Cover Art by CHE3ZY

It's been way too long for my liking but like I said, shit has been kicked into high gear. I've barely slept right in the last month. Hopefully shit will calm down after July. In any case, it was time to get the ball rolling again with the next volume. As you can see I've added a Volume designation to help divide the story better. I'd like to thank my readers for their kind words of support. Please continue to like and share this fic, please leave your thoughts in the review section, and please be sure to vote for your favorite OC. Rahm and Dr. Haze are tied for first, Jai is in second place, and Terre is third. I hope you enjoy this one.

Two Weeks Later:

Mantle:

"It really warms my heart to see you young ladies helping out the community," said an elderly woman of diminutive stature, "especially when it comes to helping an old timer like myself. These troublesome prosthetics have been acting up again."

Robyn and Fiona shared a smile before they glanced down to the elderly woman in question. She had dark skin and long silver hair, which was braided in a single braid down her back. She was of an incredibly small stature and appeared to be hunched over, requiring the use of a walking stick. She wore a full-length dress in the traditional Tabasco style, consisting of a dark blue top with full sleeves and a skirt comprised of alternating light and dark blue layers. In addition to her dress, she wore thick brown gloves and a heavy blue cloak. What made her stand out even more were her oversized goggle-like prosthetic eyes.

"It's no trouble ma'am," said Fiona, "we're the Happy Huntresses; it's what we do."

The old woman was on her way to her doctor for an adjustment on her prosthetic eyes. The two Huntresses saw her and decided to help. The elderly woman shot the two ladies a warm smile.

"Please," replied the old woman, "call me Maria."

"Thank you Maria. We're just trying to be the change we want to see in the world," said Robyn with a sad smile.

The blonde Huntress thought back to her father. She couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if her father had stayed the peaceful course. Would he still be alive? She would never know for certain, but what she did know was that the violent path wasn't the way to instill true change.

"Well, I'm glad that there are Huntresses like you lovely ladies in this world. It definitely needs more of you," said Maria.

The two Huntresses merely smiled as they continued escorting the sweet old woman to her doctor's appointment.

Atlas:

The auditorium was silent for the most part. The only one who spoke was Winter as she ran through the slides of the daily morning intelligence briefing. On the outside Winter kept the most professional of appearances, but on the inside, she wanted nothing more than to smash the damn projector. All Special Operatives received a daily intelligence briefing about immediate threats, security risks, geo-political affairs, etc. The last two weeks had been nothing but repetitive information. Nothing had changed in the state of the world. There was no word on the White Fang, the bandit tribes in Mistral remained at large but Mistral still refused to accept military aid from Atlas, and Vacuo was still the land of borderline lawlessness that it always was. Vale and Menagerie were the two areas to focus on. The White Fang activity in Vale, as reported by Unit 117, was the only lead they had, but the prisoners they had extradited had yet to divulge any useful information. Either they didn't know anything, or they simply weren't talking. It was a shame that they weren't as cooperative as Lacertilia.

Menagerie was a wildcard. No one knew how it would swing. Under Ghira Belladonna's leadership, Menagerie had been peaceful, but Belladonna still refused to label the White Fang as a terrorist organization. He acknowledged that some of its members had indeed committed heinous acts, but he also made it clear that not all its members were criminals. It was a delicate game he was playing. To many, if not most, faunus, the White Fang represented a stance against faunus oppression, and for Ghira to condemn them would threaten his legitimacy as the leader of Menagerie.

Winter's eyes quickly glanced around the auditorium as she observed the multitude of Specialists who were clearly just as bored as she was, though she actually tried to hide it. She spotted Marrow and the rest of the Ace Ops sitting towards the back. Clover was taking notes, Vine listened intently, Elm was asleep, Harriet looked as though she was about to fall asleep, and Marrow was looking at her with the warmest of smiles on his face. Winter smiled internally as she went back to briefing off the slides with a renewed sense of energy and motivation.

The sound of a high-powered blowtorch echoed throughout the lab. Sparks flashed in many directions as the torch contacted the metal. Dr. Haze wore a welder's mask as well as protective gloves as she worked. The noise generated by the torch kept her from hearing the door to her lab open. General Ironwood casually approached Dr. Haze's workspace with his hands clasped behind his back. The general observed her silently as she worked. The project in question that Dr. Haze was working on was a highly intricate metal structure that resembled a human skeleton. It took a few minutes for the good doctor to notice the general's presence. With a visible sigh the head scientist of Atlas shut the torch off before she removed her helmet.

"Would it kill you to knock?" She asked with annoyance.

"I doubt you would have heard me; let alone opened the door."

