DISCLAIMER: I do not own Youjo Senki or RWBY. They belong to their respectful owners.

[-]

The moon hung eerily over the city of Vale, twinkling its shattered light over the suburbs. Even in the dead of night, Vale was never fully asleep and bustled with the sounds of honking cars, laughter, drunken banter, and music.

But beneath that happy exterior lay a dark secret.

Nobody, except for the government and police force, knew about the criminal underground and what horrors happened in the dark. Theft, assault, the occasional rape, and the even more occasional murder.

And tonight was the night for those horrors.

"Come on, can't you animals move a bit faster?" Roman yelled, puffs of smoke coming out of his mouth like an asthmatic dragon.

The laborers said nothing other than the occasional growl. Many of them wondered why Adam even decided to allow them to help the criminal in the first place. They wanted to fight and work ever so closer to destroy inequality once and for all.

But instead they were taking orders from a filthy human.

Adam knew their complaints and assured them that this all had a purpose, even if they knew he hated working for them as well.

Right now they were busy hauling large crates of Dust to their getaway vehicle, a beaten truck that they restored at the docks.

All it took was a forged license plate to cover the old one and it would be untraceable if any authorities managed to catch a glimpse.

Roman pulled his cigar to his mouth and took a deep inhale. As he breathed out, he glanced down at the tied up bundle propped up against the alley wall.

The bundle in question wriggled as frantically as he could, screams of protest muffled by the gag and tears streaming down his dirty face.

Roman sighed. Why, out of all days, did this happen? As they broke into the warehouse containing a fresh shipment of refined Dust from Atlas, a snooping homeless brat had to peek around the corner, presumably looking for a discarded lunch the workers had thrown away before they left for the day.

It took three men to catch up to the elusive kid before he could scream for help.

He pressed the tip of his cigar against the crate he was sitting on and tossed it into a muddy puddle. He hopped off his seat and stalked over to the kid, who was still trying his best to break free from his bindings.

The criminal knelt down and roughly grabbed the brat by his dirty yellow hair. Luckily he had his gloves on, so he wouldn't have to worry about catching some kinda disease. Kid was filthier than the inside of a sewer pipe.

The child, feeling the contact, immediately shut up after being face to face with the man he had seen on TV so many times. The man wanted for theft, breaking and entering, assault, and even murder. The ever elusive Roman Torchwick.

Roman stayed in this position for a full minute before sighing and rubbing his eyes. "Listen kid, I don't like this situation any more than you do, but you don't leave me much of a choice."

He let go of the boy's hair and grabbed Melodic Cudgel, his signature weapon. Although it didn't look like much, the homeless orphan knew exactly what it was and what kind of damage it could wreak. "If I decide to let you go, we have no guarantee that you'll go blabbing to the authorities that I appear to be tied to the White Fang. Then again, not a lot of people will believe you, but the ones that do will put quite a wrench into the gears of our little operation."

The boy grunted in protest, trying his best to tell the man that he wouldn't say a word. That he would much prefer to leave this place alone forever.

"And since I can't really have that happening…"

He waved a hand behind him. "I'm gonna have to keep you quiet. Permanently."

A lithe shadow hopped onto the cement floor next to him, standing up to a height of a little under his chest.

Gleaming heterochromic eyes peered out from the darkness, one brown and the other pink. Clacking heels reached the boy's ears.

The figure stepped into the light, revealing a young woman with a brown and pink color scheme, her porcelain face smiling as she walked over to the bundle. In her hand was a little pink and white frilled umbrella, but the way she held it…it sent shivers of dread down the child's spine.

The boy screamed as hard as he possibly could, but the noise didn't get very far. The smelly gag in his mouth prevented it.

Roman shrugged, his eyes slightly tinged with guilt. He never liked killing children. Men and women and annoying teenagers he was okay with, but kids were where he normally drew the line. But, under these circumstances, he didn't have much of a choice. "Sorry bud. Trust me, I wish things could have turned out differently."

He gestured with his cane. "Make it quick, we're on a schedule."

Neo looked up, her eyes filled with madness as she traced gentle lines on the boy's chest with an outstretched finger.

Roman sighed. "I don't care if you like it when they scream. Take off that gag, and I'll have to explain to Cinder why the authorities found a brat's body next to a looted warehouse."

Neo pouted and pulled out her umbrella, pulling the sheath off until it revealed the blade inside. The kid began to struggle again, trying his best to find anything, anything, to help him out. A shard of glass to cut the bonds, a brick to attack his captors, anything.

Neo looked up imploringly at the master thief.

"Ugh, fine, you can have a little fun if you want. Just don't get too much blood on the ground, we're gonna have to dump the body later."

Neo nodded excitedly, now replacing the finger with her blade, tracing little circles on the kid's chest. The child stopped moving, breathing heavily as tears streamed down his face. His wide brown eyes pleaded for mercy, and fear emanated from every pore.

The girl simply smiled and licked her lips.

[-]

Roman lit another cigar as he relaxed in the van, letting all the tension leave his body.

Normally he would be pretty happy that a robbery had gone according to plan. The satisfaction was like a drug. But nowadays he just wasn't feeling it.

He never liked taking orders. And taking orders from that witch was really grating his nerves. He liked to go his own pace, but now he was being ordered to rob more and more Dust for a cause he knew next to nothing about. It sucked. After all, the fastest way to lose interest in something you loved was being forced to do it day after day, even if you didn't want to.

The sound of clacking heels caught his attention. He turned to face the window just in time to see his partner in crime walk out from the shadows of the now empty warehouse. He winced.

She looked horrible. Blood stained her clothes and dripped behind her, though she was taking care not to let so much onto the floor. Her face was also splashed in a healthy dose of crimson, and he swore he saw red in her cheeks, irregular breathing, and hooded, pleasured eyes.

She stopped next to the open window and flicked some blood off of her gloves into the sewer. Roman said nothing and took another drag. "You're sick sometimes, you know that?"

