Where am I? Ruby opened her eyes and panicked, afraid that she was blind. She struggled to remember a plummeting ship, a terrible wave of heat, then utter blackness. A sudden fear gripped her chest. Is this death? A throbbing pain in her head quickly dispelled that notion. Ouch! I can't be dead. My head hurts too much. It's just dark. Really, really dark. Her silver eyes dilated in the pale moonlight of a misty forest glen. The aspiring huntress realized she was lying in a ditch and carefully sat up. She looked first at her hands, then her legs, happy to find no major injuries. A faint smile creased her lips as she reached for the reassuring bulk of her precious Crescent Rose, still firmly attached to the magnetic holster at the small of her back.

Ruby shivered, pulling her crimson hood over her head. She sat in the center of a wide clearing. A thick mist obscured what little light the waning moon cast. A sudden movement at the edge of the clearing drew Ruby's attention. Out of the mist walked a white hooded figure, not much taller than Ruby. In the low light it was impossible to see any details, but Ruby swore the figure was a woman.

The figure extended a pale white hand, beckoning Ruby forward. I don't know why, but I'm sure I can trust her. As Ruby approached, the figure turned, leading Ruby into the night. In silence she followed the figure through the mist. Ruby felt as if she'd been walking forever, till the cloaked woman came to a halt at the foot of a broken wall. The figure suddenly spun around, throwing back its hood. Silver eyes and a youthful face seemed to glow in the mist-scattered moonlight. Tears of joy streamed down Ruby's face. That face was unmistakable; before Ruby stood her long dead mother, Summer Rose. Ruby reached for her, and her joy turned to horror. Summer shattered, scattering as a million rose petals, all hanging just outside Ruby's grasp. A tortured scream of anguish escaped Ruby's lips as she fell to her knees. Her eyes closed, and endless night once again consumed Ruby's world.

Forever Fall

Yang kneeled next to the unconscious body of her sister. Blake stood across from her, a deep pout of concern on her face. Ruby's eyes fluttered and her breathing quickened as the twilight of unconsciousness faded. "Mom? What happened? My head is killing me." Ruby tried to stand up, but Yang placed a firm hand on her shoulder, keeping her sister seated against a tree.

"Take it easy sis. It's me. Do you remember jumping out of a crashing Bullhead?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember how you landed?"

"Not really."

"See that broken tree over there?" Across from where Ruby sat lay the remains of a shattered oak. The trunk, nearly two feet around, was snapped in half a few feet above the ground. She guessed that a piece of the crashing transport hewed it down. "You kinda chopped it down with your face. It was awesome!"

"Oh?" Well that explains why I feel like a Beowulf smacked me on the head.

"Yeah. The rest of the team made textbook three-point combat landings. You did too, but you bounced and hit that tree face first. You had me worried there. You feel okay, sis?"

"I'm fine Yang. My head hurts, but I think my Aura absorbed the hit." Ruby stood up and stretched. She reached behind to feel for Crescent Rose. "Ah! Oh…no...no...no…this can't be happening!" Her silver eyes swelled with tears. Crescent Rose was an extension of herself. Without her, Ruby felt incomplete.

"Looking for this?" Weiss strode towards Ruby, a familiar red and black weapon in her hands. Ruby snatched Crescent Rose from Weiss's arms and hugged the weapon, then turned and hugged Weiss.

"Weiss! You are a lifesaver!" Ruby tightened her arms around her teammate, oblivious to the heiress's discomfort. "Thanks for finding her."

"Sure, uh, no problem. You'd grab Myrtenaster if I dropped it, right?" Weiss tried her best to gently push Ruby away. Crescent Rose is a she now? I don't know…that's kind of… creepy.

"I hate to break up this joyous reunion, but we need to get out of here. Somethings big is coming this way, and I really don't want to meet it." Blake's feline ears were more than a marker of her Faunus heritage. Her hearing, like her vision, far surpassed her human teammate's senses. Just at the edge of her hearing, the young huntress felt a low rumble. To a Faunus raised outside the protection of the Four Kingdoms, that primal sound was all too familiar-the alert growl of an Ursa Major.