He had a point. She was always too busy with her work to open the door, but that didn't take away from the fact that she hated how he came in anyway. Granted, he was the boss, and he was the only person on Remnant who could access her lab.

"Did you need something James?"

"Yes," he replied, "I wanted to see how Project Sentinel was coming along."

The brilliant scientist removed her work gloves, tossing them on the table.

"The AI work is still coming along. I've decided to focus more on building the shell first while I continue to devise methods of improving on Penny's AI."

"That's good news," replied the general, "do you think we'll be able to have it tested before the Vytal Festival?"

"Possibly," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, "the main issue is the AI. I have yet to find a way to make it impenetrable to hacking."

James let out a tired sigh.

"Cassandra," he said, "you yourself said that there are only two people on Remnant who could hack this AI."

He wasn't wrong. As it stood, only Pietro and herself were smart enough to hack into an AI this sophisticated. She knew what James was trying to get at, but she still didn't like the idea of having such a weakness present in her work.

"Do you really want to take that risk James?" She asked with sincerity.

"Part of my job as a military leader is to assess and take risks on the battlefield. As far as I'm concerned, the risk posed to the AI is minimal considering that the only two people who could hack it are loyal Atlas scientists. I want you to press forward with what you have. We can't afford anymore delays."

Cassandra stared James down for a moment before she let out a sigh of defeat.

"Very well," she replied.

General Ironwood gave her a polite nod.

"Is there anything else you needed to speak to me about?"

"Robyn Hill," he replied.

Dr. Haze rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"You're still on about this?"

"She poses a significant security threat Cassandra. How can I not?"

"I think you might be a bit paranoid James. Project Guardian is airtight. No one, let alone Hill, will ever find out about it."

"What if her accusations about the missing Lien are backed up with evidence? What if Ibis managed to leak evidence to her?"

Cassandra mused it over for a moment. Ibis had been one of the highest-ranking officers in the Kingdom and had access to the financial records of the military. While it was impossible for him to have known exactly where the money had gone over the years, he would have been able to see that the money was going to things that didn't exist if he dug deep enough.

"I can see your cause for concern," she replied, "it's certainly possible that Ibis could have leaked such information to her, but I don't see it as a threat in the long run."

James looked at her skeptically.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Robyn is accusing you of neglecting Mantle; of that we are certain. But what if we turn this whole thing around on her?"

James merely looked at her questioningly, silently telling her to go on.

"You can't get rid of Robyn like you did her father. For one thing, our Guardians are preoccupied with a more pressing mission and secondly Robyn is a peaceful activist who has the community on her side. The solution to this problem is to discredit her. What I'm trying to get at is that we should give Mantle what it needs. Penny."

James remained silent, listening intently.

"You can acknowledge the Lien by painting the picture that it was done to give Mantle its very own protector, Penny. Her work with Unit 117 won't be permanent, which will free her to focus on Mantle when their mission is done."

James blinked.

She was right. They had a fantastic opportunity here to spin this around and discredit Hill's accusations. Penny wouldn't be kept a secret forever and Mantle did need more protection. It was a win-win scenario. This scenario would leave Project Sentinel completely unhindered for its global protection mission.

"That's genius Cassandra."

Dr. Haze merely smirked. She was the smartest person on Remnant.

"It's my job James," she replied, "any word from my Guardians?"

"No," he replied, "I was going to wait to speak with them in person."

She looked at him with a smirk.

"Is that the only reason you're going to Beacon?" Her voice carried so much mischief in it.

James rolled his eyes in annoyance. They both knew why he was going. Though Beacon was hosting the Vytal Tournament this year, it was Atlas that was sponsoring it. As the Headmaster of Atlas Academy, he had to help oversee the preparations for the event alongside Ozpin. Or at least that's what he was telling himself. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't going to also keep a closer eye on Beacon and speak with Ozpin directly. That wasn't what Cassandra was getting at, though. She was referring to Glynda.

James didn't say anything, instead opting to turn around and walk away. Cassandra watched as James walked away. She knew she'd struck a nerve with him, but she silently hoped he could patch things up with Glynda while he was down in Vale. The poor man had sacrificed everything in service to humanity. James' hair had begun to grey over the years from the overwhelming stress of the burdens placed upon him. He was tired. When he broke his engagement to Glynda off it nearly destroyed him. The only thing that kept him going was his semblance. If there was anyone on Remnant that deserved any peace and happiness once this was all over, it was him.

"If anyone deserves a break it's you James," she whispered to herself.

