WBRN : Nova Fabula Remnant

by SageOfStarlight

Remnant still has one more story to tell. (This Story is based on Original Characters NEXT GEN)

13. Chapter 12

The sound of well-coordinated and massed footsteps, accompanied by multiple voices shouting orders were what could be most discerned among all the noise produced by the bandits in the Branwen tribe, as everyone was too excited for the great day that would be today.

The attack on laboratory 33.1 had been delayed several times, a decision that none of the bandits could understand, nor did they receive an explanation for it, they were simply warned not to do anything stupid on their own, they had to wait for orders from their leaders, as Raven would be deeply involved in this new attack.

Felicia watched the multiple bandits gather their weapons, beginning to board the multiple armored vehicles, she was not feeling in her best moment to encourage her lackeys or make some witty comment, no, her spirits were at rock bottom.

The most recent defeats and problems were mainly due to her, Ruby Rose had managed to stop her a couple of times, thus preventing her from achieving her dreams and adding another victory to the tribe, which was certainly understandable, Ruby was the most popular and powerful Huntress in all of Remnant, fighting her was something normal.

However, losing to Waylon Branwen twice was humiliating.

There was a huge difference between Waylon and Ruby, mainly that he was just a Beacon student who apparently had mommy issues and she herself was a prodigy with the ability to create anything.

Raven tried to make her feel better, claiming that it was more her confidence that made her lose than Waylon's skill himself, but Felicia knew that wasn't a valid excuse, she's supposed to be more than capable of outwitting her enemies when fighting them and winning in the process.

The mage gently bit her nails, also, Raven seemed certainly relieved that Waylon hadn't been hurt too badly in his fight against her, Felicia couldn't blame her too much, it was an open secret among the bandits that Raven had too great a connection to her blood family.

Why was he so special? Was it because of his slightly altered semblance? Or because he was Raven's nephew?

So many questions, which there was no time to answer.

"This is an important night" Ivan Cox appeared behind Felicia, his lips holding a cigarette, sucking the smoke into his mouth and releasing it a couple of seconds later with a satisfied sigh "The microphone I installed in Winter's office was very useful, now we know that Ruby is heading towards our target"

"We can't screw this up…I can't screw this up" Felicia swallowed hard, slowly standing up and adjusting her hat "I know the territory well…I grew up near the power plant and the Schnee Corporations lab, if I fail-"

"We have time, it's what we have the most of" Ivan replied calmly, practically ignoring Felicia's worried tone "If you don't want to fail, take your enemies more seriously, including Winter's son"

Felicia bit her lip, stifling an aggressive response to Ivan's advice, instead she simply sighed in irritation, Ivan was an important ally to the tribe and also the main connection to the city, turning him against her would not be a good idea.

The fluttering of a bird's wings echoed through the sky for a moment, Raven Branwen suddenly appeared in the middle of all the armored trucks, her appearance, still young due to Atlas's medicine, was still as imposing as in the past, if not even more so, this being the reason why the bandits fell silent and looked in the direction of their leader.

Raven looked at the people of her tribe with pride and happiness, an emotion that the woman did not usually show, but tonight was special, if everything went well, then the fall of Beacon would be closer than ever.

And they would definitely win, because she would be there this time.

"Many years ago, my father Scav Branwen had the incredible idea of destroying Beacon from within, my father was unable to see the future, and he couldn't prevent the betrayal of my brother, Qrow, which is the main reason Vale is still on Remnant" Raven began to explain, a hint of contempt could be discerned in her voice, clearly directed at her brother.

"But today, we will make history in Remnant" Raven's smile faded, her reddish eyes became engulfed in a trail of crimson flames, revealing the incredible power of the maiden "Follow me, and we will free the world from its false freedom"

The ground on which Raven was standing sank for a moment, an explosion of flames came out of the woman's palms, which took flight and stopped in the air, giving one last look to her tribe, then starting to fly in the direction of her target.

The armored trucks started up, their engines roaring and their wheels spinning, skidding across the dirt before they finally moved, leaving a curtain of dust in their wake, Felicia looked towards Ivan once more, waiting for a comment from the man.

"It's been a long time since I hit someone with my hands" Ivan stated, putting the cigarette back in his mouth "It's not my style anymore, you should go after Raven, mage, or she'll get angry"

Felicia nodded, approaching the only vehicle available, once inside, she didn't waste any more time and got going, today she couldn't let anyone down, absolutely no one.

Especially to herself.

...

Ruby raised her scythe and swung it forward, hitting the metal gates of the main entrance to the laboratory multiple times, there didn't seem to be anyone inside, apparently, Winter had been telling the truth when she claimed that the Atlesian Knights were deactivated.

The sparks from the clash of metals forced Ruby to close her eyes, after a couple of particularly strong blows, the metal of the gates gave way to the unique steel of Crescent Rose, creating an opening of a few centimeters.

Ruby only had to carefully place the tip of the blade of her scythe, pulling hard downwards and opening the hole even more, allowing her to enter completely.

The hallway that welcomed Ruby definitely met her expectations, it was wide and long, multiple robots were on the floor, they did not look deteriorated, but the rust on their metal seemed to reveal that they had not been used for some time.

Ruby began to walk calmly and slowly, not wanting to draw attention to anything, if Felicia was interested in this place, she had to understand why, caution was the most important thing now.

Ruby stopped when she reached the main room, it rivaled a bit the exhibition entrance of the main Schnee Corp building, although the one in this lab was definitely abandoned and unkempt, a huge lamp was the only thing illuminating the place, and even then, it flickered with the risk of burning down at any moment.

The woman tried to take a step forward, pushing a couple of papers, Ruby leaned down and picked up one of the papers she had pushed, it was somewhat wet and dirty, apparently, there could be water leaks in various parts of the laboratory, even so, she did not give it much importance, and began to read.

Dr. Merlot's research is impressive and fascinating to read, although he seems to had many problems when experimenting with Grimm in the past, they can't stand losing a limb, after all, they always end up in ashes, it seems that he found a way to fix it but it doesn't help much, I will continue writing after the experiment.

Ruby turned the page, finding the missing text.

We managed to stabilize the Grimm, if it's too weak, we need to make it stronger...it seems that Winter kept some containers with negative emotions, as silly as it sounds, and gave them to me so I could use them, the Grimm survived having its leg cut off! It even regenerated, but apparently its physiology has changed, the readings show that there's a heart inside it now, as if it were a real animal, Merlot never got that far, but I think I can do it, I'm dying to tell Sun about this.

Velvet Scarlatina, December 2, 4011.

"Velvet?" Ruby muttered, her eyes wide in surprise at reading the name of one of her old friends related to the Grimm experimentation, she half remembered Merlot, it had been quite a few years since she fought her modified Grimm, seeing something related to him again was confusing.

Ruby decided to continue, this time heading to the door located at the end of the entrance, a new long and dark hallway appeared this time, the blue phosphorescent lights located on the ceiling flickered constantly, some of them directly stopped working, so the woman had to continue at the risk of being in total darkness.

The journey felt longer than it should have been, all she could hear was the sound of drops hitting the ground with force and the lights failing, after walking for what seemed like hours, she came to a fully armored gate with a NO ENTRY sign in red letters, clearly there was something important inside.

Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose tightly, hitting the armored door multiple times, the sound of her scythe trying to make its way echoed throughout practically the entire laboratory, it took a few minutes to finally manage to open a hole big enough to pass through , Ruby didn't hesitate for a second to cross the hole carefully.

Blueish lights suddenly turned on, giving Ruby the chance to analyze the surroundings more carefully, again, hundreds of papers on the floor, the new environment was shaped like a cylinder, there was a stupid amount of weapons with plasma cells still active on the walls, Ruby felt her mouth go dry in an instant, was this what they were hiding here?

Ruby walked over to a makeshift table near the curved wall, beginning to read carefully.

Winter told us we had to leave the facility in a couple of days, apparently she doesn't trust that what we do here will remain a secret for long, it's a shame, I would have liked to stay in Vale for a while longer.

We will leave everything we did here, this place will be closed to never be reopened, the researchers and scientists will be moved to underground floors in the main building of Schnee Corp, in the center of the city, I will return to Atlas soon, a vacancy has opened in the kingdom's academy and, I think it's time for a change.

If possible, I will tell my daughter to take my place here, she is good at making weapons.

Still, I'm worried that this whole thing will be abandoned, the plasma cells still need to be refined, if they use them now, there's a chance they'll explode, but if they're perfected and stolen...it would be a big problem.

Plus, Belly is still locked in-

Ruby stopped when she felt a powerful blow connect with the back of her neck, her boldest instinct caused her body to begin to transform into petals, to her misfortune, her neck was surrounded by a kind of metal collar, deactivating her semblance in an instant.

Was it an aura dampener?

She was hit once more, this time on her lower back, falling to the metal floor with a loud and unpleasant sound, the woman looked up, meeting Felicia Torchwick, who was holding Melodic Cudgel.

"Just look! I knew Winter was hiding all these babies somewhere in the lab! When I was a kid, everyone in my neighborhood knew about it, but coming near here was forbidden" Felicia commented with an oddly genuine happiness, almost as if she were an excited little girl, she began to jump up and down as she assessed the multiple firearms on the curved wall with her eyes "Hopefully… I'll be able to replicate these babies, if the plasma cells are restored-"

"What the hell made you side with Raven?" Ruby asked suddenly, determined to stall for time as she stood up, approaching Felicia and attempting to sweep her legs with her scythe, the mage deflected Crescent Rose's blade with her cane, then landed a firm blow on Ruby's Neo-Scroll, breaking it "You were with the Malachite sisters! What do you want?!"

"My wishes are none of your concern" Felicia ducked her head, dodging a right hook from Ruby "Miltia and Melanie think small, I have bigger aspirations, and Raven can give me that and more"

"We live in peace, Felicia!" Ruby attempted to kick the woman's stomach, only to be hit once more in the face by Melodic Cudgel, sending her staggering back "You want to…start a war with Vale?!"

"You talk too much" Felicia landed a particularly painful blow to Ruby's stomach, making her kneel, without waiting another second, she kneed her in the jaw "Get some sleep… there's someone who wants to talk to you, it'll just take a little while to get here"

Ruby was about to respond, before she was knocked out by a kick to the skull.

...

Raven calmly observed the life in the form of lights that the city of Vale emitted, it had only been a few months since she had come to fight Ruby, even so, she remembered even better when she came casually to some clothing store with Summer on weekends, doing stupid thing after stupid thing.

She missed that deeply.

The feeling of nostalgia faded when her ears again recognized the electric current that ran through the place, when she turned around, she found the enormous electric plant that supplied power to the entire city, and her objective for today.

Raven moved calmly and carefully, slowly installing several EMPs in different parts of the plant, all to create an overload powerful enough to practically leave the city without electricity for long hours.

Raven had first proposed using her maiden abilities, however, Felicia mentioned that the power plant was made of a rather unique metal that was usually found deep in the tundra of Atlas, therefore, using any elemental ability would take several minutes, sending alerts to the authorities, who while not nearby, would arrive sooner rather than later.

The enhanced EMPs were fully deployed, Raven waited a couple of seconds before her Scroll vibrated, an incoming call from Felicia.

"Did you do it?" Raven asked, gripping the handle of her sword firmly.

