A/N:

You all have no motherfucking idea how many versions of the last chapter exist.

Seriously.
Seriously.

I have a document filled with rejected material for this story, either never to be used or to be used at a later date - it clocks in at over 100,000 words (and for comparison's sake, this story as of right now is at 300,000), and I would say that anywhere from ten to twenty thousand, perhaps even twenty five, of those words are the titanic number of ways I wrote and rewrote that chapter.

Also, I did warn you all that it would only get crazy from here.
And I'm not done yet.
Still have a thing or two to do before this arc is over.

Matter of fact, let's get the endgame started:

Chapter 40

It had never occurred to Ruby Rose just how much things felt different with just one single change of scenery. Maybe the reason she'd never noticed - like, really noticed - the transition from her home to Beacon was because it had happened so fast, and because Yang was still there when they had gotten assigned their dorms. Okay, there was a little weirdness at the beginning, but it went away so fast that it hadn't really registered to her.

Not like now, not with Vale under attack and her not being allowed to sleep in her normal dorm. Anyone who was sleeping at Beacon and not down in Vale - which was pretty much the Beacon Junior year and below - couldn't be found in the outer-most dorm rooms. She hadn't known at all what that meant until Yang had just said 'any of the rooms with windows', and then it made sense: Those rooms could be hit by the 'Terran' - such a weird name! - kingdom's missiles, and anyone in the rooms probably wouldn't wake up again. She hadn't thought much of it, until she'd spent her first night in her new room, and found that enough was different about it to make the entire ordeal just feel strange. People were fighting over the limited beds, some sleeping on the ground didn't have blankets or pillows or sleeping bags, and everyone was armed, too!

That was the weirdest part - not the fact that everyone was walking around with their weapons like it was combat training day, but the fact that there were just so many! She hadn't seen so many weapons in one place since the initiation, but for some reason no one wanted to talk about them. That was another thing - no one was talking, anymore. It was a lot quieter, around here. It was so gloomy, even Yang, or Ecru Lily, didn't really break the silence, and with people like Ash and Jaune in the hospital, or upper-classmen down in the city, it kind of felt like the life had been sucked out of Beacon.

But, Ruby reasoned, Ash had woken up yesterday, and Jaune said he had the hookup with getting him a replacement arm, so pretty soon all of her friends would be in the same place! They'd liven things up, surely, and after that it wouldn't be hard for them to figure things out. Everything seemed bad now, what with how fast the terrans broke through Vale's borders and steam-rolled across the industrial sector, but she knew everything would turn out okay. Good things happened to good people, right? It was karma! And the terrans were out there, picking fights with a kingdom they'd never even met! So this would all have to turn around, it had to.

These thoughts comforted her each night as she fell asleep, her team having been lucky enough to scrounge some supplies from their dorm to get blankets and pillows, though with how tightly packed all of the dorms were now, often with upwards of three teams to a room, that didn't necessarily mean they had space to sleep. Slowly sitting up as the fog stuck firm in her mind, Ruby found herself still stuck right smack-dab in the middle, right in between Blake and Weiss, with Yang on the -

Hey, wait, where was Yang?

Ruby blinked her big, silver eyes, tilting her head as she saw Yang's blanket cast aside and her pillow mostly untouched. But once she saw that Ash's bag was missing too, Ruby let out a silent 'oh' of understanding, as she nodded and picked herself up. Yang must have gone out early to give Ash some of his things; Ash was funny that way - he always had to be doing something! Like, all the time! It didn't matter where he was or what it was he was doing, he was doing something. Sometimes Ruby found herself having to hold back laughter when she saw the fighter staring intently at a book or his scroll, the prospect of a blind man reading being pretty entertaining to her. Yang must have thought something similar, because the bag she took was the one that had the weird-looking scrolls Ash was always typing into, like a journal.

Maybe she knew he likes to write his journal and wanted to make sure he didn't miss any! Ruby thought, as she picked up a small cinch-bag, in which was her combat gear and her scroll, and with the other hand she grabbed Crescent Rose, before kneeling down.

"Weiss!" She whispered to the snow-haired teammate. "Hey, Weiss!"

Weiss groaned lightly, turning to Ruby, "hm?"

"Hey! I think Yang went down to Vale to go give Ash his stuff!" She explained, adjusting the position of the bag on her shoulder. "I'm going to go down too! I want to see what he thought of his arm!" She giggled.

The heiress nodded lethargically, "okay... Give me a sec..." She whispered, lethargically rolling over to grab her sword.

Ruby shook her head, "no, don't worry about it! I'll be meeting up with Yang, so it'll be okay!" She appreciated Weiss wanting to wake up to fulfill Ozpin's 'two people at all times' mandate, but since she was pretty fast and the hospital wasn't far, she wouldn't have to be out in the open, and alone, for very long.

Weiss, mostly out of it, groaned something resembling an, "okay, stay safe." Before promptly losing consciousness again.

Now alone, Ruby slinked off to the nearest bathroom to change into her gear. Now in her comfortable combat skirt, and with the familiar weight of her collapsed scythe hanging from the mount on her back, Ruby deposited her belongings back with half of her team, and left the room. Out in the hallway, she saw a few of the juniors who had taken unto themselves the job of patrolling the dorms. No words beyond a kind nod were exchanged, and soon Ruby found herself outside in the early morning air. It smelled of a very recent rain, and the clouds above were still a deep, dark grey, making Ruby wonder if this wasn't merely a calm in the storm.

Only more reason to move fast. She supposed, with a carefree smile, before activating her aura and vanishing in a cloud of rose petals.

It took her all of one second to go from one end of Beacon's grounds to the 'emergency staircase', as was called the non-aircraft methods of getting down to Vale. She needed a few seconds after that to recharge, before again sparking her semblance and descending down to Vale proper in a fraction of the time it would take her, normally. She wasn't that fond of taking the slow route - especially when she had company, and couldn't expedite the process. She'd seen Srebro Lemarac once jump from Beacon to Vale, and wished she'd had her semblance so she could do that too. It would look so cool! Jumping from the top of a mountain, to land in the middle of a battle with a three-point landing, she'd look just like she were in a movie!

These thoughts brought a smile to Ruby's round face, as she pushed open the door to the base of the mountain and was greeted by the VAF checkpoint. She didn't put up too much of a fight and presented her scroll to the two soldiers, and they jotted down her having come down. Needing a checkpoint here made no sense to her - why write down who leaves and enters Beacon when the only people who would actually go this way would be the people that actually could? - but then again, a lot of things adults threw at her didn't make much sense. She didn't even want to get started on Professor Ozpin putting her as team leader, or Professor Port somehow never managing to teach, ever, and yet still maintain a mostly passing rate for his classes.

