"I said low crawl!" barked the harsh voice of Professor Emiya at the haggard forms of Beacons freshman class, "Way to go maggot! You just alerted an entire horde of Grimm to your presence! Congratulations! You just died!"

The former Archer stalked angrily towards the offending student and grabbed the mace wielder roughly by the back of the collar.

"Hey! Get your hands off-" protested the mud-covered form of Cardin Winchester.

"Listen up kid," growled Emiya as he lifted the struggling teen to his eye level, "Old Ozpin decided you were worthy of being a team leader."

"So start acting like one!" snarled the counter guardian, hurling the student effortlessly to the start of the mud pit.

Ever since that first lackluster class at the beginning of the term, Professor Emiya's class had quickly become one of the most dreaded. There was no sympathy and no rest for the students partaking in Beacon Academy's mandatory Combat Survival course.

Obstacle courses, land navigation, wilderness survival, close quarters combat; every single survival lesson taught by the Professor was to be committed to memory and implemented correctly in the field. Failure to comply brought forth severe consequences.

"On your feet."

The battered and mud-covered forms of the students quickly jumped to their feet, fearful of the consequences of moving too slow.

"Now," Archer's piercing black eyes bored into his students, the leader of Team RWBY being the subject of his current ire, "What is rule number one for hunters choosing to utilize a firearm as their weapon?"

Emiya glared as the red hooded girl in front of him murmured an answer softly.

"Muzzle awareness?"

"Damn straight!" roared Emiya, "I don't care if you have a swiss army knife with a BB gun attached, never aim it at someone unless you're willing to kill 'em! Is that understood?"

"Yes Professor!" chorused the tired voices of the class.

Emiya nodded in satisfaction, his point made.

"Tomorrow we're running actual convoy operations for the local populace. I recommend those who failed the practical exam to study extra hard tonight," said Emiya with a slightly malicious grin, "Tomorrow is the real deal. That means you'll be fighting Grimm. Class dismissed."

As their combat instructor stalked back towards the Academy, the members of Team RWBY stood in various forms of shock, anger, and excitement.

"Man, I don't care how hot Professor Emiya is, next time he talks to my sister like that, bam! Punch to the face!" exclaimed Yang heatedly.

"Sister…" blushed Ruby embarrassed, "I messed up, Professor Emiya was just… Teaching…"

"Teaching? More like torturing! I've never been so exhausted in my life!" continued Yang, rapidly switching from anger to exasperation, "I think I'm developing cankles! I mean just look at my legs, they're all huge and muscular!"

"Hmmph," came the unladylike snort from the Schnee heiress, "I'm more concerned with what would make Professor Emiya specifically state that we'll be fighting Grimm tomorrow. We've fought Grimm numerous times since we've started here at Beacon."

"True…" murmured Blake Belladonna, "But Professor Emiya does seem to strive for the most realistic training scenarios. If we're fighting Grimm in his class, we'll probably be fighting for our lives.

The members of Team RWBY collectively winced at the thought.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained?" Ruby exclaimed halfheartedly.

"Bah, never try, never fail, that's my motto."

"Shut up Yang."

"Awww…"

Ka-thunk.

Ka-thunk.

Ka-thunk.

"For Dust's sake! Please refrain from throwing knives in the teacher's lounge Professor Emiya!" cried out Glynda Goodwitch, Beacon's resident authoritarian.

Ka-thunk.

"Whoops, slipped... " grinned the immortal at his colleague. Ever since the blonde professor had berated him for his teaching performance at the beginning of the school year, the archer had consistently gone out of his way to mess with her. It was especially amusing for the former counter guardian to annoy the dictatorial professor.

What? He was millenia old! Old man needed his entertainment damnit.

"I realize," started Glynda, a delicate hand pressed against her brow in frustration, "That we all have certain… Quirks."

The blonde professor glared angrily at Emiya, "However; that does not excuse damaging school property Mister Emiya!"

The counter guardian merely grinned at his fellow professor from his spot on the couch, "Well… If you wanted to get technical here, its not so much damaging school property but damaging my own."

Glynda's mouth dropped in shock, "You mean to say…"

"What? That I own the Academy? Beacon is a government approved institution, not a government funded," continued Emiya, his hand flicking another throwing knife into the Grimm poster on the wall.

Ka-thunk.

"Ozpin had the dream, I had the money. And so Beacon Academy for Hunter and Huntresses was born."

"I-what-gaahh!" exclaimed Gynda in frustration, "I can't deal with this right now!"

The immortal chuckled as his blonde colleague stormed out of the lounge.

"Analysis. It appears you have broken her Professor Emiya," came the rapid fire exclamation of fellow Professor, Bartholomew Oobleck.

"Doc," nodded Emiya to the green-haired history professor.

"Quite the mystery you've been Professor Emiya. Never heard of your existence until this year. Research has yielded interesting results. Most curious indeed."

Emiya raised a brow in amusement, "So you decided to go straight to the source huh? What'd you discover?"