Ruby holstered Crescent Rose as she slipped into her role as team leader. Looking around, she realized her team had landed in a steep-walled valley on the forest floor, probably the remains of some river lost to time. If Grimm attacked now, there would be barely room to fight, and no-where to run. "Did any of our gear make it? How about the rope?"

"Weiss has her backpack. I found one of the tents in a tree, but that's it. What are you thinking?"

"You guys up for a climb?"

"You can't be serious!" Weiss eyed the same craggy slope as her leader.

"Don't be so dramatic. I'll go first. Wouldn't want you to tear your new skirt on a loose rock." Before Weiss could respond, Blake was a dozen feet up the wall of rocks and roots.

Facility Kappa, Rural Vale

Facility Kappa was an isolated concrete box in the rolling fields of Vale. Built as a bunker during the Great War, it had served many purposes throughout the years. At various times in the past 80 years, it had been a dairy barn, a Grimm research station, a restaurant, and had even served a brief stint as an improvised hospital after a particularly bad Grimm incursion.

The roar of a supercharged engine brought the gate guards of Facility Kappa to attention. After two days of watching heifers graze the fence-line of their secluded outpost in the heartland of Vale, these Atlas soldiers regarded new human contact as a rare treat. Their attention was rewarded with the sight of a vintage Eirian roadster speeding down the sharply winding road toward their facility. A car worth more than the building they were protecting was quite an unexpected surprise, and the guards in the watchtower readied their guns just-in case.

The white and silver Eirian showed no signs of slowing as it tore down the gravel road towards the gate. As it steadily drew closer, the guards dropped their curiosity and ran to defensive positions. With less than a hundred feet between his roadster and the gate, the mystery driver braked hard and swung the car in a wide arc. Gravel showered the Guards as a dust cloud blinded and enveloped them. When the dust cloud settled, the silvery roadster was perfectly parked between two Puma staff cars in Facility Kappa's gravel lot.

A man in fine dress whites stepped from the car, walking confidently towards the pointed rifles of a dozen twitchy guards. "Colonel Alric Hellbrau. I'm here on official Schnee Company business, so stand down."

One bold sergeant tried to stand in his way. "I have my orders. No one is permitted to enter this facility without General Ironwood's explicit authorization"

A booming voice from behind the poor sergeant shattered his bravado. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your service in a Grimm-hunting platoon on the Northern Frontier, I suggest you step aside." Orders or no, the young sergeant knew better than to defy his commander.

A stout man in a Captain's tunic brushed past the sergeant and extended his hand in greeting. "Alric, my friend! I take it you received my message?"

"We have much to discuss. But later! It's been too long, brother. I come bearing gifts!" From the folds of his jacket, Hellbrau produced a beech wood box of hand-rolled Vacoun Cigars and a bottle of Atlesian Scotch. The spectacle was a ruse. A quick flash of the gold signet on his ring finger conveyed Hellbrau's real message.

"To my office then. And I don't want to know how you got those past customs, because Lord knows I've tried."

Forever Fall

"Ok Team RWBY! It's meeting time!" Only Ruby could be so enthusiastic after a hand over foot climb up a hundred foot embankment.

"Can it be dinner time? Because I'm starving." Blake's stomach grumbled loudly, seemingly to agree with Yang.

"Team meeting...with cookies!" Ruby didn't need much convincing to modify her plan.

"Ruby, where are you going to get cookies out here?"

"You don't think I'd leave Beacon without some cookies in my backpack, do you?" Ruby frowned as she remembered the lost backpacks. "Uh-oh. This could be a problem..."

"Now you get it, you cookie-loving dolt!" Weiss needed work on her subtlety, but her point was a good one. With only her backpack intact, the team had food for six days-for one person.

"No dinner then?"

"Nah! Weiss has enough to share for now." Yang grabbed three foil wrapped meals from Weiss's open backpack, tossing one labeled Tuna Surprise to Blake.

"Hey! You can't just grab my food!"

"Were you really going to eat tuna surprise?" Yang looked over to see Blake quietly devouring the foil pouch's questionable contents.

"That's not the point!" Weiss crossed her arms.

"Why is it called tuna surprise?" Ruby's earnest question drew puzzled looks from Yang and Weiss.

