The Hunters Become The Hunted.

Cardin rolled his shoulders as best he could, failing to alleviate the ache of his recently healed wounds. The metal frame of the crash harness didn't allow for much in terms of comfort or range of motion. His wounds were still a little sore but now that he was free of his confinement to the ward, he felt far better. He surveyed his surroundings for a third time. The grey drab interior of the Striker airship provided little in the way of distraction or interesting sights. Crash seats, identical to the one Cardin was strapped into, lined both walls.

The Striker itself was a tad longer than a bullhead and far blockier in design thanks to its angular look and its rectangular engines, all four of which tucked in close to the main body of the aircraft. The tail was home to the exit ramp while the nose housed a bulky two seat cockpit, crammed full of consoles and winking lights. Unlike a bullhead where the seats were side by side, this airship housed one seat behind the other, with the front seat for the pilot and the rear for the chin gun operator. A pair of stubby wings graced the space in front of the engines either side of the aircraft's midsection.

He turned his attention to Professor Port who was currently regaling team RFGE with yet another tale of his exploits. Beside them, Russell and Yatsuhashi were conversing quietly. Cardin had been relieved two days previously when Russell had stepped down as team leader without a fuss. It's almost as if he hated the responsibility Cardin mused. Dove and Sky spoke in hushed tones, occupying one of the corners closest to the exit ramp. Dove was terrified of flying and insisted on being close to an escape point at all times, not that it would do them much good if they were in a high velocity crash. Now that Cardin thought about it, it was kinda funny considering Dove had the name he did and the family emblem of a bird, yet was terrified of flying. He smiled slightly at the thought.

"What're you smiling at Cardin?" Coco asked from directly opposite him. Her lover and teammate Fox sat beside her, arms folded and eyes closed, his head tilted slightly to one side as if he was asleep.

"I just realized we have a Dove on board who is afraid of flying" Cardin said as he turned her way.

A soft laugh escaped Coco's lips as she removed her sunglasses to clean their lenses on her cuff. "Brilliant. I hadn't thought of that."

"I'm going to head to the cockpit to check on Velvet." Cardin said, excusing himself as the crash harness whined open.

"No need, she's a great pilot, one in three of her passengers usually survive the flight!" Coco called after him sarcastically. Cardin let loose a laugh as he climbed into the cockpit. Fox opened his eyes and glared at Cardin's back as the first year ascended the stairs to the nose of the aircraft.

Russell nudged Yatsuhashi with his elbow as he observed the interaction of their respective team leaders . "Looks like they're going to be able to work together pretty well after all."

Yatsuhashi nodded in agreement, thankful of Russell being oblivious to the emotions that coursed through his mind. He wasn't angry, he was upset. Do I have a right to be? Maybe, but Velvet also has a right to choose who to like.

"Hey big guy it's not like they're together or anything, don't worry so much." Russell soothed quietly.

Yatsuhashi rounded on him, "is it really that obvious?" His whispered tone a cocktail of embarrassment and concern.

"Nah" Russell replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But in the time we have been spending together recently I've gotten used to your tells."

"Tells?"

"You know, like poker? The little nuances in body language?" Russell explained.

"Like what?" Yatsuhashi asked incredulously.

"When you clench your right fist and hold it in your left hand, you're worrying about something."

Yatsuhashi glanced down at his hands and hastily changed their position once he noticed Russell was right about his body language. "Why would you notice something like that?"

"Played a lot of poker" Russell explained, shrugging again. "Don't worry Yatsu, I'm not gonna say a word."

"Thanks Russ, I'm never playing cards with you though." Yatsuhashi replied, smiling.

Cardin's laughter followed his heavy footsteps up the three narrow stairs into the cockpit. Velvet glanced over her shoulder and smiled by way of greeting to Cardin before turning her attention back to the armour glass windshield in front of her. "What's so funny?" She asked without turning as he dropped into the seat behind her.

"Just something Coco said."

"Was it about me?"

"Maybe..." Cardin's response elicited a sigh from Velvet, "hey, so when did you learn to fly? Did you learn at Beacon?"

"Yeah, took a piloting course as extra credit in my first year with the twins. You're lucky one of those two aren't at the helm."

"Why?" Cardin asked, somewhat intrigued.

"You know how competitive they are on the range, they're even worse in the air. Flint was told that if he did one more barrel roll then he was off the course."

"That bad, huh?"

"Professor Goodwitch accompanied the tutor and the twins on the flight, but she ended up vomiting from the G forces Flint's antics were causing."

"Damn..." Cardin tailed off, half impressed and half terrified by the prospect of Flint flying. "So..." Cardin gestured to the stunning panorama visible from the cockpit's windshield. It was breath-taking despite being half obscured by mist. "Lovely view?"

"Yeah..." Velvet replied idly.

"I spy with my faunus eye something beginning with...S?"

