"Sir, we may have a situation."

Junior Xiong turned towards the woman who had addressed him, she was standing in the doorway into his office. Well, it wasn't so much of an office, but a room in the Separatist garrison that he had commandeered for himself.

"What is it?" he asked, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his desk.

"Two Trandoshans still have yet to report back in from their patrol last night." She began, looking at the data pad she held in her hands.

"They're probably passed out drunk in a ditch somewhere." He cut in, with a dismissive wave of his hand. The mercenaries were notorious for getting drunk on the job, which irritated Junior to no end.

"Well normally I wouldn't think this to be a big deal, but a family failed to report in to their work shift this morning. We sent a squad to their house, and found this." She slid the data pad across the table, and Junior picked it up.

His brow furrowed in concern at the images he was seeing. "Did they find anything else?" He asked, looking up at her.

"No sir. Just the bodies. And sir, the way the bodies were lying makes it seem like they were executed." She added, taking the data pad as he handed it back to her.

Junior sighed, his head in his hands. "Miltia, I believe we may have an enemy presence on the planet."

Blake was sitting in a tree, her legs straddling a branch as she leaned back against the trunk, her rifle at her shoulder. It was just after dawn, with the morning sun streaming through the leaves. This place was beautiful, but it had been stained by brutality. A patrol had gone to the farmhouse, and had rapidly ran off. They'll be preparing for us. She thought grimly, knowing that RWBY's job had gotten more difficult. She wouldn't bring it up though, Yang was having a hard enough time already. Sighing, she scanned the area with her sniper, bringing her sights to rest on the Separatist garrison. The building was nothing special, just a brick and mortar building shaped like a rectangle. In front of the garrison, an alarming amount of battle droids was forming. Blake's heart rate began to rise, afraid that the droids would come for RWBY.

"Boss." She said, alerting Ruby. "We may have a situation here."

Ruby walked behind the tree Blake was in, using it for cover as she got out her sniper attachment. "Problem seventy?"

"Large amount of droids gathering in front of the garrison. I don't know what they're up to."

Ruby looked at the garrison down her sights, and sighed.

"Look who just walked out the front door."

Blake moved her sight back to the front of the building, to see a large man walking out, flanked by two identical looking women. Junior Xiong was walking towards the droids, who had been joined by a number of mercenaries. They were standing in a line.

"Is he inspecting his troops?" Weiss asked, joining the team with her sniper out.

"What's the point of inspecting droids?" Yang added, steadying her rifle on a tree stump.

"Maybe it's a show of power to the locals." Ruby mused, her voice unconfident.

"Or us." Blake muttered, her crosshair trained on the man's forehead.

"Ruby I have a shot lined up here." She informed her leader, finger on the trigger.

"Negative Blake, I'd rather not get slaughtered by those droids. We need to make preparations." Ruby replied, lowering her rifle, and crouching down, opening the holocron that had the layout of the area on it.

Blake sighed, before dropping out of the tree and landing next to Ruby, who was inspecting the map. Yang and Weiss came over, looking at the map as well.

"So those droids are going to be a problem for us. We need to figure out how to take them out of the equation." Ruby said, her right hand under her helmet.

"Why don't we just call in an assault ship and have them level the place with everyone in it?" Yang asked, her arms crossed, rifle slung over her shoulder.

"We would, if command wasn't worried about a Separatist fleet coming over and destroying our ships. That's why we got dropped in a freighter, and why they only sent in one squad." Ruby asked, turning the map in the air, trying to get a different perspective.

"The main form of income in this area is mining right?" Weiss asked, crouching down and looking at the map.

"Yeah, that's also why the Seps set up shop here. Why?" Ruby asked, taking her eyes off the map and looking at her white-clad teammate.

"Well, a mining operation of that scale is bound to use explosives. Nice specialized charges, shaped for maximum efficiency. Very tidy." Weiss said, scrolling the view of the map to the mining area.

"It'd be a shame if some of those charges got misplaced. An even bigger shame if those charges were used to remove a certain garrison." Weiss continued, a smile creeping into her voice.

"So we blow it up." Yang said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Okay guys, we'll go with that. No point sending us all, so Weiss and I will go get the explosives. Yang, Blake, you two stay here and keep running recon on the garrison. Update me if anything comes up."

Weiss was creeping through the forest, looking at the mining complex. The work day had ended, and all the workers had gone home. Ruby was next to her, crouched down with her rifle ready.

"Where do you think they keep the explosives?" Ruby whispered, her rifle slowly scanning from side to side.

"Probably in that building labeled explosives." Weiss deadpanned, pointing towards said building.

"Well that makes our job easier. Let's go."

The two commandos walked towards the building, keeping low to the ground. They came to a stop outside the small building, and Ruby raised up a scanner.

"Two inside." She said, putting the scanner away.

"Well I suppose firing anything into the building is out of the question." Weiss said, putting her rifle away.

"You wouldn't even feel it." Ruby said, pulling out a thermal detonator. Weiss's eyes widened, hoping her leader wasn't about to throw a live grenade into the building.

"How nervous would you be, sitting in a room filled with enough explosives in it to send this chunk of rock into orbit?" Ruby asked, tossing the grenade up down in her palm nonchalantly.

"Drink-spilling nervous, I'd say." Weiss said, still staring at the grenade.

