Forever Fall

One of Grimmology's primary tenets is that Grimm own the night. The Creatures of Grimm possess an innate sixth sense for the fear, pain, and stress of Humans and Faunus. Experienced Grimm can track a living being from hundreds of miles away using this sense. Even in total darkness, Grimm track emotion like stag hunters track a blood trail. On a dark night, human eyesight and hearing is no match against the Grimm. Black fur hidden in inky shadows, even the largest Grimm can creep within meters of a Huntress undetected given adequate cover or a moonless night.

Some precautions can be taken. When fighting at night, Atlas's Military Special Operatives often employ optical enhancement devices, binocular headsets commonly known as Cat's Eyes. Their bulkiness, restrictive field of view, and excessive operating cost (over 200 lien of Spark dust per minute) mean Cat's Eyes are rarely used by Huntsman. Faunus, whose superior eyesight borders on night vision, can and do hunt Grimm at night. Despite their inherent abilities, discrimination and repression means less than five percent of Remnant's Huntsman and Huntresses are Faunus. The majority of human Huntsman, and mixed-species teams like RWBY, chose to restrict their hunts to daylight whenever possible.

Yang welcomed the first light of dawn to reach RWBY's makeshift camp. It was nature's alarm clock. Careful not to disturb Blake, who'd dozed off just after their moonlight dance, (She knew four hours of sleep was barely enough for her Faunus teammate) Yang walked to RWBY's lone tent, pitched a few dozen yards from the glowing orange coals of her waning campfire. Ruby wanted the team on the move by sun-up. Waking her and Weiss now would give the girls about an hour to cook, eat, and estimate their location.

A harmless garden snake slithered between Yang's feet, and for a moment she considered tossing it into the tent as a hissing alarm clock... Ruby would laugh it off, since it was exactly the kind of prank they used to pull on each other when camping as kids. Weiss, on the other hand—Yang knew she wouldn't find it funny. Moody Schnee was the last thing Yang wanted to deal with, so she decided on a gentler wake up.

Yang silently untied the canvas tent door and folded it back. Weiss and her sister were both sound asleep, side-by-side, beneath a quilted sleeping bag unzipped to form a blanket. Yang worked up her best sing-song voice, and belted out, "Good Morning!" Her cheerful bellow roused Weiss from a bad dream. Stuck in the terrifying twilight between nightmare and reality, she threw off her quilted blanket and tried to jump to her feet. The hollow ding of her head bumping a tent pole was accompanied by an undignified squeak of surprise. Ruby mumbled something to herself and her head turned sideways, but she did not stir.

"Ouch! Yang, stop shouting! They can hear you back at Beacon, I'm sure of it." Weiss didn't sound happy.

Yang lowered her voice to a whisper. "Aww! Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the tent?"

"I'm still sore from the landing, but I can't complain. Ruby's head probably hurts much worse. That sound when she broke through that tree the tree was simply brutal. Don't tell her I said so, but that dolt really had me worried yesterday. "

"My sis is tougher than she looks, that's for sure. But Weiss? She wouldn't think less of you if you actually showed concern or worry. Look, I don't know how it is in Atlas, but in Vale emotion's not considered a weakness. It's not something you are expected to hide. Friend to friend, I'm asking you to think about that."

Weiss found herself struggling for a reply. Her first instinct was to default to the comfort of her practiced sarcasm. But then she realized that Yang wasn't trying to mock her, or insult her-she was just giving the kind of sisterly advice she usually saved for Ruby.

"I...I will. I'll think about what you said. Why don't you and Blake start on breakfast? Ruby's stirring now, so she should be up in a few minutes. We'll pack the tent once we're out."

"Sounds like a plan!" Yang was about to go and wake Blake up when something on the ground caught her eye. A strip of black silk lay discarded on the red leaves of the forest floor-Blake's bow. As Yang picked it up, a sudden realization flashed in her mind. She never put it back on last night, did she? Huh. She doesn't really need it out here, right? I'll hang on to it for her. Yang carefully folded the delicate strip of silk and slipped it in to an empty pocket.

Miles across the valley from team RWBY lay the wreckage of SDC 1337. When its wings ripped way, the airship had become a fifty ton titanium missile. Kinetic force propelled the hull nearly a quarter mile across Forever Fall's central valley. Plowing through trees and rocks, the hull came to rest at the base of a cliff. Its explosive cargo, nearly three pounds of pure powdered Burn Dust, detonated; the fireball flattened the forest around it for hundreds of yards.