"No traces of a Staff Sergeant Shirou Emiya surviving the 17th expedition. Further scrutiny suggests a false identity or a change of name in the years since. However; research indicates a Hunter clad in crimson did fight in the war, wielding a pair of blades and a mere bow. Also. Rumors of a crimson clad archer repeatedly appears throughout known history. Hypothesis. You are a part of an ancient line of archers that have repeatedly excelled in killing Grimm throughout the ages… Your analysis?"

Ka-thunk.

"You're a clever one Doc…" grinned Emiya, although his eyes flashed dangerously, "I'd keep that hypothesis to myself though if I were you, yeah?"

"Understood. Secrets, very dangerous," rapidly responded the green haired professor, "Obligatory warning. Threaten my students."

The fast talking professor narrowed his eyes at the immortal.

"And I'll kill you myself."

Ka-thunk.

"Fair enough Doc. Fair enough."

Jaune shifted uncomfortably as he stood outside his least favorite professor's door.

The teen hesitated as he lifted his hand up to knock.

He didn't need to do this. So what if he wasn't ready for the convoy operations tomorrow? He was an Arc! And Arc's never needed help. They were heroes!

Well everyone but him.

"Are you going to stand there all day Mr. Arc or am I going to have to hire you as my doorman?"

Jaune jumped in shock as the sarcastic voice of Professor Emiya appeared directly behind him.

The silver haired professor cocked an amused brow at the teen before him. What possibly could have brought her descendant to his office at this hour?

"Train me!"

Huh. He was not expecting that. An Arc asking him for help? Blasphemy.

"Oh really?"

The blond student clenched his fists angrily.

"I'm a liability to my team. I'm not strong enough," growled the normally carefree teen angrily, "You're the strongest hunter I know. I... I need help..."

Archer stared curiously at the blond teen before him. Normally he would have dismissed the boy without a second thought.

However... He was her family, no matter how distant. Some favors did transcend time after all.

"Are you aware of what you're asking for kid?"

"Look if you're not going to help I'll just find someone who will-"

"Relax kid. I never said I wouldn't help," said the immortal nonchalantly, pushing past the blond into his office.

"I owe an Arc my life," continued Emiya, unsheathing his twin blades from his back.

"Making sure you survive your first contact is the least I can do."

Jaune followed the archer hesitantly into his office. His limited danger senses tingling.

The whistle of steel cutting through air was the only warning Jaune had before a black blade cut through the air his head previously occupied.

"What the he-"

Jaune dove to the side as a white blade pierced the wall behind him.

"Don't just stand there, draw your sword, heir to the Arc name!" grinned Archer savagely, "To be a hunter is to walk with death! And I am its herald!"

"Twenty meters. Two o'clock. Pair of Ursa Majors," came the soft voice of Second Lieutenant Ozpin, ""We should avoid-"

A sickening crunch of twisting bone and sinew signaled the deaths of the Ursa Majors as the red clad archer dropped the dead bodies at his sides.

"Or you can just kill them with your bare hands. That works too," deadpanned the lieutenant.

The archer merely shrugged as he stealthily made his way back to Ozpin.

"I'm reeeally glad you're on our side Emiya."

Archer snorted softly in amusement.

"Alright then, here's the situation," continued Ozpin as he racked a round into his Ramsey D9 pistol, "Before my unit was overrun, we were enroute to our tentative objective rally point here."

The bloodied lieutenant pointed to a marked location on his map. The contour lines indicating a small alley bisecting the mountain range that ran north to south.

"Before the Great War this area was a part of the eastern gate. We were to secure the ruins and funnel the Grimm into our killzone."

The Archer shook his head, "Wouldn't have worked. There's Nevermore nests all around those ruins. Your men wouldn't have stood a chance. Not without hunter support."

"Damn it," cursed the young lieutenant.

Emiya thought carefully before motioning to the map.

"There's an old trail that runs through the mountain overlooking the gate. There was a contingency plan to detonate charges and block the valley if the gate was ever overrun."

The archer glanced sideways at the other soldier carefully.

"If those charges are still there, we can theoretically stem the flow of Grimm ground forces into the area."

"Those charges would have to be over thirty years old."

"Thirty six actually."

Ozpin glared lightly at his companion, "Would they still work?"

Emiya grinned savagely, "Only one way to find out."

The young soldier shrugged tiredly.

"Fuck it. Let's do this."

A/N: Well. It has been awhile hasn't it? In light of Monty's passing I decided to rewatch RWBY in his honor and get back to writing this story. However; when I sat down to write this, I ended up with the beginnings of a 10k word story focusing on what would happen if Jaune was recruited into the Atlesian Army when he first failed to get into Signal. But that's a story for the future. A lot of nothing happens in this chapter and it is of course atrociously short, but I figure people would rather have this posted then sitting unread on my hard drive. As always let me know what you think in a review and feel free to shoot me some ideas for the future.