Mistral:

Emerald went about packing her things in a rushed manner. She had most of everything packed but she still wasn't done. The green-haired exotic beauty looked over shoulder and narrowed her eyes as she saw the sight of Mercury lounging about on his bed. Emerald fully turned to face the boy with a scowl on her face, earning the attention of the son of Marcus Black.

"What?" He asked.

"You still haven't packed?"

Mercury shrugged.

"I've still got time. We don't leave for another three hours."

Emerald scoffed in annoyance.

"Cinder said to be ready to go. What will she say when she sees you haven't packed?"

"I don't know," replied Mercury, "why don't you tell me? You're her little pet, aren't you? You should know her better than anyone."

Emerald's blood began to boil to dangerous levels. If there was only one thing she hated about having met Cinder, it was Mercury. He was such an immature ass.

"Even you're not dumb enough to not see that Cinder isn't in a good mood. So, I don't think I need to tell you how pissed she'll be if she sees you've been wasting her time."

Mercury visibly paled at that mention. Emerald was right. For the last two weeks Cinder had been on a rampage. Members of Adam's White Fang had been brutally slaughtered, and it set their operation in Vale back. That had been part of the reason they were going to Beacon. Cinder began to grow tired of having to travel back and forth between Mistral and Vale just to check in on Roman and Adam. It'd only been a few weeks since they saw Roman in Vale after the incident at the docks to remind him of the important part he played in this whole operation, and already their operation was stalled because Adam's White Fang didn't know how to lay low. Cinder was going to have to take a more hands on approach to deal with this whole mess, which had left the raven-haired beauty in a terrible mood.

Seeing as how Emerald had a point, Mercury got up from his bed without question and began to pack his things.

Beacon Academy:

"This might not be what you want to discuss over lunch, but General Ironwood wants an in person briefing of our current mission progress when he arrives next week."

The other three members of team PGRT simply stared at Terre.

"You mean our non-existent progress?" Asked Rahm.

"Yes," replied Terre. "As much as I hate to admit it, these last two weeks have been a failure."

"The White Fang and Torchwick haven't made a single move. They're keeping below the radar." Said Jai just before taking a bite of his food.

"The general isn't going to be happy about this," said Rahm.

Penny, meanwhile, was fixated on the commercial that was playing on the overhead television set. The commercial was currently advertising a cleaning product by a man named Billy Ways. As Penny remained fixated on the commercial and the three super soldiers kept conversing, Nora, who was seated at the table over from them, proceeded to throw a pie which accidentally hit Weiss in the face. Team PGRT turned their attention to what had just transpired. They didn't know it, but they were about to witness a food fight.

Outside the cafeteria, Sun Wukong and a blue-haired boy dressed in preppy clothes were walking together as Sun recalled the events which took place at the docks and the scrapyard.

The blue-haired boy looked on in amazement. "Man, that's harsh."

"I know, we were fighting side by side. She was super-fast, it was awesome."

"Nice!"

"Right? And the best part is, she's a Faunus. But that's a secret, okay?"

"Got it."

Sun leaned in closer to stress the importance of the secret. "And not a "I'm gonna go tell Scarlet the second Sun turns his back secret", I'm talking secret, secret. Got it Neptune?"

"Whoa, chill out, man, okay? I got it. I got it!" Neptune reassured his friend.

"You better," replied Sun.

As they walked by the windows of the cafeteria, food splattered onto the panes as students ran around. All of this happened without them seeing, being too fixated on their conversation to notice. At one point, Jaune was the one comically splattered onto the window.

"I just don't want to screw this up, you know? The people here are the coolest! No offense to you or the guys."

"None taken," replied Neptune.

"They're just in here. I'm really excited for you to meet them. So, be cool, okay? You're gonna be cool, right?"

"Dude..." Neptune's teeth gleamed as he smiled.

"Good point." Sun and Neptune entered the cafeteria where students were heard screaming.

"Food fight!"

Many students were stampeding out the door past Sun and Neptune, the latter of whom was looking quite worried.

Nora let out a maniacal laughter from the top of a tower of stacked tables. "Ahahahaha!" Her teammates stood spaced out below her at the base of the tower. "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!"

Ruby stomped her foot on a table and pointed at Team JNPR. "Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful!" Ruby crushed a carton of milk in her hand. "It will be delicious!"

As the other students scrambled to clear the dining hall, team PGRT remained seated where they were. Out of the four of them, only Penny was paying the food fight between JNPR and RWBY any mind. Penny looked ecstatic about the whole thing. She moved to stand up and join in on the fun but was stopped by a firm hand on her shoulder. She saw Jai's hand on her shoulder, the super soldier merely shook his head disapprovingly.

