Chapter 13 - The First Days

Location: Siberia, Russia

Time: 15:00

...

*BOOM!*

An explosion rocked until the steel doors were bent over by explosive blasts before falling down. Several soldiers came inside an abandoned warehouse each wore arctic themed combat uniforms with flak vests for protection and their faces hidden behind Stahlhelms attached with steel faceplates and each was armed with an AK-47. A single large man from the group stepped further as his eyes scanned the missile Arsenal Sector.

"We got our jackpot secured." The Red Hand Captain then turned to his men. "Call our Bullheads, we found them."

Outside of the abandoned military facility, Red Hand Guards stood in watch while other soldiers attached the metal containers to their Bullhead before flying off. In the meantime, approximately eight-hundred meters away from the old facilities, a group of Russian Special Operatives carefully observed the situation.

But yet, they were unaware that a single rogue Huntsman caught them from another hillside, she drew her Dragunov Rifle and took an aim towards the Russian soldiers.

Location: Russian Federation Intelligence HQ.

Time: 18:14

Qrow observed his surroundings, he was sitting in a conference room along with Russian Intelligence Officials after watching the video feed that was recorded several hours ago.

"As you can see here, the Red Hand have infiltrated several abandoned military facilities." Explained a Russian Intelligence Official. "Instead of simply making off with launch codes, they escaped with nuclear missiles chained to their Bullheads."

Then another Intelligence officer named Kruschov made a small cough before raising his hand, the Officer set his attention at him.

"Would it be fair to assume that the Red Hand have the intention to actually launch them?"

"Yes, but those are tactical missiles according to the supplied intel." The officer replied. "Our mission is to retrieve the missiles and apprehend the culprits in order to prevent their plans from moving forward."

The Qrow raised his hand. "Are there any rogue Huntsmen that we should be aware of?"

"Yes, there is one amongst them." The Officer nodded with a grim expression. "After they sent their footage, our Recon Units encountered one and were immediately taken out."

"Well, whoever that guy is, he keeps adding onto my kill list." Qrow remarked before taking a small sip from his flask and then groaned. "And now this time, they're getting desperate."

Silence covered the conference room for a while until one of the KSB Agent whispered to his comrade nearby.

"Why the hell did the CIA hire this guy?"

"They said that he was 'special'. Your guess is as good as mine as to what they meant."

Location: California, USA

Time: 9:15

California Huntsmen Academy, Class 2-A

"As you can see here Class, you may say that the Deathstalker is an oversized scorpion, but it's Armor possessed an incredible durability that can absorb a powerful High-Explosive Round from 120mm Guns." Explained a Teacher while pointing his fingers around a Hologram of a Deathstalker, then another image of an M1 Abrams Tank, with its main 120mm gun highlighted red. "However, despite the armor's durability, it cannot withstand additional HE rounds after the first shot forms a crack on its armor. Additionally, this creature cannot survive a direct shot of a HEAT shell or Tungsten Rounds like the APFSDS, however I am aware that a majority of you don't possess weapons capable of matching the firepower of the Abrams 120mm Gun. In this case, I would recommend you all to attack the unarmored areas, which is where the Deathstalker is the weakest."

The teacher pointed to unarmored areas of the Deathstalker, including the exposed joint of its stinger. However, one of his students wasn't paying attention and that student was none other than Ruby Rose. She was starry-eyeing at the M1 Abrams Tank rather than listening to the lesson.

Noticing this, the instructor coughed. "Ahem, miss Rose, is my lesson truly so boring that a simple JPEG is more interesting?"

At this moment, Ruby snapped up.

"S-Sorry Mr. Oswald." She apologized sheepishly before looking down in embarrassment while the students snickered, including Yang. Weiss pressed her hand against her forehead in irritation.

As Mr. Oswald gave a nod, he returned to his lecture going over the details of the Deathstalker until the school bell rang through the halls.

"Alright, I guess that's our lesson for today." Oswald smiled before packing up his laptop. "Tomorrow we're going to be discussing more of the basic Grimm with the Ursa."