Neo just smiled.

"…whatever. Two of you go clean the mess up. We should have a tarp in the back somewhere. Wrap the body and we'll dump it at the docks later."

He held up a hand just as Neo was about to grab the door handle. "Hold it, shrimp. I don't want blood staining these seats. You go sit in the back and make sure everything is okay."

The girl pouted but obeyed regardless. Maybe she could have some more fun with the body. Dead people usually didn't excite her, but it was a way to pass boredom and perfect her techniques.

Roman rubbed his eyes. Neo was great and all, but sometimes he questioned why he kept her around. She had her benefits, but she was just so bloodthirsty all the time.

He felt his Scroll vibrate in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled it out and answered. "What."

"Was the operation a success?"

Roman gripped the Scroll a bit harder. "Yes, of course, you've never seen me make a mistake yet."

"Good," Cinder purred, "Now get back to the warehouse as soon as possible. We found some interesting intel on our little pest."

"Yeah, yeah…" Roman muttered as he ended the call.

He leaned back and looked up at the sky. "Why do I always get tangled up with the weird ones?"

The shattered moon said nothing in return but twinkled slightly, as if mocking his distress.

[-]

Tanya grunted as she shoved a miniature fridge into the corner of her room. Her back strained with protest and her tiny feet dug into the carpet.

With one final push, she finally reached the wall and plugged the cord into a nearby outlet.

She wiped the sweat off her brow. Finally. Organizing was complete.

She looked behind her. Viktoriya hummed as she hung up photos on the wall, most of them being pictures of her dear captain and friends.

Since she got here a few hours ago, preparations have already been made to have the woman dorm with Degurechaff. That included another bed, a cupboard, and an extra wardrobe.

To be completely honest, never in her wildest dreams did she expect Viktoriya to come to Vale. She had thought it was some random Huntress that would patronize her every move and not take her seriously since she had the body of an eleven year old.

Luckily, that wasn't the case and the Council saw fit to send her someone she was most comfortable with. Someone with undying loyalty to her captain.

And what she completely didn't expect was the letter Viktoriya brought her.

"I've been promoted?" Tanya exclaimed, her blue eyes wide with disbelief.

Viktoriya nodded excitedly and passed a letter to her. The letter was from General Ironwood himself, congratulating her for her bravery in taking down a terrorist that threatened to destabilize the power in the Kingdom. Then he hit her with a promotion.

So she basically bumped up from Second Lieutenant to Major in the span of a day.

Tanya looked up from the paper. "But taking down a terrorist would hardly warrant a promotion up two ranks."

Viktoriya tapped her chin. "But Lieuten- uh, I mean, Major, they took into account your leadership skills and the many campaigns you held during your stay. And of course, your performance in the White Fang attack a year ago."

Tanya fought back a grin. She couldn't appear too happy. She had to maintain her stoic image. The blonde straightened, "Then, on behalf of the Atlas Military, I gladly take this promotion and vow to withhold order to the best of my abilities."

She snapped into a salute. Viktoriya quickly followed suit.

Ozpin, who had been looking on from the sidelines, smiled briefly before clearing his throat. "Congratulations on your promotion, Major Degurechaff. I hate to cut this celebration short, but we still have a many great things to discuss, primarily about Miss Serebryakov's involvement in your class."

Tanya grabbed her things. "Of course, Headmaster. Let's go, Lieutenant. We have a lot of settling in to do."

And after an hour or two of discussing what Viktoriya would do, they finally got situated into their dorm. It seemed Viktoriya brought everything of value to her.

And she had a lot of things of value to her.

First off was her suitcase. It was so full the seams were literally falling apart and the metal buckles were barely clinging to the leather. It took two men to lift the entire suitcase up the stairs to the room.

Second were her boxes. While Tanya brought boxes full of bare essentials, Viktoriya saw fit to literally take everything with her. Some of the things she brought even confused Tanya, as the military usually did not allow such things in the barracks. I mean, how the hell did she smuggle two bottles of fine wine with her?

Lastly were her clothes. Clearly her second-in-command felt comfort was necessary, so she brought along as many t-shirts, blouses, skirts, and dresses as possible.

Tanya watched in mild amusement as the huge suitcase suddenly exploded, sending the clothes flying all across the room. She moved her head to the side to avoid a bra hurtling towards her face at about thirty kilometers an hour.

She could only watch on as the woman yelped a bit and flailed about trying to catch as many clothes as she could, her burning cheeks illuminating the room.

The blonde teacher sighed and knelt down to help. She gingerly picked up a frilly pink bra off the ground. Was she trying to impress someone or something? Seriously, if the boys back at Atlas saw her wearing this they would have their noses bleeding for months. No force on Remnant would be able to keep her safe from those hormone-driven children.

Thank god she would never be caught wearing these things. It wasn't just the fact that she was only eleven, but she was a guy too. Technically. God, she dreaded the day she would hit puberty again. If she understood correctly, girls often faced more drastic changes than guys. She shuddered a bit. Hopefully she would be able to fend off hormone-fueled teenagers in the next couple years. She had no interest in dating members of her old sex, thank you very much. Or dating in general. It was too much of a distraction to her work.

Viktoriya blushed more and thanked her superior profusely as Tanya dumped a multitude of bras, panties, dresses, and skirts onto her bed.

Tanya walked over to her own bed and collapsed on top of it. She had much to do tomorrow. First, she had to go over some of the strategies in the textbook for the lecture. Then she had to decide which was more applicable to put into practice. Then she had to go down to the forges and talk to the guy in charge.

She wouldn't be joining them in future exercises this time, however. She felt it maybe would be better to have the class duke it out themselves. Maybe set up teams or something.

Viktoriya finally stuffed the rest of her clothes into her wardrobe and sat down on her bed. She sighed and smiled softly at Tanya. "It's been quite a day, hasn't it, Major?"