"Can we partake in this? It looks so much fun!"

"No Penny. We must behave ourselves accordingly," replied Rahm.

Before Penny could protest, Yang sped by them with whole turkeys as makeshift boxing gloves in hopes of trying to catch JNPR off guard. Ren and Jaune bombarded the blonde firecracker with watermelons, sending her stumbling back. Pyrrha used her polarity semblance to send a wave of canned beverages careening towards RWBY. The members of the Bad Batch ducked to avoid getting hit by the cans.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha yelled in apology to the artificial girl and three super soldiers.

With the threat of the cans averted, team PGRT went back to eating their lunch.

"Can you pass the pepper?" Asked Rahm.

Without even looking up from his food, Jai reached up and grabbed a pepper shaker that had been sent flying by Weiss and Nora's duel and handed it to his Guardian brother.

"Thanks," said Rahm.

"Don't mention it," replied Jai.

Terre's facial expression soured slightly as he tasted his soup.

"It's a shame the soup is cold," he said.

"Other than being cold, is it any good?" Asked Jai. He had debated getting the soup, which was cream of spinach, but he chose the salad as his side.

"It's not bad," replied Terre.

The food fight between RWBY and JNPR was starting to get even more intense, but before it could spiral into an even worse mess, Professor Goodwitch stormed into the dining hall, accidentally pushing the food splattered Neptune and Sun aside, and used her semblance to reverse the damage done by the two mischievous teams.

"Children! Please, do not play with your food."

Teams RWBY and JNPR looked on at the furious professor in embarrassment. Weiss looked as though she were trying to formulate a coherent excuse for the whole mess that had transpired but she was coming up short. Before Glynda could say anything more, a hand on her shoulder from Ozpin stopped her.

"Let it go Glynda."

Glynda sighed in defeat. "They're supposed to be the defenders of the world."

"And they will be, but right now they're still children." JNPR and RWBY were laughing together. "So why not let them play the part?" Ozpin began to walk away from Glynda. "After all, it isn't a role they'll have forever."

Glynda couldn't argue with Ozpin there. She turned her attention back to the two teams.

"Get yourselves cleaned up! You all look ridiculous covered in food. I don't understand why you can't be more like team PGRT."

Everyone turned their attention over to the table where team PGRT was seated. The four were eating their meals as if none of the chaos had transpired.

"You think we can grab seconds?" Rahm asked.

The other three members of his team looked about at what remained of the food containers. While the tables and chairs were put back in place, the food was mostly destroyed and the food that wasn't had been all over the floor.

"I do not think that would be a promising idea," replied Penny.

"Oh well. Next time then," said Terre as he stood up from the table and moved to place his plate on the rack. His teammates followed his example.

While the other students at Beacon Academy scrambled to prepare for the new semester starting tomorrow, team PGRT was in no such rush. Being used to the discipline of the Atlas military, the four had prepared for the new semester days ago. The four undercover students were busy doing their own things. Rahm was reading the latest issue of his aviation magazine, Jai was practicing on a piano keyboard that he once again borrowed from the music hall, Penny was drawing in a notebook, and Terre was looking outside the window to their room. They had returned from dinner just over thirty minutes ago. Thankfully, the dining hall had been cleaned up since the incident between RWBY and JNPR earlier that day. Terre's eyes narrowed as he stared out the window. Their conversation from during lunch was still ringing in his ears. They had been here for an entire semester, and they had yet to make any serious progress. The incident with the White Fang member, Faline, two weeks ago had been their best shot at finding either Torchwick or Taurus, but everything went to hell thanks to the intervention of teams RWBY and JNPR. A knock from the door, garnered Terre's attention. He walked over and opened the door and was met with the sight of a blushing Ruby Rose.

"Hello Ruby."

"H-Hey Terre," she replied, "I uh…was wondering if you'd like to come over and play some video games with me and Yang."

"Video games?"

"Yup!"

"Can't say I've ever played."

Ruby was in absolute shock. Without a word she grabbed Terre by the arm and moved to drag him over to her room so that she could have him play with her and Yang. Terre allowed himself to be guided over because Ruby probably wouldn't have been able to actually drag him. Ruby smiled at how easy this was. Just five minutes ago she was cowering in fear of leaving her room.

Five Minutes Prior:

"Come on Rube! It's easy, just go and ask him if he wants to play some videogames with us."

"But what if he doesn't want to?"

"He'll say yes."

"How do you know?"

"Ruby if you don't go ask him right now then I will."

"NO! OK OK! I'll do it."

"Good girl." Yang smiled an evil smile. Everything was going according to plan. Blake was out with Sun and Weiss was over at the library. That meant that Ruby would have no interruptions after she made herself scarce.