Wait... Isn't Ash an adult? Technically? Ruby blinked, as she idly strolled the nearly-silent, early morning streets of Vale, her reflection in the puddles on the ground being her only company. Yup. She nodded, suppressing a giggle. Adults make no sense, confirmed.

Some of the things Ash could do ranged from violating everything she knew and held dear, to being so absolutely ridiculous as to be unbelievable if she hadn't seen them herself. She supposed that it was a good thing people like him existed, though. If they didn't, people like those Terrans would be free to do the things they did without anyone to fight against them. A world without heroes - that wasn't a place Ruby even wanted to conceptualize, let alone live in.

As the clouds above grew just a shade brighter with the sun's rise, Ruby made it to the hospital and signed in - this 'checkpoint' making much more sense to her than the one at the base of the mountain - before strolling on inside. She remembered the way to Ash's room, and was there before too long, but found herself stopped by something peculiar. Or rather, the lack of something peculiar.

There was no Ash. Or Yang, for that matter.

Ruby frowned, peeking inside the dark room, but finding no signs of life. The doctors and nurses had already come through and replaced all the sheets and sterilized everything back down to that creepy-hospital atmosphere. She didn't like hospitals - her Dad always liked to joke and say that no Huntsman liked hospitals. One hundred percent of all people who went to a hospital died, he said, so it was typically a good thing to avoid going to one if ever possible. Plus they smelled like cleaning chemicals and most of the nurses didn't seem like they wanted to be there, or were tired, or both.

Ruby leaned back out of the room, resting an elbow on her scythe and cradling her chin with her hand in a thinker's pose. She leaned back again and checked the room number - yup, right number; and over to the left was Jaune's room, and a quick check showed her he was still inside, but he was asleep, with a few wires grossly sticking out of his chest, so he wouldn't be much of a help.

But, stepping away from Jaune's room and turning around, Ruby caught sight of a somewhat familiar face, just as he rounded a corner: Doctor Deer, Ash's doctor. With a delighted gasp, Ruby zoomed over to him.

"Mister Deer!"

"Eh?" The wrinkled old man turned around, and then looked down to Ruby. "Oh, it's you. Rose, right? He's not here." He grumbled in his typical gravelly drawl.

"I saw - I was wondering if you knew where he went?" She asked, folding her hands behind her back.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed even more than usual, almost becoming two thin-slits that Ruby was amazed he could see out of. "Why would I know where he goes in his free time? I patch him up, little lady, I don't babysit him."

That made sense, she supposed. "Hm... Well, when did you let him go? This morning? Was my sister here? Did they say -"

"Jeez, kid, slow down. Let me answer one question before you spew out ten more." He shook his head, and ran his hand through his thin gray hair. "Yesterday night. Yesterday night. No. No." He listed off, "one thing I pride myself on is that I don't get involved in my patients' affairs, kid." There was that word again! Why did everyone call her kid? She'd take 'little lady' over 'kid'! "It keeps me out of their problems and keeps their problems away from me." Well, okay - she let her uncle call her kid. But he'd known her since she was one, so it was allowed!

Ruby sighed, pouting. "You don't have any idea?"

"Negative, kid."

Ruby's teeth gritted in her head, but she nodded. "Okay. See you!"

"Wanting to see a doctor isn't the best idea, kid." Deer called out, though Ruby had been long gone by the time he'd gotten two words out.

Now back outside under the cold gray sky, Ruby looked up to it, a light frown creasing her brow, as she was absorbed by her thoughts. Where could Ash and Yang be, then? They couldn't be at Beacon - the rest of GEMS was in the same communal dorm as RWBY, and Ruby was certain she hadn't seen him there. The crimson-haired rookie hummed, wondering where that bar Yang had trashed was, in regards to the defensive lines. Maybe they could have gone there, and while it didn't make much sense, or really any at all, that was the only idea she had.

I think... Ruby thought, leaning against the wall and pulling out her scroll. That - yeah. She nodded as her map of Vale booted up. The Terrans had focused most of their assault on the industrial and agricultural sectors, the residential sector, while not untouched, was much less damaged and conquered than the former two, and Junior's Bar was pretty far inland, so it wouldn't have been touched anyways. However, even with a pulse or two of her semblance to speed things up, when she made it to the residential district and then found the bar an hour later, she found that it had been locked up tight, its business hours not beginning for another three.

Now she was beginning to worry a bit, but, if she were to be honest, not too much. Ash was crafty, always seeming like he had control of everything he came across, and Yang was Yang, so they probably weren't in too much trouble. She was probably just thinking too much, and besides, she at least had a way to confirm whether or not they were at Beacon. She spent another hour getting back to the VAF checkpoint, but asking the soldiers there gave her worrying news.

"Nope." The soldier shook his helmeted head, "says here Yang Xiao Long should still be upstairs, and Goud Etiolate never checked in period."

"Well..." Ruby nodded her head to the side, "Ash can fly, so -"

"Can Yang Xiao Long?"

"No..."

"Then if she came down here she should at the very least have checked out, but there's nothing." The soldier waved his hand at his computer. "So they're probably both still up there."

Ruby guessed that made sense, and as she ascended the stairs to Beacon, she came to the conclusion that maybe Ash was at Beacon Tower? His team liked to say how he always liked to throw himself into things whenever he needed to not think, and putting the tower back together would certainly qualify. A destination now in mind, Ruby's smile returned as she continued upwards.

Before she made it to Beacon Tower, however, she was stopped by something peculiar on the way there. Approaching the fountain in front of the tower, she found something on the ground, a small bullet casing, heavily weathered and beaten by the night's rains. It didn't look dissimilar to a Dust round, but looked like it was made of brass, and smelled more of explosives than anything else. Picking it up, Ruby examined it, turning it this way and that, as though the strange thing would -

Whoa.

As she lowered the bullet, she happened to look to the right, and found half a foot print, where the grass patch bled to the concrete. It was big and wide, like a boot, and almost completely filled in with rainwater. Looking around it, she found that there were several more - and that a few pairs were deeper than others, as though the people who had left the prints had been standing there for awhile.

But why would a bunch of people be standing in the bushes? Ruby wondered, as she looked in the direction the tracks led. And... Shooting... Her frown faded away to a neutral look of stunned realization. Things...

Uh oh.