Tanya chuckled. "You can say that again. But this job is infinitely easier than training you brats back at Atlas."

Viktoriya laughed. True, she had been almost hopeless when she first enlisted in the army. Everything scared her and sometimes she would be teased because of how timid she was.

It wasn't until she was saved from a Grimm by Major Degurechaff that she began to work harder and more in earnest. Soon she earned the reputation of being the Devil's right-hand woman.

She never really liked that title, though. Sure, she loved helping out the Major, but she didn't like how they called Tanya the Devil. She had her mean sides, but she wasn't that bad. After all, she prayed to God for strength before every fight and fought with a power unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

She hoped that Tanya would soon become more carefree and lived at least some of her life as a young girl.

The brown-haired woman hopped up excitedly. "So, Major, what are we going to teach tomorrow?"

Tanya sat up too, her fingers rubbing her chin. To be honest, she didn't really know how to approach tomorrow's lecture. Actually, she was quite busy with certain things, the most pressing being ordering more Dust rounds for her rifle. To do that, she had to go down to the forges and talk to the professor there about it. That left quite a small bit of time to prepare for classes.

Tanya pointed a finger at the woman. "I have some idea of what to do, but I think I'll have you try teaching for a change."

Viktoriya spluttered. "M-Me? I just got here!"

"It's nothing too hard. Remember when I was absent sometimes in Atlas, you took my place and held exercises? Basically do the same thing for tomorrow. Don't take them into the forest though. Just go through the basics of the strategies and I'll take care of the rest."

"B-But, I'm just a teacher aide. It would look bad if you let me do all the hard work!"

Tanya waved a hand and nestled into her bed, turning off a lamp as she did so. "I'll settle everything with Ozpin tomorrow. He'll understand that you need to get used to teaching here for the next couple years."

The young woman swore she heard a smile in the Major's voice. "Plus, it'll show me how much of an effective teacher aide you are."

Tanya grinned mischievously. "Good night, Second Lieutenant Serebryakov. Sweet dreams."

Viktoriya groaned and flopped onto the mattress. She loved Tanya, but sometimes she was a real piece of work. This wasn't the first time this had happened either. Sometimes the Major would leave without warning and Viktoriya had to take control over thirty men and women, all of whom would have rather liked to stay inside the warm barracks than the bitter cold outside.

Then again, these weren't battle-hardened men and women, just children, so it shouldn't be too bad.

She hoped, at least.

[-]

Ruby yawned widely as she picked at her daily breakfast of Pumpkin Pete's and several chocolate chip cookies.

Weiss spent a good five minutes complaining that her breakfast was way healthier and had more benefits than "an unholy mixture of sweets, sweets, and more sweets".

But to be honest, she didn't listen for most of that speech. Nor did she care. She was too busy being exhausted at the massive amount of writing she had to do for Degurechaff's class. Not that bad, my butt.

Even as she looked around the bustling cafeteria, she could see many of the students' frantically writing last minute papers. The brunette shivered. She would hate to see what the minute professor would do to them if they didn't finish their essays.

Plus she was still sore from all that work yesterday. Hiking and slicing through a thick forest was hardly easy. Especially if you were carrying a sniper-scythe mechashift that was almost two times your own height.

The table shuddered as the rest of their group sat down. Jaune all but collapsed into his oatmeal, Pyrrha helped his face out of the oatmeal, Ren was as passive as ever, and Nora was already gobbling a stack of pancakes.

"You guys stayed up finishing that essay too, huh?"

They only nodded, as they were too exhausted to talk at the moment. Well, not Nora, she most likely couldn't talk because she was scoffing down about three pancakes at once.

Her sister shoved a loaf of corn bread into her mouth. "Freaking essay had me up till three. We're lucky we had little Miss Encyclopedia over here to help us out."

Weiss glared at the buxom blonde. "I never gave any of you permission to dig through my belongings and loot my paper. If Degurechaff finds out you basically plagiarized my work, she would have you scrubbing toilets for a week!"

"…eh, worth it for the sleep." Yang smirked.

Ruby scooted over next to the heiress and pulled her most devastating 'puppy' face. "But you're gonna help us out later too, right? We're friends, right?"

Sadly that didn't seem to work, as Weiss simply smacked the top of the reaper's head with a rolled up newspaper.

Pyrrha laughed softly. She knew how the white-haired girl felt. She spent a good portion of the night helping her teammates work on their essays too. Ren helped Nora while she helped Jaune. Surprisingly, Jaune knew quite a bit on different battles in the Great War and how the strategies they learned tied into them.

When she asked her blonde leader how he knew so much, he just laughed nervously and stated that his grandfather used to tell him the many stories of the 'glorious war'.

"So what do you think she'll be teaching us today?" she asked.

Blake, who had been sitting on the sidelines, away from the frustrated heiress and excitable brunette, looked up from her book. "Well, if my predictions are correct, according to the textbook, we should be covering deception, distraction, and encirclement. That is if she's still going to cover three today."

Yang smiled smugly. "Oh, I know a lot about distraction…"

As if to emphasize, she stretched exaggeratedly and puffed out her chest a little more than usual. Any males in the nearby vicinity inexplicably found their eyes drawn to her figure like moths to a flame. Even the boys that were taken found themselves staring widely at the bodacious blonde. Sadly that consequently caught the attention of their significant others and quarrels soon erupted.

Jaune could do nothing but blush awkwardly. For some reason Pyrrha's grip on her spoon tightened when she noticed him staring. Maybe she was jealous of Yang's…impressive size?

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I don't think that's what she's going to talk about, you oaf."

"You don't know that. Using your body can bring down someone's defense. Why do you think I wear this all the time?"

The heiress's face turned red and she huffed and turned to eat the rest of her fruits. "Effective or not, using your own body for such…lecherous advantages is nothing short of demeaning."

Yang leaned over, her voice light and teasing. "Aww, is little Weissy jealous hers aren't as big as mine?"