"Yeah, I figured you would say something like that." Ruby said, before checking that the thermal detonator was not primed.

Ruby rolled the grenade into the room, and two mercenaries, humans this time, came sprinting out of the building as fast as they could. One ran straight into Ruby, who put one hand over his mouth and the other on the back of his head, ending his life with a sharp twist of her arms.

The other one was a bit harder to take down, as Weiss jammed her vibroblade into his jugular, bringing him to the ground with her other hand. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a pathetic wheeze. She jerked her blade to the side before yanking it out, one hand over his mouth in case he made too much noise. He struggled for a few seconds, before becoming still. She looked at her white armor, which had a nice spray of blood down the middle of her chest plate, and blood was on her gauntlets as well. This is going to take forever to come off.

Weiss looked up to see Ruby peering into the room, before walking in and collecting her grenade. Weiss walked in, and was taken aback by the sheer amount of explosives.

"We're going to need something to carry this all back." She said, as Ruby just looked behind her.

"Gonna need to move these bodies too."

"Hey Blake." Blake was snapped out of her recon by the voice of her squad mate, who was sitting to her left.

"Why are we here?" The soldier continued while still aiming down her sights.

"Like, in this universe? In a metaphysical way?" Blake asked curiously, wondering why her friend was asking this.

"No, I mean here. On Qiilura." The demolitions expert said, still not taking her eyes off the garrison.

"We're here to liberate these people from Separatist rule." Blake said matter-of-factly.

"That's bullshit." Blake was stunned, as Yang continued. "These people don't need liberation. They're not being oppressed, I mean for fucks sake they're getting jobs because of the Seps, they're putting food on the table. I'm not sure that these people would be better off under the Republic."

"What are you saying Yang?"

"I'm saying this is asset denial. We're here because the Seps have something that the Republic wants, so we come here and kill and destroy so that the Republic gets what it wants. Saying this is a liberation mission is an insult to the people here who got stuck in the middle, because if this was liberation, we wouldn't have fucking killed five civilians Blake. If this was liberation, the advisor would have told Ruby to tell the family to shut up about us and we would be out of their hair. But no, we gunned them down like fucking animals, because they knew we were here, and we couldn't risk them telling Junior. That makes a difference, at least to me."

Silence fell between the two, Blake contemplating what had just been said, while Yang seemed to be gathering her thoughts after this outburst. This wasn't like Yang, she was all smiles, trying to make people laugh. This was serious, a side of her Blake had never seen.

"Hey Blake." She was ripped from her thoughts, almost afraid of what would come next.

"Are we the good guys?"

"I don't think it's that simple Yang."

"We were always taught that the Republic was this good and glorious symbol of all that was right in this galaxy, but the more I see, the less I like."

"What are you trying to say Yang?"

"I dunno. Forget it. And don't bring this up to Weiss or Ruby, I don't need them on my ass about this."

Blake was a lot of things, but she wasn't the type of person to tell someone else something as important as what Yang had just said. Yang was clearly troubled about what had happened last night, and Blake would respect her privacy.

"I won't say a word."

Weiss and Ruby returned as night was falling, carrying large bags filled with explosives. They gingerly set them down, taking care to make sure that the ordnance didn't explode.

"What happened to your armor Weiss?" Yang asked, pointing at Weiss's chest plate, which was covered in dry blood, staining her white armor a dark crimson.

"Spilled some food on it." Weiss said, shrugging her shoulders as Yang laughed.

Ruby sat on a tree trunk, and the rest of the team gathered by her, forming a diamond.

"So we've got the explosives, we just need to get them into the garrison." She said, her hand under her helmet once again as she thought.

The group sat in silence, trying to think of a way into the garrison.

"Wait, don't they have deliveries sent inside the garrison?" Weiss asked, thinking of another plan.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure they would take in a bag full of explosives." Blake responded, skeptical of where this train of thought was going.

"We could maybe disguise it?" Weiss said, not sure of herself.

"According to the map, there's some construction going on behind the garrison. We could put it there." Ruby said, standing up and walking towards the sack filled with explosives.

She pulled some out, and gestured her team to come over and join her.

"Come on guys, this bomb won't make itself."

A/N: Hey guys! Heil96 back, with a new chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed a further view on the mental state of everyone's favorite blonde, Yang! I'll be going in depth on the mental state of the main 8 throughout the story, so expect that. Everyone's mental state and the detrimental effect the war has on them is going to be huge theme throughout the fic, and I'm looking forward to writing that out! I believe that this chapter is the shortest so far, and that's because I wanted this stage of the mission and the combat stage to be different. And if you're worried that RWBY is just going to snipe Junior, blow the place up, and walk away, I can assure you that will not be happening. I released my new fic yesterday, and it's an OC fic set in the RWBY universe. If that's your style go check it out, and if not, no worries! I'm also about 6k words into my moncon for the RWBY subreddit, and hopefully I'll release that sometime next week, but no promises. That's about all I have to say this time, and look for the next chapter of RC RWBY Monday at around noon CST. Until next time, thanks for reading!

Team RWBY

RC-1183 Ruby

RC-1104 Weiss

RC-1170 Blake

RC-1126 Yang

Team JNPR

RC-1390 Jaune

RC-1163 Nora

RC-8051 Pyrrha

RC-2223 Ren

Vode An

Heil96, out.