Amid spoonfulls of the gelatinous mystery dish, Blake quipped, "Maybe it's a surprise how they can legally label this mush as tuna?"

The gravity of their situation made the joke far funnier than it should have been. The girls were stranded in a forest, lost, and dangerously low on food. That Blake could casually joke about bad fish lightened the dire atmosphere the team had begun to inhabit. They all began to laugh, save Blake. Despite her complaints, at that moment she would have given a Nevermore a fair fight if it tried to take her tuna away.

"We're getting off topic guys. First things first, where are we? And don't say in the woods, Yang."

Weiss grabbed her scroll from a pocket on her backpack. Her confident grin slowly turned to a scowl as she angrily pecked at the screen. "Uh! I can't believe this is happening now! Of all the times for the blasted network to..."

Weiss was working herself in to a frenzy, so Ruby intervened. "Take it easy Weiss. What's wrong?"

"There's no signal in this god-forsaken forest! I can't access the CCT net, I can't access the GPS drones, and I can't even get radio signals! When I get back to Vale I am going to wring the neck of the idiot who designed these things! And another thing, I am going to run Myrtenaster through whoever designed those drones that were following us. They didn't do a damned thing when we were getting thrown around the sky like a Nevermore's chew-toy!" Weiss's face was bright red, and her blue eyes looked ready to kill.

"Feel better now?" Yang managed to get her words out amid the combined laughter of Blake and Ruby. They hadn't seen Weiss so worked up since their first day at Beacon.

Weiss made a show of sighing and composing herself. She actually managed a small chuckle at her own melt-down. "Actually, yes. I feel much better. I'm beginning to understand why you like punching things, Yang."

"Ok. So calling Ozpin for advice is out of the question. We need to make a plan. Do we continue our mission, or do we make our way out of this forest?" Ruby's tone made it clear to her teammates that she wasn't actually considering the latter.

"I'm not turning back. Ozpin trusted us with a solo mission. What would he think if we quit because it got complicated? I'm with Ruby. I won't run now." Blake spoke with a fierce determination. Yang sensed something much deeper than Ozpin's approval was driving her words.

"I'm always up for a good adventure!" The blonde brawler looked at Weiss.

"I guess that just leaves me. Let me first say that this is a bad, bad, idea. We have no idea what we're facing, and we're completely undersupplied. You know what? Now that I think about it, that's business as usual for us. Let's show Ozpin just what we can do."

Ruby allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief. Weiss had been acting odd since before the crash, and Ruby was worried about her commitment. It was nice to see her confidence return."Now that that's settled, we need a new plan. Any idea how to find that lost village?"

Weiss spoke up first. "Actually, I have an idea. This forest doesn't have many landmarks. But if we can get above the treetops, I can use the railroad track and the peak of Autumn's Bluff to orient us."

"The sun's going down. We should make camp here for the night." Everyone nodded agreement with Blake's suggestion.

"Ok. Weiss and I will sleep first, then Yang and Blake can have the tent. We should keep fire watch with our combat buddies." Satisfied with her plan, Ruby stood up and drew Crescent Rose, ready to carve up some firewood.

What did she say? Weiss and I'll sleep first? Oh no she doesn't. "Wait just a minute! We have one pup-tent and one sleeping bag. How exactly are we sharing those?"

"Easy! We just unzip the sleeping bag and share it like a blanket, silly. Didn't you ever go camping with your sister?" Ruby's tone made it clear she thought he answer was obvious.

"The closest we ever came to camping was the annual family stag hunt, and we had separate rooms in my grandfather's lodge. If you think I'm sharing a blanket with you, you have another thing coming!"

"Your modesty's cute, Weiss. Do you know it's supposed to be in the 30's overnight? I know Neptune calls you Snow Angel, but I don't think you're immune to hypothermia. Besides, you get Ruby. The worst she does in her sleep is talk about cookies. I've got to deal with Yang's snoring...among other things." Blake's stoic face betrayed the slightest hint of a smile.

Weiss blushed. "When you put it that way, I guess I should shut up. It's not that much worse than the bunkbeds in our dorm." I'm really starting to hate this mission.