"It was pretty simple, your stealth techniques helped a lot" Felicia commented in a mocking tone "I already have her completely tied up and asleep, Sint should be here soon, right? I don't want to wait much longer"

"Perfect" Raven turned slightly, the bandits got out of the armored vehicles and ran hastily towards the entrance of the facilities "This place is big, tell everyone to focus on looking for all kinds of information in here…Winter made a mistake by not taking everything back to her tower"

"Loud and clear" Felicia said one last time before cutting off communications, Raven activated the EMPs, causing a slight explosion in each of the strategic sites where she had installed them, turning around, she noticed with a smile how the city of Vale was slowly losing life, remaining in a gloomy and evil darkness.

...

At the other end of the city, Waylon Branwen looked with some nostalgia and affection at the interior of his home, the enormous house that could easily be mistaken for a mansion was still as spacious and quiet as ever, even so, it was definitely much more comfortable that his room at Beacon, which didn't have the thickest walls in the world to keep offensive comments about him from leaking out.

Which was incredibly awkward for a teenager as young as him.

"To be honest, I never thought it would be possible to see the family reunited like this" Qrow said in an amused tone, pointing at Bryan, Roy, and Neithan, who were outside the house, playing like little kids "I appreciate you coming to visit me, your mother stopped by a few days ago…but we couldn't talk about you"

"I wanted to see you, sorry for worrying you" Waylon apologized, feeling somewhat awkward at the mention of his mother "Mom's been upset with me lately, which is why I've been so…reluctant to answer texts from, well, anyone"

"Your mother is a complicated woman" Qrow commented, sensing his son's discomfort "But I understand her better than anyone, believe me, she doesn't enjoy making you feel the way you feel, but it's the only way she's been taught, blame your grandfather Jacques"

"Grandpa?" Waylon asked, his gaze shifting to where Roy was standing outside the house, creating tiny Beowolves with some glyphs "The grumpy old man you hated so much?"

Qrow chuckled lightly as he remembered the nickname he himself gave to his father-in-law, but continued, "He was a very complicated man, proud and with a rather fragile ego, he cut off your mother's funds when she entered the army, and…he stayed away from her life for some time, but he was always attentive to what happened to her, just like Winter does with you"

"I wish she was more forthcoming about it" Waylon growled softly, squirming on the comfortable couch "She wants me to be strong…to be independent, but…I wish she would tell me every now and then that she's proud of me"

The gray-haired man nodded, understanding his son's concerns "I understand… I'd like to help you, but, this is a matter you must settle with her"

"Always with your mysterious ways of teaching" Waylon smiled softly "it's okay, dad, I understand"

Qrow remained silent for a few seconds, thinking about what he could ask his son to stay informed in his life, a mischievous smile crossed the man's face.

"What about the girls? Did you completely inherit your father's charisma or are you just as cold as your mother?" Qrow asked, half laughing.

Waylon rolled his eyes, he must have already figured out that his father would ask something like that "There's… a girl, who's been helping me lately with this whole emotions thing"

"Do I know her from somewhere?" Qrow asked, he was aware that his son had hundreds of dates on Pharos that ended in nothing, because, unlike him when he was young, Waylon sought experience in a very curious way, just like Winter.

"She's the daughter of Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie" Waylon's confirmation made Qrow open his eyes in surprise, he didn't expect her to be such an important girl, much less the daughter of the two lovebirds he took care of 20 years ago.

"Well, if she's good for you, then I fully support it" Qrow sighed lightly, his expression becoming more serious "When I was younger and met your mother-"

"Uncle Qrow!" A trio of voices caught the attention of father and son, who recognized the presence of the rest of the WBRN team.

"It's kind of late, we should start preparing dinner" Roy commented calmly.

"Can you tell us some stories? About Grandpa Tai? I wonder if he had a special technique with Deathraze?" Bryan asked, a slight hint of excitement in his voice.

"Will you let me use Harbinger?! It's so cool! I promise not to break it!" Neithan practically squealed in excitement, Waylon glared at him, and Qrow simply walked over to his nephews, patting their heads tightly.

"Okay, okay, help me make Winter's soup, it's really good" Qrow was followed closely by the three boys, Waylon simply snorted in irritation, his father was incredibly admired by his cousins, which wasn't surprising at all, Qrow may have been old, but he had a knowledge and wisdom that many envied.

Waylon looked somewhat harshly at the multiple photos of his mother hanging on the walls, his eyes closed for a moment as he tried to figure out what he would have to do next, talking to his father helped a little, but he needed to get a different perspective on things.

Suddenly and without any warning, the lights in the house went out.

...

Ruby could feel her head throbbing once, again, and again, her whole body was in pain and she couldn't even move freely, she was tied to something, but she didn't know what, her hands unable to move freely only made her even more stressed.

She quickly looked around, finding that everything was a little darker, the dim blue light that illuminated the place was the only thing she could discern, as everything was spinning around her, she quickly attributed the failure of her senses to her lack of aura, as she still felt the shock-absorbing collar around her neck.

The cold reached her face when someone threw a bucket of water directly at her, part of the liquid filtered into her nose, so she was forced to cough to avoid drowning.

"Look at you" A contemptuous female voice addressed her, she recognized it perfectly, it was Raven "This wasn't what I wanted, Ruby, but you decided to meddle in my affairs, do you want to end up like Summer?"

"You want me to feel bad for trying to stop a bunch of crazy people with strange ideas of freedom from invading my home?" Ruby asked, on the verge of laughter "Stop trying to show a more…human side, Raven, kill me and end this once and for all"

Raven sharpened her gaze, even so, she didn't make any action close to an attack, which surprised Ruby a little, she knew Raven to be ruthless and lacking in mercy, she even murdered a student from Haven with the excuse of not being prepared for what it means to be a maiden, so why didn't she kill her right here?

"You haven't found the dagger" Raven muttered, finally creating a small feeling of panic that took hold in Ruby's heart "You've been searching too long for how to stop Felicia…but you haven't found the dagger"

"How do you know about that?" Ruby asked, trying her best to keep the nerves from creeping into her voice "No one knows about that…you're not supposed to know about the dagger!"

"But I know" Raven replied, though her tone of voice wasn't the most confident of all "I've been trying to find it, legends tell of a dagger that is capable of cutting reality and bringing the fallen back to life…but I haven't found anything…"

Ruby didn't want to answer, both panic and fear had taken control of her mind, but the information was incredibly valuable, if Raven was looking for the dagger it was because she needed it for her plan to invade Beacon, if Ruby guessed, then Raven intended to bring back to life all the bandits who lost their lives many years ago.

"But no one knows how it works" Ruby growled, intending to plant doubt in the spring maiden's heart "We don't even know if it exists…we don't…the dagger exists?"

"There are strange readings in Vale, I think you've seen them already" Raven said, crouching down and looking at Ruby in a contemptuous manner "The dagger exists, years ago, radars were created to locate the relics in the vaults in each academy based on the type of energy they emit, a totally unique one…I used one of those radars that Felicia created with great effort, and yes, there is an object with a similar energy, but its exact location remains unknown"

Ruby gathered her thoughts, the information was nothing new and she was not that surprised by Raven's findings, Oscar already gone ahead and made exactly the same assessment, concluding that, indeed, the dagger existed and was in Vale, but its exact coordinates were simply a mystery.

"This is like a race, we will discover things at the same time and each one will take the advantage, but in the final stretch everything will be decided" Raven looked at Ruby one last time, the sound of approaching footsteps alerted Ruby, while the spring maiden simply looked at the source of the noise, then walked away without saying anything else.

Ruby strained her ears a little, managing to hear multiple footsteps in the distance, apparently, the bandits must be looting everything in the facilities, it would take hours to do so, however, Ruby was more worried about the new person in front of her.

She never saw anyone like this before.

She was covered by a hood and a cloak, which completely covered her back and part of her head, she slowly turned her head towards Ruby, revealing that her face was also covered, but this one by a dark gray metal plate, phosphorescent yellowish lines crossed the mask on the forehead, eyes, mouth and jaw , the rest of her body was covered by what appeared to be a tight armor, which also revealed the sex of the intruder, as the curve of her breasts and hips revealed that she was a woman.

The hooded woman looked at Ruby, or at least that's what the silver-eyed woman assumed, because all she saw was that phosphorescent line in her direction for several seconds that felt eternal and especially uncomfortable.

"Ruby…Rose" The woman spoke, her voice seemed to be modified by a modulator or simply the suit did not allow her to speak clearly, her hunched posture became even stranger as she approached the silver-eyed woman with a clumsy step "You look…so…vulnerable"

"Who are you?" Ruby couldn't help but ask, she wasn't exactly terrified by the hooded woman's appearance, however, it was the first time she had seen someone like that.

"My…hmmm…my name is Sint" Sint, that was her name "I…would love…to kill you…right now"

"I don't think you can" Ruby couldn't help but cast a disdainful glance at Sint's appearance, completely covered by that strange armor "What are you wearing? Are you the other leader of the tribe?"

Sint growled, with a very unexpected speed, he landed a firm punch on the side of Ruby's face, coming very close to grazing her cheek, as he pulled back his fist, a somewhat sinister roar appeared on the curved metal wall.

"This armor… allows me to stay alive…you did this to me" Sint said with difficulty, coughing a few times and holding her throat "I am one of the three leaders…of the tribe…but that doesn't matter to you"

Ruby frowned, confused "I did that to you? I would never do something like that"

"But you did…you ruined me" Sint coughed a little more, leaning on the wall to keep from falling from the effort she made when speaking, her hand traveled to her throat once more, palpating the metal plate that covered her skin "I'm just here…to warn you…that I will take away everything you love and care about…I will make you suffer…I will make you feel weak and useless…just like you did to me"

Sint brought her hand closer to Ruby's left arm, beginning to squeeze it with an iron grip, Ruby grunted in pain and opened her eyes, a silver glow planted itself in the brunette's irises, a flash of light began to come out of Ruby's eyes, before she had to close them when Sint kneed her in the jaw, causing her head to crash fully into the curved metal wall.

"That trick…won't work" Sint growled, looking at the bleeding back of Ruby's neck, soon, she would lose consciousness again "There's work to do…maybe I should break a few of your fingers…or not"

Ruby couldn't continue listening to what Sint was saying, everything around her became blurry, both her vision and her hearing, her head hung from her neck once again, while tears of impotence slowly came out of her eyes.

Was this going to be the end for her? Once again, she tried to do everything alone, without help, and she was subdued, captured, Raven assured her that they were not going to kill her, however, now they were threatening her that they were going to break her fingers, that they were going to humiliate her out of pure hatred and resentment.

Should she have listened to her husband? Asked for help? Not taken everything on her own and relied on others? Just like she had done in the past, with the rest of Team RWBY.

She had not been able to say goodbye to her husband, her sister, or her friends.

She couldn't even say goodbye to her only son.

Why did she feel like this was going to be the end?

"Neithan" Ruby sobbed, before finally losing consciousness completely

...

The darkness in the city was so worrying that it would make anyone's hair stand on end, and Oscar Pine was no exception, Beacon's alerts gone off when the power simply vanished, which was very worrying, since the power plant that supplies power to the entire city, including the academy, is built to withstand all types of attacks.

The EMPs Felicia built had a bit to do with that, definitely.