Weiss nearly choked on her milk before she launched into a heated and embarrassed argument with the giggling blonde.

This banter went on for the next couple minutes. Ruby begging Weiss to help her out in the future, Yang loudly making raucous jokes, Blake reading, and JNPR just watching on with amusement.

When the bell rang, they stood up with heavy feet as they went off to morning classes. Degurechaff's class wasn't until late afternoon, so they were fine for the next couple hours. During that time they could hopefully mentally and physically prepare themselves for the next exercise sure to come.

But from what they knew so far, there was no way to prepare themselves for the inevitable torture they had to go through.

Please, Oum, please grant us a miracle…

[-]

Earlier this morning was uneventful. Ozpin woke up to the sound of his alarm; set to 5 AM sharp, brushed up, and headed out to oversee operations at 5:30.

Of course, during that thirty minute time he brewed himself a mug of fresh coffee made from freshly ground beans, graciously given to him by Professor Lionheart in Haven. No other coffee on Remnant came close to the exquisite bitter, yet sweet, flavor.

Surprisingly he received a message from Degurechaff saying that she wouldn't be teaching class for the majority of today. Instead she handed off the responsibility to her new student aide, who had been here for less than 15 hours. Poor girl. He wasn't even sure if she knew exactly what to teach.

Of course, being the kind and gracious headmaster he was, he granted the professor permission to test how effective her second-in-command was at lecturing. If Glynda had been headmaster, she would have under no circumstances let that happen.

He took a hearty gulp from his mug as he swiped through his Scroll on the way up to his office. He had a great many things to cover, especially preparations for the Vytal Festival coming up this next semester.

The elevator doors dinged and slid open, allowing him entry into his beautiful office. He would never outright say it, but he thought his office was the best looking office out of all the headmasters.

Lionheart's was very nice, but it was far too classical for him, ready to ignite in flames whenever someone lit a cigar next to his mountain of books. Ironwood's was the complete opposite. It was completely modern, with bleached white walls and state of the art technology incorporated all throughout the room. Not to mention extremely sterile.

Meanwhile, his office incorporated both modern and classical styles. The ceiling spun with giant bronze gears, surprisingly quiet for their size, and he housed several comfortable chairs and tables.

The grey-haired headmaster made his way to his very comfortable office chair and sat in it with a content sigh. Besides the stress from setting up for all the festivities soon to happen, he felt at peace. Surely nothing too major should happen today.

His Scroll beeped, heralding the arrival of a message.

Thinking nothing of it, the headmaster opened up app and lazily scanned the contents of the text.

She's moving. Grimm activity increasing. Something big happening here.

The comfort and peace flew out the window and hit the cobblestone ground with a thundering crash ten stories below.

Coffee forgotten, Ozpin quickly sat straight and immediately forwarded the message over to Glynda and James. Then he sent a reply over to his dear friend.

Cease all contact and delete this conversation when you read this. She might have eyes on us. Lay low and keep monitoring. Rendezvous in a month.

True to his word, the chat immediately deleted itself not a minute later, indicating that the recipient left the chat and erased all traces of conversation.

Ozpin sighed and leaned over his table. He rubbed his eyes with a weary groan and took a half-hearted gulp from his mug. Why was she mobilizing so quickly? After being quiet for months, she finally started to stir? And with so much happening too. From the Vytal Festival planning to her new professor, this couldn't have come at a worse time.

In fact, it was almost suspicious how strangely accurate this was timed. It was almost as if she knew him and the rest of the group were occupied and knew exactly when to start.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. It was extremely unlikely there was a spy in their midst. There was no way Glynda would do such a thing, and James, being the old soldier he was, would never betray them like this.

And he had no reason to suspect the new additions to his staff either. To doubt them would be akin to doubting James himself. Nothing would hurt his pride more.

And it was not possible that anyone else would do this. There was no one else who knew about Amber other than them and her cohorts.

Ozpin spun in his chair to face the window. So many questions. This truly threw a wrench in their plans.

But he couldn't do anything about it now. All he could do was trust his spy and wait it out.

If only he had time to wait it out.

[-]

Tanya was completely silent as she glared over her "aspiring" students, who were all rather quiet and subdued this afternoon. Perhaps they were scared. Good. As they should be. She hated nothing more than smarmy brats taking her lightly because of her age and size.

Like that Goldenrod brat all those months ago. She wasn't completely sure what had happened to him, but rumors spread how he was stripped of his rank and forbidden to join the military ever again. Good riddance. She didn't need that insubordinate in her squad.

She suddenly stood up from her chair, causing a sudden screech from the wood grinding on wood. The entire class flinched, even team CRDL. She would have to straighten them out later. If she disciplined them enough and broke them, they would have no problems in the future.

"I sincerely hope you all managed to finish your essays last night. If you have not turned it in yet, I recommend you come see me at the end of class."

She then reached into her pocket and pulled out her holo-disk, which she then placed on the table. "Take out your notes. Lectures will begin shortly."

There was a brief period of heavy shuffling as the class pulled out their respective papers. Ruby winced. "I hope today isn't so bad…" she whispered.

Weiss scoffed lightly. "I doubt that would happen."

The blonde professor suddenly turned and sat back down on her chair and pulled out her Scroll. "You can come in; I know you're out there."

Everybody's attention was brought to the wooden door, which creaked opened slowly. "E-Excuse the interruption, Major!"

What came through the door was the most adorable woman the class had ever seen. Viktoriya stumbled into the class, hair disheveled and military fatigues rumpled. Clearly she had been rushed for time. That was one thing that slightly irked Tanya. She always woke up so damn late.

The class mumbled. Who was this cute woman that suddenly popped into their midst? Ruby leaned over to Weiss. "Is she someone else you know too?"

"Don't assume I know everyone from Atlas, you dolt!"

Tanya spoke up from the front as Viktoriya made her way to the table. "This is Second Lieutenant Viktoriya Serebryakov or TA Serebryakov for short. Those are the only things you can call her. Treat her as well as you would treat me. Anyone who doesn't show my Lieutenant the proper respect will be punished. Got it?"