Not willing to believe herself, Ruby looked around the bushes more, finding more boot-shaped puddles in the dirt, and soon finding tracks that led in the opposite direction, away from the fountain. Cradling her scythe in her arms, Ruby cautiously followed these tracks. While not at all her forte, she found that it was remarkably easy to do so, as two pairs of the returning tracks were markedly deeper than the others, as if the people had gained a few hundred pounds.

Or... They're leading me somewhere. Ruby frowned, looking around, but not seeing anything, or anyone.

Her journey took her to the cliffs leading to Forever Fall, before they abruptly vanished at the edge of the cliffside. Such a thing would have confused the young rookie, had she not had been staring at the ground while she followed the tracks. Thus, she found the thick bundles of rope hammered into the ground with pitons easily, and then pieces started falling into place. The tracks leading away from the cliffs were difficult for her to find, but the tracks leading back were easy, as though they had gained weight. Then there was rope that led down to the forest, and off in the distance she could see the coastline - and the terrans were staging their assault from the coast. Perhaps not Forever Fall's, but still.

Ruby let out a hollow breath of fear. The terrans had come in from the northern coasts, and had kidnapped someone - or two someones - right out from Beacon; and she was looking for two someones she specifically could not find, and had no times or locations for them since she'd gone to bed last night. Worse, was that with the bullet casing she'd found, that meant at least one of them could be hurt.

Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. She repeated to herself, as she stood up and peered through the scope on her rifle, scanning the forest, though not entirely sure why she was doing such a thing. What did she expect to see? One of them holding a huge enormous sign, saying they were there? The terran soldiers that had taken them, sitting around a campfire? Oh no... She lowered the rifle, eyes wide and lip quivering.

Okay... Um... She swallowed through her suddenly dry throat. Think think think... There were only two places she could think now, to search for them: Down there in the forest, or out on the docks.

She quickly eliminated the forest, however, when she realized that no one in their right mind would voluntarily set up camp in a Grimm-infested wood. So that meant that if anyone, anywhere, would have information on where Yang and Ash were - if they were the two who had been taken, granted - then it would have to be there. But she couldn't just waltz up to the terran offensive line and ask them where they took her friend and her sister, and as much as she thought she'd grown since coming to Beacon, she knew well and good that trying to pull an Ash and fight the entire army head-on was a bad, potentially suicidal idea. But she wasn't sneaky! She couldn't stealth through the -

Ruby gasped.

"That's it!" She screeched, before vanishing in a cloud of rose petals.

Perhaps there was a better thought-out way of waking up her team and Ash's at the same time, but at the speed at which Ruby's mind was going, she acted on the first thing that came to it, and that happened to be 'throw her scythe at Weiss and run up and shove Ecru.' While it certainly worked wonders in waking the two of them, and by proxy, their respective teams, up, it also had one unintended side effect.

That being waking up the other team in the room.

As much as Ruby would have loved, and had indeed tried, to have paired her and GEMS up in JNPR's dorm, theirs got filled up remarkably fast, leading to Ruby having to look elsewhere. Luckily for her, space was offered by a team of second-years, but unluckily, it was a team she'd never interacted with before, and was now about to involve in the proceedings. So as Weiss coughed from the sudden shock of having a dense mass of metal and munitions plow into her side, and Ecru nearly smashed the crimson rookie into the wall with her bat, the third team leader sensed the activity and heard the noise, and was awake just in time to see Ecru inches away from throttling Ruby, and Srebro desperately grabbing ahold of the dark-skinned rookie's ankle to keep her from advancing any further.

Brushing her hand through a head of well-kept chocolate hair, Coco Adel stared blankly at the slowly rousing room. "It's seven in the morning." She drawled, eyes flicking between Ruby and Ecru, before settling on the former, as she seemed far more dressed and aware of whatever it was waking up the room. "Please tell me there's a good reason."

"Uh -" Ruby shook her head, "I think Ash and Yang have been taken by the terrans!"

That, in short order, got Ecru to stop trying to murder her friend, Srebro to let her grip go limp, Myrtle to wake up, Weiss' head to snap up, and Coco's eyes to narrow, the lethargy earlier present now washing away in a tidal wave of duty. In the following seconds, everyone not awake had had that problem promptly solved, and all eyes were on Ruby, who recounted the events of the morning, from waking up until now. True to form, Ecru was ready to spring into action immediately, her Lovely Lady in hand and a fiery look in her dark eyes, whereas her counterparts on what remained of RWBY were ready and rearing to search for their missing teammate as well, the atmosphere in the room rapidly turning to one of a powder keg waiting for a spark to go off.

Coco, however, proved instead to be a small rush of water, with which she drowned the bomb and thoroughly defused it. "As much as they both appreciate the sentiment." She said, attracting the eyes of the two incomplete teams, as well as her own. "Think for a moment of the opponents we would face. At least twice in this week alone VAF, with huntsman as backup, have tried to mount counter-offensives into the industrial district. Neither one worked, even though the second attempt had fleet support. If we go charging down main street to kill our way through the docks - and -" She interrupted herself, with a cold look at the freshman teams. "- we would have to kill." She stated, firmly. "- we would at best tear through perhaps twice our combined number before the weight of their numbers and weapons crashes down on us and kills us in return. From wherever it is they derive their strength, the terrans are simply indomitable when it comes to forward assaults. Worse is that we've seen everything they've been bringing to the coastline and the docks. Their offensive line could be considered but a fraction of their full power, and the only place they would logically hold Ash and Yang is in a place where they could easily contain them - and that..." She stressed, "is assuming they are still in Vale to begin with."

Srebro frowned, "you're talking about the boats?"

One of Coco's teammates nodded, rubbing some of the sleep out of his eyes. "That would make more sense. They control their ships even moreso than they hold our land. If I were them I would have firing squads waiting -"

"Yes, Fox." Coco interrupted coolly, "they would be well guarded."

Ruby thrust a hand into the air, prompting Coco to blink once, then twice, before saying, "Yes?"

"Um -" She lowered her hand, "I kind of thought... Something like that. That's why I woke up GEMS! I thought that since Myrtle had that invisibility semblance, she could sneak us all into the docks and we could look for clues!"

The blue-haired woman in question chuckled nervously, "Ruby, I'm good, but it took a lot out of me just keeping them -" She indicated Srebro and Ecru, "invisible for our last sparring match. And to say nothing of making us intangible - I can't keep that up for more than a few minutes, and that's if it's just me. I couldn't have us all sneaking around in enemy territory like that, I'd burn out and we'd be found before we could blink."

"But -" Ruby sputtered, "we can't make you go alone!" Her eyes were wide and her expression was aghast at the thought of sending the thief into enemy territory on her own.