Still, the chances of sending a quality Huntsman like Cardin to investigate what happened was very unlikely, since the border guard located east of the city revealed a more than immediate situation.

There were hundreds of Grimm approaching the city.

Oscar deployed all the teachers he could contact in such a short time, adding some old friends who were in the city, and the call was answered by Blake Belladonna and Coco Adel.

"It's a smaller scale attack than the one that destroyed Beacon, but if we don't deal with it now, there will be too many injuries" Nora explained as she gripped Magnhild firmly, feeling a strange adrenaline rush as she took the weapon to fulfill its original purpose after some time "Do you know anything about Ruby?"

"No" Oscar replied, his mind wandering for a moment, his hand about to grab Long Memories, that once belonged to Ozpin stopped, thinking for a moment about his wife's unknown state "No…but I'm sure she is okay"

Nora couldn't help but detect the concern in her friend's voice, but she didn't want to pursue the subject any further, she looked at her Neo-Scroll, which displayed a map with multiple points around the east of the city "The first-year and third-year students are already close to the area...sending them could be dangerous"

"We will take care of them" Oscar replied simply, his right hand trembling in a millisecond, releasing a spark of green energy "Let's go"

Oscar and Nora began their journey east of the city, while the rest of the hunters and students dealt with a particularly difficult night.

...

"Ah!" Riana quickly lowered her head at the firm swing of a Ronin's sword, the humanoid Grimm attempted to strike the girl with his knee, being pierced by a spear before attempting anything else "Telsius!"

The red-haired boy nodded towards his friend, retrieving his spear and swinging it violently to the side, managing to turn the body of a Beowolf, his faithful wolf Max launched himself on top of the Grimm, fiercely biting its neck until it became dust.

The fight against the Grimm was becoming more and more complicated and heavy, the negative feelings that attracted these monsters seemed to have intensified in the city and in the students themselves, some were too scared to fight properly and were simply asked to stay back, being the case of the SSTR team, which was not willing to fight under proper conditions.

"Waylon would be a big help around here!" Yang Xiao Long shouted with a nervous smile, grabbing a Nevermore with her bare hands and destroying its wings with pure brute force "Riana! Did you try talking to your boyfriend?"

Strangely, Riana didn't blush, she simply replied with a somewhat agitated voice while throwing her blades in the direction of some Grimm "His Neo-Scroll isn't working! But he told me that he would go to his parents' house with his team!"

"Great" Samuel growled lightly, feeling anger course through his body at the mere sight of the Grimm, thinking hard about the harm these monsters would do to civilians was enough to upset him, and with what he learned, he could use that anger as a weapon.

Samuel dodged the violent punches that a Beringel threw in his direction, barely grazing his face, the lion faunus used the claws of his gauntlets as sharp blades, ripping the knees of the gorilla-shaped Grimm and making him fall to its knees, to then be killed by Yang with a single shot from Ember Celica.

Yang stopped for a second, looking at the ground carefully, the incredibly small stones trembled slightly for a couple long seconds, the blonde looked ahead with concern, noticing in the distance another horde approaching quickly.

"Get ready" was all she said, her order being obeyed by all the students present.

...

The home of Qrow Branwen and Winter Schnee was in total darkness, darkness that was only cut by Qrow's own flashlight, who was calmly searching for a can of food that he could give to his son and nephews, after several minutes of searching, he decided to settle for a can of beans, which could easily be from his student days.

"The power plant has been overloaded" Qrow said, placing the can on the table "It'll take a few hours for the backup power to start transmitting to the entire city, so for now, we're in the dark"

The four teenagers didn't respond immediately, instead they simply looked at each other, Bryan didn't have any kind of problem with the environment, as his vision allowed him to see his surroundings without any problems, his human cousins weren't so lucky, so staying close to Qrow to avoid breaking anything seemed to be the best option.

"I'll go get you a couple of flashlights" Qrow seemed to understand his son and nephews' situation, standing up and walking towards the stairs of the house "Waylon, there should be batteries in your room, take them out of your old toys"

Waylon nodded, leading his teammates towards his room, also located on the second floor of the massive house.

Waylon's room was somewhat large, perhaps twice the size of the WBRN team's room at Beacon, the multiple posters of different Huntsmen and Huntresses revealed the fanaticism the boy had since a very young age, several belonging to Ruby Rose.

Some video game consoles were placed on a piece of furniture with a glass covering it, perhaps it served as a collection or not, a pile of notebooks were placed on top of an old desk, in addition to some notebooks that were open, revealing fairly well-made drawings of different types of Grimm.

"We should get back to Beacon as soon as we can" Roy said, as Waylon searched through an old trunk "If the city is dark, negative emotions will attract the Grimm faster, so we should help"

"Yes, although I don't think it's that necessary, Aunt Ruby will appear and give the Grimm a dirty look, disintegrating them in a few moments" Bryan commented with a humorous tone, trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere in the room "…Neithan?"

"I'm fine" the silver-eyed boy murmured, sitting down on Waylon's old bed and closing his eyes "I'm kind of tired, keep talking, I'll just close my eyes for a moment…I won't…fall…asleep"

The snores of the youngest member of the team soon filled the room as Waylon continued his search, eventually picking up a pair of batteries which he placed in his pocket.

"I've been hoping that time will fix this…strange tension that's been going on here lately" Roy said calmly, catching Waylon and Bryan's attention "But time won't fix this"

"Solve?" the red-eyed asked, already fearing the incoming argument.

"You've been very distant from us lately, you're just yourself with Riana, I admit that I like to see you calmer...but something is wrong" Roy said, trying to keep his tone of voice as neutral as possible "If you don't tell us what's going on-"

"You don't need to know anything, Roy" Waylon replied with some anger, his posture tensing for a few moments as he bit his lip hard "You act like you care about what happens to me, but you're still just as upset with me for pushing you away years ago"

"I'm trying to forget about that, I thought all that talk about trying to fix things was true" Roy imitated his cousin's tone of voice, further heating up the incoming discussion "A leader doesn't leave his teammates out, even worse when he disappoints them"

"We should calm down for a second" Bryan muttered, standing in front of both Schnee "Now is not a good time"

"I left you out because I knew you were weak" Waylon completely ignored Bryan's presence and continued with his emotional outburst "Your aura isn't even half as strong as your father's, you get tired very quickly and need more hits than normal to defeat a mere Beringel! Roy, please, you can't expect me to let you put yourself in danger"

"You decided to leave us out of the Felicia thing, what happened? You started crying like a simple coward" Roy growled with venom in his voice, feeling bad inside for defending himself with something so low, but he couldn't think clearly right now "You failed, and instead of apologizing, you decided not to look us in the eye and act like a hermit"

Waylon didn't respond immediately, his hands shaking slightly as his eyes traveled around the room, his emotions could get out of control and he didn't want to be made more ridiculous than he was.

"You don't even have the courage to talk back to your own mother, to put on a face when you fail" Roy put a jocular and arrogant smile on his face, a gesture he usually didn't let out "Maybe that's why you're such a disappointment to her-"

Roy couldn't continue when Waylon's fist ended up in his face, throwing him to the ground and drawing some blood from his cheek, Bryan quickly took the red-eyed by the shoulders, preventing him from doing anything else.

The situation did not look like it was going to improve anytime soon.

...

Neithan felt strange, the environment around him was one of total darkness and gloom, it was not his uncle Qrow's house, it was an even stranger place, as if it were the void itself, even so, he remembered having been in this place before.

The silver-eyed boy blinked once, causing the environment to completely change in a millisecond, now, he was in the city of Vale, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of hooded men.

Neithan made an effort to avoid being completely pushed by the hooded men, instead he moved his arms forcefully and tried to push them himself, managing to walk between them with difficulty.

The boy recognized a hooded figure different from the rest, this one had a completely red hood, which gave off petals of that same crimson color, Neithan increased his efforts twice as much, causing the environment to begin to fade again, leaving only the mysterious figure in front of him.

Neithan tried to reach it, causing it to faint before he could even touch it, the boy fell to the ground with more force than he thought, his head began to hurt due to the sudden impact.

The boy placed his hands on the new ground beneath him, it was dirt, as he stood up completely, he looked in front of him at a square-shaped building with a symbol very similar to that of the Schnee family, in addition to the words laboratory 33.1 , and to the side, a completely turned off power plant.

What is this place?

"Neithan…" A female voice produced a sob that completely chilled the boy's bones, Neithan blinked once more, the atmosphere changing once again, now, he was in a room with a strange circular shape, a woman was in front of him, on the floor, emaciated and with multiple visible wounds.

It was his mother, it was Ruby Rose.

Neithan tried to open his mouth to scream, however, all he managed was for his head to move upwards violently, waking up from that strange dream totally agitated and nervous.

"Are you okay?" Bryan approached his cousin quickly, placing his hand on his forehead to check his temperature "Calm down… a nightmare?"

"Mom is in danger" Neithan said with a broken and low voice, feeling his heart beating a thousand times an hour "I saw mom in a dream, she was crying and calling me…she is in danger, I can feel it"

The young man's agitated and broken voice caused the remaining members to remain silent for a few moments, the dream must have been incredibly real or traumatic to leave a mark on his mind, but it was not the time to try to calm him down because of a simple nightmare.

Neithan seemed to read his teammates' minds, without thinking much, he grabbed Bryan's arms tightly, looking at him with total vulnerability "Believe me, Bryan, I could feel it, she was there, there was a square-shaped building...Roy's family symbol was embedded in the wall... Laboratory 33.1"

"How do you know that?" Waylon asked, his voice tinged with an anger that Neithan didn't understand at the moment "What else was there?"

"The city's power plant… was shut down" Neithan let out a groan of pain, clutching his head, a sharp pain hitting his skull multiple times, like a hammer.

Waylon gritted his teeth, his mind working as fast as it could to comprehend what was happening, there was no way Neithan could have known about the existence of that lab, let alone been able to give specific details without even having been close by, still, it was incredibly strange to have a vision like that.

"What do you want us to do?" Roy asked Neithan, completely ignoring Waylon "She's your mother, the decision is up to you"

"Ah, yeah" Bryan pulled away from Neithan slightly, giving him room to breathe and think of a planm Waylon blinked in total disbelief, they were really ignoring the fact that he was the leader?

"If what Neithan says is true then we can't risk it, I won't let you put Ruby's life in danger" Waylon growled loudly, glaring at Bryan and Roy "We'll try to contact a professor at Beacon, maybe Yang and Blake can do something"

"There's no time!" Neithan shouted, standing up and approaching Waylon, punching him in the chest multiple times "What if it was your mother who was in danger?!" Neithan asked, Waylon remained completely silent, not feeling able to answer, although his silence said everything "It's because you're a fucking coward!"

"What?" Waylon muttered, frowning in more than affront.

"You only care about what your mother thinks of you, you don't care what our opinions or our wishes are, you're such a damn coward that you'd rather just stand back and do nothing because you feel like you'll let someone down" Tears began to well up in Neithan's eyes, his voice growing stronger with each word "I know you suffer too, you didn't have any friends your whole life and you felt like you had to make your mother proud...but what about you? What about what you want to do?"

Waylon bit his lip, avoiding Neithan's tearful yet hard gaze, her words like a knife to his heart, one that was sharpened with truth.

