I'm not dead! Sorry for the long delay (almost a year and half, wow) I don't really have an excuse for it. I just stopped writing. No real reason I started back up again, I just felt like it. I've started work on the next chapter as well, so I guess you can expect that sometime soon. Or maybe it'll be two years before I update this time. Hopefully not.

Cinder glared at the report in her hand with equal parts fear and hate, her magic rising to the surface of her aura ready to incinerate it at a moment's notice. With a deep breath she calmed herself, allowing her magic to relax. It wouldn't do to show how badly this affected her. Waiting a moment to compose herself, she turned to the soldier who gave her the report and asked.

"What happened?"

The Oniyuri Rebellion had been gaining tremendous ground recently, no doubt thanks to the Schnee girl who had thrown her lot in with them. But over the past two weeks they had gone from winning skirmishes and gaining recruits to pushing the Mistralian army back towards the capital. Any attempts at slowing them down failed horribly. Cinder couldn't quite figure out how they had grown from a controllable risk to a genuine threat.

"W-we aren't sure. There haven't been... well, we haven't found any survivors at any of the battles. But there also haven't been as many corpses as there would be if they were routed," The young man stuttered out, his demeanor hardly fitting his rank of captain. The irony that he had only reached that rank thanks to Cinder promoting him to gain his wealthy family's support was not lost on her.

"No survivors? Not the rebels' usual methods. Could they be taking them prisoner? It worked for them before." And wasn't that a wonderful thing to find out? She had only been informed of what occurred with the Altan family and their heiress a few days ago. Thanks to their blunder, much of the formerly helpful Western nobility was too frightened to fight against the Rebellion for fear of meeting the same humiliating fate.

"Maybe they've been conscripting our people to their side?" Emerald offered an explanation, Mercury nodding alongside. Cinder had been in the middle of giving orders to her two subordinates when the captain had rushed in with a report in hand. Said captain looked affronted at the idea of his comrades throwing away their pride in the kingdom, but Cinder knew it was a possibility.

"There have been signs of smaller conflicts occurring after the larger battles, though usually there aren't many bodies. Could be Grimm," Mercury surmised, lazily glancing over at the report in Cinder's hands. He did bring up another possibility. Grimm were drawn to negativity, and retreating soldiers weren't always well-equipped to deal with constant hordes chasing them.

But something about this situation seemed off to Cinder. Grimm picking off deserters was common, but for them to get every last one? That was unheard off. And there was no way the rebels had the infrastructure to keep that many prisoners, or to press them all into working for them. That not one soldier had managed to report back from any major encounter with the rebels in two weeks was alarming, and warranted further investigation.

"Mercury, Emerald, change of plans," Cinder spoke after a moment's consideration. Her two subordinates stood up straight, head's lowered in a respectful bow befitting of her station. "I want you to go investigate what is happening in the west."

Emerald looked up nervously. "Do you want us to engage with the Rebellion?" Mercury threw a quick elbow into her side to warn her against speaking out of turn, but Cinder ignored the slight. She was well aware of Emerald's... infatuation with her, and was willing to tolerate and even encourage it if it meant keeping such a loyal and helpful follower.

"No. You are to keep your distance. Figure out what has changed that has allowed the Rebellion to advance so quickly, then return here and report. Don't overextend yourselves. Something is trying to restrict the flow of information back to the capital, and while I have confidence in both your abilities I cannot help but worry for you."

Emerald's eyes shone with admiration and warmth while Mercury barely managed to keep his from rolling. She knew that he saw right through the blatant manipulation of Emerald's feelings, but he wisely chose not to speak up. She paid him quite handsomely, after all.

"Yes, Lady Cinder. We won't let you down!" Emerald said with barely contained excitement. Cinder gave the girl a small smile as she bowed hastily and left to prepare for her mission, Mercury lazily walking out of the room after her. The captain who gave the report glanced questioningly at her before she dismissed him with a wave.

Once she was alone, she allowed the snarl that had been building up in her throat to break free, her magic surging outwards and igniting the report in her hands, reducing it to embers in mere moments. Finding out that the Rebellion had managed to become such a large threat in so little time was alarming.

She had kept them around for the better part of a decade, believing that they would one day serve their purpose in her grand scheme. They made it delightfully easy to justify many of her manipulations of Lionheart to the more loyal members of his court, without being capable of truly disrupting her plans. At least, they hadn't been capable before.

Hearing of the Nuckelavee's death had been a pleasant surprise. The monster had never been in any of her calculations, and she doubted even a man like Arthur Watts could've predicted that such a powerful Grimm would appear precisely as she began to enact her plans. She was honestly pleased to know that that piece was no longer on the board, though she now much prefers it to the one that replaced it.

Weiss Schnee was an enigma. When she first disappeared from Atlas months ago, Cinder paid her little mind. What use did she have for some noble brat running away from her cushy lifestyle? Perhaps that had been her first mistake. Since then, Schnee had managed to become a real pain in the ass.