"She wouldn't." Blake picked up, "while I am not as skilled as she, I am not inexperienced in the art of stealth."

"We could send you two in and have us fighters waiting as backup." Ecru suggested, itching at her scalp.

"Whatever we do..." Coco took the reins back, "realize that if we were caught, we would have to leave. Period." She said, "we would first have to fight them to distract them from the person attempting to steal their secrets, and then fight again to be able to run away. For this search, we would only have one chance. The question shouldn't be if we send in Myrtle alone, but rather if the added benefit of a second scout is worth the doubled risk of exposure." She said, "because remember: They have a different written language than us. That means we must capture one of them for interrogation purposes." She laid her hands in her lap, "more risks."

The tan sophomore next to Fox hummed, "I know Velvet got a healthy number of pictures during the fighting." He said, turning to the rabit-eared woman seated cross-legged with her back to the wall. "Did you get any mortars, by chance? Perhaps we could feign an attack in one area, and while they send defensive forces to respond, Myrtle could find someone with rank and take him in the confusion."

Before she could speak, however, Ecru countered with, "that assumes all of their soldiers will drop everything they're doing and run to the gunfire."

"Guys -" Weiss interjected, "am I the only one who has noticed we've not mentioned Professor Ozpin once in this conversation?" She asked, looking around at everyone. "I want to save Yang and Ash as much as all of you, but it almost sounds as though you're deliberately keeping him out of this."

"Well... Not deliberately..." Ruby nodded to the side, shrugging her shoulders meekly. "But this isn't Atlas. Professor Ozpin would only let us do this with military support, and he doesn't have control over VAF." She leaned in close, "you guys heard about the things he had to do to get them to make the no man's land so suddenly?"

Fox nodded, "quite a few generals in VAF have lost trust in Ozpin after that. And consider that many of them may see Ash's disappearance as him being a hot-headed teenager seeking glory. So for Ozpin to return a week later and ask for bodies and ships to assist in Ash's rescue, when they don't even know if taking back the docks will lead to such a thing? They would refuse outright."

"Their rescue plan would be winning the war." Said the tan boy next to him, "leaving Ozpin with only two options: Conceding their point, or asking other huntsmen to attempt the mission themselves. And even that is not likely to go over well, as the only huntsmen and huntresses he truly holds rank over are the students and staff at Beacon. The rest listen due to respect, but are not required to at all, and I believe many may share the VAF's opinion that the battle should have been fought instead of stalled, resulting in them refusing to throw themselves into the meat grinder for the boy whose word flattened millions of lien of the kingdom."

Ruby looked lost, mouth hanging as her breaths quickened. "But they can't do nothing!" She breathed, "it's - they - they can't!" She stressed.

"They can, Ruby, and they will." Coco said, morosely. "As powerful as Ozpin is, a great deal of his word has weight during peace time and in the matters of the Grimm. This is neither, and he burned a great deal of his good will to create the no man's land." She leaned back on her hands, "the fact of the matter is that we only have what we ourselves are capable of bringing to the table. At best, that is us, and perhaps JNPR - but I would hesitate bringing a third weakened team into the mix."

"Pyrrha does have the magnetism semblance, though." Myrtle brought up, causing all eyes to fall to her. "What, you never figured it out?"

"No." Weiss murmured, aghast. "How did you?"

"I actually pay attention when she fights. Put it together with her fight with Ash in the entrance tournament." Myrtle waved it away, "point is, a magnetokinetic could be a great force multiplier against an army of no huntsmen and explosive, metal weapons."

"But another weakened team, regardless. As well, if the idea is stealth, bringing in three more people would make it only the harder for those of us not sneaking through the docks to remain hidden." Coco spoke, bringing the conversation back on track. "The goal would be to avoid combat, at least until we could locate Ash and Yang. Bringing a third team into the mix would help, perhaps tremendously due to the addition of numbers, if it came to exchanging gunfire with the terrans, but finding a place that would hide all of us, nearby to the docks, that would not result in us being caught, would become difficult."

Ecru frowned, "I don't hear you saying no." She pointed out.

Coco shrugged, "because I know Ruby by reputation, and I was there when Ash caught those missiles. The two of them are remarkably similar in many ways, but chief among them how much they are willing to give for those they care for. I can conclude that their teams would have a similar drive, if not the same kind. As a result, I know there is little I can do to stop them from being hurt but help." A beat, "and I'm pretty certain if he and Pyrrha don't hook up by the end of the year, then they will be by the time we see them next year. So bringing her would just be fun."

"Oh no she's starting." Fox dropped his head into his hands, digging his fingers into his hair.

Ecru grew a wide grin at these words, "oh so you clearly aren't in the loop!"

The only other male in the room's eyes grew wide, "there's two of them - Fox, she's encouraging her!"

"Escape Plan Alpha." Fox grunted, hauling himself to his feet. "Let's go get dressed."

With the teams she had assembled all either throwing gossip, getting dressed, or some combination of both, Ruby set out to find the last of their minor merry army.

So what would we be called? She wondered, arms swinging as she descended to JNPR's floor. We've got CFVY... RWBY without the 'Y', GEMS without the 'G', and if they help us out, we'll have JNPR without the 'J'. Looking at it purely like that, it merely appeared like a gigantic jumble of letters that she couldn't make any sense out of. Maybe we should have something like a... A big group name. Something that refers to all of us as a whole. She frowned. But that brings me back to the first issue... She wondered, opening the door to the floor she'd used to sleep on, finding it just as eerily quiet as the rest of the dorm.

I mean, I guess it isn't really important... But it's the thought. She reasoned, as she walked the once-familiar halls and navigated her way to JNPR's dorm.

To her surprise, though, as she reached it, she found someone sliding out, a familiar, if quiet, face, and one of the increasingly small minority of boys in all the teams she knew. Ren, like the crimson-haired rookie before her, seemed to have woken up and gotten dressed before the rest of his team, though what prompted him to head out was anyone's guess.

Maybe he's getting some food from downstairs? He's out alone... She shook her head and sped up, jogging up to the green-clad fighter. "Hey, Ren!" She called out, breaking the silence of the hallways like a cannon.

Ren, for his part, barely reacted, merely turning to face her with his usual blank expression. "Ruby." He nodded to her, as she jogged up. "What makes you up so early?" A beat, "you seem stressed." He added, his calm, quiet voice a stark contrast to her usual boom.

Ruby slowed down as she reached her, "well..." She began, before throwing herself into an animated recounting of her morning up until now.