The class nodded furiously. Weiss muttered, half to herself. "Why on Remnant is a TA is here now? Isn't it too early to have one?"

Viktoriya smoothed her brown hair nervously. "Major, there's no need for that!"

She then turned to the class, a nervous, but friendly smile on her face. Now that everyone got a better look at her, she seemed very nice. Her brown hair was disheveled but still silky smooth, and her bright blue eyes shone with an enthusiastic light. "Hello! You don't have to call me Second Lieutenant, just call me Viktoriya. I served in Major Degurechaff's squad for the past 2 years. I hope I can help out as much as I can here!"

Teams RWBY and JNPR smiled amongst themselves. They already liked this woman better than Degurechaff. She was so damn cute!

"Fine. Viktoriya here will be teaching for the majority of today. Because I have to run some errands after this, we will not be heading into the forest. My TA will be lecturing so I can evaluate her."

With that, the blonde settled into her chair and opened up her Scroll. She waited a few moments before nodding to the stiff TA. "Start whenever you're ready, Second Lieutenant."

Viktoriya jumped a bit. "Of course!"

With one last effort to smooth out her rumpled clothes, Viktoriya took a small gulp before striding to the front of the class. In her hands was a Scroll, already opened to the files she prepared beforehand. With a slightly shaking finger, she tapped on a slide presentation, activating the holo-disk on the table with a dull hum.

The disk sparked to life, sending the slide up into the air where everyone was able to see. Already there was the noise of scribbling pens and pencils on paper.

Viktoriya cleared her throat. "So, following Major Degurechaff's method from yesterday, today we will be covering 3 strategies favored by the Atlas military. Deception, distraction, and encirclement."

Blake whispered to her teammates. "Told you."

"The concept of deception is fairly simple. Much like how those spy movies playing on the CCT nowadays, one principle of deception is intentionally leaking false data that will confuse the enemy."

She slid her finger across the screen and moved onto a new slide. "During the Great War, all the Kingdoms used this strategy. This was implemented in many ways, with each side coming up with more creative methods than the other."

The brown haired woman looked up at the students. "Can any of you think of an example of a possible way to spread deception among enemy ranks?"

Silence met the nervous Lieutenant for a good while. Squirming nervously under the gaze of the students, Viktoriya slightly began to regret jumping for the opportunity to join her beloved superior at this school. Major, why on Remnant did you decide to push me in the spotlight at the last minute?

A tentative hand raised into the air, stirring some surprise from the class ranks.

Viktoriya almost gasped in relief. With a small smile, she pointed to the student. "Yes, Mr.…?"

"J-Jaune Arc, ma'am." the blonde gulped, well aware of the many eyes on him. Especially Cardin's. His smile resembled a shark about to tear apart its prey.

Viktoriya gave a sisterly giggle that had the students clutching their hearts. "Oh, no need for the 'ma'am'. I'm not much older that you anyway."

Seeing the stunned look on Jaune's face, the Lieutenant's smile faltered. Did she really look that old? "Anyway, please give us your idea."

"Uh, so what I was kinda thinking was sending out fake plans that can be intercepted by the enemy so they think they'll be at a different place than they actually are?"

Viktoriya clapped her hands. "Yup! This was a popular strategy used by all the Kingdoms at this time. It was so effective that none of the Kingdoms precisely knew when to strike and when not to. They never developed a set strategy against this sort of thing, so the Kingdoms were never on equal footing with one another."

The brown-haired woman smiled up at the blonde. "Thank you Mr. Arc."

Jaune took this as his cue to set his hand down, his face burning as Pyyrha whispered encouragement.

"There are several more different branches of deception. Anyone else have any ideas?"

An unidentified student raised her hand. "What about feigned retreat?"

"Ah, a big one for sure. There's no better way to deceive your enemy by pretending you lost. This was especially favored by the Kingdom of Mistral in the Great War. Once the enemy either chases your retreating troops or relax as they think the fighting is over, you can surprise them with a devastating blow."

With this, she swiped to a picture depicting a 2D battlefield with a bunch of arrows, with the red arrows showing the enemy movements. "If I were you, I'd write this down. Learning how to effectively deceive your enemy is key in a battle."

Viktoriya waited a couple moments for the students to sketch a diagram of the picture above. She took a tiny glance at Major Degurechaff sitting behind her.

Tanya only gave a small nod of encouragement.

"Ok, next on our list is distraction. Can anyone tell me how one goes about distracting the enemy?"

Weiss quickly raised her hand before Yang could. The heiress only glared down at the blonde, who had been a little too excited to share her "barbaric" and "demeaning" idea of distraction.

Viktoriya's eyes widened as she recognized the white hair. "Oh, Miss Schnee! I did not realize you were in this class!"

Weiss forced a smile and raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe we have met, Miss Serebryakov?"

Viktoriya smiled. "Oh, I'm semi-close with your sister! She talks about you quite a bit. She's very proud of you!"

The Schnee could only blush a little. The lieutenant noticed the uncomfortable look on her face and pushed forward. "Eh, anyway, what example did you come up with?"

The heiress cleared her throat. "Well, the use of fake targets in warfare could draw enemy fire while the main force could either attack or retreat."

"Exactly. One of the strategies used by the Kingdoms was to send a small force to a certain point where they could make as much noise as they can, so the enemy could be drawn to them. And the main force would normally attack them from behind."

"Do you know of any major battles where one of the Kingdoms used this?"

Weiss thought for a couple seconds before answering. "Well, I am aware Mantle used their knowledge of the mountains and terrain to create noise in order to distract the enemy. Using the echoes created from the mountain passes, they would pretend they were a larger force than they really were."