Kuro's men followed the furrow the bullhead's flaming hull had left in the loose soil of the forest floor. Each man in Kuro's Black Talon squad wore prototype Cat's Eye goggles. Combined with military grade adrenal stimulants, the stolen prototypes enabled the Talon troopers to move by night, without fear of Grimm or human interlopers ambushing in the dark.

Kuro's original plan was to reach the ruins of Carnelian in three days. His plan had already hit a snag. He'd never considered the possibility that disabling a section of Vale's Aerial Defense Grid might lead to the downing of an airship. That alone would bring unwanted attention from Vale, but now the downed airship was transmitting an automated distress beacon. The Schnee Dust Company was ruthlessly protective of its shipments. If that transponder remained online, the Schnees would dispatch Huntsman for a retrieval mission in a matter of hours.

His compatriots were loyal, well trained, and eager to fight, but Kuro knew that only a few among them had experience killing Huntsman, especially the more mercenary types Old Man Schnee kept on retainer. The Black Talon assassin held little doubt that his men could kill anyone they encountered, Huntsman or not. There was simply no way they could do so without jeopardizing the mission and its requirement of total secrecy. Kuro decided a detour to silence the beacon was a necessary delay.

Kuro and his dozen-man squad of Black Talons reached the wreck shortly before dawn. Radio transponders were notoriously fragile, so Kuro expected to find the ship largely intact. What he found was a grotesque metal sculpture, barely more than a charred parody of an airship. Both wings were missing, as was the poly-glass cockpit blister. The hull was shattered, but somehow the airframe's ribs survived unbent. The fuselage looked for all the world like the metallic carcass of a giant, and the glassy black crater it sat in looked like its lifeblood. Kuro's mean sifted through the wreckage, searching for the little black box whose resilient circuits put their mission at risk.

"Milord Kuro! Something's not right with my readings. Come take a look at this." The tech expert who'd hacked the defense grid stood atop the wreckage, waving his scroll at Kuro.

"Get over here and stop your damn shouting!" The Talon trooper climbed down from his perch. "Try to keep it down. I don't like being in this clearing as it is. We're too exposed. Anyone with good binoculars on the ridgeline could see us a mile away with a pair of Cat's Eyes. You screaming like that only makes it worse. Now what did you want to show me?"

"Sorry, Milord. I was trying to triangulate the signal with my scroll and a few improvised antennas I made from the wreckage. The transponder is somewhere within this triangle," The man gestured to the map on his scroll, with a purple triangle marking his search grid. "But something's not right. It's moving."

"The transponder is moving? You're sure?" It could be a trap, of course. But why wait nine hours to turn on the transponder?

"Yeah. It's somewhere in those woods, but I can't get more than a quarter-mile accuracy." The young Talon pointed towards a thick copse of trees north of the crash site.

"Try to clean it up. We don't have the time for a grid search. We're wasting darkness as it is." Kuro was getting annoyed. If that transponder wasn't shut down in the next hour, it would likely be detected by the engineers on the morning train to Vale. The Schnee railroad was less than ten miles away, well inside radio range.

"As you wish, milord. Wait-huh-it's resolving now. The signal is moving in a straight line, coming towards us."

"It's probably those students Lord Hellbrau warned us about. " Kuro stifled a chuckle. "If they think an amateur ambush will work on us, they've earned their deaths through stupidity." He raised his voice to get the attention of his men. "Something is coming this way, and it or they have the transponder beacon. It's probably the Schnee brat and her friends. Remember, no one kills the Schnee. Lord Hellbrau wants her alive. Do what you will with the rest."

A dozen Black Talon drew their weapons and took up fighting positions around the wreckage. As they did so, a throaty roar like that of a bear sounded from the stand of trees in front of them. Kuro held his left hand up in a diagonal slash, a signal to his men to hold their fire until they saw a target. He still thought this was a trick, just part of an ambush by the Schnee brat and her teammates. Grimm were dumb brutes to Kuro's reckoning. Surely they weren't capable of laying a trap like this?

