"Weiss? You wanted to see me about my position?" Nora asked as she walked into the command tent. It was dawn, an hour before they army was due to pack up and continue their march westward. Nora had bags under her eyes from a lack of sleep caused by her confrontation with Jaune and Pyrrha the previous night. The following headache and argument with her personal hallucination certainly didn't help.

"Hm? Oh, yes." Weiss pulled a packet of papers out of the mountainous stack sitting on her desk. "I wanted to give you the full details about how I felt you would be most effective."

Nora accepted the packet, but didn't look at it. "On the front lines, I hope."

"No, actually." Weiss answered, opening the packet in Nora's hands to a few pages in.

"…Excuse me?" Nora asked, baffled. "Why not?"

"Because I don't think that your fighting style is really suited a prolonged, drawn out grind on the front lines." Weiss responded. "So I've done something else with you and your new soldiers."

Nora stared at Weiss. She was torn- she had wanted only to fight on the front, but if Weiss had really found a place where she could do even more damage, then maybe she could accept whatever it is Weiss had done. "I hope I'm still in a position to do a lot of damage, then."

"Most definitely. Look here." Weiss pointed at the packet, indicating the inventory and tactics employed by Nora and her soldiers. Nora read carefully, her eyes widening as she saw what Weiss was showing her. "What do you think?"

"This is… amazing." Nora said in awe. "Isn't this going to be really expensive?"

"With you at the head leading them and my strategy, the gain will outweigh the cost tenfold." Weiss replied. "You will have command of a company of one hundred and fifty soldiers, made up of five platoons of thirty soldiers each. You remember how I had you fight when we first arrived?

"Break up clusters and formations, demoralize, take out big targets." Nora recalled.

"And that's exactly what your company is designed to do. You go in where I send you, do as much damage as you can, then get out. Then you restock your weapons, reposition, and attack again." Weiss finished. "Not quite the front lines like you wanted, but you'll be doing far more damage this way since your soldiers will all have heavy weapons."

Nora pulled Weiss into a powerful embrace. "Thank you so much!" Nora was elated.

Weiss gasped for air as Nora let go. "No… problem."

Nora closed the packet and looked at the front of it. "Hammer Company?" She asked.

"I thought about calling it Madhammer Company, since you love it so much, but I settled on this." Weiss said with a grin.

Nora punched Weiss on the shoulder playfully. "That definitely wouldn't have ended well for you."

"I figured." Weiss pulled yet another packet of papers out of her stack. "Would you mind taking these papers to Blake before you go and meet your soldiers? If she's not in her tent then just leave them there so she can get them when she packs up later."

"Yup, no problem." Nora agreed, before skipping out of the tent, excited to meet her soldiers. "See ya!"

"Bye, Nora." Weiss turned back to begin packing her own stuff.

"I told you she would give us a good role." Nora said to no one that Weiss could see. Weiss figured it was the hallucination. She wasn't worried though- she had won over Nora's entire mind for now, and Nora would not betray her now that she had a battle ready unit of soldiers.

Nora jogged across the camp, past soldiers who were busy packing up their tents a little early, and others who were waking up. The soldiers who had already packed up early were loading their things onto the supply convoy for transport, carrying only their weapons, armor, and essential survive supplies on their person. The soldiers were all very kind and respectful, greeting Nora and wishing her a good morning as she passed. After a few minutes, Nora realized that she didn't actually know where Blake's tent was, because it had been relocated when Blake was placed in covert ops. She slowed to a stop and pulled her scroll from her pocket, and called Weiss.

Weiss clicked on her scroll and answered, but remained silent. This was fine for Nora, who knew that Weiss that expected if you called her then you had something to say, and a standard greeting was just wasted time. "Where's Blake's tent been moved to?" Nora asked simply.

"North side of the camp." Weiss answered. "At the edge."

"'Kay, thanks." Nora hung up. She then changed her course to head for the northern edge of the camp to search for wherever it was Blake's tent was. Once she reached the north end of the camp, she discovered that finding Blake's tent wasn't actually difficult because her name was stenciled on the front of it. "Blake? You in there?" Nora stuck her head into the tent and peeked around. "Blake?" She didn't see anyone in the tent, so she stepped inside to leave the packet of orders on top of Blake's storage bin.

