Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its associated characters. The characters in this writing so far are all original characters, but I make no claim over the existing characters.

Chapter 5

Training

Captain Stone was called away to meet with leadership, so I continued my training with Lieutenant Rivers. We quickly discovered that my 'aura' did not behave in the normal expected ways.

For a start, other aura users were not able to detect it like normal. Additionally the shield was very weak, only able to stand up to a small amount of damage before fizzling out. However, if my belt was not otherwise focused on channeling its energy, it could almost immediately recreate the shield. This gave me a strangely low and simultaneously high survivability, and had the added benefit of greatly confusing Lieutenant Rivers.

Rivers made an exasperated expression, throwing his hands up in the air and rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner as my shield yet again reformed itself. He set the training pistol he had been firing at me back down on the control panel in front of him.

"How's it going, belt?" I asked.

Tired.

I motioned to the Lieutenant that I needed to call a halt, and he nodded, jumping down off of his elevated observer platform to join me on the ground floor. I winced as he landed, my knees aching in sympathetic pain that I logically knew he wasn't feeling.

Rivers approached, enveloping me within his cone of silence. He signed something to me, and I took note of which signs he had used as he then pulled out a notepad and wrote down what he was communicating. I was working on learning sign language from him and Captain Stone, but it would likely be weeks before I could get anything more complicated than "Me Grayson, enemy there."

He finished writing and held out the notepad for me to inspect. "Where did you learn to fight like this?"

I shrugged, not really sure, and held up my hands in a vague gesture of helplessness, then pointed at my head and mimed an explosion. He wrote again, the clicking of his pen silent to our ears.

"You clearly have significant fighting experience, I have only seen similar levels of training in operatives and special forces groups. Your hand to hand fighting style is unfamiliar to me, it involves significantly more kicks and grappling than any martial art I have seen practiced by the military."

He continued on in another line lower on the page.

"Also, your aura manifests itself in very strange ways that I have not seen before, it almost seems as if you yourself are not in control of it."

I furrowed my brow, concerned by this information. Where would I have gotten fighting experience outside the military? Special forces was a half decent theory but personally I didn't feel like a special forces kind of guy. I motioned for the notepad and he handed it over.

"Doctor Forsythe had some theory about me mentally attaching part of myself to the belt. I think the theory still has flaws, but it makes more sense than anything else I've come up with so far."

I flipped the page to a new sheet.

"That doesn't explain the fighting style stuff though, so I don't know. I guess I can go try and pull up my records. Want to come?"

Rivers replied with a thumbs up, pocketing the notebook and leading me in the direction of one of the larger tents.

-/-

As we entered the tent I saw what I would define as a Cyber Cafe, though where I had learned that term still escaped me. Logically I knew that a cyber cafe was a small tent or structure that provided access to every day systems and communications for deployed troops, but I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had learned that.

Based on the equipment outside, the tent was equipped to basically mimic one of the big communication towers on a smaller scale. A quick look around the tent showed I was mostly correct about its purpose, as people worked on administrative details or managed remote calls back to Atlas proper.

Most of those calls fell silent as Lieutenant Rivers entered however, as he drowned out the audio and the soldiers and technicians were forced to resort to text based communications. I caught one of the techs shooting a dirty look towards Rivers and crossed my arms, indicating he should get over it. He sulked, but otherwise made no move to interrupt us as I took up an empty console in the back corner of the tent.

I plugged in my holotags and was prompted for a password to access my account.

"Right," I said into the silent void, "Amnesia."

The Lieutenant clapped me on the back, giving me a mocking thumbs up and miming typing on a keyboard. It was my turn to shoot him a dirty look, then I began wracking my brain hoping that muscle memory would take over to allow me to type in my password. Rivers mimed drinking coffee, then headed out of the tent.

I sat for a moment, focusing with my eyes closed until I felt a small tingle of inspiration in the back of my mind. A subtle nudge from the belt brought the idea to the forefront of my mind, and I felt clarity as I focused on the task at hand.