"We're a team" Bryan decided to intervene in the discussion, approaching both boys and firmly taking Waylon's hand in his own "When we fail and get hurt, we will support and protect each other"

Roy imitated his cousin's action, although he hesitated a little as he took Neithan and Waylon's shoulders "I...we are a family, no matter what happens, and that's why we must fight together"

Waylon looked at his teammates with total confusion and admiration, his heart was pounding and his mind was trying to find an answer to deny his cousins' plans, but he couldn't, because he wanted to believe them with all his being.

He wanted to believe that he would be supported by them at all times, that when he felt pain, they would share it and help him heal.

Waylon wanted to have people to lean on.

Waylon wanted friends.

"Fine" the white-haired boy murmured, tightly gripping Neithan's hands "Let's save Ruby"

Neithan smiled softly at his cousin's words, without much hesitation, he threw himself at his neck and caught him in a strong hug, Waylon hesitated for a few seconds before reciprocating the gesture, which was imitated by Roy and Bryan, creating a warm and secure moment in the hearts of the four teenagers.

The sound of a throat clearing forced the boys to separate, the figure of Qrow Branwen pointing the flashlight at them seemed more sinister than it really was, Waylon sighed lightly as he stared at his father, feeling some of the emotion leave his body, but not completely.

"Ruby is in danger and you want to go rescue her? A bunch of teenagers who apparently have more problems with each other than my marriage?" Qrow asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose, his mind working as hard as it could to keep from losing his temper, the situation was delicate "Neithan, repeat what you saw"

"I… I saw a lot of people with silver hoods, every time I blinked I was somewhere else and…I can feel that Mom needs my help" Neithan explained slowly, feeling somewhat stupid for saying something so crazy in front of his uncle who looked at him doubtfully "Do you believe me?"

"Yeah" Qrow muttered, surprising the teens greatly "The thing about the people in hoods says it all…it's something Ruby suffered from when she was very young, when Summer died it stopped happening to her"

"Is it like a fatherly connection?" Bryan asked, trying to connect all the dots "Like…a help button?"

"Similar, I don't know all the details" Qrow simply shook his hand, turning around and starting to walk downstairs, the WBRN team followed the retired Huntsman to the house's garage, where a carbon-black sports car was practically invisible due to the darkness of the environment "You need to get to the Schnee Corp facilities as quickly as possible…Waylon, take the key"

Qrow handed the vehicle keys to his son, who took them somewhat nervously because of how fast and unreal everything was happening, the red-eyed entered the vehicle, trembling a little, Bryan, Roy and Neithan also entered, with Bryan being the one in the passenger seat.

"I don't want to put pressure on you, but this is really screwed up" Qrow said in a serious voice, looking at his son with a hint of hope "This isn't a normal mission. You're going to save Ruby Rose, brats…if you fail, the consequences will be serious for all of Remnant"

The pressure on the entire team's shoulders was a totally new one, things had accelerated at an unexpected pace, they had to save Ruby from a laboratory that was supposed to be non-operational, it was very likely that this was a move from the tribe, so multiple challenges awaited them upon arrival.

It was a totally new challenge, and one that none of them felt genuinely prepared for, because they weren't; they were barely halfway through their school year and already they had to stop an attack against the kingdom.

"But Team RWBY showed me that anything is possible" Qrow said with a slight smile, staring at the four teens intently "And… you all seem to have that same need to put yourself in danger to save the ones you love, so, save that woman"

Waylon fired up Winter's Howl with conviction, causing the vehicle's engine to roar and the garage door to open on its own, the car's headlights turning on in an almost theatrical manner, illuminating the makeshift stone driveway.

"One more thing" Qrow placed his hand on top of the car, preventing Waylon from stepping on the accelerator "If Raven is there, try to convince her and don't make anything stupid…and if you can't, make sure you get away in time"

The entire group nodded firmly, Waylon started the vehicle, which shot forward and caused Neithan and Roy to hit their faces against the seats in front of them, the white-haired boy took a couple of seconds to turn the car around, finally getting it on course.

Tonight they were going to save Ruby Rose, and no one was going to stop them.

...

In fact, they were stopped.

It was impressive how many hits the car was able to withstand, also that Bryan did not have a hearing loss due to the amount of screaming that was going on inside the car, Waylon was not the best driver in history, his experience was too little to deal with a vehicle as unique and special as Winter's Howl was.

In fact, this is his first time driving.

He crashed into an already broken mesh, breaking a small concrete rise with ease in the process, Waylon braked hard and Winter's Howl skidded steadily across the ground, coming to a stop after a slight turn.

"Are you okay?" Waylon asked, turning to see Neithan and Roy, who were both positioned in unconventional positions "Okay, let's head out"

"You are a danger to the streets of Vale" Neithan muttered, climbing out of the vehicle with difficulty and standing up shortly after "Is it normal for this to resist so much?"

"It's made of a very unique Atlas steel, it's a combat car in theory, but my mother uses it more to show off how much money she made for herself" Waylon explained, pulling Red Reaper and Myrtenaster out of the back seats "It could handle a couple of explosions…"

Bryan adjusted his gauntlets, looking towards the lifeless structure that was lab 33.1, his faunus senses heightened to try and detect something, his feline ears twitching adorably a couple of times.

"I don't hear anything" the blond said.

"You're not supposed to" Roy began to speak, standing next to Bryan "Schnee Corp and SDC always make their buildings immune to spying, security cannot be breached stealthily, only by force"

"Is that…racist?" Bryan muttered, receiving a slap to the head from both Waylon and Roy.

Waylon called his team into an impromptu circle, beginning to think of a plan more coldly now.

"The facility lacks communications with the main headquarters, so calling for help is not an option, If the tribe is inside, we will defeat them as quickly as possible, without them being able to tell the others where we are" Waylon explained carefully, feeling somewhat nervous "The priority is to get Ruby out of here…if we achieve that, it is impossible for us to lose"

"Is that the whole plan?" Neithan asked, certainly incredulous, Waylon was somewhat meticulous with what he did, he does everything like a good Schnee would "We go in to rescue Mom and that's it?"

"We don't have much of a choice, anyway" Roy shrugged, giving Neithan a quick pat on the head "So…what about your aunt and Bryan's grandmother?"

"Raven" Waylon muttered, looking at Bryan doubtfully "Raven seems to…have a strange regard for blood family, or those related to her loved ones, she could have killed Ruby the other night, but she didn't"

"It will be like a nice family reunion" Bryan said with a strange enthusiasm, looking at Waylon and Neithan waiting for an equally cheerful response, receiving only accusatory glances "I'm sorry"

"We don't want to run into her, so if we see her, we run" Waylon said, finally straightening his back, an action that was imitated by his teammates "Well… let's do this"

...

Things were getting complicated.

The Grimm was a terrible force that didn't seem to stop until it consumed the darkness of human souls, and Hawk knew it, even when he shattered the leg of the Beowolf in front of him, the creature continued to move for a few seconds, determined to tear him apart and drink all his negativity.

He admired that unique side of these creatures, their determination.

"Hawk" A female voice called out to the dark-haired boy, forcing him to turn around, the sight of Monica taking a medium-sized Nevermore and disintegrating it with just a touch was something strangely grotesque that he enjoyed "Do you have any idea where the WBRN team is?"

"No" Hawk muttered, gesturing at the rotting Grimm corpses around him, the boy's glowing Fire Dust arm rose gracefully, his arms spreading into the air "Do you not enjoy the sight of chaos? Sister?"

"Are you going to start with your strange speeches already?" Rybol asked with a laugh stuck in his throat, effortlessly blasting away a Death Stalker using his semblance "We shouldn't stray away from the rest of the teams, they'll start to suspect"

"That's weird coming from you" Almethia muttered, looking at the darkening sky "But…this atmosphere is nice"

Hawk slowly breathed in the air, all he could smell was darkness and fear, and he liked that, the conflicts between the beings that inhabit this world always seemed fascinating to him, they give him a feeling of excitement that nothing else is capable of giving to him.

"We won't be talking about Monica having a romance with the cat and you having the strange tension with the Schnee boy?" Rybol asked, pointing accusingly at Hawk, the HARM team leader turned slightly, looking at his partner with annoyance "I never knew you were the dating type"

"What Hawk and I do is our business" Monica decided to cut the conversation short, her gaze fixed on Rybol with a hardness that was very characteristic of her "We must concentrate on what is important-"

"Hey!" A voice interrupted the conversation, the HARM team looked for the culprit of said interruption, Samuel Lionheart being the responsible one "Stop looking at the sky and move, a bunch of Goliaths is coming this way!"

Samuel didn't wait for an answer and turned around, running quickly in the direction of the teachers, the HARM team took one last look at each other before following the lion faunus, defending Beacon was not something they enjoyed, but they had to do it.

...

It was completely dark.

The inside of the 33.1 laboratory facilities was just as the WBRN team feared, it was dark, very dark, Bryan was the only one who could fully discern what was happening in front of them, so the cat faunus was put in the front row by order of the leader, reporting at all times on what he saw strange or not.

The sound of footsteps and voices communicating in a strange language were the most interesting and worrying things Bryan could hear, the laboratory consisted of several floors, however, the Faunus had already verified thanks to a simple door that it was totally impossible to access the upper floors, as they were sealed.

Which left them with the bottom floor, and where Ruby was according to Neithan's very strange visions.

"They're talking again" Bryan muttered, low enough for his companions to hear "I think… they're looking for more things down here"

"That's a problem" Waylon growled in response, If the bandits stole the weapons in the lab, it was a future problem that he didn't want to take on, still, they didn't know where Ruby was, and finding her was the priority "We must find Ruby"

"This place is too big to waste time on" Roy said, causing the rest to stop dead in their tracks "We need to find a way to find her…maybe a map."

It took Waylon a few seconds to come up with an action in response, with the help of Bryan's guidance he led his entire team to what appeared to be the entrance of the place, or at least what it was supposed to be, the open space was half flooded and the smell of artificial gases suggested that the bandits had already manipulated this area.

"Shit!" Waylon cursed under his breath, there were traces of maps of the laboratory on the walls, the problem was that they were all torn off, if he was to assume, the bandits had already taken the maps so they could plot a decent route to loot everything they needed.

There was no map outside this lab, and Waylon knew it very well, lab 33.1 was involved in some controversies due to certain events that happened inside, some accidents with the experiments and the fact that they experimented with Grimm, something that Waylon knows very little about and that he barely has any knowledge of, this site is totally separated from the company at this point.

"We need to find some bandits and steal their map" Waylon explained, turning to Bryan "Do you think we can locate them just by listening to their footsteps?"

"Maybe" Bryan didn't seem to be quite sure what his cousin was asking of him, but he still sharpened his auditory senses as best he could and began guiding his teammates through the facility.

The dark hallways didn't change at all, however, the voices of different tones and volumes became clearer to the cat faunus, the bandits must have been scattered across different areas.

The footsteps were practically echoing in Bryan's ear, he extended his arm back to stop his teammates, who collided with him, the blond pointed his finger up, indicating where his enemies were.

"Where-" Waylon suddenly crashed into a table, causing some containers to fall onto the surface with a thud, fortunately they didn't break, instead they emitted a light strong enough to partially illuminate the hallway for a second, the group of teenagers stood completely still as the light emitted by the containers diminished.