Once she was finished, Ren stood there, a small frown on his face, eyes lowered as he digested her tale and the request. "This is most troubling." He murmured, "but I wouldn't disagree with Coco Adel's assessment. Of the minor army you are assembling, only one would be at full power, add that none of us have experience fighting with the other teams in the first place, and our prospects for a battle with the terrans would necessitate a very short engagement. Otherwise we risk more injuries." He said.

Ruby nodded, "yeah, but -"

"Mind you I am not saying no." Ren continued, "but I press this because it seems you all have failed to consider Yang and Goud in this."

Ruby blinked, "hm?"

"Your sister even without her weapons is a remarkably capable fighter, Ruby. Little but the entrance exams is needed as proof of this, and as for Goud - he may be tired and recovering from battle, but his greatest weapon is and always has been his mind for battle - without it, I very much doubt he could have fought Pyrrha for as long as he did, or achieved what he did on the coastline, last week." He explained, "with his tactical knowledge and Yang's strength, I am certain they could break themselves out of any bonds in which they may be held. We mustn't discount the two of them. This could very well be a problem that fixes itself."

Ruby felt lost, "but we can't do nothing!" She stressed, feeling her heart begin to hammer in her chest.

"I'm not intimating we do nothing, Ruby, far from it." Ren shook his head, "merely saying that just as it is unwise to underestimate our friends. They may be capable of things we never thought them of." He said, "return to your team, I'll wake mine, and we'll come to you."

Ruby nodded cautiously, "okay..." She said, "thank you, Ren." She added, before rushing back upstairs to deliver the news.

Assembling the small army, getting them up to speed, getting volunteers, and then equipping everyone for war would turn out to be the easiest part of the day. Once everyone was fully prepared and situated, the next goal was to actually get to the docks where the terrans were staging their war, which was where things began to get difficult. The easiest and most direct route would simply be going through Vale, but the issue there was with the emergency defensive walls erected by the VAF. Designed as a last resort against a full-on, out-and-out Grimm invasion, the only ways past them were either through them, through VAF checkpoints, or over them - and in order, even with their collective strength they couldn't break those walls, avoiding VAF was their entire goal, and going over them would trip any number of sensors that would alert VAF, and through them Ozpin, to what they were doing.

That left them with two options: Trying to go down Cya River, or going outside of vale Entirely. Since the former option would run the risk of them being seen by everyone they wanted to avoid, that left the teams with only one route, and found them in southern Forever Fall. Their goal to skirt vale as far west as they could wouldn't quite put them on the docks, but it would allow them to penetrate past the No Man's Land and into terran controlled Vale, which gave them much more room to maneuver, as they knew from mere exposure that the terrans were focusing almost entirely on their attack, and as a result any areas they had taken were more or less abandoned and empty, left to be picked back up and occupied once they were presumably done with their invasion, with only the occasional patrol to mark their presence anywhere but their front and rear lines.

Unfortunately, such a trip took a few hours to fully undertake. A few minor Grimm encounters, as well as unforgiving terrain, meant that by the time they found themselves again within eyesight of Vale's formidable defensive wall, the sun, once hiding behind the thick gray clouds and the distant horizon, had fully risen to meet them, though failing to fully break the last gift left by the night's heavy rains, resulting in a thoroughly gray atmosphere, muting any of the natural greens and blues that surrounded them into one uniform gray.

Climbing this wall also proved to be something of a challenge, though this was solved almost as soon as it was presented when Weiss painted it with her semblance, allowing the assembled rookie huntsmen to literally walk all over it. At the top of the wall the group took a break, both to recover from the day thus far, and to prepare for what would come next, as the team leaders - both official and de-facto - stood at its edge and looked out at Vale.

The image was, in a word, depressing. They were in the agricultural district, and while it hadn't been hit nearly as hard as the industrial one, that was primarily because what little VAF presence had been here in the first place had been stampeded through with little resistance at all, and before the bombing had halted their advance, they'd nearly taken all of it. Just as the terrans had crippled almost all of Vale's industry, they had also effectively set it up to starve to death, no doubt to either force them to attack and carve themselves apart in a final battle, or to make them stay put and whither away until they had to surrender, or face their entire country falling apart.

Beyond the mostly flat plains of the agricultural district could be seen the ruins of the industrial district, and what hadn't been flattened by the bombing had been torn apart, burned, or otherwise horrendously damaged by the fighting, leaving scarred streets and bombed out husks of buildings, and past that, they could see the ocean, and the docks. Standing in stark contrast to the other districts, the docks were crawling with invading soldiers, it seeming that they had taken any available inch of space and either put a person or a vehicle there.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it looks like they're gearing up for another attack." Said Coco, peering through a pair of binoculars.

"Are they?" Ruby asked, one eye pressed to the scope of her weapon, trying to see what it was Coco could see. "I can't tell."

"It's their vehicles." Pyrrha responded, herself looking through another pair of binoculars, and all three of them crouched behind the lip of the wall. "The ones without weapons or armor are their engineers, and there are a lot of them looking over their vehicles. They're checking them to make sure they're ready for an attack."

"Well, okay, but why does it look like they're putting them all in cages?" Ruby piped in, examining a trio of soldiers constructing a large, metal cage made up of both tessellating hexagonal bars and wire mesh connecting them all. "Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of preparing them for an attack?"

"That I couldn't tell you." Coco responded, "but whatever their reasoning, that'll actually only be good for us. More of their vehicles are in cages than aren't." She pointed out, "so if we have to fight them, we may stand more of a chance than we thought... Do you two see that big brick building a mile or two to the right of the crane Ash cut down?" After a few moments, she got a few affirmatives, "I vote we stage there. It's got a decent vantage point for our marksmen, but isn't so high up that they would prefer it over other potential snipers' nests."

A few more affirmatives, and soon enough the groups were gathered up and dashing through Vale. As they'd earlier assessed, there were few, if any, soldiers patrolling the parts of the kingdom they had taken, and as such the only thing they were limited by was time, and cover from any of their aerial forces. By the time an hour had passed and the morning was inching closer to the afternoon, they had found themselves in the industrial district and sneaking into a three-story brick building. Ruby found her attention momentarily captured by the gaping hole in its north-western corner, before Blake hurried her inside.

Once the four groups found themselves a large office room in the center of the building to claim, Coco stood up to bat. "At this point, there isn't much more I can say we haven't already heard." She said, adjusting her sunglasses, and resting her briefcase on the table. "Myrtle, have you decided if you'll be going alone, or with a partner?"

"With a partner." Said the woman in question, after she brushed some of her bright blue hair behind her ear. "If the idea is to just take one guy, it would be easier if I went in with someone else. With my semblance, I could make sure the way forward was always clear once we knocked him out and they picked him up."