There was a rustling of blankets to the side, drawing Nora's attention. "Mmrgh. Blake?" A sleepy voice asked groggily.

"Is that you, Velvet?" Nora asked.

The blanket on the bed sat up, draping off of Velvet's head. Velvet reached up and pulled the blankets off of her head, her ears springing up straight without the weight of the blanket to hold them down. "Hrm?" As Velvet began fully waking up, the blanket fell off of her, revealing her bare torso. "Oh, Nora." Velvet said through a yawn, "What brings you here?"

Nora held up the packet of papers. "Set of orders for Blake from Weiss."

"Oh." Velvet looked around the tent before she held out a hand towards Nora. "I think Blake already left to do her scouting, I'll take them for you. I can leave them in her storage crate when I pack up everything for her."

"Works for me." Nora shrugged as she handed over the papers. "You have an enjoyable evening last night?" Nora grinned as she gestured towards Velvet's exposed body.

Velvet looked down at her body, finally noticing the discolorations and marks on her skin that Blake had left the previous night. Velvet blushed and wrapped the blanket around her to cover all of her exposed skin up to her neck. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to be so… not presentable."

"Don't worry about it." Nora laughed. "I'm gonna get going now, then. Soldiers to meet. Bye!"

"Have a good day, Nora." Velvet said with a wave.

Jaune brought his shield up against his shoulder, blocking the overhead strike Pyrrha directed towards his side. Pyrrha let her sword slide down Jaune's shield, using the momentum to follow through with a spin, bringing her shield around to smash into Jaune's. The blow sent Jaune flying backwards, sliding on his back across the grassy clearing. Jaune rolled backwards to his feet, tottering on his feet as he attempted to recover from the momentary dizziness cause by the strength of Pyrrha's shield bash.

He had little time to recover as Pyrrha charged, shield raised in front of her and sword at the ready. Jaune braced himself by lowering his center of gravity and raising his shield. As soon as Pyrrha got within range, Jaune launched a preemptive strike by lashing out with his leg, sweeping Pyrrha's front leg out from under her. She fell forward, Jaune having swept out her leg just before she could finish settling her weight onto it. Pyrrha was an extremely skilled warrior though, and knew how to continue using her momentum to her advantage even while falling forward. Curling up into a ball, Pyrrha rolled past Jaune's legs before he could leap out of the way before rolling to her feet behind where he was standing and spinning, sword leading the way once more.

However, Jaune was ready for this and was already raising his shield to intercept Pyrrha's sword, knocking it out of her hands and into the air above them. Jaune followed up by swiping at Pyrrha's legs with his own sword, but Pyrrha leaped up over it, grabbing onto Jaune's shield with her free hand as she did so. When gravity pulled her back down to the ground, Jaune's shield came with her as he let it slide out of his grip in surprise.

Pyrrha tossed Jaune's shield behind her, then punched out with her own shield and struck Jaune in his armored chest plate, sending him flying once more. While Jaune was in the air, Pyrrha leaped to follow, snatching her weapon out of the air and initiating a transformation from its sword form to its spear form as she did so. Pyrrha fell back down once more towards Jaune, who was only just now landing, and landed with her feet on either side of his waist, spear point lancing into the dirt next to his throat.

"I win." Pyrrha said through heavy breaths, smiling at her victory.

"One of these days, I will actually beat you in a sparring match." Jaune conceded, laughing. Cheers erupted all around them.

"It looks like our audience enjoyed the match." Pyrrha commented as she helped Jaune to his feet while the soldiers who had been watching applauded.

"Weiss was right, I guess." Jaune said quietly, so only Pyrrha could hear him. "Just being out in public and training with them does help build a rapport with the soldiers."

"I can't disagree with her methods, I admit." Pyrrha agreed. She waved at the gathered soldiers, earning another round of cheers.

"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" the soldiers chanted. Word had spread quickly that Jaune and Pyrrha were lovers, and it seemed the soldiers took heart that a romance could still be happening even on a military campaign.

Jaune scratched his head nervously while Pyrrha blushed at the chant, a little uneasy at the attention they were receiving. Pyrrha decided to toss the soldiers a bone though, and stood on the tips of her toes to give Jaune a quick peck on the cheek. The soldiers roared another cheer, intermixed with laughter as Jaune joined Pyrrha in blushing. "All right, everyone." Pyrrha announced as she raised a hand for quiet. You've had your fun. Let's all make sure we finish packing for today's march, okay? Let's get going!" She ordered with a smile.