"What is this thing?" Neithan asked, reaching out his hand to one of the containers and staring at the contents within, a golden hexagonal figure was floating within the confines of the glass, the light emitted producing a very soft noise, unable to alert even a faunus, yet, with how close he was, he could barely hear it.

"Noxium" Roy muttered, firmly grabbing Neithan by the shoulder and leading him away from the container "It's a prototype bioweapon from Schnee Corp, my mother and Aunt Winter once argued about the use of this… Mom was very upset"

"Noxium is an old disease from the Great War, Mantle used it to drain the aura of his enemies in the war, this hexagon-shaped thing explodes when it hits the ground…" Waylon said carefully, realizing the problematic situation he and his team would be in "But Mom couldn't get it on the market because…Tairah Enterprises called a meeting"

"The meeting of all Remnant councils four years ago was about that?" Bryan muttered, confused and even more interested in the story his cousins were telling him.

Suddenly, a loud bang echoed through the upper floor of the facility.

"What was that?!" Neithan practically screamed, unconsciously standing next to Bryan "What do you hear?!"

"It's…growls" Bryan tensed completely, turning in panic to Waylon and Roy "It's a Grimm! We need to go up!"

...

Schnee Corporations was always interesting to Felicia.

She grown up in this area of the city, a very poor and dangerous one, more than usual, the Vale council could boast of many things, but never of not letting themselves be bossed around and dominated by the organized crime that exists in the city, which was not impressive in essence, after all, it is a business that gives quite a bit of Lien to those involved.

The Malachite twins have been the kingdom's crime heads for over a decade, and Felicia had seen a lot about them, the power they possessed to get whatever they wanted, threaten incredibly important people or even be able to outwit Oscar Pine, the Headmaster of Beacon without much difficulty.

But they could never lay a single finger on Winter Schnee.

Winter Schnee was a figure who was hated and loved by the entire city, in the poor area where Felicia grew up, the woman was treated as if she were a kind of executioner, people were left without the few jobs that existed since Winter had taken it upon herself to market those jobs for her own company, delivering the best of the best and leaving even more hatred in the helpless citizens.

But Felicia always admired that to a certain extent, when she worked for the twins she heard them mention multiple times how annoying it was to deal with Winter, a retired soldier who did not let herself be controlled by absolutely anyone, always with her head held high and with her way of thinking well defined, for many, she could perfectly have been the general of Atlas with such a personality.

Still, she married a recovered drunk and had a son, setting her reign in Vale.

"Winter did her own work, years ago" Raven said, pointing her flashlight at some papers with dozens of numbers written on them "She seems to know about the dagger's existence…but she didn't do anything about it"

"Why would she need more power?" Felicia asked with genuine curiosity, turning gently so she could face Raven "Have you never talked to your sister-in-law like, normal women?"

Raven didn't answer immediately, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts "We never spoke properly, I congratulated her for with my brother as his girlfriend, but...nothing more than that"

Raven didn't allow Felicia to comment and continued speaking "Still, unlike me, it seems she doesn't seek the same kind of power as I do...the mere fact that she has made herself stand out among a line of such important people seems to satisfied her, It's more likely to think of Winter when you hear the surname Schnee than Jacques"

"You seem to admire her a bit" Felicia murmured, searching the room with her flashlight for any other clues "Oh! I found it"

Felicia gracefully lifted a simple sheet of paper with a wrinkled and old appearance, then added some folders with data inside, mostly readings and some images of different heat waves throughout Vale, Raven carefully looked at each of the files, making sure not to miss a single detail.

Without waiting another second, she began to read the wrinkled and emaciated sheet of paper.

We managed to get the readings that Winter asked us for, apparently we were looking for some...strange signals, similar to those produced by the relics in some ancient devices, we didn't get much, honestly, but we managed to define a couple of things, the object that Winter is looking for is underground, it is in Vale and the form of energy it produces indicates that it is dispersed throughout the kingdom, it is impressive, but finding the source is not easy.

I'll leave it here for today, I haven't slept at all.

April 3rd

Winter has personally ordered me to stop everything, she said that this is a matter she can't be involved in, all information would be sent to Beacon, to Oscar's office, that's weird, I wonder what they could be looking for.

Velvet Sclarlatina.

"Damn" Raven cursed under her breath, the discovery was revealing to say the least, the divine energy produced by the dagger was all over Vale, the source could not be located, but knowing that it was underground already dispersed too many doubts.

"We must keep looking" Raven ordered, handing the files to Felicia and continuing her search.

...

Panic ran through the teenagers' bodies as they ran through the laboratory facilities towards the upper floor, the atmosphere had become tense and aggressive from one moment to the next, the Grimm that was lurking around must be too dangerous.

The sound of gunshots and screams filled the place for a few minutes, if Felicia and Raven were nearby, they hadn't heard it, which was strange, since the monster was also making too much noise.

Flesh tearing, bones cracking, throats being torn apart.

They weren't expecting something soft, they weren't even expecting a Ronin, they were expecting something more.

Waylon looked up in panic, multiple reddish lights made the dark hallway shine, the sound of death had completely disappeared in a matter of minutes, without being able to think about much else, the WBRN team finally reached their objective.

It was a hexagon-shaped chamber, quite large, the metal walls seemed to be lined with multiple layers of steel, there were tubes on top, which were already covered by a reddish metal cover, some glass plates emitted a faint reddish light, which was certainly strange.

This room wasn't supposed to have power.

Neithan felt his stomach turn at the sight of the ground, the blood and entrails adorning the metal, coupled with the smell of iron so strong that it forced the boy to simply fall to his knees, vomiting hard.

"What the hell is this?" Roy muttered, totally terrified by the bloody scene in front of him "They…they're dead"

"I can't see anything" Bryan said, somewhat agitated, looking nervously around, the darkness continued to bathe the environment, barely illuminated by the red lights, but his eyes were not working.

"This chamber is made so that the fauns can't see inside" Waylon assumed, walking somewhat carefully as he looked at the corpses at his feet, some didn't even have their heads in place, they simply left a trail of blood on their neck, did a Grimm really do this?

"WATCH OUT!" Bryan growled loudly, pushing Waylon and throwing him to the ground, a huge dark creature fell from the ceiling with impressive force, making the chamber shake eerily, the jolt causing the tempered glass doors to suddenly close.

"Beginning security protocol, Sphinx OMEGA released, evacuate the laboratory immediately" The robotic voice that announced the release of the Grimm was silenced by the Sphinx itself, which fired a blast of crimson radioactive energy from its jaws, destroying the speaker in a second.

The Sphinx was larger than a normal one, multiple Dust crystals were embedded in its wings and a particularly large one was completely stuck in its back, the light radiating from the crystals lit up for a second as the monster growled in pure anger, opening its mouth once more and launching another ball of energy.

"NEITHAN!" Waylon screamed, lunging at his cousin and pushing him away, the silver-eyed coughed a few times as he watched the creature recover from its attack.

The ball of energy stuck to the ground as if it were made of rubber, radiating a field that was visible, just as red as the Fire Dust, it disappeared after a few seconds, but it was only a sign of how dangerous this Grimm was.

It didn't take long for the Sphinx to start attacking the WBRN team with impressive speed, the Grimm lunged at Bryan, biting his right arm with firmness, beginning to tear at the gauntlet's resistant metal.

Bryan growled, falling to his knees under the weight of the Grimm, Dust's crystals ignited momentarily, the Sphinx's teeth began to heat up quickly, burning the material slowly.

Waylon and Roy didn't take another second to move, the red-eyed summoned a copy of Harbinger and stabbed it into the Grimm's side, while Roy pushed himself with a glyph and impaled the monster's wing with his rapier, to the surprise of both, the Sphinx didn't seem to be hurt, but it was upset.

A strange, unique sound rang out in the depths of the monster, from one second to the next, producing an explosion of fire that threw the three teenagers towards the wall, temporarily stunning them.

"It's just a little bigger, there's nothing to be scared of" Neithan told himself, tightening his grip on his scythe, the boy had a burst of bravery and launched himself at the Grimm, aggressively pulling his scythe to the side and injuring the monster's leg, the Sphinx used its snake tail to grab the boy's weapon, easily pulling it out of its wounded limb.

"Oh" Neithan gasped, being pushed hard by the Sphinx, the Grimm remained still for a few seconds, beginning to channel energy.

"Ice might help" Roy muttered in pain, helping Waylon up, the red-eyed nodded calmly, taking a couple of crystals out of his jacket "If we keep him still, it will be better"

"Bryan, grab his jaw and stop him from opening his mouth, Neithan, cut his tail and hold it in place with the scythe" Waylon ordered weakly, still recovering from the blow.

Bryan and Neithan nodded, the cat faunus jumped and landed on top of the Grimm's head, grabbing its skull and jaw firmly and pushing hard, some fire came out of the monster's jaws, causing the blonde to turn his face away.

The creature's first instinct was to use its tail to free itself, an instinct that disappeared once it was cut off by Red Reaper, Neithan stuck his scythe into the Sphinx's back, holding it firmly in place.

Waylon and Roy raised their weapons respectively, activating their semblance at the same time, multiple glyphs began to appear around the Sphinx, Bryan and Neithan, illuminating the hexagonal room with a white glow, with a simple movement of their fingers, each glyph fired an energy projectile.

Bryan and Neithan quickly released the beast, throwing themselves to the side and covering their heads with their hands, the projectiles hit the Grimm violently, the Sphinx letting out a low growl, while a curtain of dust hung over the place.

"That was it?" Roy asked, straining to see through the dust, quickly failing "I can't believe the first time we used Final Blast was against a modified Grimm…"

Roy coughed lightly, Waylon quickly placed a hand on his shoulder, both were more than aware that Final Blast, their attack together, would be quite demanding on Roy, although he didn't expect it to be this much.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

The Sphinx appeared once again, this time using its wings to take flight, its body glowing a reddish color, channeling a considerable amount of energy with quite a bit of fury, with a simple roar it began to fire a beam of energy around the entire area, forcing the teenagers to move quickly.

Waylon checked his Neo-Scroll nervously, looking with concern and expectation at his aura meter, he gritted his teeth as he realized that the radiation produced by the Grimm was slowly draining his aura, he was sure that he could withstand it, after all, he has almost the same aura that Jaune Arc had in the past, however, his cousins were not so lucky.

"We must find a way to-" Bryan stopped when he saw the Sphinx set its sights on Neithan, charging a ball of radiation, without thinking twice he launched himself at the silver-eyed, pushing him to the side and taking the full impact of the radiation.

Bryan fell to his knees on the ground, it was burning, a lot, he looked at his body with some concern, a reddish aura passed through his extremities as the temperature rose with each moment.

Waylon took advantage of the moment and accurately threw his sword towards the Grimm's skull, the creature moved to the side to avoid the lethal impact, the blade of the luminous sword easily cut the Sphinx's wing, forcing it to descend.

Waylon summoned Ex Harpax, dealing a powerful blow to the Grimm's jaw, Roy lunged forward with Myrtenaster in hand, managing to impale the rapier into the Grimm's eye.

Both Schnee struggled against the creature, the Sphinx didn't even seem to have the need to writhe in pain, it simply managed to get on all fours, its jaws opened to fire a ball of energy, throwing Roy away, and with a violent movement of its entire body, it managed to subdue Waylon to the ground, trying to tear his head off with a bite.