My hands moved with a purpose, almost with a mind of their own as I reached into my tactical kit and extracted a piece of equipment I had been carrying around since I woke up. The equipment was a small device covered in dozens of different adapters and cables. I quickly snapped the correct cable into an open port on the console, mashing override commands into the keyboard as warnings popped up on my screen.

I knew what I was doing now, the Atlesian system was a thin client which authenticated its users remotely, meaning it had an outwards connection that it fed my credentials into and would then reply with whether or not I was authorized. It was a good system for preventing credential loss if a device was captured, but I was smarter than it.

With a relatively simple heartbleed attack stored on my hacking device I forced the authenticating device to share more information with me than it wanted, then parsed through the block of data it had inadvertently sent to find the hash of my password it was comparing my input to.

Once I had the hash I turned back to my device and activated it, copying the hash into the function I had previously designed before I had lost my memory. The device quickly began running random passwords into its system until it found one that produced the same hash when encrypted.

Due to the Birthday Attack principle and the impressive multi core system that had been built into my personal device I would only have to wait a few seconds to find a match. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, feeling a calming effect as I worked through something I was experienced at, feeling at peace in my expertise.

With a soft buzz that vibrated the table my kit notified me it had a match, which I then plugged into the system to authenticate.

Success! The belt sent to me, and I concurred.

Now that I was in the system, I looked around for my personnel files. Unfortunately when I found them I was met with a firm and unyielding "Not Authorized" warning.

I cracked my knuckles, spun up my hacking kit, and got to work escalating privileges.

-/-

Ten minutes later I felt a familiar silence envelop me as Lieutenant Rivers returned from his coffee run. He waved politely to a few technicians, who I saw step out of his cone of silence in order to return to their conversation. A few of them shot quick glances towards him and hid embarrassed giggles or hushed comments behind their hands.

I shrugged off their reactions to the Lieutenant and resumed reading through the terminal dump of my files. Without the accompanying formatting file it was just a collection of loosely organized text, but it was enough that I could understand it.

Rivers approached me, an easy smile on his face as he prepared to rib me for being unable to access my files. Instead, when he saw what I had done to the computer he stopped, shocked. I glanced up at him and waved him over, indicating that he should take a seat and read with me.

Temporarily setting aside his concerns at seeing the computer with a half dozen wires poking out of it and a gently pulsing exposed power supply, he set down the coffee and turned his attention to my files.

We skimmed through it, taking note of the addendum Doctor Forsythe had added regarding my presumed mental break and subsequent personality disorder. What interested me more however was my service record, which was irritatingly almost blank.

There was almost no record of where I had been stationed beyond my entry into the Atlesian armed forces and my dates of promotion. I turned my attention to the certificates and qualifications section, which was also frustratingly blank, only a few minor communications system certifications and qualifications to operate a number of different weapon systems.

Nowhere in the files did it mention any forms of advanced training, nor did it have any of the associated 'aura' or 'semblance' tags that I had seen in team SAGE's files.

I sat back, more frustrated than anything else. I had been hoping that I could find something useful like "next of kin" or "home address" but instead every category was either blank or filled with meaningless "John Doe" answers.

The only useful information I had managed to find was confirmation that the 107th, the unit I was nominally assigned to, had been wiped out to the last man the day before I awoke without my memories. Skimming the reports I saw that there had been a coordinated attack from Kratos, Hermes, and Hyperion.

There had evidently not been any known survivors until I had returned to camp.

Rivers interrupted my reading by pointing to the section describing the assault, then drew out his notebook and passed me a page.

"Commonly when auras are naturally unlocked it is a response to a deep emotional trauma the person is experiencing. Semblances are also sometimes related to this experience."

I nodded and he continued writing.

"From what I have observed, you have the ability to heal from great damage, despite your evident inability to properly project your aura. It would seem most likely to me that you developed your aura and semblance during this attack on the 107th and it allowed you to survive what should have been a fatal wound."

"Captain Stone agrees with your theory, but what about my files being mostly blank or junk data?" I wrote back. He thought for a moment before scribbling his reply.