Viktoriya nodded. "Take close note, class, this battle was an effective use of distraction. On the next slide is a list of major battles that effectively implemented distractive methods to fool the enemy,"

While Viktoriya explained the slide, Tanya carefully watched from the sidelines, taking note of her subordinate. So far she was doing a fair job. Not quite professor level, but good enough to be a substitute when she had errands to do. And she would never admit this, but she also took tiny notes on Viktoriya's teaching method to incorporate it into her own lectures. Hey, she needed all the help she could get; teaching without physical abuse was new to her.

Viktoriya eyed the clock on the wall. Goodness, has time slipped past that fast? "Now last, but not least, is encirclement," she tapped her Scroll, "Now, this strategy was particularly deadly for anyone that fell to it. Anyone care to tell me why?"

This time several hands raised, perhaps emboldened by the past few students who had gone before them. Viktoriya pointed at random. "Yes?"

To CRDL's surprise, Russel himself stood up, tight-lipped and clearly anxious. "If the enemy completely surrounds you, I'm guessing you're pretty much screwed."

The class tittered at this as Russel sat back down. Tanya herself cracked a small smile. Viktoriya giggled. "That's one way to put it. But yes, you are nonetheless right. If the enemy was able to surround you from all sides, there is little to no hope of escape."

She turned to a slide showing several pictures of forts under siege from enemy troops. "Because of the troops, it was difficult to send extra aid or supplies to the fort. In a way, this is similar to blockade, which I am sure you all learned yesterday."

The lieutenant tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Now there are several battles I would like to go over, but I'm pressed for time. So I think we'll just hand out assignments so you can turn it in next class period."

She turned to her silent superior. "Major?"

Tanya grunted a bit as she closed her Scroll and stood up from her chair. "I have just sent out your assignments to your Scrolls. Long story short, I want a brief chart explaining the pros and cons of the three strategies, and how they are able to interconnect with each other for increased effectiveness. Nothing too hard."

With that, the bell suddenly went off, signaling the end of the period. Everyone stood up, chattering wildly amongst themselves. Tanya and Viktoriya watched as the kids filed out of the room.

Ruby hopped up and down excitedly as she shoved all her notes into her bag. "Combat Class next! Can't wait to see my baby in action!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "There's no guarantee that you'll get picked."

"You never know~!"

As the last teen exited the room and shut the door, Viktoriya slumped over and let out a relieved sigh. She sheepishly turned to Degurechaff. "So…how did I do?"

[-]

"What do you mean I did 'okay'?"

Viktoriya's tone was exasperated and pitiful as she trailed along Tanya's footsteps.

Tanya fought down a small smile as she strode through the halls of Beacon. Passing students made sure to keep a good enough distance from the tiny blonde. Respect or fear, she didn't care. As long as they didn't attempt to demean her, things would get along just fine.

Currently they were both on their way to the cafeteria after visiting the armory to stock up on many different types of Dust rounds and other ammunition for their weapons.

Like her, Viktoriya also brought her gun to Beacon, stashed away in a briefcase under her bed. Unlike Tanya's however, Viktoriya's gun was currently the newest gun on the block, a fully automatic light-machine gun with little recoil. It was a bit bulkier than the other guns, but she didn't seem to mind. Only problems with it were that it only accepted one type of Dust round; anything else and the weapon would fall apart. So the Lieutenant would have to use purely Burn Dust for her gun. But there was no denying that it was efficient.

Plus, it was always amusing to see the looks on enemy's faces when the seemingly demure and kind woman pulled out a LMG from behind her back.

"I said you did 'okay', because you could have managed your time more effectively," Tanya said, looking over her shoulder, "Asking the students questions about the topic was a smart move, but you did it too often and wasted some precious time."

Viktoriya pouted. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to get to know the students better…"

"Agreed, but you can do that when we have more time. But you did do a good job, I will admit. I will trust that you will keep things in order when I have matters to attend to."

The 21-year old blushed a bit but said nothing, as if to accept the criticism and praise.

She let her eyes wander a bit, admiring the architecture and Gothic design of the place. There was nothing like this in Atlas. The walls there were grey, metallic, cold, and boring. Not to say she hated the place, no she loved it. Atlas took her in when her village was torn to pieces. And as she was rejected from every other settlement they came across, Atlas welcomed her with open arms. We could always use more people, they said. To young Viktoriya's eyes, they were heroes to her. Which is why she joined the military as soon as she was able to.

That's why she liked Major Degurechaff so much. She suffered the same she did: losing her village, friends killed, and left alone in a dangerous world. But Tanya was stronger than her. For her age, she was far more mature than Viktoriya ever was at the time.

Yes, she was scary and cruel at times, but Viktoriya knew that it was the events of her life that changed her like that. Trauma was not a little thing in the mind of a little girl.

The young woman caught up to her superior and shot her a quizzical look. "Major, why did you decide we should eat at the cafeteria rather than at the professor's lounge?"

Degurechaff felt a tiny drop of sweat on her brow. She would never admit it to them, but she found the other professors…were different, at best. Especially Professor Oobleck and Port.

When she went in the lounge to pick up some breakfast, those two would not stop marveling how "an individual so young became a decorated member of the Atlas military."

Peach just gushed over her, showering her with as much affection as she could muster. It reminded Viktoriya of the more feminine women back at Atlas, giving her no semblance of rest.

And Glynda simply stared at her with a mixture of disapproval and pity.

They all annoyed her to no end. Not that she would ever admit it, of course. She just put on a smile and acted as happy as they were. It was always best to get on the good side of your co-workers.

They both reached the large wooden double doors that lead to the inside of the cafeteria. They could already see many students laughing and eating through the large windows. The blonde gave a small smile at her subordinate. "You were the one who said you wanted to bond with the students."

With a little difficulty, she managed to push the doors open, revealing the full majesty of Beacon Academy's cafeteria. Again, Viktoriya was reminded of the stark differences between here and back home.