The soldiers, their spirits lifted, all gave their informal salutes and acknowledgements of Pyrrha's order before dispersing. As cynical as it sounded, Pyrrha and Jaune had used Weiss' advice to plan out their days so that they could be seen and meet as many soldiers as they could so that the soldiers could be inspired and be more receptive to orders on the battlefield when the time came. "Where are we riding today?" Jaune asked.

"We're riding with…" Pyrrha consulted her scroll, "the supply battalion today." As their name suggested, the supply battalion was composed of soldiers who specialized in moving supplies for the army, whether it was distribution of supplies they already had or receiving more from supply trains. On the battlefield, the supply battalion played the critical role of making sure everyone had sufficient resources, whether it was armor, weapons, food rations, water, medical supplies, and whatever else needed to be moved around. Though they were often overlooked by people outside the army, the supply battalion was probably one of the most respected groups by the main combat soldiers on the battlefield because the supply battalion was responsible for quickly and efficiently making sure everyone else was as comfortable as they could be, not to mention fed.

"Cool, we haven't met them yet. This'll be neat." Jaune commented as he retrieved his shield from where Pyrrha had thrown it. "Let's go get our-"

Jaune's words were drowned out in the roar of an explosion.

Weiss spun around in surprise. "What was that?" Weiss saw smoke rising in the distance. "An accident?" Weiss' scroll began alerting her to an emergency call. "Blake?"

"There's an enemy raid!" Blake interrupted. "I just found some of my scouts dead in the forest to the southwest."

"Damn. There was an explosion just now. Gather your men and circle around to make sure there aren't any more." Weiss ended the call. She turned to the other officers in the tent. "Send out the call to arms, have the soldiers form up in squads and begin organizing themselves defensively."

Weiss' scroll began beeping again. "General Kosti."

"Lord Commander! The enemy raid is concentrated in the south, they're heading your way!" He reported. There was the sound of gunfire in the background, along with battle cries and screams of pain. "It doesn't look like a huge force, but-" He was interrupted by enemy soldiers bursting into the tent behind him. He turned to see his own soldiers charging to intercept them. With the threat now present before him, General Kosti reached off screen and pulled a long, curved scimitar back onto screen. "I'm not so old that I can't carve you up like a holiday ham, you scoundrels!" He charged into the throng of soldiers that invaded the tent, sword raised.

"General!" Weiss yelled into the scroll. "General don't- argh, damn it." He was too far away to hear the scroll at this point, and was already engaged in battle. "You tough old man." Weiss turned to her officers again. "Get reinforcements over to southern command!" She looked back at the scroll to see General Kosti handily parry a sword before gutting the offending soldier. The rest of the fight was cut short as a nearby explosion cut off the signal from General Kosti's scroll.

"Lord Commander," one of her officers called out, "our men are mobilizing to counter the enemy now."

"Good." Weiss responded. "How does it look?"

A different officer answered. "General Kosti was right, the force isn't a large one. Two thousand men at most, I believe they were hoping to target critical areas in our camp but got caught up on General Kosti's force."

"Well, if they get Kosti then they still got someone important." Weiss grumbled.

The first officer reported further. "Major General Arc and Major General Nikos are defending the supply battalion and the supply trucks with their honor guard, Lord Commander! They report that their forces are holding without any problems."

"What about Major Valkyrie?" Weiss asked.

"She appears to be leading Hammer Company against the enemy." The officer continued. "… they seem to be doing a tremendous amount of damage."

"As expected." Weiss chuckled. "It seems like we got lucky and they're fairly contained." Weiss drew Myrtenaster from her side. "Call my honor guard. We go to battle."

Blake pulled her katana out of the back of the soldiers she had just skewered. "Gross." She muttered as she flicked the blood off of her blade. At least the Grimm had the courtesy to dissolve into nothing after they died. People just left a mess. Blake reached up and tapped her earpiece. "Captain Gray, report."