Getting Torchwick caught was a serious annoyance, since he represented a loose end that Mercury and Emerald had fortunately been able to deal with before anything came from it. She didn't want any foreign powers meddling in her affairs, least of all the Mage King of Vale. She never would've expected that the Schnee would make her way to Mistral next.

Killing the Nuckelavee was impressive, but where Schnee really became a problem was when she joined the Rebellion. Under her command, they took more risks. Nikos and Daichi were skilled warriors and charismatic leaders, but they weren't tactical geniuses, and those under their command weren't either. The Rebellion survived by not taking risks, but it thrived by embracing them under Weiss Schnee's guidance.

A part of her thought that she might be plotting against her specifically, but Cinder discarded that thought. She had been careful and hidden her tracks well. The Schnee heiress had some other goal in mind, and had joined the Rebellion because they had some way of helping her see it done. Perhaps she could be swayed to Cinder's side? She certainly had more influence than a bunch of starving peasants and a disgraced Argusian champion.

Cinder shelved the idea of recruiting Schnee for now. It wouldn't do for her to become resolute in her plans only for Mercury and Emerald to return with information that disrupted them. For now, she would sit and wait for more information. Still, she could not shake the feeling of dread that was creeping up on her. Something about this situation, the lack of information she had... it seemed familiar.

Qrow Branwen stared up at the shattered moon with a bored expression, adjusting himself on the thick branch he sat on. The Rebellion had managed to win another skirmish close to Mistral. The Rebellion inched closer to the Tiered City every day, and thanks to his little late-night 'walks' Lionheart was likely none the wiser.

It was an old Branwen Tribe technique, one he and his sister had excelled at. Disrupting the chain of information was as critical in warfare as it was when raiding a town. Tracking the panicked survivors of a fight and herding them together seemed counterintuitive, but who was he to argue with results?

All he had to do was make sure that the survivors knew he was there. That someone was out there, hunting them. Picking them off. Four men went to sleep with one on watch. When the watch went to wake up his replacement, he only found three men and a bloodstained sleeping roll. The paranoia and dread built up as Qrow pushed the soldiers south and west, away from the capital or any major city that would offer safety.

Disoriented and afraid, the fleeing soldiers didn't even realize they were being herded together. Even if they did, there was little they could do. Anyone who tried to flee or make it on their own was quickly tracked down and fell to his blade, if the Grimm didn't get them first. Once the soldiers were all herded together, everything fell into place.

Logic dictates that there is safety in numbers, but logic is always weaker than emotion. The large numbers may have provided the illusion of safety, but it also multiplied the number of terrified people in one place, which only meant one thing. Survivors from battles were scattered, herded together, then picked off by hordes of Grimm. Cruel, but efficient.

Qrow felt little joy about what he did, but also wasn't too bothered by it. It was wrong, but it was simply what he was raised to do. And for the lucky few who managed to flee to safety, they found themselves on the opposite side of the continent from the capital with the entire Oniyuri Rebellion in the way. Those soldiers wisely chose not to venture out past the towns they found themselves in, and there was little worry about them passing along a message given that many of those towns were more allied with the Rebellion than Lionheart.

Normally, herding together people like this would take a team of people, at the minimum. But Qrow wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. He and his sister were masters at the art of spreading fear in the ranks of the enemy. Her style was always to spread panic before the conflict, while Qrow always preferred to do so afterward, to prevent anyone from spreading word about the Branwen Tribe or, later in his life, the Royal Guard being nearby.

Now if only he could get the Schnee off his back. she'd been a real pain in the ass these past two weeks, always demanding he come to strategy meetings and give his input. And while she had certainly shown a good head for strategy, he had no interest in listening to her orders. It had nothing to do with her being the same age as his niece, although that did disorient him a little.

Rather, he chose to ignore the Schnee girl for the same reason he rarely showed up to strategy meetings back in Vale. The last thing a plan needed was him messing everything up. Better to just receive his orders once the plan was ironed out. They didn't need his luck making anything worse.

Rolling his shoulder, Qrow drew his sword silently and glanced dispassionately down from the branch he was perched on. A group of fleeing Mistralian soldiers were stumbling through the underbrush, and he had a job to do. Gracefully falling from the branch, there was a flash of silver as his blade caught the light of the moon seconds before everything was covered in a curtain of blood.

It was time to finish the hunt.

Weiss woke up to the hustle and bustle of the campsite, the sound drifting through the thin flaps of her small private tent. Flicking a glance at her not-quite-dead companion, she rose to her feet and stretched before grabbing her things and setting out to start her day. As she left her tent, she saw that the camp was already quite busy despite being only an hour after sunrise.

The Rebellion had been on a winning streak ever since she had joined up, and that had only gotten better since they had been joined by the Valean Expeditionary Force. The group of knights wasn't large enough to single-handedly allow them to face the full might of Mistral, but between the training and the influx of highly elite soldiers was a welcome boon to the cause she had attached herself to.