Atlas cafeterias were quite, subdued, and serious. No decorations, aside from awards from past soldiers, adorned the walls, and all the food had only the bare necessities included in them. That meant no desserts. Which was a shame because Viktoriya absolutely adored chocolate to an almost unhealthy level.

In fact she almost got in trouble a couple times for having several boxes of Remnant Bars stuffed under her mattress.

But the amount of sweets and goods in this entire room was enough to send the young woman into a daze. Never before had she seen food as filling and heavy and fattening as this. And she loved it.

Tanya herself didn't really care much. She had no such love for sweets, the only sugary beverage she liked drinking being coffee.

The minute professor purposely made her way to the cafeteria buffet line, which was miraculously unoccupied. Viktoriya followed closely behind, her mouth salivating as she saw a fountain of chocolate. This was no exaggeration; there was seriously a small fountain of melted chocolate that students were free to dip their food into. But she was a bit disconcerted to see students literally dipping the chocolate into whatever food they possibly could.

There were a couple students even drizzling steamy chocolate over their salad.

As they both made their way to the line, Tanya was very aware of the many eyes on her. She merely grimaced and kept walking. Maybe it was a bad idea to come here after all. Rumors of her methods have circulated faster than she would have liked.

But at least the students here wouldn't dare to pinch her cheeks and call her a "cutie".

Tanya noticed with some annoyance that the actual buffet probably didn't support the height of someone less than 5 feet tall. She managed, with some difficulty, to gather enough food on her plate before giving up.

Viktoriya wouldn't stop chattering about the multitudes of food available, a quirk that Tanya found sometimes amusing and sometimes annoying. Today was a mixture of both.

"Wow, the food here is so much more different than back at Atlas, right Major?"

Tanya grunted in affirmation as she strained to reach a fork, dangling just out of her reach. Blast her stunted height!

Viktoriya scrambled to place as much sweet-tasting food onto her plate as possible. "I mean, we never have this kind of dishes at home! The squad would faint if they saw this!"

The blonde professor just nodded and smirked a bit as she finally managed to get a hold of the fork. Standing back on her two feet instead of tiptoes, she turned to see some students seemingly taking pictures or recording videos about the new professor's height problems.

Instead of yelling at them like the students expected her to, she simply gave a sweet smile and waved a bit.

Not to say that the smile wasn't disconcerting, however. Actually, the students would have much preferred it if the blonde professor started to yell at them. But instead they got a smile that reeked of death and misery. There was no warmth in the smile. Only the promise of true agony if they crossed paths with her again.

All the students wordlessly deleted any footage they captured.

Viktoriya turned just in time to see several sweating students and a whistling Degurechaff, who had been waiting patiently for her.

Thinking nothing of it, the clueless lieutenant dutifully followed her Major over to an empty table.

Lunch was almost over, with only a few students hanging around. Viktoriya popped a chocolate chip cookie into her mouth and squealed with delight. "It's been so long since I had one of these!"

Tanya smirked and speared a tomato along with some lettuce. "I knew you had a sweet tooth, but was it really necessary to take every single dessert this cafeteria had to offer?" She pointed down at Viktoriya's plate, which was stacked high with cookies, a chocolate bar, several loaves of corn bread, and some chocolate dipped marshmallows.

The young woman clearly showed no shame and opted to pop a marshmallow into her mouth. "It's not every day that I get to eat something like this, Major. I count this is a blessing from Oum himself!"

Tanya just scoffed lightly and pointed at the brunette woman's stomach. "Whatever you say. But If I even see an ounce of fat coming out, I'm going to make you run laps until you throw up."

Viktoriya gulped down her marshmallow, her face pouty and downcast. She had known Major Degurechaff for long enough to know that she meant it. The Major wanted her soldiers as fit as possible. "I won't condone any slackers", she once said.

But damn was this worth it.

Tanya only paid mild attention as Viktoriya started to initiate some conversation. Well, conversation would mean that two or more people were engaging in speaking. This was more of a one-sided conversation, so to speak. Not that either of them minded. Viktoriya felt that talking was a good way to destress and Tanya was pleasantly surprised to find that she somewhat enjoyed the chatter. It was a little comforting to have someone she knew and trusted here with her.

Instead of focusing 100 percent in the conversation, Degurechaff zoned out and scanned the audience idly. The students seemed to have gotten over their surprise and resumed back to their conversation.

To her surprise, she noticed teams RWBY and JNPR sitting down a couple tables away from the two of them, seemingly engaged in a heated discussion, with Miss Rose lightly slamming a milk carton down on the table, much to her Miss Schnee's ire, who got milk splattered all over her.

Mr. Arc seemed to be in the position of interest, anxiety exuding from every pore.

She didn't really like, or care, to stick her nose in other people's affairs. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but wonder what on Remnant got them all so heated anyway? From the looks of things, Arc seemed to be in a state of denial, and worry was the predominant feature in the faces of his teammates and on RWBY's.

She couldn't help but overhear snippets of the conversation. Something about "bullies" and "Cardin".

Tanya chewed slowly on her tomato as she flashed back to her files. Before classes, she had read up on many of the students' profiles. Their personal life, background, everything.

Cardin Winchester's profile did capture some modicum of attention. He was a troubled child back at his respective academy before he came to Beacon. Constantly getting into fights, throwing around his weight as the first child of the Winchester Family, and, of course, notorious for being racist towards Faunus.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, now that she thought about it. Much like the Schnee family being under fire for their treatment of the Faunus, the Winchester's were known for their old gang bloodline, often times ganging up on Faunus and torturing them.

It was unknown if they actually did so today, but they were fairly quiet nowadays.

She was torn from her thoughts as she heard a yell behind her. Tanya and Viktoriya faced the noise a couple tables down.

A lone rabbit Faunus with brown hair and big, floppy ears was being harassed by team CRDL. Pulling on her ears, verbal abuse, all that jazz.

Tanya heard Viktoriya grimace a bit. "How terrible. That poor girl doesn't deserve that. Shouldn't we do something, Major?"