Kuro chose to fight on the open ground around the crashed Bullhead, expecting to face four huntresses-in-training. In the dense foliage of the valley, Kuro knew they could leverage mobility and their Grimm-stalking skills to isolate and dispatch his men. Here, with a 360 degree field of fire, his men could work in unison to cut them down. He used a few more gestures to realign his men. The melee fighters among his men came forward, ready to join him in combat. The rest of his men, bearing an assortment of dust-repeaters and slug throwers, kneeled behind a warped titanium panel, all which remained of the Bullhead's left wing. They would unleash a hellfire salvo of Dust and lead on his command. Kuro wanted no more delays in his mission. If he could smash the beacon and solve his Huntress problem in one quick skirmish, he was willing to make some noise.

Seconds passed, the tension among Kuro's men rising. Why aren't they attacking? Suddenly, a chorus of wolf-like snarls answered the Ursa's roar. The Black Talon gunners spun around, to meet this new threat. A pack of Beowolves emerged from the waist-high red grass, just meters behind them. As the Beowolves charged, a half dozen Ursai, monstrous Grimm whose soulless bodies resembled armor-plated bears, broke through the trees in front of Kuro. It was in that moment that the leader of the Black Talon squad understood just how badly he'd miscalculated. His men were now in a killing field, caught hundreds of yards from the cover of the forest, their back to a cliff and Grimm closing in on all sides.

A red flash and a burst of rose petals was Yang's only warning against the human missile heading her way. With a burst of her Semblance, Ruby crossed the ground between herself and her sister in a second flat. Morning dew still slicked the leaves beneath her feet, so Ruby's planned surprise hug became a flying tackle.

"YAAAAANG!" Ruby clung to her sister, gripping her with a hug that was unexpectedly strong for her small frame.

"Morning sis. Is everything ok?" Yang's sisterly instincts told her something was wrong, and when she looked up at Ruby she saw worry in the younger girl's silver eyes.

"Yep. I just...I had a bad dream. It was about Summer, and you were there too...but it was just a dream." Ruby's voice was quiet and shaky, so Yang squeezed her tighter in a reassuring hug.

"Well that's what you get for lying next to the Ice Queen. Sleeping cold is guaranteed to give you nightmares." With a crooked grin, Yang tousled Ruby's hair.

"Hey! That's not fair. Just because my semblance makes ice doesn't mean I make people cold. I mean, I did get cold last night...but it wasn't my fault!" Weiss crossed her arms, indignant.

Ruby giggled. "It's okay Weiss. It was probably just the wind. I thought you kept me plenty warm!" That earned her the barest hunt smile from the Ice Princess.

Ruby turned back towards the fire, and noticed Blake was sitting cross-legged, her back to her teammates. The metallic clink of a pistol slide locking open caught Ruby's attention. She walked over and plopped down next to her teammate, and her passion (Weiss might say obsession) for weapons took hold, wiping the last vestiges of a sad dream from her thoughts.

"Watcha up to?" Gambol Shroud was in a dozen pieces, laid before the Faunus girl on a small waxed-canvas tarpaulin. An assortment of punches and screwdrivers were scattered around her makeshift workbench. Ruby instantly recognized them as the tools from Beacon's standard-issue field-maintenance kit.

"Something's wrong with my pistol. I just swapped my magazine for freeze-rounds, because I heard a few Beowolf howls last night and I only had concussive rounds loaded. Now I can't get the rounds to feed. Every time I cock the pistol it just jams. It's strange-as far as I can tell, nothing's wrong. Would you mind taking a look?" Ruby was impressed at Blake's composure. If Crescent Rose jammed up for no apparent reason, Ruby would not be so calm.

"Sure thing Blake! I'd love too." Ruby glanced back at Yang and Weiss, now studying a map of Forever Fall on Weiss's scroll. "Can you two start on breakfast? I want us moving in half an hour, and I need to fix Gambol Shroud."

"You want us to cook the rest of it?" Yang thought that was the best idea. The food packs in Weiss's bag could only make one more full meal for four. She figured it would be best to eat the rest of the rations, since they'd have to start foraging by dinner anyway.

"Yep. Whip up a Taiyang Special. Weiss, can you try contacting Ozpin again?"

"I'm receiving some radio signals now, but the CCT net is still having a tantrum. I'll try to piggyback the signal off one of those Atlas Lancers we saw in the air yesterday."

Blake gave Weiss an odd look. "I don't think you can do that. The new Lancers are supposed to be closed systems."