Waylon put the double-bladed sword into the monster's jaw, avoiding being hurt and giving it a chance to struggle, the weight of the creature was too much for him, its aura was still there, but he was unable to really do anything.

Neithan's eyes traveled around the room in genuine panic, Bryan was still on the floor, fighting against the radiation that drained his aura, Roy was in the same situation, and Waylon was fighting with all his strength to avoid being devoured by the Sphinx.

The boy cursed himself internally, he was weak, he was too weak to protect his family, all that talk and rhetoric about protecting others and looking out for the rest was a farce, all because he is incapable of actually doing something.

He will never be able to be like his mother, he will never be able to make others look at him with admiration and expectation, make the most helpless people seek advice from his experiences or make his mere presence cause security in others, he will never be able to be that.

He will never be able to be as smart as Waylon, have Bryan's brave spirit or Roy's values, he condemned them all by pressuring their leader to bring them here, what would his mother think of him?

What would the same woman think when she told him multiple times how important it is to protect those he loves?

Neithan felt tears run down his cheeks, Waylon growled in pain as the Grimm's teeth sank into his arm, making his aura flicker worryingly, the silver-eyed boy felt like his body wasn't able to move, the fear was too much for him.

His grip on Red Reaper grew tighter, with incredible willpower, he managed to put one foot forward, sobbing loudly.

"I'm tired of being useless…of not being strong, I will protect the ones I love, even if im afraid" he murmured with pain in his voice, his silver eyes shining brightly in the blink of an eye, and, without warning, an explosion of light bathed the entire chamber with a practically angelic sound, blinding the entire WBRN team in an instant.

Neithan blinked a few times, his brain barely managing to process the information in front of him, the Sphinx had disintegrated from the use of his power, leaving behind the Dust crystals that were all over his body, Waylon panted heavily, looking at Neithan with wide eyes.

"You used your eyes" Bryan said with surprise and pride in his voice, managing to stand up, the radiation covering his body gone with the disappearance of the Grimm "The map"

Roy clutched his back in pain, leaning down to the ground and picking up one of the maps the bandits had taken, looking it over for a second.

"If you saw your mother in that strange room then we should go here" Roy motioned for Neithan to come closer, pointing with his finger to a cylindrical-shaped room "According to this map, there are rooms with classified information beyond that cone-shaped room, Ruby should be there"

"Then let's get going, Waylon said firmly, pointing to the exit. He gave Neithan a warm look, patting him on the back "You saved us, Neith"

"It was the least I could do" Neithan said with a genuine smile, wiping the trail of tears from his cheeks "This is so humiliating, let's save my mom already"

...

The path to the cylindrical room was much calmer for the WBRN team than they would liked, the emotions left by the confrontation with the Sphinx were not negative at all, security and pride filled the hearts of the four teenagers, Neithan demonstrated his desire to protect his team with the use of his silver eyes, something that none of them saw in person before.

They were aware that they shouldn't have come here alone, asking for help from a fit adult should have been their first thought, but with the victory over the modified Grimm the thought that maybe they could get out of this with all their limbs became more and more possible.

Still, there were things that worried Waylon more.

The existence of a modified Grimm in the facilities was a total mystery to him, he knew many things about the Schnee Corporations experiments, usually they were normal and current weapons, the most recent being the integration of plasma cells, Noxium was a unique case, since no attempt had been made to do more than that in the biological field.

However, a Grimm?

The Sphinx Omega, as the facility's artificial intelligence called it, must have been a very well-supervised project, perhaps the product of research done by Dr. Merlot many years ago, a strange way to perfect his work and make it profitable, maybe?

Its body was embedded with Dust, It had a nuclear fusion core, just like the Grimm that Merlot created, if Neithan hadn't used his eyes, they would have a not very pleasant time trying to find the core.

Waylon was worried about what his mother was doing, she created a Grimm much stronger than the rest, so what else could she be hiding from the press and governments throughout Remnant?

"Mom!" Neithan screamed loudly, causing Waylon to look up and snap out of his train of thought, Ruby Rose was apparently unconscious, her neck surrounded by a collar that muffled her aura, and her hands were tied together, yet she was completely alone.

Ruby opened her eyes as Neithan lunged at her, hugging her with a strength she had never felt from her son, the woman's aching hands were released by Waylon, who took his cousin by the shoulder and knelt beside her.

"I was so worried" Neithan buried his face in his mother's neck, Ruby gently placed her hand in her son's hair, stroking it softly.

"We all were" Waylon added, looking around, the walls had steel supports fully embedded in them, they must have been carrying weapons, which were nowhere to be seen "It seems the weapons they stole were useless against the Sphinx Omega"

"Sphinx?" Ruby suddenly stood up, being helped up by the rest of the WBRN team "Wait a minute, what are you kids doing here?"

"Neithan saw with his eyes a kind of vision, where you were here" Roy explained carefully, being aware of the incredulous look that Ruby was giving to her son "The kingdom is in the dark and communications are not working…we decided to come to help"

"That's very dangerous" Ruby said in a tone that bordered on accusation, but there was also some pride in her words "Felicia and Raven, where are they?"

Waylon flinched slightly at the mention of his aunt, quickly looking up for an answer, finding an open metal gate, connected to a somewhat emaciated set of steel stairs that stood to the side of where Ruby had been tied up.

"We didn't find them on the way here" Bryan spoke for Waylon "The priority is to get you out of here, aunt Ruby"

"The priority is that you don't die now" Ruby pushed her nephew's hands away from her, her posture becoming straighter and transmitting her usual strength "My aura has returned in full, you all return-"

Ruby was forced to shut her mouth as she began to hear hurried footsteps in the distance, more specifically, at the gate Waylon was currently staring at, Ruby's first instinct was to search for Crescent Rose, finding her scythe somewhat hidden behind the stairs "I didn't expect Raven to be a bit dumb, though"

Both Ruby Rose and the WBRN team were on guard, preparing for the worst.

...

Raven continued with her little search with more tranquility, finding more notes and notes belonging to the famous scientist Velvet Scarlatina, this time, talking about the last phases of a creature called Sphinx Omega.

The Spring Maiden's concerns were not about the mysterious creation of a powerful Grimm, instead, it was more related to the fact that so many people knew about the existence of the dagger from beyond, the nostalgia related to the relics that the academies had to protect those artifacts given to Ozma, as if it were a very bad joke, history repeated itself once again.

Thinking about Oscar Pine was something curious for Raven, she barely had any interactions with him in the past, she knew that he was the next reincarnation of Ozma and that Qrow was a kind of protector for him, however, Oscar stopped being Ozpin too many years ago, a miracle, some would say, but Raven wasn't so sure about that.

How much he learned about Ozpin? The same ability to keep secrets? She deeply doubts it, Ozpin always had a very big rule in his inner circle, interpersonal relationships were completely forbidden, Raven still remembers with some humor the affection that Glynda Goodwitch had for James Ironwood, which could not be posible by simple order of Ozpin.

However, Oscar was married to Ruby Rose, Summer's daughter, and they even had a son, Neithan Rose, for some reason that Raven still can't understand, she feels that this time getting her way will be much more complicated than before.

Waylon Branwen was also a matter she had to consider, the child was very, very special, no child who had been raised by the tribe was as special as him, Raven knew well why.

It's because he is the son of a maiden.

Raven investigated the maidens' past since Waylon won his third regional championship, discovering a few interesting things; in this case, maidens rarely gave birth, as they were hunted before that; however, the children of some maidens proved to be stronger and more powerful than normal, with incredible semblances and an aura that only grew larger with age.

Waylon was the son of the Winter Maiden, so Raven assumed that all that natural talent came from his blood, in addition, the rigorous training transformed him into someone who, at just 16 years old, can impress the most experienced Huntsmen in Remnant.

If Raven could make a wish, it would be to have Waylon among her bandits.

"I think that's all" Felicia threw the last file she had read, her bored face indicating to Raven that she hadn't discovered anything interesting "We should go back. I don't trust your children to be around for long without causing some trouble, and in these facilities that's not very viable"

Raven nodded, aware of how destructive the bandits could be when not given the order to stay still "Well, I'm done with it anyway"

"Beginning security protocol, Sphinx OMEGA released, evacuate the laboratory immediately" A voice interrupted Raven, a speaker located in each corner of the sealed room repeated the message multiple times, passing a somewhat cold sensation down the spines of both women.

"Damn useless people" Felicia growled annoyed, ignoring Raven and running with all her might towards where Ruby was captured, Raven followed her friend, feeling again that concern that was so rare in her.

...

Felicia finally arrived panting to the cylindrical room filled with weapons, her eyes narrowed in anger as she recognized the presence of the WBRN team and Ruby herself on alert, ready to launch into combat at any moment.

"Damn kids, don't you know when not to butt in?!" Felicia asked, the anger in her body language causing Ruby to laugh lightly, she had never seen the mage this upset "Branwen…you again?"

Waylon summoned Harbinger, raising his sword and pointing it at the mage "Do me a favor and surrender peacefully, this night has been very tiring for me"

Felicia pressed her lips tightly together, the presence of an entire Beacon team wasn't a good sign, she could handle them without any problems, but with Ruby? No, that was suicide, she was going to fight the teenagers alone.

"Raven!" Felicia screamed her friend's name, Raven Branwen practically destroyed the wall of the cylindrical room using her maiden abilities, filling the place with a freezing atmosphere, the woman hovered in the air in a somewhat theatrical manner, her eyes releasing the red spark that froze the blood of the entire WBRN team.

Raven didn't wait for another comment and launched herself into the attack, propelling herself down and grabbing Ruby by the neck, flying upwards once again, breaking through the roof of the facility and flying through the air, leaving the WBRN team alone with Felicia.

"I'm tired of you getting in the way" Felicia growled at Waylon, picking up Melodic Cudgel and pointing it directly at the red-eyed man "Not you or your little group of meddling teenagers will stop me"

Felicia let out a scream of pure anger, lunging forward and landing in front of the WBRN team, Waylon and Roy raised their weapons and attempted to impale the woman, their weapons being deflected by her cane, both of them receiving a firm blow from Melodic Cudgel in their jaws, pushing them back.

Bryan and Neithan didn't wait another second and made their own move, Bryan took the cane with his gauntlets and threw it to the side with some ease, grabbing Felicia tightly and lifting her into the air, Neithan prepared his scythe and scored an accurate cut on the woman's abdomen, who hissed at the sensation.

"Now I understand why there are no faunus in the tribe" Felicia raised her elbow, trying to free herself from the blond's firm grip, when Neithan hit her again an idea came to her, and in less than a second, a cartridge-shaped bomb appeared in her right hand.

The bomb exploded, emitting a screech that reached Bryan's feline ears, the blond grabbed his head as an indescribable pain settled in his ears, forcing him to let go of Felicia and cover himself to try to relieve some of the notable discomfort.

Felicia lunged to the side, grabbing her cane and launching a projectile in Neithan's direction, managing to hit him in the head and knocking him to the ground, the mage gasped for a second as she thought about what to do, fighting four teenagers sounded easier than it was, but she could still win.

The woman's train of thought came to an abrupt halt when Waylon struck her multiple times with Ex Harpax, managing to pin her against the wall and landing a firm punch on her right cheek, the mage grunted in pain and stomped on the boy's foot, managing to push him away for a moment.