After that, students walked out from their classrooms, most of the students flooded the courtyards and Ruby took a nearby table and opened her lunch box, in which Weiss raised her eyebrow.

"Cookies?"

"Itsh mai favouritsh!" Ruby spoke with a mouth full, the heiress looked in disgust and slid away from her.

"Yeah, we always used to ask her how her friends on Sesame Street were doing." Yang explained with a smile while patting her little sister's head while she fumed in embarrassment.

"O-kaay…" Then Weiss remarks before thinking to herself. 'She's going to get diabetes if she keeps eating those like that.'

"You are aware that she's going to get Diabetes if she keeps that up right?" Blake said.

'Oh, thank you.'

"Hey Yang! Rubes!" Ruby perked up to see eight other people coming by.

"Oh, Hey Richard! Hey Jaune!"

"Do you mind if we sit here too?" Pyrrha asked with a friendly smile.

Yang nodded her head. "Sure, no problem at all!"

After taking seats, Weiss slid near to Pyrrha while they entered a conversation with Emily.

"Wow, Vermont seems like such a beautiful place." Pyrrha said.

"Yeah, but the woods are just flooded with Grimm." Emily said. "My dad actually told me the forests up there were some of his favorite spots for camping and hiking before the Grimm showed up."

"I heard Vermont's got a ton of Ursas running around in some of the abandoned towns." Vince concluded.

"Not just Ursas but Apathies as well." Emily explained further with details. "Vermont is pretty famous for being where the American East Border Rangers are trained because of all the Grimm running around in forest and rural areas. It's honestly so bad that in my hometown, almost everybody has a gun ready to go in case the Grimm get too close."

"Is there anyone up there who's crazy paranoid?" Yang asked while joining the conversation.

"Yeah, my gramps, a Vietnam War Vet." Emily answered with a frown. "He has huge stacks of guns and owns an underground nuclear bunker."

"Whoa! An underground nuclear bunker?!" Ruby went wide eyed in glee. "And with a massive gun collection inside?!"

"Y-Yeah." Emily smiled sheepishly while scratching the back of her head. "In my family, my gramps is pretty noteworthy for keeping an arsenal in his backyard."

"Clearly, the American 2nd Amendment knows no bounds." Weiss stated nonchalantly.

"Well, it did until the Grimm slipped through the Eastern Border and started running rampant in rural areas." Blake explains while pulling up a book. "It honestly made sense and a lot of other countries, like for example, Canada, Mexico, Russia, adopted it to arm their citizens in case the worst happened."

"So, Jaune." Pyrrha asked turning her attention to her partner. "Where are you from?"

"We're from Oregon." Jaune said before gesturing to Ren and Nora. "Me and my friends grew up in Sandy City."

"So, where did do all of your training?" Pyrrha asked further.

"Well, Me, Jaune and Nora just went to a regular high school." Ren spoke. "But my adopted father trained us."

"He was such a great dad!" Nora chirped gleefully. "He makes the greatest pancakes in all of existence and thank Christ he taught Ren how to make them! No withdrawals for me!"

"Outside of training, we just made some of our own adventures outside of the city in our free time." Jaune then chuckled with nostalgia. "Exploring, going to kill some Grimm. Since there were next to no Huntsmen around and local security was having a hard time, we tried to help clear Grimm whenever we could."

"And don't forget, we also do leg breaking!" Nora made a malicious smile.

"Leg breaking…?" Pyrrha raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"We've…also met some bad guys." Ren shrugged with a frown.

Then Pyrrha went curious. "Like?"

"Bank Robbers, Kidnappers, Anarchists. Stuff like that." Ren answered in which made Pyrrha shrug. "Even a few low-level Red Hand goons were a thing we had to deal with."

"So Jaune, what else did these 'adventures' of yours entail?" Richard asked while eating a potato chip.

"A lot of crazy stuff that you probably wouldn't even believe." Jaune said with a smile and then towards to Ren and Nora. "Oh! You guys remember when we went on that treasure hunt Junior year?"