Weiss smirked, "Most people would say it's impossible. Most people didn't master discrete Rougian algebra at 15. If there's one in range, I'll have it done in ten minutes."

"If you say so Weiss. Uh, Yang, what's a Taiyang Special?" Blake's stomach growled in anticipation.

Yang nodded toward Ruby. "Our dad loves to cook, but he's not very good at it."

Ruby started laughing "Remember the time he tried to make stuffed partridge? We couldn't even feed it to Zwei!"

Yang smiled and continued, "When he makes dinner, he usually throws everything in this big black iron pot. Fish, noodles, potatoes-he really doesn't discriminate. He'll just throw it all in the pot to cook for a few hours. We used to call it Dad's Special. Since we only have one frying pan in Weiss's bag, that's what I'll do for breakfast."

"You know, I've never had your cooking Yang. I'm looking forward to it."

"A chef's only as good as her ingredients, and I've got freeze-dried meat that's older than Professor Port. I'll do my best, but remind me to make you a fresh Tuna Casserole when we get back. It's practically my specialty."

"Ummm." Blake unconsciously licked her lips. "That sounds amazing. Careful though- if your tuna's that good, I might get hooked." Blake went for the subtle pun, keeping her voice flat and her face straight.

Weiss groaned. "Not you too! One pun master's enough, thank you very much!"

Yang unleashed a toothy grin. "You're a cat after my own heart. Tuna...hooked. I must be rubbing off on you!" As she said that, Yang gave her a salacious wink, and Blake thanked the Goddess that Weiss and Ruby both had their backs to Yang. Blake's cheeks turned a deep red, and she cast Yang a glance that said for the love of Oum, not now! Yang shook her head as if to say you're no fun today, and busied herself with cooking.

Lining up her ingredients, Yang began to simmer breakfast over the campfire's coals. Meanwhile, Ruby and Blake focused on fixing Gambol Shroud. If the Variable Ballistic Chain Scythe's gun was only stuck closed, the jam would be a minor inconvenience. But the way the slide had jammed meant the weapon was now almost useless, since it was impinging the mechanism of the transforming Katana whose handle the pistol formed.

. The caped girl took one look at Blake's tools, shook her head, and reached for the silver cartridge case on her hip. Setting aside two cross-emblazoned magazines, Ruby produced a flat metal case from the back of the pouch. Engraved on the surface in a flowery script was a short message, "Rule 1: Keep your damn scythe clean, Ru. Always. Love, Uncle Qrow." Beneath the message was Ruby's flaming rose emblem.

"What is that?" Blake pointed at the silver case in Ruby's hands.

"It's a custom service kit. I haven't heard from my Uncle since I left Signal Academy. He got sent on a mission just before I got accepted to Beacon, and he didn't have time to say goodbye. But he left me a present. He made this for Crescent Rose, but the tools should let me fix whatever's wrong with your gun too." Ruby smiled as she selected the tools she'd need, and promptly set to work.

Blake sat in quiet awe of Ruby's prowess. At school Ruby was often endearingly uncoordinated. The girl who sat alongside Blake worked with the hands of a surgeon. Blake had only field stripped her weapon. In as much time as it had taken Blake to do so, Ruby had already disassembled the pistol to its base components. She meticulously checked each part for some abnormality. After a good ten minutes of silent concentration, Ruby's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Got it! But how'd you manage to do that? Hmm..."

"You found what's causing it to jam? Can you fix it?"

"Sure! Your mainspring is cracked, almost like it was over-compressed. Strange, I've never seen something like that before, and I load more powder in one round than you have in a full magazine. I'll give it a good cleaning now, and when we get back to Beacon I'll tear her apart and get to the heart of the problem...I mean, if you trust with me doing that, of course." As she talked, Ruby applied a few solvents to a wool mop, and in less than a minute Blake's pistol and blade looked cleaner than the day they were forged. Ruby reassembled Gambol Shroud with delicate precision, tightening each bolt just so, balancing each spring, and oiling each moving part with great care. Finished, she handed the blade back to Blake with a proud smile. "All ready. And thanks for trusting me with Gambol Shroud. She's as good as new! Well, probably better than new! You could shave a few seconds of the transformation if you swap..." Ruby forced herself to stop geeking out over Gambol Shroud.

Blake stared at her blade. We've been through a lot, old friend. Don't go failing me now. "Thanks Ruby. I..."