"Is it Sky?" Velvet asked sarcastically.

"Yup...was it really that easy?" Cardin replied. Velvet snorted derisively and was about to jokingly scold Cardin for his ineptitude at the game but he sat up abruptly in his seat and glanced around the cabin. "What's that beeping sound?" Cardin asked.

"What beeping?" Velvet said only now becoming aware of the sounds since she had been so wrapped up in her conversation with Cardin. Her gaze shifted to the green radar screen. A solid mass of small contacts accompanied by four far larger dots blinked across the radar, shifting position every time the detector signal made another pass over their location. An even larger object trailed behind the first wave.

The first thing Velvet noticed was the sheer number of things her screen was registering. The second thing she noted was that every single contact was heading straight for the airship at an alarming speed and they would intercept head on with the main contingent in less than 30 seconds. The third, final, most worrying thing Velvet realized was that the colossal contact tailing behind the main force could only be one thing. The very Razorwing they had come to find and kill... had found them first.

"Shit" Velvet murmured.

"W-what is it?" Cardin stammered.

She didn't hear him as she scanned the console in front of her for the intercom broadcast button. Her fist slammed down onto the intercom "Contacts!" Velvet screamed.

Back in the crew compartment the atmosphere changed abruptly from calm and quiet to frantic readying of weapons and shouting. Velvets warning prompted everyone to rise to their feet to grab weapons. Everyone quickly readied themselves for the unexpected battle, even professor Port leapt into action faster than most would have anticipated given his rotund appearance. The portly professor finished loading his blunderaxe, then calmly held up a hand to silence the students and pressed his thumb to the intercom. "Miss Scarletina, what's the situation?"

"Grimm sir, lots of them. Gargoyle swarm and four full grown Nevermores will meet us head on in 20 seconds, the Razorwing isn't far behind."

Professor Port's brow furrowed for a moment. "Hmmm, best we make haste towards the forest and get to a lower altitude. When we crash, I'd like to fall from a lower height and have some cover from these beasts."

"Yes professor" Velvet said before clicking off the intercom. She turned to Cardin, her face a mask of determination. "Ready the gun."

"What do you mean WHEN we crash?" Dove whimpered.

"My dear boy, it's inevitable. We can't outrun them, we can't outfight them... But we can outthink them. The tree canopy below will provide us with adequate cover from our airborne assailants." Professor Port turned away from the first year student and began shooting off orders in rapid succession. "Ember take Russell to the upper hatch and defend the engines at all costs. Coco, Fox, Rod, Flint, Gray and Dove take up positions at the exit ramp when I open it. Keep our pursuers off us as best you can. Ignore any Grimm that make it into the crew bay. The rest of us will deal with them. Everyone attach safety tethers, we can expect some turbulence."

Everyone rushed to get to their assigned position, Russell pausing just long enough to ask Yatsuhashi to look after Sky and Dove. The stoic swordsman silently nodded in affirmation before drawing his weapon. Russell clipped on his safety tether and followed Ember up the ladder.

The striker banked slightly right and the auto-cannon whirred into life, its high velocity shells stitching lines of tracer fire into the aerial horde in front of the aircraft. Cardin created an opening in the terrifying mass of winged death in front of them and Velvet pushed the airship into full throttle, barely making it through the momentary hole in the enemy ranks. A persistent gargoyle slammed into one wing tip, rebounding with a weighty clang as its broken body plummeted towards the ground.

A Nevermore swooped in front of the aircraft, Velvet dove beneath it before levelling off. The Nevermore was joined by its three sisters and took up pursuit of the airship. The four deadly Grimm took turns to let loose streams of feathers towards their target. Velvet banked hard left, pulling two G's before vectoring all four engines toward the nose of the ship, killing their forward momentum. The Nevermores reacted too slowly, swooping beneath the aircraft side on, giving Cardin a perfect shot. The gun spun up, the signature whuka-whuka-whuka of the nose gun's slow cycle rate denoting the destruction of two Nevermores. The remaining pair dove towards the ground to avoid a similar fate. Cardin whooped in victory as Velvet gunned the engines and chased after them.

Back in the crew compartment things were going equally well. So far not a single Gargoyle had made it inside. Rod's revolvers banged off shot after shot into the chittering Grimm. The automatic pistols mounted inside Fox's armblades chattered haphazardly, each burst clipping the wings of yet another enemy. The twins blasted Grimm out of the air with scary precision, sometimes killing three or four Gargoyles with a single well-placed shot. Coco fired in short bursts whenever the horde encroached too close, conscious of how quickly her weapon ate through ammo. Dove for his part tentatively plinked away with his sword's built in handgun. His legs shook as he tried to focus on the winged killing machines hell bent on his destruction rather than the stunning vista his birds-eye view provided.