"Ooh~ Treasure Hunt?" Yang points out with interesting. "Did you find anything?"

"Well…it led us into a cave near the city." Jaune started to explain his story.

While the blonde knight was telling one of his adventures, Ruby slid near Richard.

"So, Richie, have you told your parents about the team placements yet?" She asked.

"Nah, not yet, but I'm gonna be calling them later tonight."

RAVE Dormitory, (19:15, Evening)

After Richard took a seat near the table, he opened a holographic laptop before inputting his ID name and password until several app icons opened up. He clicked the messenger app and double clicked his father's username who was online.

The chat cam opened up and rang several times, the call answered with his father appearing on-screen.

"Oh! Hey Richard! How's the new school?" Derrick asked, with a happy expression plastered on his face.

"It's all good dad, how's mom?"

"Well she's in the Kitchen, probably preparing for din-"

"Honey, is that Richard?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"Let me talk to him!"

"Oh shi-"

Derrick frantically jumped aside from his purple-haired wife who came by and faced the camera. Based on her reaction, she was clearly excited to see her son.

"Richie! How are you!"

"I-I'm fine mom." He said with a smile while frowning.

"Did you meet any new friends at school? How're Aiden, Ruby and Yang?

"They're all good." He replied with a relieving sigh. "I've got my own team with Aiden and it's called RAVE. Emily and Vincent are our teammates and they're really nice. And before you ask, yeah I'm the team leader."

"That's great! I hope we can meet them sometime. Also, don't forget, being a leader is a huge responsibility so make sure that you don't-." Suddenly, she heard the alarm coming from the kitchen. "Oh, my casserole is finished! you can call us anytime you like."

Richard nodded. "Alright. Bye Mom! Bye Dad!"

"Don't forget to brush your teeth!"

Richard groaned in irritation. "Mom, I'm not 4. I'm old enough to remember that."

Then Lila stepped aside and Derrick took the screen for himself. "Call us whenever you have time, see ya."

At that, the call ended causing Richard to sigh in relief before closing the app. The bathroom door opened and Aiden came out with a bath towel wrapped around his waist.

"Hey Aiden, I heard you joined the Football team."

Aiden nodded with a smirk. "Yeah, training's tomorrow at noon. It might run late so Jaune and I might not make it to have lunch with you guys."

Richard cocked an eyebrow. "Jaune?"

"Yeah, poor guy got singled out by coach during gym." Aiden chuckled nervously. "Honestly, if half the stuff he said during lunch was true, then he should be fine. Heh, seriously, what's the worst that could happen?"

CHA Football Field, 13:00 Afternoon.

Jaune was running, he looked to the left and saw one of the Football players started to pass the ball to him before starting to sprint his legs to the max towards the opponent's field from 25 yards away. However, the opposing team are on his heels.

'I'M SO FUCKED!' His mind cried out.

Meanwhile on the audience area, few students, including Ruby, Yang, Weiss, team JNPR and RAVE were all seen cheering.

"Well, he's not so lucky." Weiss commented while crossing her eyes, uninterested.

"Go Jaune! You can do it!" Ruby cheered. "Just run!"

"Look! Fearless Leader is going to win!" Nora pointed out.

"Wow, look at all the guys chasing him." Emily said out loud nervously.

"Typically, he has the ball." Vince rolled his eyes.

He was almost there! Only five yards while he runs left and right to dodge other opposing team players in his way.

'One more yard!'

Jaune was almost there, but then a surprising moment came as another opposing player caught at the corner of his eye, and he started to jump. It grabbed his arm and tackled him aside to hit the ground with a hard thud.

*CRASH!*

"Ooohh!"

The Huntsmen Teams cringed at the sight that Jaune was crashed down by an opposing player until the coach blew the whistle.

"Nice work everyone!" The Coach called out. "Arc, you did well but be wary of another team player near the goal."

"Thanks Coach." Jaune groaned while trying to stand up.

"Hey Jaune, you okay?" A football player from his team came by.

"I'm alright, doesn't felt too hard." Jaune said sheepishly.