"If I am correct and you were attached to some form of special operations team, then it is possible you were only assigned to them as a form of cover to allow you to achieve your real objectives." He considered some ideas before continuing. "In fact, you may not actually be Specialist Grayson Phoenix, you may be someone else entirely who has a real personnel file."

Great, I thought, now I don't even know who I am anymore, I'm basically back to square one.

-/-

My thoughts were interrupted when Rivers kicked my leg under the desk, then subtly drew my attention to one of the communications officers who was making his rounds through the tent. I looked down at my handiwork, realizing that the partially disassembled computer and nest of wires wouldn't exactly endear me to the staff manning the cyber cafe.

I quickly grabbed the notebook back and wrote "STALL" in big bold letters. The Lieutenant nodded, then stood and approached the comm officer, enveloping him in the cone of silence and forcing him into a conversation in sign language.

I worked quickly, wiping traces of my meddling from the system and repacking all of my tools in my kit. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the communications officer trying to sound out "I do not understand you," to no avail. I slapped the siding of the computer back on, halfway inserting one of the screws to keep it shut and logged out.

Right as I finished the officer finally got past Lieutenant Rivers and carried on through the tent, not noticing my rushed fix on a causal inspection. I shot Rivers a thumbs up and he nodded his agreement.

-/-

Over the next two days I took turns training with Captain Stone, Lieutenant Rivers, and anyone else that had off time and a willingness to fight. I could reliably win most hand to hand fights against the average troops, though a particular Sergeant Zim, who taught melee combat in his off time, was able to give me a solid run for my money before I resorted to having the belt help me physically overpower him. Unfortunately against the operatives I still suffered an abysmal win rate.

In one particular fight against Captain Stone I was forced into a corner and had to resort to drawing my knife against her hammer. She swung low and I jumped high, trying to clear the arc of her hammer to close the gap. Instead she pivoted half way through her swing, dropping to one knee and arcing the hammer in a loop to catch me on the way down.

The hammer cracked against my back, and the protection from the belt's shield and my armor was barely enough to keep my spine from shattering. The blow still launched me over a dozen feet away and I hit the ground hard.

I slid to a stop, scrambling for my rifle and desperately attempting to reload the training magazines I was using.

Captain Stone flew through the air, having lept off of a ramp she summoned using her semblance, and I panic rolled to the side, barely avoiding having my arm crushed as she blasted a chunk out of the hard concrete with the impact of her hammer.

Chips of concrete sprayed against my side, putting pock marks and divots into my freshly repaired armor. The belt surged, restoring the protection as I jumped to my feet and backpedaled away, just in time for me to catch a rock to the back of my knee, the captain using her semblance to trip me up.

Courage!

The belt had developed a habit of leaning into the training, which was a nice change of pace from its originally overly protective and conflict avoidant nature when we had first met.

This time Captain Stone leapt far, anticipating that I would continue to scramble backwards. Instead I rolled from my kneeling position towards her, passing barely under the swing of her hammer as her momentum carried her above and beyond me.

I let off a burst of training ammo as she landed, the rubber bullets pinging off her purple aura. She laughed, then smashed her hammer into the ground again, throwing up chips and shards of concrete. As the bits of concrete hit the apex of their flight she pointed a finger towards me, launching the swarm of tiny sharp rocks into me.

The repeated impacts tore through my relatively flimsy protective shield, then began battering me. I staggered backwards, a small piece of concrete cracking the front plate of my helmet and causing spider webbed cracks to form in my vision.

Helping!

The protection returned in a flash. I quickly thought through my options while I slapped a fresh magazine into my weapon. Her semblance and hammer were giving her a massive advantage over me. I wasn't faster or stronger than her, and my only real advantage was the range my rifle gave me, which she had just demonstrated didn't mean much at this distance.

I ducked under a flying chunk of rock and sprayed another burst towards her, then moved to close the distance under my own terms. Captain Stone charged towards me as well. We ran directly at each other, me firing the last of my ammunition, her attempting to block as many shots as possible with the head of her hammer.

I drew my knife as I fired, holding it behind my wrist to conceal my intentions. With the last few shots in my rifle I switched to fire at her left hand on the haft of her hammer. I nailed a shot directly on the second knuckle, causing her to flinch even through the protection of her aura and release the hammer with that hand.