"Squads two through four are beginning their sweep, ma'am. I'm leading squad one to rendezvous with you." Blake's second in command reported. Blake liked him- he was reliable, efficient, and never said more than he needed to. He was also as close to emotionless as Blake had ever seen. An excellent second in command to carry out her orders and report to her. She could also appreciate his proficiency with a blade; Captain Gray was a master at wielding the twin battle scythes he kept at his side, dancing through enemy soldiers and cutting them to ribbons as if they were standing still. Blake was sure that had he received the proper training, he would have made a formidable huntsman.

"Don't bother, I can deal with the ones I find on my own." Blake answered. "Join the perimeter sweep and make sure none of their scouts get away. Wouldn't want them reporting back to their officers, would we?"

"Of course not, ma'am." He answered casually before Blake cut off the transmission.

Blake was circling around where she had found her dead soldiers, killing the enemy scouts she could find so they couldn't report back to their base officers. It was a psychological technique that Weiss had told her about. To a commander, no news at all was worse than news of a failed attack. It would leave them wondering, not quite sure what had ever happened to their soldiers. 'A good commander can deal with failure, and learn from it. It is much harder to learn when you do something and get no feedback in return.'

Blake intended to make sure that the Vacuoan commanders got no information at all from this attack.

Velvet leapt up high, over the two soldiers in front of her. The soldiers spun to defend themselves from behind, only to see Velvet had not landed there. She had leapt up higher than they had known she was capable, and was still in the air directly above the two soldiers who were attacking her. She fell feet first, landing on the shoulders of one soldier and crushing him into the ground with a sickening crunch while the other stared in shock. Before he could recover, Velvet lashed out with her powerful legs again, shattering his ribcage and piercing his lungs with the broken bones. Velvet heard the click of a loading assault rifle behind her, and spun to see a third soldier aiming a gun at her chest.

Velvet looked down the barrel of the rifle in front of her, filled with a sudden regret that she would be leaving Blake alone. The soldier fired as Velvet closed her eyes reflexively. There was a loud cracking noise, and…

Velvet opened her eyes. The bullet was floating in the air just in front of her face, stopped by a floating glyph. The soldier looked in shock at the floating bullet, only to jerk in surprise as a thin pointed blade erupted from his chest. He slid off of it with a gasp, twitching and spasming his last breaths. "Don't give up so easily, Velvet." Weiss said as she flicked Myrtenaster clean of blood. Weiss' glyph faded away and the bullet fell to the ground harmlessly. "Are you hurt?" Weiss' honor guard fanned out to engage and intercept other soldiers in the area.

"No, I'm fine. Just got caught by surprise." Velvet answered as she brushed some dust off of her.

Weiss nodded. "And where are you soldiers?"

"I sent them out to join in to provide medical support to other squads." Velvet answered. Her platoons of medically trained soldiers were all capable of operating individually alongside others, so being ordered to spread out and join other squads was no surprise.

"Good call. Stay behind me, you can provide support for me and my men." Weiss ordered. "Reform the line!" She shouted to her men. The honor guard rallied to her, gathering into a formation as they all jogged to the main site of the battle.

"Have you heard from Blake?" Velvet asked as they ran.

"She's was out scouting when she found her dead scouts." Weiss glanced over at Blake. "She's fine. Just doing her thing."

Conversation paused as they encountered their first resistance. Weiss' honor guard had no problem dealing with them; they were some of the best of the best at what they did. They were heavily armored and well armed, and all veterans of many battles. They incurred no losses, their skill being augmented by Weiss' glyphs and Velvet's medical expertise.

"There don't seem to be very many soldiers." Velvet commented.

"I heard there weren't very many because it looks like it's just a raid, but I agree it looks like there aren't very many soldiers." Weiss agreed.

Velvet began speculating. "You think they-"

"Hammer Company, smash!" They heard a voice in the distance yell.

"Maybe that's why." Weiss sighed.

There was a series of explosions in the distance, accompanied by Vacuoan soldiers fleeing them in terror. Velvet, Weiss, and her honor guard stopped and stared at the terrified soldiers. It didn't take long for them to see what was responsible for their fear. Nora, at the head of a hundred and fifty roaring soldiers, crashed into the rear of the retreating Vacuoans. Nora's soldiers were all armed with explosives, large firearms, and heavy weapons as large as Nora's hammer, which they all used to great effect. The result on the fleeing Vacuoans was devastating.

"I guess we know why we aren't finding very many soldiers." Weiss deadpanned.