"Sometimes your old toys just don't work much, Dad" Felicia said to herself, reaching inside her cloak and pulling out a silver-colored pistol, with a small sphere of energy glowing inside in a fully visible compartment.

"Plasma" Waylon growled to himself, trying to stand up, Felicia fired her new weapon and managed to connect multiple projectiles in the boy's chest, who hissed loudly as he felt a new and painful burning sensation filter through his aura "We won't get anything like this!"

"You think so?" Roy asked, using Myrtenaster to try and get to his feet, forcing himself to multiply his efforts when Felicia shot in his direction "We need to use a four-way attack!"

"We never practiced that!" Waylon shouted in response, trying to cut Felicia from behind, she dodged the attack and hit him in the back of the head, moving away from him "But… maybe we can use the others"

"Bryan!" Waylon called to his cousin, drawing the attention of the still stunned cat faunus.

"Thundershock" was all the red-eyed said, Bryan nodded and stood up, remaining completely static, Neithan recovered quickly, throwing himself on top of Felicia and attacking her constantly, managing to keep her busy for a moment.

Bryan took a deep breath, preparing for Waylon and Roy to make their move, the blonde forced himself to stay still as Felicia dropped another bomb on the ground, stunning the entire team.

Waylon and Roy managed to recover quickly, creating multiple glyphs on top of him, while Neithan subdued her as best he could.

"It would be nice if you would hurry up!" Neithan shouted, dodging multiple shots from Felicia and landing a blow to the neck with the handle of his scythe "I don't think I can play for much longer-"

Felicia let out a scream of pure anger one more time, hitting Neithan in the back of the neck with the butt of her gun, then shooting him a dozen times in the chest, the powerful plasma filtered entirely through the boy's aura, doing significant damage to him, Neithan's silver eyes lit up for a second, only to be knocked out by a strong kick to the side of his head.

The magician sighed in total exhaustion, her mind working in less than a second to try to formulate a functional strategy, a somewhat distant buzz settled on the woman's ears, still slightly confused by the bomb she herself used, her eyes caught a shine to her side, so she turned her head to see what it was.

Felicia swallowed hard as she recognized Bryan Xiao Long's figure being hit by a huge thunderbolt coming out of a glyph, the rumble echoed throughout the facility and also throughout almost the entire city, the smoke created by the impact bathed the entire room, leaving Felicia in a darkness that put her in panic in an instant.

"You think you're heroes?" she asked quietly, walking and looking around without seeing anything at all "You think you have a chance against what's coming? You have no idea who you're up against…this isn't personal, but if you stand in my way to greatness, I'll have no qualms about killing you one by one, and your damn mothers won't be able to even touch me-"

Felicia forced herself to shut up as the smoke cleared slightly, revealing Bryan once again, his body completely bathed in yellow and purple electricity, the boy's golden gauntlets releasing sparks of pure electricity, the ringing in the woman's ears slowly fading away, finally managing to hear what was happening in front of her.

The electricity that filled the boy's body emitted a very peculiar sound, Bryan's lilac eyes also presented sparks, and his wild smile only made the woman uncomfortable, behind him, Waylon Branwen was still standing, while Roy Schnee was unconscious on the ground.

"Now" Waylon muttered to his cousin, it only took a single movement for Bryan to practically teleport his entire body in front of Felicia, hitting her in the stomach with incredible energy and speed, her body shot forward in a second, crashing into the metal wall, painfully breaking through it and falling onto the concrete of the abandoned lab parking lot, her aura completely burned away as her mind faded second after second.

She had been defeated by a group of teenagers.

Just like her father.

...

Ruby gasped loudly as her body was thrown into the power plant's mesh, she quickly stood up and her body vanished into hundreds of petals, thus avoiding a blast of ice.

"Your mother thought like you, always butting in where she wasn't wanted and naively believing that she was some kind of hero, that if no one else would lean on her, she would be that shoulder" Raven's words were laden with resentment and venom, perhaps directed at her deceased old friend or Ruby herself, her eyes flashed once more before she fired another blast of ice in the direction of her opponent "She died because of her insolence!"

"You think you have the right to insult me and my mother?" Ruby asked, flying through the air and rematerializing her body behind Raven, firmly grabbing her neck in a chokehold and wrestling her "When she died, you decided to walk away from everyone you loved because you were scared of Salem! You abandoned your own daughter out of fear… Summer Rose fought to the very end to defend the world, you simply hid in your tribe of animals!"

Raven released a wave of fire around her, forcing Ruby to use Petal Burst again and splitting into different bursts of petals, surrounding Raven multiple times and gaining speed, once she had accumulated enough strength, Ruby launched herself on top of the woman with her scythe, managing to connect the lower part of it with the maiden's lower back.

Raven growled in pain, plummeting to the ground, Ruby carried herself on top of her and stomped hard on her stomach, both of them crashing into the concrete and glaring at each other in hatred, the spring maiden unsheathed Omen, raising the huge sword in Ruby's direction.

"I kept my people protected, it was my responsibility to keep the tribe safe" Raven muttered, starting to walk to the side, Ruby imitated the action but in the opposite direction "Branwen thrives under my command, Vernal was collateral damage and was more than willing to sacrifice herself for our survival, I can't say the same for you... you weren't able to save Pyrrha Nikos, and you didn't even save Atlas!"

Ruby gritted her teeth tightly and launched herself into the attack, swinging her scythe with impressive speed and enviable skill, the years of effort and training that Crescent Rose had experienced made it a lethal weapon in its owner's hand, Remnant's most important Huntress had no rival in that regard, and Raven understood this instantly.

She found herself forced to multiply her efforts, the speed of the scythe was too much for Omen, Raven learned multiple combat techniques and strategies throughout her life, trained to kill without mercy or remorse, very rarely did she have an opponent who surpassed her in combat, and when she did, she always found a way to surpass herself.

This time it seemed to be radically different.

Raven growled loudly as the scythe blade passed through her entire body in an instant, her eyes flashed in a crimson trail and she used her maiden powers, creating a whirlwind of air around herself and Ruby, stopping her temporarily.

"My mistakes have only made me stronger" Ruby growled, managing to take a step forward despite the strong current of air pushing her back "True strength lies in carrying your sins and using them as motivation"

Ruby used Petal Burst and fought against the powerful air current, managing to launch herself on top of Raven and hitting her multiple times in the face, Ruby easily deflected Omen's imprecise and violent cuts, managing to get herself and Raven out of the whirlwind.

Raven was totally desperate, without even a second hesitation she ice bathed Ruby's legs, tying her to the ground, the older woman approached the silver-eyed and firmly squeezed her neck, causing Ruby to try to free herself using her scythe, only for the grip to become firmer.

"I don't want to see my family die" Raven growled softly, her hand tightening around Ruby's neck "I don't want to see Yang dead, I don't want to see my own grandson dead, and believe it or not…I don't want to see my nephew either, so stop getting on my way and-"

Raven turned around when she heard a powerful bang, similar to lightning, when she turned around she could clearly see how Felicia shot out from inside the laboratory and rolled on the asphalt, her body releasing traces of electrical energy, Raven sighed irritated, watching Waylon and Bryan come out from inside.

"Ruby!" Both teens screamed, getting on guard and preparing for any move Raven would make, the spring maiden closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about how the turn of events was against her, Felicia must be unconscious and she felt totally incapable of actually harming any of the three.

Again, she felt too weak to hurt the people she once loved.

"I wish our meeting had been under…better circumstances" Raven let go of Ruby, turning around and facing her nephew and grandson, a genuine smile appearing on the woman's face "I'm glad to see you"

Bryan blinked a couple of times, clearly confused, his lips curled into a slightly crooked smile, perhaps from the pain or the awkwardness of the matter "Uh… hello grandma"

Waylon looked at his cousin for a few seconds, incredulous, but still, he decided to give the woman an answer "We will not allow you to kill Ruby, you must leave, now"

"I don't doubt that you are capable of doing it" A hint of what seemed to be pride filtered through the woman's words, who shook her head and looked up at the sky "I want you to be part of my family, of the tribe, where you truly belong, your talents will be used to defend your honor and achieve glory"

"We can't do that" Bryan responded almost immediately, seemingly somewhat uncomfortable with how genuine his grandmother's plea sounded "It's our home, and we will defend it no matter what happens"

Raven nodded, silently understanding, she looked at Omen for a few seconds, placing it back into its sheath and slowly walking towards both teens, Waylon and Bryan tensed for a second, watching carefully as the spring maiden simply walked past them and took Felicia into her arms.

"I hope to see you again soon" Raven said one last time before unsheathing her sword, raising it in the air and creating a reddish portal, which emitted a strange sound, she entered with Felicia inside, finally leaving the teenagers alone.

"That was weird" Waylon muttered, turning quickly to see Ruby, who was trying to struggle against the ice constructs that bound her, somewhat comically, Waylon sighed in relief, turning to see Bryan "Go get Neithan and Roy, maybe we can help Ruby before she turns intro an ice cream"

Bryan laughed lightly, obeying his leader's orders, Waylon looked up at the sky in relief, thinking about how extremely close they were to losing, and how lucky they were that Raven was more sentimental than she seemed.

He hadn't expected this when the school year started, having to go against the wishes of a maiden was something that didn't feel as exciting as he thought.

He certainly felt uncomfortable.

Waylon smiled slightly, knowing that at least he wasn't going to fight alone.

...

Things on the other side of the city hadn't improved much, the amount of Grimm constantly appearing and the need to call even more teams from Beacon became more and more apparent, things reached a more worrying point when even the most experienced police and Huntsmen had to intervene in the matter.

"The number is increasing every second" Nora said in a tone that betrayed her concern, her hammer crashed into the head of a Beringel, killing it instantly "We need Ruby for this"

"We must trust ourselves now," Oscar replied simply, surprising Nora a little with his apparent lack of concern "We need something that can destroy them, quick"

Nora nodded quickly, trying to remember any student who had a destructive ability, her eyes shifted to the STRM and HARM team, who were doing their best to fight together against the basic Grimm that appeared.

She then looked in the other direction, where a Deathstalker was being easily destroyed by the EVLV team, Nora unconsciously looked at it for more than a second.

"EVLV is great, but against a group of Goliaths?" Nora asked herself, shaking her head, multiple Beacon teachers were fighting on the fronts, the most recognizable being Yang and Ren, who had the most dangerous Grimm very well controlled, although the larger ones needed a lot more people.

"I don't think it's necessary anymore" Oscar muttered, Nora turned around and looked up at the sky, recognizing the figure of Winter Schnee in the sky, her body slightly enveloped by a bluish aura, her eyes releasing a trail that was already totally familiar to Oscar and Nora.

All the students and teachers raised their gazes in astonishment, Winter Schnee had not used her combat skills for years, perhaps because of her age or the mere fact that it was no longer necessary, seeing her using them once again was a miracle.

"Look at that" Yang hit Ren on the shoulder with a smile, Winter opened her palms with a very peculiar calmness, in less than a second, a burst of elemental energy shot out of her hands and impacted directly against the horde of Grimm, the cold surrounded the monsters and the temperature dropped considerably, the cloud of frozen dust created by the impact forced everyone nearby to move away quickly, or else, they would end up frozen.