The Football player pat at Jaune against his back before departing, then he heard someone calling his name and looked up the audience and saw Yang waving at him.

"Aiden! You okay?" She yelled from the audience.

Aiden smiled under his helmet and raised a thumbs up, the students began to vacate the football field once the training match was over.

After a few hours later, the next subject came in and there's one thing in the minds of students that may groan in irritation, die in boredom and irk in frustration, therefore this subject is called... Math.

"Why math..." Ruby groaned as her head stocked against her table. "I hate math."

"Oh cheer up baby sis." Yang patted on Ruby's back. "What's the worse that can happen."

Fifty eight minutes later...

"And that's our answer." Said the teacher who wrote an answer after calculating a very complex math formula and then the bell rang. "So that's our lessons for today, Homework's on the board."

The students began to vacate the classroom. Ruby was sitting on a chair with dead looking face, facing upwards, and a drool of saliva coming out from her mouth and steam coming up from her head. Yang looked over her with worry.

"Ruby?"

Ruby then slowly spoke up. "It... really is... harder than... I thought."

Weiss rolled her eyes, scoffed while crossing her arms.

"How hopeless can you be? Skipping two years and then you get this."

Ruby slumped her face against the desk. "I didn't know!"

"And I expected you to be smart, but you're as immature ever!" Weiss points her finger accusingly towards Ruby before exiting the classroom.

At this point, Yang stood up to confront her

"Wha-?! Hold on Weiss-"

"Wait!"

Ruby ran pass around her and followed Weiss, the heiress suddenly stopped her tracks after Ruby blocked her way.

"Weiss, what is going on?"

"Going on? How can can an immature team leader like you would lead a team while you're not paying attention to class while being annoying even after the first day!?" Weiss fumed while explaining. "You slept in Grimm Class, you dozed off in history and don't get me started after I got almost killed in Chemistry while you put a Flame Dust into a highly volatile chemical!"

"B-But it's an accident!" Then Ruby looked down while pressing her fingers together. "I... I was just trying to see if it works..."

"Accident or not." Weiss scoffed while turning her gaze away from Ruby. "I deserve a better position as a leader."

"Where is this going Weiss?" Ruby asked nervously with a trembled voice. "I... I though we should be a team working together."

"You don't belong here." Weiss narrowed her eyes while giving her a dark glare. "In my suspicion how you got into this school in the first place and that other fifteen year old git of yours. Then Mr. Johnson made a mistake."

The heiress turned her heal and left Ruby speechless. She let her head down once more and turned to the other way until she met someone unexpectedly at the hallway.

"Well, this is troubling."

"Mr. Johnson!" Ruby snapped in surprise. "H-How...?"

Ryan sighed. "I heard a lot."

"U-umm, Mr. Ryan, sir?" Ruby asked. "Is she right?... I don't deserve to be a leader?"

"That's not all true, Ms. Rose." Ryan made a smile. "And I'll explain to you."

Outside of the school building, Weiss caught someone in the corner of her eye and saw Mr. Oswald, the teacher of Grimm subjects, who's sitting on the bench while browsing through the hologram, she smiled and walked up to him.

"Hello Mr. Oswald!" She greeted. "I enjoyed your subject and it was great."

Oswald looked up to her and smiled. "Glad that you enjoyed it."

However, not everything is quite well for the heiress when the teacher caught a desperation in her eyes.

"You don't seem well." He said. "Did something happened?"

Weiss turned down her smile and sighed in defeat. "Mr. Oswald, Is it better in my team that I should've been the leader? I think Mr. Johnson made a mistake."

Oswald was looking right at her, he made a small cough and fixed his glasses.

"Of course it isn't."

"She can't?" Ruby asked curiously.

"Being a leader isn't the title what you've carry, being a leader has a great responsibility to show it's best to the team, that means coordination and doing hard work." Ryan explained. "Ms. Schnee is only upset because of her intellect that she never deserved as a leader, but being a leader is more than having brains."

"What?! Why?!" Weiss demanded. "It has to be!"