Blake stood to her feet, nodding to Coco and to Myrtle, signifying her readiness.

Coco nodded, "then on your leave. Don't hesitate to sound the alarm if you have to."

After having spent the morning planning and maneuvering a rescue operation for Ash and Yang, Weiss Schnee found that the next part of the assembled teams plan could be best described as 'hurry up and wait'. Myrtle was their only and best stealth expert, and Weiss was somewhat relieved she'd decided to go at it alone - while not inexperienced, there was a certain thing she lacked in comparison to the specialist, invisibility aside. While Weiss wasn't nearly as good a scout as Blake, she was confident enough in her ability to secure their perimeter, as the others found entrances and exits and set up shop. The only person without something immediate to do was Ruby, and that was because, as the only one among them with any extreme-long range weapons, she'd been stuck in an improvised sniper's nest to keep an eye on Myrtle, and guide or assist her when needed.

Finding a window on their base's north-facing wall, Weiss surreptitiously peeked out, using the camera on her scroll as an improvised mirror, such that she wasn't standing out in the open like a buffoon, waiting to be seen. Not being native to Vale, she had had far less of a reaction to seeing it leveled and trashed by the terrans, one of pity rather than sorrow. The once vibrant and lively kingdom was now cowering behind hastily erected defenses and terrified that any moment more bombs and mortars would rain down from the sky, heralding another titanic advance from the impossibly powerful invaders.

It was that subject, the one of their power, that Weiss found herself wondering about as she scanned over the streets and buildings in their vicinity. These were a people who, so far as they knew, simply didn't use, or didn't have, any dust whatsoever. None of their weapons, none of their vehicles, none of their people or devices, nothing at all had any Dust, and yet here they were, at this point kept at bay merely because they didn't want to be fighting. Their replacement for Dust seemed to just be copious amounts of explosives - literally anything that could explode. Oil, gasoline, gunpowder, magnesium, if it could explode, these strange people took it and used it in unsafe, and frankly excessive amounts.

But can that really be it? The heiress wondered, briefly turning the scroll to face the docks, and watching as more of the strange cages were erected around their vehicles, and some even around the buildings they had appropriated. There must be more to it than that. There was the fact that neither she, nor anyone, really, knew anything about these people - not even which country they hailed from.

Their uniforms were foreign to the four kingdoms, their armor seemed designed solely around protecting against gunfire, not Grimm, and it even seemed to her that some of them came from different kingdoms to eachother, if the patches she'd seen and languages she'd heard were any indication. Perhaps that had something to do with it? That whatever lands and kingdoms they came from, wherever they were, had crafted them into these mighty warriors? If that were the case, Weiss truly feared whenever their Huntsmen would enter the fray. All of this had been done solely with their conventional, aura-less forces, and if that were any indication of their baseline strength, a Huntsmen could probably give an academy Headmaster a run for their money.

Though that did beg the question as to if they even had any huntsmen in the first place, and that thought prompted another in the heiress: That perhaps they had none at all. Without another aura user to do so, Dust was intrinsic to unlocking one's own aura, and it seemed that these people were dead-set against using Dust at all. Perhaps, in a roundabout way, that was where they drew their strength from: Not from any one thing, but simply due to the fact that without Dust, one would need unparalleled killing power in order to survive in this world. Thinking on it further, Weiss felt this made a certain amount of sense - with no Dust, this kingdom, or kingdoms, would likely have put more money into weapons development and military funding than even Atlas - perhaps even creating a one hundred percent martial society, spending more money on their militaries than the four kingdoms did combined, resulting in the weapons and technology they brought to bear here. Add on their numbers and they could make fights with Grimm trivial at best, and simply difficult at worst.

And perhaps that explains why they are here... Weiss thought, turning the scroll back away from the docks and looking over the surrounding area again. In the absence of Dust, they need so many resources that they drained their respective kingdoms dry to combat the Grimm, resulting in a war that would grant them access to the resources of other kingdoms. An extension of that could be that these people had no Dust period, and conquering the four kingdoms would grant them access to a resource they'd never had, resulting in an exponential explosion of power that -

Weiss blinked, as a subtle flash of movement caught her eye and sent her train of thought screeching to a halt. She hugged the wall tighter and lowered her scroll, waiting for a few moments, before raising it again cautiously. After a few scans of the area, she found the area she'd been looking at earlier, expecting to see terran soldiers on patrol. What she found, however, wasn't terran at all, nor was it Vale Armed Forces, or an allied huntsmen, or anything of the sort.

She saw someone garbed in light armor, peeking around the corner of a nearby building, looking down a wide street towards the docks. On its own, this wasn't necessarily strange, but it was several smaller factors that someone without her eyes may not have noticed, that painted a much more harrowing picture for the young Schnee. First was the armor, or lack thereof - primarily dark and light colors, with a dull gray coat hanging over the man's torso, a black hood peeking out from its neck and covering his head, upon which, firmly secured, was something meant to instill the kind of abject, existential terror into any and all living things that they'd needed as a means of creating a rallying cry and a unifying symbol. Something unique to each who wore it, but simple enough to be built and even mass produced, something that could mask the wearer and give them that faceless, inhuman quality decided necessary for their goals, as well as, ironically, to both mask their identity and to give them something by which their ideals could be identified.

On this man's face was the mask of a Creature of Grimm.

Weiss was staring down at a member of the White Fang.

Then she heard the explosion.

"Whoa!" Called out Ruby Rose, after seeing a mortar arc through the air and slam into one of the cages being set up by the terrans, obliterating what was inside and sending people flying in a cloud of smoke and fire.

Coco and Ecru were up in her sniper's nest scant seconds after the first explosion, which was joined by another, and another. "What's going on?!" The dark-skinned fighter shouted out, taking cover close to the crimson-haired rookie.

"I have no idea! Everything just started exploding, and -" But interrupting her wasn't another explosion, but the a chorus animalistic howls, as though a pack of wolves had arrived arrived and begun calling out to the moon.

Ruby watched then as, rampaging out from their side of Vale, were thousands of faunus men and women, all garbed in dark and light clothing, and all with Grimm masks strapped to their faces. Ruby watched with fascination and a gaping mouth as they charged straight towards the terrans, who immediately surged towards their sandbags and machine gun emplacements, and began exchanging fire with them. Bullets of both explosive and Dust instantly began filling the air, arcing over to one side or the other and tearing people and asphalt alike apart.