"Yeah." Velvet said as she stared at Nora and her soldiers wreaking havoc in the remaining enemies. "I would like to say that I would like to provide medical assistance for them, but I don't think any of them are actually hurt." She observed.

"I'm not surprised." Weiss said. "It looks like the other soldiers have it covered. Let's spread out and look for wounded." Weiss' soldiers fanned out and began searching the toppled tents and ruined vehicles. If a soldier found someone, they called for Velvet, who used her medical training and aura expertise to provide aid where she could.

After a while of this, one of Weiss' guards called out for her. "Lord Commander!"

Weiss began walking over as she kept an eye out for potential dangers and allied soldiers. "Yes?"

"I found General Kosti, ma'am." He reportedly somberly.

Weiss approached where the soldier was standing as he picked up and threw a Vacuoan corpse off to the side. Under where the body was laying was General Kosti, eyes staring blankly at the sky above. His body was surrounded by many others, both the few soldiers that had been fighting with him as well as the large numbers of enemies who had attacked him. It appeared he had put up a glorious last stand alongside his men before falling, his torso riddled with bullet wounds and a single broken spearhead protruding from his chest.

"It looks like he put up a good fight." Weiss observed, looking at the number of Vacuoan bodies that had the long, curving cuts that were indicative of scimitar slashes. "Start bringing our bodies back for proper burials. Throw the Vacuoans onto a pile and burn them."

"Yes, ma'am." He acknowledged. The soldier began to order the rest of the surrounding soldiers into pairs to carry bodies to where they needed to go. They progressed quickly, with more and more soldiers coming to help as the battle died down. From the reports each new group was giving Weiss, it seemed that Nora and Hammer Company had utterly destroyed the Vacuoans and were now doing a search through the camp for anyone they anyone have missed.

"I knew making Hammer Company volunteer-only would lead to crazy people joining." Weiss mumbled as she supervised the clean up.

A few hours later, Velvet returned to Weiss to report on her side of the clean up. "All of our wounded are treated and stable, Weiss."

"How many soldiers did we lose?" Weiss asked from her desk.

"Just over five hundred." Velvet answered. "Would've been worse, but between Jaune and Pyrrha leading a defensive line, you ordering the Vacuoans surrounded, and Hammer company, the enemy soldiers were overwhelmed very quickly. Most of the men we lost were in the initial surprise attack."

"Not bad, but still five hundred soldiers too many." Weiss sighed. "Their raid was two thousand men strong, we did very well considering. If they can spare two thousand for a raid though, their numbers call for a new plan on our part. They must have even more soldiers than we thought."

"So what's the plan now then?" Another voice joined in the conversation. Both girls turned around to see Blake striding into the command tent, blood staining some of her clothes.

"Blake!" Velvet hopped over and began looking her over. "You aren't hurt, right?"

"I'm fine." Blake rubbed the top of Velvet's head, ruffling her hair. "The blood isn't mine." She turned back to Weiss. "Me and my men made sure that no one left camp. We have a few prisoners, too. They're being interrogated right now."

"Good. Who's doing the interrogating?" Weiss asked as she wrote down what Blake was telling her.

"Captain Gray." Blake answered with a grin.

"I almost feel sorry for those prisoners." Velvet shuddered. Blake had told her one night about Captain Gray, and if one were to ask Velvet, Captain Gray frightened her. Emotionless and efficient, he was the exact opposite of what Velvet represented as a medical officer.

"He'll get the information then?" Weiss asked. She was not as familiar with Captain Gray as the other two were.

"Oh, he'll have it quickly enough." Blake smiled.

"Who has what now?" Another voice asked. The voice belonged to Jaune, who walked into the tent with Pyrrha. Nora followed them in. All three were still covered in the blood and grime she acquired from the earlier battle.

"Just interrogating some prisoners." Weiss answered.

"We got some then? That's good news." Pyrrha said.

"Indeed." Weiss agreed. She straightened up and looked at her officers. "We won't be moving out today, for obvious reasons. Make sure everyone recovers sufficiently for today. We'll move out tomorrow instead."

"Understood." Her officers answered.

"Finally going on the offensive then?" Nora asked hopefully.

"Yes. We can't fight a war defensively. No matter how good we do, if we don't attack then we can't truly damage them. We move out tomorrow." Weiss ordered.

"Let's get this war started." Nora agreed, pounding one fist into her other open hand.