"Ms. Schnee, Ryan hasn't made any mistakes and I've trusted him ever since years ago when I started working as a teacher in Californian Huntseman Academy." Oswald explained while shaking his head sideways. "Being a team leader isn't about behavior, strength, discipline nor Intelligence but it's about to take a huge amount of responsibility and to show the best person you can be."

Then Weiss looked down after his statement with a defeated expression. Oswald sighed and made a small smile.

"I hope you can understand that, Ms. Schnee."

"But how come that I deserved to be a leader?" Ruby asked.

"You have shown potential during Initiatio. When I was a leader in my team and did many mistakes back then in my old days, I wasn't bright enough, yet I improved over time." Ryan explained and made a small chuckle. "But I met a man, whose much more wiser than the old man Qrow himself, his name is Professor Ozpin, a Headmaster of Beacon Academy."

'The Headmaster of Beacon? From the Kingdom of Vale?' Her thought's stated.

"That man once said that he had made more mistakes than any man, woman and child has ever done." Ryan explained. "I might not know what he has done, but he must have learned a lot from those lessons, yet he was a man of mysteries."

"You... seem very close to him." Ruby said.

"Yes, and he was one of my friends." Ryan then looked down in his watch and started to take his leave. "I hope you and Weiss need to talk out and do hope that you both will understand each other."

Ruby nodded and smiled optimistically. "Got it, thank you Mr. Johnson!"

Ruby left while waving a hand to him, he waved back in response.

Later at evening, Weiss opened the door quietly and saw only two members, Yang and Blake who were sleeping. She went over to Ruby's bunk bed and opened the sheets, only seeing Ruby sleeping with all her homework unfinished.

Weiss couldn't say but smiled and closed the curtains before heading to the bathroom.

"You dunce."

Location: Siberia, Russia

Time: 5:50

At the abandoned Russian military facility, a Red Hand sniper on the tower overlooked the areas surrounding the base while in front of the warehouse. The last nuclear missile was stored inside the container before bringing it over to the submarine that upmerged from the Ice. The soldiers chained up the containers before the submarines opened both of it's large hatches in which an armored tank can fit in.

The sniper looked up and saw a black crow, flying from above. The bird scanned it's eyes across the facility, until the Red Hand Sniper received a bullet through his helmet and skull. A Russian Spetsnaz aimed his OSV-96 sniper rifle to his next target, another unfortunate Red Hand soldier who was totally unaware of being getting shot at. The empty bullet case exited the chamber as the new one slid in, a shot was fired until the 12.7x105mm armored piercing round, unexpectedly, tore through his aura and it received a gaping hole on the head.

'If I used a Dragunov SVU seconds earlier, he would surely notice.' His mind stated. 'One hit is all I need.'

Two Spetsnaz teams make their way in through the iron fences and silently killed several unaware Red Hand Guards. Amongst the group of the Red Hand patrol nearby, an RH Huntress felt something, it was eerie, silence and dread. She unslung her Dragunov rifle as the soldiers soon took notice.

Four Russian special operators fired their AK-103 from nearby positions, in which caught the Red Hand soldiers off guards, but the rogue huntress reacted fast, with her agility and speed, she had no time to dodge bullets and took cover behind concrete walls before they could pull a trigger, she took out her radio.

"Captain, Cerise here."

'The Russian military are here!'

"It's about time you've called! We're in a crossfire!" The captain replied back to his radio before firing his MG-3 in a suppressing fire against a group of Spetsnaz. "We got fucking Earthens ripping off our asses! Fall back to the sub!"

The RH Captain called out his remaining squads to fall back, some were unfortunate enough as they were mercilessly shot down. Some were even desperate to bring up their Aura while shielding their comrades from incoming fire, yet they were withered down with ease.

Explosions erupted around the facility while the Red Hand soldiers ran to their Bullheads, two Ka-52 appeared and one fired it's missile, the Bullheads were decimated by a mixture of missile salvos and chain guns coming from the attack helicopters.