The faunus instantly began taking casualties, but they seemed to be well aware of how weak the terrans were whenever battles were brought to a melee, be it because they'd learned from watching Ash's fight with them, or from getting reports from the VAF, and it wasn't as though they were blindly charging into gunfire: Just as many masked, howling faunus were staying back in fortified buildings, firing down at the terrans and keeping them suppressed so their allies could charge easily. The result was that for every one faunus hit by a terran bullet, several others went unharmed, sprinting towards the terrans and firing wildly at them with automatic weapons in one hand, and swords in the other.

"Ruby!" Coco called out, snapping the rookie out of her reverie. "What do you see?"

"Uh -" Ruby stuttered, "a bunch of faunus in masks are fighting the terrans!" She called out, over the distant, but loud, gunfire.

"How are Myrtle and Blake?!" Ecru demanded, risking a peek around the broken wall she'd hid behind.

Ruby snapped her scope over to where she'd last seen her friends, but found that they'd taken advantage of the chaos and had breeched further into terran territory - so far, so fast, in fact, that she'd lost them entirely.

Her heart quickening, Ruby swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "I - I don't know!" She said, before one of the terran tanks not in the metal cages roared to life and shot at the approaching army - obliterating many of them in a thunderous explosion.

"It's okay, Ruby." Coco assured, as she peered out a window, and then leaned back inside. "If they were in trouble, they would call for help."

"So what do we do?!" Ecru demanded, "because it's going to be a lot harder for them to sneak around with the docks lit up like that! They'll all be on alert!"

"As will it be easier for us to enter the battle should things come to that, Ecru." Coco held up a hand in a placative gesture, "we must wait."

That didn't sit well with Ruby, who found herself watching the battle with morbid fascination. It seemed that the terrans had an answer for everything the faunus army was coming up with: The moment soldiers entered a melee, the terrans retreated under the cover of the few vehicles not in the hexagonal cages, keeping range on their side and thus allowing them to continue to rely on their weapons, and while the faunus were bogged down fighting one on one battles with whoever they engaged, the others gunned them down and freed up their allies to start shooting at anyone else who approached or had arrived.

It was barely controlled, bloody, explosive, loud, chaos, and worse was that for every one faunus that made it to the terrans, there seemed to be eight terrans ready to fight them. This was both an advantage and a weakness, as the faunus were capable of cutting through the terrans with relative ease when they entered melee, but also meant that they had a lot of people to fight - and a lot of gunfire to avoid, leading Ruby to assume that their cues must have been taken from the VAF, as if they'd learned from Ash, they would be staying on the move no matter what, so the terrans couldn't get clear shots on them.

Despite the mounting losses on both sides, the intensity of the battle never waned - even when the faunus managed to make a break in the terran defensive line. If anything, it grew even fiercer, as then the terrans fought in close quarters, with appropriately short-ranged weapons. Ruby watched as terran after terran were speared by swords or blown into bloody chunks by guns, and in return those faunus would soon be blasted apart by shotgun shells. Ebb and flow, give and take, for every kill the terrans scored, they had several bodies to show for it, but every inch the faunus took was taken over the blood and bodies of their comrades. Ruby saw things she'd never imagined before - bodies without limbs, intestines pulled from stomachs, more blood flowing than she thought was possible, and just as she thought the faunus might manage to prevail, as more and more were breaking the terran defensive line and the battles were saturating the docks, she saw the first missile arc down from the sky.

Looking up, she saw that the small terran airships had begun orbiting the docks, and were throwing their missiles and explosives down at the attackers. The terrans wholly gave up the areas most heavily contested, marshalling their forces around their vehicle cages and their command centers and holding the line there, while the planes up above blasted apart the faunus who had been fooled into thinking they'd gained ground. But, just as she thought that the terrans had found their ultimate advantage, she saw some winged faunus take flight and launch themselves into the air, gaining altitude and hurtling towards the missile-launching airships, soon turning this into a battle in the air and the ground.

But Ruby knew from that first day of the invasion that this - this defense the terrans were mounting - it wasn't even remotely close to the height of their power. Where were the hovercraft? Or the sleek fighter ships? Why hadn't they started using the vehicles they'd locked up in the weird cages? Why were they even in cages - they weren't very durable, the faunus mortars and sniper fire were cutting through them with ease, so it couldn't have been for protective purposes. Why were the terrans fighting with one arm tied behind their back?

And how were they still winning despite that?

Because for all the progress the faunus were making, the terrans gave up the ground they didn't need and wouldn't move an inch where they felt they had to. The practical walls of guns and machines they had built and assembled meant that they cut down any melee attackers in droves, soon bogging down the faunus in ranged battles - where they held the ultimate and immediate advantage. Despite having been taken completely by surprise, the terrans were still holding firm, and worse was that Ruby knew, somewhere in there, were Blake and Myrtle, now in more danger as they had to contend with hyper-alert terrans, and faunus who may not recognize them and attack on sight. Potentially even worse than that was that Ash and Yang might both be in there, unarmed and held prisoner.

Ruby frowned, watching this battle happen. She knew that the fact of the matter was, none of the faunus knew how to use their aura - and without it, they were fighting on equal grounds as the terrans, and that meant the terrans held pretty much every advantage, since they seemed so absolutely well trained and adept at fighting, whereas these faunus seemed to be rag-tag at best, their greatest strength their bravery and determination. If there were even just one aura-user in there, just one huntsmen, perhaps the terran advantage wouldn't be nearly as great.

And if there were thirteen... Ruby frowned to herself, hand tensing on Crescent Rose's trigger.

"Ruby, no." Coco spoke, eyes on Ruby's hand. "We can't expose ourselves."

"But they're dying down there, Coco!" Ruby argued. "We can't just let them!"

"They've a different mission than us." Coco responded, "we can't jeopardize ours to help theirs."

"To be fair..." Ecru pointed out, "if we helped out those faunus and we won... Wouldn't it be easier to take prisoners and find Ash and Yang?"

"Perhaps." Coco acquiesced, "but I cannot be the only one who has noticed that the terrans seem to be holding back, am I?" She asked, as the smoke from the distant battles began to choke the sky above, darkening the morning even further. "We enter this battle, we may find that they will abandon this idea, and then we will be alone, fighting the full might of their war machine." And as if to prove her point, as she spoke missiles - far larger than the ones that came from the airships - flew in from the western horizon, burying themselves into the buildings the faunus were staging themselves in and shaking the ground with their detonations. "Case in point, they've fleet support... And these White Fang do not."

Ruby blinked, "wait, that's White Fang?" Weren't they supposed to be terrorists? Why were they fighting for them?

"Few faunus armies wear masks, Ruby." Coco responded, as Pyrrha came up the stairs and into their nest.