"That's the spirit, Weiss. You help Ruby get some wood, and I'll pitch the tent with Blake."

Black Talon Hideout, Downtown Vale

Hellbrau sat in his study, with a crackling fire at his back and a hot saucer of fresh tea at his side. He'd spent a long day handling his affairs with the Black Talons of Vale. There remained only one unfinished task before he could board a return flight to Atlas. The flight couldn't come soon enough.

The Kingdom of Vale was beautiful this time of year, and the historian in Hellbrau admired how hard the people Vale worked to maintain the city's classical architecture. That being said, the casual attitude most of Vale's residents held toward the Faunus made him sick. He'd even spotted a young man in a Beacon Academy uniform strolling the streets with a rabbit Faunus on his arm. A damned rodent! What has this world come too?

Only the transmitter in his apartment in Downtown Vale kept Hellbrau from leaving. It was a unique model, attuned to exactly one hand-set; it provided Hellbrau his only secure communication with Kuro when he was out on a mission. He should be reporting in any time now.

Like clockwork, the transmitter's domed light began blinking at six minutes of seven. The silent transmission was Kuro's all clear signal. Any message sent without one was not to be answered. It was one of the many fail-safe measures the Black Talon used to ensure one captured brother could not be forced to betray his order. On the hour, Kuro's voice began squeaking from the miniscule transmitter.

"This is Kuro. Stage one has been successful. No complications."

Hellbrau keyed his microphone. "Good job. I have new instructions for you. You may have witnessed a crashing Bullhead today."

"Yes, my lord. I considered cleaning up any survivors, but there was a large secondary explosion, red dust cook-off if I had to guess. No one survived that."

"Your judgement fails you again, Kuro. Unless ghosts have learned to use scrolls now, one of the passengers attempted to access the CCT net less than an hour ago."

"Wait, you know who was aboard that ship?"

"I do. And it is for the handling of those passengers I amend your orders. One of the passengers was my star pupil, the Schnee heiress. If you cross paths with her, she is to be taken alive. If you so much as scratch her, I will feed you alive to a Beowulf. Tell me you understand."

"Don't hurt the Schnee brat. Got it." Even through the tinny speaker of Hellbrau's transmitter, Kuro's frustration at being restrained was writ clear in his voice. "Is that all, my lord?"

"No. The young Schnee is not alone. She was travelling with her team from Beacon Academy. I have reason to believe they too are seeking our prize. Among them is a scythe wielder trained by Qrow Branwen himself. Her other two teammates are the same students who put half a dozen Talons in the hospital two days ago. If you see them, do not hold back because they look like children. They are every bit as deadly as real Huntresses."

"I understand."

"Make sure you do. You know what will happen if I have to intervene. Hellbrau out."

Forever Fall

Weiss and Ruby sat by a roaring campfire. Weiss had surprised Ruby by starting the blaze with only a flint striker. When her scythe-wielding teammate questioned the origin of her fire-making skills, Weiss quickly reminded Ruby that her home kingdom of Atlas enjoyed six months of winter.

At first sitting in silence, the pair soon began to talk dust-based mechanical design. Though she would never admit it, Weiss was every bit as obsessed by dust technology as Ruby was by weapons design. Yang and Blake excused themselves from the fire and drifted off to their tent when the conversation turned to the finer points of dust-coated rifle barrels.

As they climbed into the cramped tent, Yang playfully tugged in Blake's bow, which fell way into the darkness. Before Blake could protest, Yang spoke up. "You can't tell me it's comfortable to sleep with your ears tied up. Besides, I think I like your natural look better."

Blake blushed scarlet. Living among humans, that black strip of ribbon had nearly become a permanent part of her head. Concealing her Faunus heritage was easy with her feline ears wrapped in a neat bow. Blake also knew that though they were loath to admit it, even open-mined humans were often uncomfortable at the sight of a girl with two sets of ears, one human and one feline. "You really mean that, don't you?

"Of course I do. Now give me more of that sleeping bag. I'm about three seconds away from becoming a Yangsickle!"

Blake sighed at Yang's pun. "Good night, my little sun dragon."

"Good night kitten."