Present:

Ruby opened the door to her room to find Yang playing without her. They had been playing Blood Souls III, a questing game where demons and monsters attack you and you must use weapons and magic to slay them.

"Hey! We were supposed to beat him together!"

"Sorry sis! You were taking too long so I decided to finish the round." Yang gave her sister one of her signature winks. The blonde firecracker looked over at Terre and smiled. "Oh, hey Terre! Fancy seeing you here."

"Yang," he said with a respectful nod.

Ruby and Terre walked over to where Yang was and sat down next to her. It took a few minutes to explain the control setup to Terre, who managed to learn quickly.

Terre looked down at the controller. "There's not a whole lot of buttons here..."

"It's just enough for hack and slash action! Nothing too complicated about swish-swish stab!" Replied Yang.

"... What?" Asked a confused Terre.

"Never mind, you'll get the... YANG of it soon enough."

Ruby groaned at the pun while Terre stared in confusion. Yang pretended to look at her gauntlets to check the time and got up before they could recover from the terrible wordplay.

"Welp, I promised some friends I was gonna go hang out with them soooo... Ruby, I think you can take over teacher duty from here, right?"

Ruby looked shocked. "Wait wha-"

"Coolio, all right, ciao kiddos!"

"Waitaminute, Yang-!"

It was too late. The blonde was out the door and well down the hallway before Ruby could even stand up. How was it that she could find the opportunity to ditch her despite Ruby's speed, Ruby would never know? She plopped herself back down next to Terre in resignation, figuring that she may as well try to make the most of his visit.

"I suppose that's a common theme between you and her, isn't it?" Asked Terre.

Ruby looked away in embarrassment. "Yeah..."

A random male character spawned out from the ground, standing triumphantly as he faced this brave new world. He stood stock still as Terre simply stared at the screen.

"That's your character. You're supposed to move him forward."

"...Oh. Right."

For a few seconds Terre lightly tapped the left control stick forward, watching for the character's responses. It jittered and trotted, but it moved all the same.

"So just... keep moving forward, right?"

"Yup! You should see a white symbol on the ground." Off in the distance there was a large beast standing upright, its back was turned to the player character. Ruby's facial expression soon soured. "Oh crap... the symbol is right behind it..."

"I take it that's bad?" Terre asked.

"Well without touching that symbol you can't exactly summon me to help..." Ruby replied. "You'll have to inch your way veeeerry quietly without alerting him."

Terre nodded as he lightly pushed the control stick up. The audible footsteps his character made caused him to wonder if the beast was just deaf. Finally, he made it to the sign, summoning Ruby... but also giving the beast ample enough time to turn itself around.

The beast lunged forward with an agility unbecoming of its size at Terre's character.

Ruby let out a comic scream. "Aaaahh! You gotta roll out! Dodge, dodge, dodge!" Terre frantically began mashing the dodge roll button at her command, his character performing its damnedest to avoid dying.

"Combat rolling this much doesn't make sense in a real fight..."

Ruby's character ran up and started hacking away at the beast's leg, earning a shrieking cry and its ire.

"Luckily, we're not in a real fight," she replied with a grin.

Terre's character slashed at the monster's other leg, causing another cry of pain. The feintest smirk appeared on Terre's face. "I suppose you're right."

Ruby couldn't help but giggle. Terre was enjoying himself! Unbeknownst to Ruby, the door to the room cracked open just barely to let a lavender colored eye spy on the two. Terre knew full well that Yang was spying on them, having heard her footsteps return. For what purpose? He did not know. Seeing as she wasn't doing anything bad, he decided to ignore it. Ruby and Terre continued to dodge attacks and slash at the monster for several minutes. The fight was dotted by Ruby's comic screams when she narrowly avoided being killed. Finally, they managed to kill the monster. Ruby jumped up and down in elation.

"Wediditwediditwediditwe-" Ruby stopped her celebrating as soon as she saw Terre looking at her, a slightly amused look on his face. Ruby rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. "Uh, so…want to keep playing?"

Terre nodded. "Please."

Yang struggled to hold back her laughter. Ruby looked so happy, and Terre was clearly enjoying himself too. She was glad she convinced her sister to do this. Yang silently closed the door and walked away. A mischievous smirk etched its way onto her face, she couldn't wait to tell everyone about this.

No action this chapter; just exposition to help set the stage for Volume 2. Looks like Yang is helping Ruby with her little crush haha. Could it possibly be that Terre has found himself a hobby? Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know what you think. Thank you and see you next time.

-Dude64