The seconds it took for the curtain of dust to clear seemed like an eternity, everyone watched in relief as the horde of Grimm, Beowolves, Beringels, Death Stalkers, Nevermores, Gryphons, including Goliaths and Megoliaths, were merely motionless ice popsicles and now not dangerous at all, Nora sighed in relief as the rest of the Huntsmen shouted in victory, beginning to shatter the frozen Grimm as if they were ice cubes.

"I was expecting you later" Oscar had a satisfied smile on his face as Winter descended from the sky "What were you doing?"

"Working" Winter replied curtly "Where's Waylon and his team? I was planning on having a serious talk with him right now"

"He's not here" A new voice joined the conversation, Winter smiled genuinely as she recognized her husband, Qrow Branwen, still with his characteristic attractiveness, even if he was old "Laboratory 33.1, the lab where you played at being a scientist, he's there"

Winter's smile simply faded.

"What the hell is he doing there?!" Winter asked, a somewhat familiar panic running through her body as she thought of the multiple dangers that awaited her son there.

"Ruby tried to sneak inside and they beat her up, Waylon and his team went to the rescue, don't be mad at him, I allowed them" Qrow gently took his wife's shoulder, calming her down just a little.

"And are they okay?" Oscar asked, worried about his son and wife.

"I flew over there, they're okay" Qrow patted the Beacon Headmaster "You should go check on them, they look tired"

...

The WBRN team and Ruby were sitting on the parking lot floor of the 33.1 facility, completely calm and not saying anything, Roy and Neithan recovered just half an hour ago, and the electricity had finally returned to the city, confirming the situation in Beacon had been easy, apparently, a Grimm attack had been taking place while they were busy with their rescue mission, Winter Schnee had settled the matter in seconds, so now, there was nothing to worry about.

Except for the enormous punishment that would fall on his shoulders.

Ruby was not very happy with the actions of her son's team, it reminded her a bit of what she had done when she was much younger, also clouded by her sense of justice, she made several mistakes, although, fortunately for her, Ozpin was always very understanding with her.

But that had had some consequences on her, she thought that everything would turn out well and that the consequences would be minimal, she was not aware of how dangerous and important decisions were when she was a student, going to help Blake with the White Fang was dangerous, and now, helping her with the matter of Felicia and Raven was much more dangerous.

"You're grounded" Ruby told her son, looking at him with pride and disappointment at the same time "You all should be, but I can't blame you all, uncle Qrow sounded…relaxed, with your little adventure"

"We had no other choice" Waylon said, looking at his teammates for a second "We thought about calling for help, but, you were in danger and we had to do something about it…even if it meant dealing with the consequences"

"So you inherited that from their mothers" Ruby smiled softly, stroking her son's hair "We should talk this over with-"

Ruby was interrupted when a strange sound echoed softly through the skies, looking up, the silver-eyed woman could recognize Winter Schnee using her maiden powers, as well as her husband being carried by herself, which was somewhat ironic to see, on the other hand, the roar of a motorcycle caught the attention of the teenagers, Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna appeared, both riding in Bumbleby 2.0.

"Yang! Blake!" Bryan shouted excitedly, quickly running to his mothers and catching them both in an incredibly strong hug, lifting both women into the air taking advantage of his great strength, Yang and Blake laughed softly, returning their son's affectionate gesture.

"We heard you were doing extracurricular activities" Blake mentioned, giving her son a hard smack on the head, who let out a cat-like whimper "Do we need to talk seriously about your safety again?"

"I don't know" Bryan laughed nervously, looking at his other mother hopefully "What do you think?"

"A month of grounding should be enough" Yang said, no trace of true anger or disappointment in her voice "Sorry, champ, but Blake is the boss here"

While Bryan was being morally questioned by his cat mother, Waylon watched as Oscar and Ruby hugged each other tightly, whispering reassuring things to each other, he smiled slightly, feeling somewhat happy that nothing bad had happened to separate them for life.

Waylon couldn't avoid the slap his mother gave him in the face.

"You stupid child!" Winter growled loudly, before Waylon could respond, she hit him again "What were you thinking, coming here alone with your team?! Do you realize that you are just kids playing at being heroes?! They could have killed you!"

"I-" Interrupted again, another slap.

"Silence!" Winter hissed angrily "You avoided me for almost a month, stole weapon from the company, and you have the gall to put your life in danger?! Fighting a damn maiden! Your father told me that part too!"

"So I was just going to stand there doing absolutely nothing?!" Waylon shouted back, slightly surprising Winter "Ruby was in danger, no one was going to save her while the city was compromised, if not us, who would have risked it?"

"That's not your responsibility, you're just a damn kid" Winter grabbed her forehead, massaging her temples to try to calm down, even if it was just a little "It's clear that you can't be in Beacon for long, I'm transferring you to Atlas"

"What?!" This time it wasn't just Waylon who shouted that, but also the rest of his team.

"Atlas Academy has a better level of military and disciplinary training, that's where I studied, you willbe resigned to a new team or simply study on your own" Winter explained more calmly, trying to ignore how her stomach turned at her son's look of disbelief "Pack your things and in a week I'll have a Bull-Head ready for you to leave"

"You can't do that!" Neithan pulled out some guts from who knows where, facing his great-aunt and pointing at her accusingly "Waylon saved my mother and we defeated that weird Grimm in that place, it wasn't even his fault for coming here, it was mine!"

Winter looked at the silver-eyed man with a frown, Ruby was fully ready to intervene in defense of her son, however, Bryan and Roy got ahead of her.

"We supported Neithan's decision and convinced Waylon, we just thought it was the right thing to do" Bryan stood beside Waylon, placing a hand on his shoulder reassuringly "And we are not a team without our leader"

"If he has to deal with the consequences, then so do we" Roy said firmly, already knowing his aunt's hot temper "Waylon was just trying to make you proud, Aunt Winter, and at least I am proud of him, I won't let you just push him away from us."

Waylon looked at his companions in total shock, his eyes began to itch and his throat became dry as if it were a desert, he blinked a couple of times and placed his eyes on his mother, with a new confidence that he had never felt before.

Winter bit her lip, shocked by the three teenagers' words and totally confused inside, the thought of sending her son to Atlas was very improvised, but she genuinely thought it would be the best thing for him, however, her son's look was now different.

She could see a new confidence in those crimson eyes, one that went beyond his abilities.

The only time she saw that look, was when her sister was determined to stop Ironwood.

And Winter herself.

She wanted the best for her son, she always would, her methods might be questionable, but she was creating a Huntsman who in the future would be a legend, almost on the level of Ruby Rose, so why is she so hesitant now?

Waylon had always been a lonely boy, he only enjoyed spending his time with his family, and when she forced him to distance himself from this same family, the boy seemed to have adopted a discreet but powerful sadness, one that accompanied him every day.

One that made him submissive to her, one that made him cry every time he felt like he was failing her.

Now, she can only see someone determined.

"Fine" Winter sighed "You can stay at Beacon, and with Ex Requiem too, I'll find an explanation to give to the company's partners, but right now you need it more"

Waylon and his team smiled in total relief, Winter moved even closer to her son, causing the others to move away, and without warning, surrounded him in a warm and strong hug.

"I love you," she murmured, forcing the boy to bend down a little so she could kiss his forehead "I know I don't tell you this often, but I will always love you, son"

Waylon returned the hug with great force, burying his face in his mother's shoulder and sobbing silently, the rest of those present looked at the scene with their hearts moved, feeling the unique love that Winter had for her son.

Winter was a mother who loved her son deeply, even if that love was icy, just like her.

...

The darkness surrounding the hangar was considerably uncomfortable and hateful for Felicia, tonight's defeat had been more emotional than physical, being defeated by a group of teenagers had infuriated her like never before, her skills, her intelligence, her wit, none of that was able to defeat a quartet of brats who coordinated decently.

Worse yet, Raven didn't even have the willpower to stop them.

Felicia sometimes doubted her leader and friend, Raven was always tied to blood ties even if she always denied it, apparently these bonds were above her much acclaimed tribe, because she was not able to defeat her grandson and nephew, she simply left them there and took her away.

Now she could imagine what her father, Roman Torchwick, felt when Team RWBY was constantly harassing him, someone as experienced as him, even without a semblance, was dangerous, and yet he was defeated by that group of girls.

And as if it were a bad twist of fate, she had lost against a group of boys, ironic.

"What are you supposed to do at Beacon, laugh and have affairs?" Felicia asked, looking into the shadows, within seconds, the figures of four teenagers emerged from the darkness.

A boy with black hair, another with brown hair, and two girls, one with pink hair and the other with black hair.

They were Hawk, Almethia, Rybol and Monica, Beacon's HARM team.

"Hawk Branwen…Kogan, that's right, Kogan" Felicia laughed somewhat exaggeratedly, pointing accusingly at the ambar-eyed "What the fuck are you guys supposed to do?! WBRN beat the shit out of me in the heist we pulled across town!"

"We needed to keep up appearances, Felicia" Hawk said calmly, walking up to stand in front of the mage, emphasizing the height difference "Remember the mission, we must learn everything we can about Beacon, and you take care of the rest…it seems you are not doing it well"

"Do card tricks not work against them?" Monica asked, somewhat interested in Felicia's match against Team WBRN "You're supposed to be able to create sound bombs, that must have left Bryan looking like a scaredy-cat"

"He was the one who gave me the final blow" Felicia growled, getting even angrier when a slight smile appeared on Monica's lips "Damn girl…"

The sound of lightning rapidly approaching the hangar attracted the attention of everyone present, the presence of a man with black hair and red eyes, dressed in a red and black kimono, with a large katana resting on his hip, the entire HARM team bowed their heads, in a sign of respect.

"Look who's here!" Felicia laughed once more, recognizing the identity of the man in front of her.

The second leader of the Branwen tribe, behind Raven.

"Yin Branwen" Felicia said her name, while Yin simply remained silent "I'm sure you already know about today's failures, right? Well, your children that you trust so much were not able to keep the enemy distracted"

"Father" Hawk said quickly, standing up and looking at his father with some nervousness "I promise we're doing the best we can, the city's lack of power attracted too many Grimm and-"

"It was to be expected" Yin's deep, gravelly voice caused his son to fall silent, the black-haired man looked at Felicia and his son's team with an expression that showed nothing, absolutely nothing "Waylon Branwen and his team will be powerful rivals in no time, In the tournament, you will be able to give them what they deserve, understood?"

"Of course" the entire HARM team said in unison, leaning forward once more.

"Failure is no reason not to rise again, Felicia" Yin walked towards the mage, using his semblance, he appeared in front of her in the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of sparks behind him "Stopping my…sister, is your priority."

"Ruby Rose is much stronger than you think" Felicia muttered, looking at the dark-haired man in disbelief "She was able to give Raven, your mother, some trouble? The fucking spring maiden?!"

"I will try to help you" Yin said simply, surprising team HARM and Felicia herself "The RWBY members in Vale are a problem for us, Blake Belladonna is not important for now, but my half-sister and my twin are, but we must be careful"

Yin looked up at the shattered moon, a dark smile playing on his lips as he muttered "Beacon will fall, Vale will fall, and we will be the ones to prevail in the conflict"

No one wanted to continue arguing with Yin, his mere presence was too tense for Felicia, and for Hawk, seeing his father meant that things were going to get serious, since he knew him quite well.

He knew him better than almost the entire tribe.

The second leader of the tribe, the last resort when things go wrong.

And the one that would be Ruby Rose's nightmare.