Blake's sentiments were drowned out by Yang's overly enthusiastic call to eat. "Breakfast is ready!"

Dining Hall, Beacon Academy

That Monday morning found Beacon Academy's Grand Dining Hall surprisingly empty. The previous week, all Beacon students had been paired with active Huntsman for their bi-annual field missions. A number of teams, including CFVY, JNPR, and RWBY, had their missions cut short by a Grimm incursion and White Fang terrorist attack on Southeast Vale, an event rapidly becoming immortalized as The Breach.

A handful of other teams, including Cardin Winchester's team CRDL, had finished early or been dismissed by their Huntsman, and now found themselves with little to do but train. Though classes were finished, the term was not over for another week. Most teams took the time to train, especially those headed for the Vytal Festival Tournament, less than a month away.

Cardin Winchester and his team sat in the center of the dining hall. They were still reeling from a party Russel had snuck them into, thrown by the visiting teams from Mistral. Tired, hungry, and potentially hungover, the perpetual troublemakers swapped stories with a team from Atlas whose crude humor and alleged adventures proved a perfect match for team CRDL.

Every head in the room turned towards the hall's archway as the tall oak doors were slammed open. In stormed a petite woman with fiery red lockes of hair. Her uniform identified her as a student of Haven academy. Save for the reverberating echoes of her heels on the hall's hardwood floors, the room fell silent. Her face conveyed pure rage.

"Where. Is. Cardin. Winchester?" She spat out each word as if they was a bitter poison on her tongue. A half dozen arms singled him out, no around her willing to share whatever wrath Cardin had brought down on himself this time.

With powerful strides the Mistralian firebrand crossed the hall, coming to a stop before a startled Cardin. He had no idea who this woman was, or what quarrel she had with him.

Smack! With no warning, the woman backhanded Cardin. Smack! Her palm caught his cheek on the return. "You really think you can cheat on me with my own sister? And my teammate? You have another thing coming!" Smack! "I think I deserve some answers!" She was surprisingly strong, grabbing Cardin by his lapels and hauling him to his feet. He still didn't protest, a mix of shock and confusion tieing his tongue.

Still gripping his lapel, the mystery woman half-dragged Cardin back out the door from which she'd entered. The leader of the Atlas team who's been eating with CRDL set down his chopsticks and looked at Russel Thrush. "He's your team leader, right? Aren't you going to help him? She's gonna kick his ass!"

Russel shook his head. "Not a chance dude. As my combat instructor says, as wise man picks his battles. Besides, I don't want to get on that chick's bad side."

Once she had him out the doors, the mystery woman loosened her grip. She led Cardin across a courtyard towards one of the Academy's many fountains. The sound of falling water would cover their whispers from would-be evesdroppers. "Sorry about that. I wanted to sell the act. You think I over did it?"

Cardin rubbed his aching jaw. "You had me fooled. But what's so important you risked coming here? And where the hell did you get that ridiculous outfit?"

"I couldn't wait till next month's drop. I tried to contact you last night to do this the easy way, but it seems you were occupied. I decided to improvise. You should thank me, you know. I just did wonders for your reputation. Sisters? Ha! You're going to be a legend when you get back to breakfast, Cardin. A legend!" The Black Talon field runner allowed herself a chuckle. How did I get this loser as my assignment?

Cardin scowled. "Seriously, why are you here?"

"Your reports on the Faculty and your fellow students have been helpful. Very helpful. Plans are being put in place, and one of the Lords has assigned you a key role."

"I knew they'd recognize my talents! What would they have me do?"

Good god. Does he hear himself? Talents? I could thrash his whole team unarmed. "Nothing, for now. You are to stay in cover until you are called upon to strike. Take this pouch." The woman slipped a small leather pouch into Cardin's hand. "Inside is a new scroll, and a set of poisons. When the time comes, your orders will be issued on that scroll. Keep it on you at all times, same with the poison. Are we clear?"

Cardin sighed. "Yeah, sure. Wait. Like I've been doing since I was recruited. Wait some more. Well, I'm ready to do something more than spy. I'm getting sick of all those animals crawling around this place. Have you seen the zoo that arrived from Vacuo?"

The field runner stood to leave. "Don't do anything stupid. And don't worry-we've got everything under control." She walked away without a glance backwards. It would be the last time Cardin saw her.