She was momentarily distracted as I pivoted my stance and brought my knife in an underhanded arc to catch her right hand in the back of the palm. At the same time I released my rifle and allowed it to swing back on its sling, instead bringing my hand up to wrench the hammer out of her grasp.

The sudden sting of my knife stabbing her hand, even with her aura up, was enough to weaken her grip on the hammer, and I succeeded in pulling it out of her grasp. I tossed it aside, moving back in with the knife to score a hit. She took the stab to the neck, her aura still strongly deflecting the knife blade. She was no longer laughing.

I danced backwards out of range of her retaliatory grab, her 4'11 height not giving her the best reach. But as I pulled backwards I felt a tug and realized that she had not been intending to grab me, but instead had caught my dangling rifle on its sling.

She yanked me back towards her and I stumbled, tripping over the haft of her hammer that I had just knocked to the ground. As I fell forwards she met my jaw with an uppercut. The belt's protection fizzled, and before it could reform a second and third punch caught me in the ribs.

The protection reformed, but she grabbed me by the top lip of my chest armor and hauled me into another three punch combination, pulling me down to her height. I attempted to twist out of the grab, but was dazed by the repeated head blows.

As I managed to escape she kicked at my leg, ironically using a strike I had shown her the day before to collapse my knee. I fell to the ground, and looked up just in time to see her hammer smash directly into my face, fully shattering my helmet and knocking me out.

-/-

I awoke, presumably only a few moments later looking up at a clear blue sky through the few pieces of tempered steel that remained from the edges of my helmet.

"Ow" I remarked, the healing from the belt already surging through me.

Disappointment.

"Oh shut up, like you would have done better." I clambered to my feet, and we took a ten minute break to allow her aura to recharge and my belt the opportunity to use its recently discovered ability to repair my equipment.

I held the shattered pieces of my helmet together as the energy from the belt caused them to fuse back together. I couldn't find all the individual pieces however, and the resulting product was slightly thinner and weaker than before as it lost a portion of its mass. As we rested we compared notes on the fight, what each of us could do better and strategies to avoid using in the future.

And so we continued for two days in total. Every time we fought I would learn a little more, get a little better, but the times I even came close to winning were still few and far between, and many times were more due to luck than any improvement or strategy I applied. It seemed that even though I was theoretically more skilled than them, I simply could not match their speed, strength, semblances, and the power of their aura shields.

Despite that, the training was still an excellent opportunity to see the different spectrum of huntsmen and operatives abilities and fighting styles. Captain Stone was, true to her word, the strongest member of her team, and likely the strongest person on the entire base.

Lieutenant Rivers on the other hand was much faster than her, his relatively slim build and average height lent themselves well to his quicker fighting style. What I noticed most though was the difference in their precision. Rivers was astonishingly accurate with both his sniper rifle and its halberd transformation. Every time I fought him I could count on at least one or two hits slipping past my armor plating to strike me directly, with only my undersuit and the belt's protection to resist it.

I still had mandatory psychiatric appointments with Doctor Forsythe, but without the threat of confinement he didn't have much power over me anymore. I kept hidden from him the fact that during the night I would dream horrible visions of violence and aggression against Atlas troops. Instead I relied on the early morning light to drive those thoughts away.

That worked until the end of the second day, when Sergeant Randall Green, the third member of team SAGE arrived at camp, alone and looking half dead.

The blond sergeant wore no armor, instead wearing loose flowing white fatigues, and carried what looked like a high tech modification of a longsword as his primary weapon. He pushed past the crowd of spectators that had formed to watch a three way fight between myself, Captain Stone, and Lieutenant Rivers, and shouted "Ma'am! They got Lieutenant Amber! They took him!"

-/-

Concern.

"It will be fine, I'm sure. The captain will have a plan." I whispered to my belt. An intelligence officer gave me a side eye but offered no comment. We were sitting in a briefing tent as Captain Stone and Sergeant Green discussed options with the base commander.