"What are we doing?" She asked, as quietly as she could, given the battles outside. "Downstairs is getting restless."

"Coco wants us to stay. Ruby and I want to go." Ecru summarized, a frown on her face. "If Ash were here -"

"Would he, though?" Coco cut in. "Truly stop and ask yourself that, Ecru."

Ecru stared at Coco a minute, "uh... Yeah, he would." She said, "maybe you don't, but he believes in fighting for people other than himself. In saving lives if they don't have to be lost." She said, confrontationally. "In good."

"She has a point..." Pyrrha murmured, as she took up her own position on the wall, crouched down low, her rifle cradled in her arms and her shield hanging from her off-hand.

"That may be, but allow me to tell you what I believe in. It's rather simple: I believe that I don't know any of them, and while I respect their changed agenda, that doesn't change the fact that I value our lives over them." Coco argued bluntly. "If given the choice I would rather those two tear eachother apart so, if we had to fight, we would be dealing with a thoroughly weakened and tired terran army. I believe that that is a fight we would survive, and potentially even win. I believe that the Vale Armed Forces are having this same conversation and the generals and fleet admirals are saying the same as I: Wait for their battle to be over, and then pick apart who is left." She rested her briefcase in between her legs and adjusted her glasses. "It's basic warfare strategy."

"But we'd have to let them die!" Ruby argued, glaring over at Coco.

"That comes with the territory, Ruby. The sooner you learn that - "

"No!" Ruby crawled backwards out of her hidey-hole and slid over to where the wall was whole, to glare down at the seated sophomore, who blankly looked back up at her. "Isn't the point of war to fight over who's right and wrong?" She demanded, "isn't that why all wars start?!"

"That's incredibly naive, Ru-"

"But it's not wrong!" Ruby argued, "if we're fighting because we think we're right, but we let people we care about - people who fight with us, or for us - die, when we can prevent that, does that make us right?!" She shook her head, hair whipping back and forth. "No! No, it just makes us as bad as them!" She leaned back on her heels, looking as lost as she was angry. "If we're fighting because we're right, that means that we believe the way we think is right! That means we're fighting because we think their way of thinking is wrong! But if the way we think is to let our people die just because we don't know them - when they look like they're different kingdoms entirely all fighting side by side, who's righter then, Coco?!" She pointed outside, "my sister said those people were wearing different patches on their uniforms! That means they come from different kingdoms, or tribes, or wherever they come from! So they don't know eachother - but they're still fighting with them! And protecting them! And dying for them! So... So - no!" She shook her head, "if that's what it takes to win a war, then I'd rather win my way!"

"You'll probably die, fighting your way, Ruby."

"Maybe!" Ruby nodded, "but then I'd at least die doing what is right, Coco!" She pointed outside again, "those terrans outside, they don't have aura! And neither do the White Fang! But we do! We can help them!"

"Ruby, we're here to rescue your sister and your friend - her team leader." She nodded to Ecru. "We're not here to -"

"I'm siding with Ruby on this one, actually." Ecru cut in, "and I'm pretty sure Ash and Yang would kill us if they were here and heard us agreeing with you."

Pyrrha agreed, "I know Yang and Ash would throw themselves out there without hesitation, Coco." A beat, "really, Ash already has... And I'm certain if he were fit, even Jaune, my team leader, would be saying the same."

"Why did you come here in the first place if you didn't want to fight?" Ruby asked, "why do you go to Beacon if not to become a huntress?"

"Ruby, I don't know if you can tell, but I'm not necessarily in this game for entirely altruistic reasons." She said, indicating her clothes. "And I've been advising caution since the beginning." She said, "put another way: If three people give you the same answer, it is the duty of the fourth to put forth an opposing viewpoint, if only to play devil's advocate." She added, as the got to her feet. "If you want to fight I won't stop you. I've merely been saying why I desperately believe we should not."

Ruby's frown didn't fade at this, as she exchanged looks with Pyrrha and Ecru, both of whom nodded back.

In the entire battle for Vale, there had only been one instance of direct battle between the United Nations' and Vale's respective navies, and unfortunately for Vale, their choice of target had been a guided missile destroyer. Ninety missiles and what had been described as 'fifty motherfucking spaceships' later, in perfect English no less, the destroyer had finally been crippled and declared not worth trying to save. Its crew had evacuated, leaving a horrendously mangled, bombed out husk of a warship.

The good news was that its engines worked.

The bad news was that it had absolute shit for fuel and oil after being left to leak and rust in the ocean for three days, leaving it not only a bombed out husk, but an incredibly hot one that screamed in protest the longer it was forced to move its ailing corpse of a body to carry its two sole occupants to Vale.

Fortunately, of those two occupants, only one was conscious - the other sleeping off a combination of twelve bullets, an amputation by plasma, and more pain killers and anesthetics than should be healthy for a human body to take, the lattermost actually haven been taken mostly from what had been given to the conscious occupant for injuries he'd sustained much earlier than she. Though, the good news was that he'd had a chance to fill up that stock by raiding the destroyer's medical stores; he'd never seen so much morphine and antibiotics in one place.

The conscious one of them, however, didn't count his lucidity as a blessing, as that meant he was alone with nothing but his thoughts, a screaming warship, his stolen twice-over belongings, as well as a few new gifts given to him by his new 'friends' from Earth, and with how slowly this ship was limping across Remnant's ocean, he was in for a long trip, doubly so since the goddamn air conditioning was dead and the entire ship was heating up, and triply so if the engines died on him and he had to use his semblance to get out and push. Because he couldn't steer or propel this thing any other way.

Fortunately, his silent torture was ended by a new noise: The squawk of his new satellite radio, the mere existence of which confirmed what he'd thought a while back: That the Earth had shat out satellites into Remnant's orbit.

Somehow.

Unfortunately, when he heard what was going on at the docks in Vale, his heart sank into his chest. He'd hoped to have a week to prepare for this. A week to recover, update his journal, get some things set up to mitigate the side effects, but now it was looking like he'd probably have, oh, an hour. Or two.

So with a heavy heart, he nodded. "Open the red folder, Ilyich. Wait 'till I get there." He grunted into the radio, before stuffing it back in his bag, giving one look at his unconscious traveling companion, giving one look at his unconscious traveling companion, who was covered both by a few coats he'd stolen from the Russian Carrier, and so many bandages she'd practically been mummified, and sighing, before he got to his feet and made for the mess hall, hoping he'd be able to find some aluminum foil.

"I'm going to have to do something really fuckin' stupid..." He murmured to himself.