Meanwhile Cerise ran through the flames and chaos, while on a sprint, she aimed her Dragunov sniper rifle and killed three unfortunate Spetsnaz on her way, one Russian special operative caught her from behind and took an aim, before that happened, Cerise threw a Ka-Bar knife to his neck with swift and deadly precision. She turns back and saw a large sword embed against the concrete grounds and a man fell from the sky, the impact of his landing gave a blast of snow and dust that obscured her vision. She quickly slung her rifle and drew a couple of kurki knives. Her red eyes scanned from left to right, through the sounds of explosions and gunfire, she caught a glimpse.

"Shit!"

Cerise jumped back in a nick of time, dodging a massive blade that almost caught her, Qrow dashed up to her and engaged in a personal, quick paced close quarter combat. Cerise dodged and counter his attacks, but he began to swing his blade harder and faster, she managed to blocked a heavy blow that sent her a few feet away from him as her helmet was ripped away from the blast.

"So that's how you looked under your helmet." Qrow smirked mischievously while swinging his sword in a circle. "You're kinda... hot, very hot."

As her Stahlhelm was dropped on the ground, the identity of the RH Huntress revealed to have pale skin, pink hair and cherry-colored eyes, she looked up to the Huntsman in surprise before gritting her teeth and took a defensive stance.

"I won't lose..." She grunts. "To some Remnant traitor!"

Qrow simply sigh, seeing at her in pity. "Look, Why won't you drop your weapon and surrender, you already lost the battle."

Cerise looked at her right and saw a group of Spetsnaz coming to her way, she smirked while Qrow caught her suspicion and drew his blade, she summoned a blue glowing object on her hand, a knife, she threw over and went harmlessly through Qrow and hit the wooden crates, he raised his eyebrow in question before he looked back to the RH Huntress, she immediately disappeared in a flash.

"What the-?!"

Qrow looked back and saw the same woman, who reappeared before jumping over the crates and ran for the submarine to escape. Qrow soon followed while activating his Harbringer in gunmode. He shot several times in attempt to stop her, every shot missed until a single canister-looking object was dropped on the ground, a stun grenade.

"Oh Shit-!"

The Grenade produced a blinding smoke and a deafening sound that dazed his vision and hearing, Qrow tripped and stumbled to the ground and cursed, the RH Huntress got away. While the Red Hand Submarine began to submerged into the waters beneath the ice, Cerise came at the nick of time and entered through the hatch.

"Captain! Lt. Auburn made it!" An Red Hand soldier called out.

"Good, activate the cloaking and set course to Somalia."

"Aye captain."

The Kamov Helicopters tracked the Red Hand Submarine through radar, within a few seconds later, their target disappeared from their sight.

'It disappeared!'

'Damnit! Should've known they have cloaking!'

Qrow looked to the sight where the Submarine have left off, he took out a flask and took a short drink. Within a few seconds later, he received a call message from his scroll.

"Yep?"

'Qrow, the Russian Airforce managed to shoot down some of the Red Hand Bullheads containing the tactical missiles, what of the rest?'

"Well... We got a problem."

Chapter 13 ends

Notes to avoid confusion:

RH = Red Hand

New Character Info:

Name: Cerise Auburn

Age: 24

Occupation: Rogue Huntress

Affiliation: Red Hand

Weapon: Dragunov Sniper Rifle and Kukri knives

Semblance: Knife O' Teleport

Bio: Cerise is a remnant-born rogue Huntress from Vale. At some point in her life, she joined the Red Hand for reasons unknown and it does seem willingly to fight for their cause against the "Faunus Oppression".

Semblance: Her Semblance "Knife O' Teleport", gives her an ability to create knives and embed to any solid objects like walls, crates, cliffs from reaches afar. Even though, the User can teleport at will whenever the knife is at midair or undewater. Then the user will activate the ability to teleport where the knife is positioned. To take note, the Knife is harmless and can get through Sentient beings and even Grimm upon being thrown. But regardless, the user needs the Knife to make it into a much more Physical Form when needed in close range combat. This ability is used in case for emergency.

Note: Click at my profile to look at Team RAVE bio.