I was more worried than I let on. Sergeant Green's story matched up eerily with the vision I had on my first night at base. Someone, it was currently assumed to be Hyperion, had snuck into their camp at night. They had proceeded to kill seven guards without raising the alarm, then kidnapped Lieutenant Amber without a fight. They had left a note behind addressed to Captain Stone.

Captain Stone,

First, my congratulations on the promotion you will be receiving soon. Regretfully I cannot be there with you to celebrate, but rest assured that my spirit is with you in these tumultuous times. I write this note to you in order to explain my actions, and offer you a path forward.

I have captured your second in command, this you already know. What you do not know is why. Three days before I am writing this note, someone I value highly was declared missing in action, but his body was not located when search and rescue teams arrived to investigate. It is my belief that they are currently residing at the base you occupy. I wish to enter a negotiation with you in order to secure an exchange of them and all of their equipment. Please meet my representative at the top of the Dust Works Headquarters building in the commercial district at precisely 1330 local time the day after you read this note.

Do not worry about receiving the note at the incorrect time, I will know.

Sincere regards,

Hyperion

Second Mistrali Army, Commander

"Alright people listen up" Captain Stone silenced the murmurs that were circulating around the tent. "We don't have a lot to work with here so I need answers fast." She pointed to one of the intelligence officers "First, who is he talking about? I don't remember being briefed on any HVT captures recently." The officer shifted nervously in his seat, adjusting his collar.

"We don't actually know ma'am, we captured around three dozen enemies on the day in question, including the one you brought back from the attack on the weapons depot, but none of them presented themselves to us as high value targets. They also didn't fit the descriptions for any targets we know about."

Captain Stone frowned, motioning for him to continue speaking.

"Basically ma'am, unless one of them admits to being the one we are looking for, then we have no way of knowing which prisoner it was."

"Alright then" She responded, then pivoted and asked another analyst

"How does he know when I was promoted? I wasn't even a Captain yet when this note was delivered." The analyst went to speak, but Stone silenced them with a finger and continued speaking, surprisingly intimidating for someone of her stature. "Furthermore, how does he know at what time I will open this note? Do we have a leak here that I need to be worried about?"

The analyst sputtered, their integrity and capability now fully called into question in front of an audience.

"Ma'am" the analyst spoke, "I cannot be certain as to how they know that you would be promoted, but Hyperion has previously demonstrated the ability to access our digital systems. Your field promotion made it all the way to Altas High Command before it was approved. It could have been intercepted at any of a dozen points."

"It's a fake out."

The analyst rounded on me, and I realized that I had spoken as the idea hit me before I had actually fully considered it. Captain Stone just raised an eyebrow. I sat forward in my chair, keenly aware that all eyes were now on me as I justified my statement.

"It's a fake out, he figured out she would be promoted, sure, but he didn't know when she would be promoted." The analyst still looked puzzled as to where I was going with my idea so I continued.

"You'll notice Hyperion said 'upcoming promotion' but Captain Stone was promoted before this note ever reached us, meaning he didn't know exactly when she would be promoted, only that it would be soon."

Captain Stone held up a hand, "Sure" she said "that makes sense, but how does he know when I will open the note?"

I sat back, now confident in my theory. "He doesn't" I answered, "He just knew roughly what day Sergeant Green would return to base. He just talked about days, which gives him plenty of room to work with." One of the intelligence analysts put up a hand from the other side of the tent, and Captain Stone motioned for them to speak.

"Forgive me, specialist, but what exactly is the proof behind this hypothesis?" I shrugged

"I don't know ma'am, it just feels right, it feels like what I would do." That remark was met with snorts of derision and disgust and I knew I had lost the room. Several analysts turned back to their work, trying to come up with more credible theories. Lieutenant Rivers however looked more thoughtful as he considered my last statement. He had been carefully keeping to the edge of the room in a position where he could read the lips of most speakers without forcing his cone of silence over the room. He motioned to Captain Stone, speaking rapidly in sign language. I had learned enough over the last few days to pick out "plan" "special forces" and "training."

"Hmm" Captain Stone considered River's statement. "Specialist, if you had executed this plan, what would be your next move?" I blinked, confused.