Contrary to popular Faunus beliefs, Tanya did not hate the Faunus. She hated what the White Fang did and for making her job so difficult, but she didn't hate the Faunus race as a whole.

She slowly stood up, straightened her clothes, and strode purposefully towards the group, with Viktoriya close behind, both putting on their game faces.

The entire cafeteria eyed the two, whispering and pulling out their Scrolls.

Yang bumped Blake's arm. "Looks like things are gonna get exciting around here."

Team CRDL was too preoccupied to hear the murmurs of fear around them as they continually harassed the young woman, who was beginning to tear up from her abuse.

Tanya stopped a couple meters away from them and cleared her throat. "Will you explain to me what you are doing, Mr. Winchester?"

Cardin jumped and turned around slowly, eyes wide and sweat beading on his brow. "N-Nothing, Major Degurechaff, just having a good laugh with my friend here."

The rest of his team recoiled a bit as Tanya smirked slightly. Russel felt himself fidget in embarrassment as Viktoriya turned her disproving eyes on him. "Please define 'fun' for me, Mr. Winchester. I think you and I have very different definitions about what fun is."

Cardin gulped, his life flashing before his eyes. "Well…uh…"

Before he could get any further, Tanya had already stepped forward and exerted a punishing grip on Cardin's hand, which was clutched around the girl's ear.

Cardin felt extreme pressure on his wrist, forcing him to drop the ear and focus Aura into pushing back, lest the tiny girl broke it.

The bunny girl wisely stepped back, with Viktoriya massaging her shoulders and asking if she was feeling ok.

Cardin shook with fear as Tanya effortlessly twisted his arm into an extremely awkward position. "You may have gotten away with this behavior because of your family's influence in whatever back-washed academy you went to before Beacon, but do not think I will be cowed by it."

Her eyes flashed a steely gold. "If I ever see such actions again, I will make my class more of a hell than it already is."

Cardin and his group whimpered a bit as Degurechaff bared her teeth in a close approximation of a smile. "And trust me. I know what hell feels like."

On that note, she relinquished her grip on the arm and shoved the teen back in his seat.

A few seconds later, she turned her eyes on the rest of his team. "What are you staring at!" she barked, "Get out of here!"

At her words, team CRDL leaped a good foot into the air. "Y-Yes, Major Degurechaff!"

They collectively sprinted out of the cafeteria, closing the doors behind them with a boom.

The entire cafeteria was silent as Tanya wiped her hand off on a nearby napkin. The teen's fist had been filthy.

The minute professor turned to the shaking bunny girl. Wordlessly, she tossed a wet-wipe at her. The girl barely caught it. "Wipe off your ear. That fool's hand had grease all over it."

The Faunus mumbled a soft thanks and started to tend to her ear, aided by the ever benevolent Viktoriya.

Tanya turned her slowly fading gold eyes on the young woman. "What's your name?"

The teen flinched. "Velvet Scarlatina, miss."

"Well, Velvet, if that buffoon and his cronies start harassing you or anyone else, you contact me, understood?"

Velvet blushed a bit and bowed profusely. "Y-Yes, ma'am!"

The doors to the cafeteria boomed as they slammed open, revealing a very angry blonde woman. Tanya groaned internally. What did she want now?

Glynda glared down at Degurechaff as she made her way down the cafeteria. Students in her way wisely stepped back, fear written all over their faces.

Tanya stood up straight and put on an innocent expression. "Professor Goodwitch. What brings you here?"

"Don't try to put this off," Glynda snapped, "I had a run-in with team CRDL, who told me what you did."

Degurechaff smiled. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Spare me the drivel, you're coming with me. Ozpin wants to talk to you about your current methods."

The blonde woman turned her heated eyes onto Viktoriya, who had started to follow her superior. "Not you, Lieutenant Serebryakov.

Viktoriya almost argued if not for Tanya raising a placating arm. "…Yes, ma'am."

Velvet started to speak. "B-But, Professor Goodwitch, she helpe-"

"I am well aware of what she did, Miss Scarlatina. That does not change she assaulted a student in a way that could have been solved peacefully."

The bunny girl squeaked and looked down to the floor.

Tanya cleared her throat and stepped alongside Glynda. "Very well, lead the way."

The duo walked out of the cafeteria doors, well aware of the many rumors certain to circulate the halls. Snapping Scrolls followed their wake soon to be posted on the web.

Tanya certainly didn't care; she did what she had to do, and her actions would bring about sympathy and respect.

Ruby gulped down her food, which had been settled in her mouth for the entirety of the encounter. "That was scary."

Jaune gulped. "You can say that again. It's like Major Degurechaff is a miniature version of Professor Goodwitch. Both are scarier than a Deathstalker/Nevermore hybrid."

Nora hopped up and down in her seat. "That makes me wanna play with wittle Tanya even more!"

"I seriously advise you don't do that, Nora." Ren and Pyyrha said.

Yang popped a loaf of bread into her mouth. "But for someone who's so mean, she really helped out that poor girl."

Blake grunted. "Maybe, but she could just be doing it for her image."

In truth, Blake was feeling a bit conflicted. For a girl who exterminated any member of the White Fang she came across, it was surprising to see her help out a Faunus.

Maybe she wasn't a racist as people made her out to be.

She didn't know what to feel about Tanya Degurechaff now.

[-]

Right, that's gonna be it for today.

Sorry for my really long absence, college is no joke. I might not be able to update as fast anymore, only on the rare days I have breaks and vacations.

Again, sorry for not much action in this, we'll get more into this later. I was considering Cardin to lash out against little Tanya, but I chose not to. It would look bad for a teacher to hurt a student, of course, no matter the cause.

But yeah, sorry again for the absence. Contrary to popular belief, I am not dead.

Yet.

Anyway, I hope ya'll have a great Christmas and New Year's. Next update may take a while.

And hey, I kept my promise. Before the year ends (you know who you are ;)…)

Happy Holidays my friends!