but they seem to be throwing a bunch of money at this project, it's inspired by something I would really like to know, but unfortunately, the rest of the damn data's expunged.

The rest of the info is probably being held by high ranking members of the Schnee Dust Company, can't know what it is without finding them, and even then, the dudes are loaded! No doubt they are being guarded at all times, if I tried to pull anything on them, I'd either be arrested or torn to ribbons.

Why is the box making a humming sound?

"Oh shit."

I hastily close the file and cover of the box, which seems to do the trick and stop the humming, and also draw the attention of Roman.

Roman: "What'd ya find in there?"

"Government secrets,"

I turn around, holding the box in my hands as I walk over to him.

"Apparently the SDC left a text log here talking about a new experimental weapon they're working on for combating Grimm, gonna show it to the higher-up's, they'll probably appreciate having classified info."

Roman: "Heh, that's SDC for you, you can't trust them when it comes to anything."

He says as he takes another puff of his cigar, the smoke from it hitting my face and causing me to let out a cough.

Roman: "You'd think they'd have a tighter security system on these trains if they're working on secret projects like that. I mean that security was a joke back there."

"I know, right? The entire time we were making our way here I was expecting some hidden security measure or ambush to happen at any moment cause of how bad their security measures were, but it never happened."

I reach into my pocket and pull out one of my rations, taking a bite out of it before continuing.

"For being a multi-billion Lien Dust hegemony, you'd expect them to be able to get better security than just a bunch of Aura-less people with guns."

Roman: "You'd think that. Hell, one would think they'd have an entire army with how rich they are. But I guess they've just gotten complacent and lazy, I mean they have the military backing them, right? Why should they go through the effort to get good security when they can just throw a couple randoms with guns at the problem and fall back on the Atlesian military to help them if they need it?"

"Sounds about right,"

I take another bite from my ration.

"Well, it's helping us with our job and that's good enough for me, I'm gonna go check if any of the other crates have anything of note, tell me when Cinder gets here to pick us up."

I walk away from him and over to a new crate, checking to see what's in this one.

Apparently it's nothing but a bunch of parts for spare MM-78's, we already have a bunch of those though so that's kinda pointless, checking another crate, it just has more of the same, same with another crate, and another, and another.

It isn't long before I've checked every damn crate left in the train car, and all of them besides the first one I checked had nothing but part for MM-78's.

"Lame."

I close the last crate I've checked and decide to walk over to Neo, who's sitting down on one of the crates I just checked and fiddling with her Scroll, deciding to sit down on a crate near her.

"Sooooo, how's it going?"

She looks up at me with a blank expression on her face before turning back to her Scroll, typing something out on it quickly and showing what she typed to me.

Neo: [Bored, and kind of hungry.]

Huh.

I look down at the Type D Ration Unit in my hands before holding it out towards her.

"Want some? They're remakes of old military rations from around two centuries ago, they taste awful but it's better than nothing."

Feel like it would be better not to tell her that these are actually around two centuries old.

Still have no idea how these are edible.

She glances at the bar of the worlds worst-tasting chocolate for a moment before grabbing it out of my hands and taking a small bite from it, near-instantly recoiling and spitting it our as soon as she tastes it, coughing for a second or two before typing a message onto her Scroll for me to see.

Neo: [That is the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted in my life.]

"Yeah, they were made to be resistant to the heat, not to taste good, thankfully I've managed to eat so many of them in the past I've tricked myself into thinking they actually taste fine."

She just stares at me for a moment in confusion after I finish speaking, as if wondering how I could ever come to enjoy the taste of the ration before Roman speaks up, grabbing our attention.

Roman: "I just got word from Cinder."

"What'd she say?"

Roman: "Cinder says that she's been delayed due to the damage our Bullhead took yesterday during that robbery. This sector of the White Fang apparently doesn't have that many mechanics so it's going to take a bit for the repairs to be done, so we're going to lay low for the night until the Bullhead's back up and running."

"Soooo...we're just gonna sit around here in this train car all night until Cinder gets here with the repaired Bullhead to pick us up? How about we barricade the door in case anyone tries to get in here while we're asleep?"

Roman: "Pretty much, yep. That's the plan. As for blocking the door, that's probably for the best, wouldn't want anyone getting in and disturbing my sleep."

Guess I should get on that.

Neo: [I can help.]

"Oh, thanks Neo, I'd appreciate the assistance."

I stand up from the crate I was sitting on and grab onto both sides of it, dragging it over towards the train car door to begin blocking it off.

I am only able to move it a foot or so before Neo gets off of the crate she was on, and in one swift movement, lifts her leg up and kicks the crate I was dragging all the way over to the door, it crashing right next to it with a loud thud, damn, at least it saves time from moving it.

Roman: "Yeah, I get that you're trying to help, but it would be better for you to leave the heavy lifting to the person with Aura."

Yeah, probably.

"Monty Oum, glad you two are on our side, would probably be a pain in the ass to fight against you both."

Roman: "Hah, probably. Now, let's just hope nothing happens overnight; it'd get pretty annoying if we have to deal with anyone coming in here."

Yup.

Me and Neo set up a small routine of her kicking a crate over towards me, stationed right next to the train car door, followed by me pushing it in front of the door or on top of another crate to block it off from anyone trying to get it, we did this around ten times before putting a stop to it, deciding that's probably good enough for now.

Once we're done, I spot Neo getting back on top of the crate she was originally sitting on, not having kicked it during the barricading process, leaning back against the wall of the train car and drifting off to sleep, Roman doing the same, leaning against a wall on the other side of the car.

I decide to follow after them, moving to one of the corners of the car and curling up into a ball, finishing the rest of my ration before chucking the wrapper away from me and closing my eyes, falling to sleep for the rest of the day.

Hopefully Cinder gets here by tomorrow.