"Why are you asking me ma'am?" She nodded to Lieutenant Rivers.

"Eugene has a good theory that you and Hyperion may have previously been trained by the same organization within the Atlas military. It makes sense to me, Hyperion has previously demonstrated a concerning familiarity with our tactics and technology."

One of the analysts adjusted their glasses and spoke up. "Actually ma'am, the theory that Hyperion is former Atlesian Military is currently only calculated to be of roughly sixty five percent likeliness." Stone turned to the analyst, giving her a long look.

"Sixty five percent is more likely than not, isn't it?" turning back to me she asked again "So what would you do Grayson?"

I thought for a moment, then went with my gut instinct.

"Well first, I'd have planted an observer over this base to report when Sergeant Green returned, that observer would then notify me so I could begin prep work for negotiations." I stood, walking to the front of the room to join the leadership team.

"From there I would make sure I had my prisoner in a secure location, far away from any known or mentioned location." I pointed to the map of the city that floated in a hologram over the desk. "I wouldn't keep him anywhere near the Dust Works building, and I wouldn't keep him anywhere that I had used before for prisoner holdings. Actually I would probably keep him outside the city entirely."

Evelynn, and I was surprised to realize that I was thinking of the captain as Evelynn now, turned to an analyst, ordering them to start gathering reports on enemy movement outside the city over the last few days. I continued on, the train of thought forming as I spoke.

"Hyperion can turn invisible right? Then I would probably have just turned my prisoner invisible while moving around during the day, but that would be limiting and would require hops between structures. We can assume then that he is probably keeping them relatively near the walls of the city, maybe in a cave or something."

Evelynn nodded, then asked some clarifying questions. "What about the actual meeting Grayson? Would it be legitimate discussions or just a tactic to bait out vulnerable forces?" I thought for a moment before answering, trying to put myself in Hyperion's shoes.

"I think it would be legitimate, after all he seems to think we captured someone important. If he just wanted to capture more of us he would have taken Sergeant Green as well." Sergeant Green scoffed at the idea of being captured, but Captain Stone silenced him with a pointed look. I continued.

"Basically ma'am I think it's legit, but I wouldn't want to go in without backup."

By this point the analysts had finished their assessment of the terrain and were ready to present their report.

"There are numerous caves in the mountains outside of Argus, any one of these could be where they would be keeping Lieutenant Amber." The lead analyst reported. "In particular five caves were noted as having increased enemy activity over the last few days."

I interjected into their report, some gut instinct or half remembered theory springing to the forefront of my mind.

"It's not one of those caves, there wouldn't be any signs of different activity, so any sign of a change is a good indicator it isn't one of those." Sighing, the lead analyst resumed their report.

"There are three caves which have not shown any change of enemy presence, so I suppose if we are following the specialist's theory, then it might be one of those." There was a heavy amount of stress on the words 'suppose' and 'theory' that implied the analysts weren't supporters of my idea.

Irritation.

"You and me both" I whispered.

"Alright then" Captain Stone declared. "We really only have one good option. The rest of Team SAGE needs to attend the talks in order to avoid drawing suspicion to an operation to rescue Lieutenant Amber." She pointed at me

"Grayson, you're my ace in the hole right now, I've convinced Doctor Forsythe not to enter anything regarding your strange aura or semblance into his medical reports, so for now the only people who really know what you are capable of are on this base. I want you to build a team with any volunteers you can get to assault those caves, I'll make sure you have ground transport. we still can't risk airlift with Hephaestus assumed to be in the area."

Hephaestus had the semblance of Technokinesis, and had previously demonstrated the ability to bring down any aircraft that he had line of sight to. With the weather forecasted to have the cloud layer sparse and above ten thousand feet tomorrow there was no chance of any friendly aircraft flying.

I nodded, it was a logical plan, right now Team SAGE was the only unassigned operative team in the area, the rest couldn't be reached in time to be helpful, though messages would be sent with runners regardless in the hopes that they could provide support. With that settled, the meeting quickly devolved into smaller discussions as team leaders broke to speak with their troops.

I left the tent in search of volunteers.