There was also the massive boost to morale the Valeans had brought. After a decade of being essentially ignored by the other three kingdoms, they were finally being officially acknowledged by Vale. And with their excuse of being here to help clear out the Grimm, Mistral couldn't easily declare this to be an unwarranted act of war. The knights were careful to try and appear as a neutral party simply traveling with the Rebellion for convenience, but they always seemed to get drawn into their skirmishes with Mistral, just skirting the line of plausible deniability.

Not that the capital seemed to be aware of their presence at all. Each new skirmish saw their foes being surprised to see the heavily armored knights among their ranks, but it wasn't as though they were completely routing their enemy. Weiss wasn't sure why they weren't able to bring the information back, but she had a vague idea of who to thank.

Qrow Branwen was an irritatingly absent figure at many of the planning meetings they had done over the past few weeks, and he often took off quickly after a skirmish and didn't reappear for a time. None of the Valean Knights found his behavior bizarre, but Weiss found herself increasingly frustrated with his blatant disregard for her and the rest of the Rebellion's plans. Shaking the anger out of her head, she turned to face Pyrrha Nikos as the red-haired woman walked over to her.

"General. Is there anything you need from me this morning?" She asked politely. Even with the arrival of the knights she was still quite busy helping the Rebellion with planning and training. If anything, the knights' presence made her workload even greater since she often acted as an in-between for the leadership of the Rebellion and the knights of Vale.

"I don't have anything, but I did hear from Sun that he needed to speak to you about a matter. Something to do with contacting some merchants." Pyrrha replied. "Aside from that and your usual duties, there's nothing."

Weiss grimaced slightly. She could guess what Sun needed her to do. It was one of the reasons the Rebellion wanted her to begin with; to have her speak to the merchants and convince them to lend their support. It wouldn't be too hard to convince them that her running away from home was an elaborate ploy by her father to draw attention to this cause.

"Understood. I'll meet up with him after my training." Weiss responded. Pyrrha gave her a nod of dismissal and the white-haired girl was off to the training grounds. She could see Yang already there, sparring with Nora while a group of rebels looked on in amazement. The two had become fast friends over the past week.

On the edge of the training yard, she saw Jaune and another armored knight walking through a drill with a large set of rebels of all ages. Despite his meager skills compared to the rest of them, Jaune wasn't incompetent, and his unique perspective helped him to teach the basics to complete amateurs better than his peers.

Blake was surely nearby, as she tended to not quite feel comfortable around the crowds of knights and rebels without Yang being near. The black-haired faunus had alternated between shadowing Yang or Weiss, or Jaune when they were both busy. If none of them were available, Blake would either make herself busy on a mission or hide away in her tent reading.

"Morning, Schnee!" A voice called out to her. Coco Adel, second in command of the Valeans and prodigious mage, sauntered up to her. Weiss gave her a respectful nod as a greeting.

"Lady Adel. Have there been any problems?" She asked, gesturing towards a set of rebels who were training in magic nearby. Before Coco's arrival, Weiss was the best they had as far as an instructor went, but with Coco and the other mages from Vale, they had a more diversified set of instructors. Inexplicably, many of the rebels still wanted Weiss to teach them magic, despite having what she felt were better teachers available to them. But who was she to deny them her aid?

"Nah, everyone's doing well. I've got them working on semi-permeable barrier glyphs right now and wanted a second eye." The brunette told her. Weiss nodded along. Coco was another mage who preferred glyphs to other forms of magic, and she had become a friendly acquaintance these past few weeks as they practiced their magic together.

Despite both using glyphs, their methodology was slightly different. Coco preferred to use singular large glyphs, taking time to add many extra layers to alter their effect as needed. Coco's glyphs could often take over a full minute to construct, but their effect was often devastating. A recent skirmish had been a sweeping victory thanks to a single large glyph that turned the ground bellow the enemy to mud and halted their charge.

Despite her prodigious skill, Coco saw Weiss as an equal, though Weiss personally felt her skills came short of the other. Nonetheless, she did have more practical experience with the kind of glyph Coco was teaching the rebels, and thus gladly gave her input.

An air of hopeful anticipation hung over the camp as everyone went about their day. With Vale's aid, they might finally get their long-awaited justice. The winds of fortune were beginning to blow in their favor.

Only time would tell if that would remain to be true.

Not my greatest work, I'll admit. My writing skills are a little rusty, and this chapter was always one I didn't really want to do. There's been a bit of a timeskip, and the next few chapters are going to have more. It's not really practical to show every single battle in the war, and having each character meet each other is pretty mind-numbing. Certain characters will still have first meetings, but I really didn't feel the need to write about Ren and Yang's first conversation. And don't worry, Qrow will definitely interact more with Weiss in the upcoming chapters. This one was more to show the basic state of the world and relationships and set up where the next few chapters are going to go. There won't be as much action for a bit either. See you all whenever this updates again.