A Gargoyle finally managed to land on the ramp and Dove got his first real look at this unfamiliar foe. It stood three feet high, four feet from fanged snout to barbed tail. Its six foot wingspan of taut, sickly looking skin flapped as its foot long curved armblades and clawed feet scrabbled for purchase on the ramp in front of Dove. Blood red eyes fixed on the trembling first year student in front of it as it leapt forward, boneswords outstretched and mouth wide open, revealing a drooling maw lined with curved needle like fangs. Its black scales and white ridged bone armour plates were not enough to defend it from professor Port who blasted a plate sized hole through its chest cavity with a shot from his blunderaxe. Its lifeless body was flung from the ship and tumbled through the craft's slipstream.

On the roof Ember and Russell took out the few Grimm clever or lucky enough to avoid being killed by their gun toting classmates. They dispatched the Gargoyles in melee with relative ease, staying on their feet was actually harder than fighting the Grimm, as the wind sought to tear them from their precarious perch and Velvets evasive manoeuvres sometimes forced them into free fall before pulling their safety cables taut and slamming them back into the ship. Russell already had a few bruises and scratches from his body's repeated acquaintance with the angular hull. He didn't complain though, Ember had suffered the same punishment yet only seemed to grow more angry.

Back in the cockpit Velvet fought to keep the craft heading towards the forest while evading the ever closing enemies. If they ditched in the swamps they were as good as dead. Even if they survived the crash, there was no cover from the aerial threat and the swamplands were home to Grimm specializing in ambush attacks such as Wraith-lurkers and Tremor-worms. A threatening shadow fell across the cockpit, Velvet flipped the craft onto its left wingtip banking hard, narrowly avoiding the colossal Razorwing as it scythed through the air mere inches from the belly of the airship. Velvet redirected the harsh turn into a full inversion of the craft during a steep dive, looping round to allow Cardin a shot at one of the two remaining Nevermores. The Grimm squawked in surprise as its prey went on the offensive. The stream of tracer fire Cardin let loose messily bisected the threat as Velvet climbed slightly and turned them back towards the objective. The peak now just barely in visual range, its sister mountain looming out of the mist a few miles distant.

However, the sequence of turns had slowed the craft and the remaining Nevermore took the opportunity to fire off a stream of feathers. Three made contact with the back left portion of the airship. The first took a small chunk out of the edge of the exit ramp startling Dove and causing him to yelp in surprise. The second deflected off the crew compartments superstructure harmlessly. The third violently embedded itself into the back left engine. A small explosion shook the ship as Velvet battled against the sudden imbalance in the crafts throttle. The Striker spun to the left for a few seconds before Velvet cut off fuel to the damaged engine to prevent a dust propellant fire and compensated for the change in power output from the left engines. She was forced to dive the second she regained control as the Razorwing swooped in to finish off the stricken ship. She soon levelled out, but with only three engines running the Gargoyle horde easily caught up with them and swarmed the craft. "We can still do this" Velvet uttered through gritted teeth.

"Fuck" Ember cursed as the back left engine sparked and died, transfixed by a Nevermore feather. Both her and Russell locked their safety tethers and grabbed onto seams in the crafts armor plate with all their might as the airship they crouched upon spun out. Russell was relieved as the airship levelled out, using a little aura to clear his dizzied head.

With the sudden reduction in speed the Grimm horde enveloped the craft. Down in the crew compartment the passengers ranged fire was no longer enough to keep the enemy at bay. Gray was knocked off his feet by a gargoyle, grappling with it and jerking his head out of reach of its clacking jaws as he kept its armblades back with his weapon held across his body. Flint spun his own rifle in his hands, gripping the barrel as the stock expanded out into a sledgehammer like maul and slamming it horizontally into the Grimm that set upon his brother, its flailing form collided with two more of its comrades as it was violently ejected from the craft.

Sky speared a Gargoyle on the tip of his halberd pinning the screeching Grimm to the deck. He stumbled as the creature writhed on the floor attempting to tear itself off of his weapon. Sky winced. His hearing was becoming hypersensitive as another episode of 'the feels' threatened to surface. The din of battle in the enclosed space and the chittering of his skewered enemy was unbearably loud to Sky. A black and green boot slammed down and burst the impaled Grimm's head like a ripe grape. Yatsuhashi shook the gore from his toe cap and solemnly nodded at Sky before leaping back into the fray, cutting down three of the enemy with one fell swoop of his sword. Dove and Rod fought side by side, hacking into their attackers with enthusiasm. The ship jerked suddenly right before starting a barrel roll and the students in the crew compartment caught a momentary glimpse of the Razorwing as they were thrown into the hold's walls, floor and ceiling. The disorientated students quickly rose to their feet to finish off the remaining Gargoyles inside the ship just in time for another wave to be upon them.

On the roof, Ember and Russell fought back to back, slashing into the maelstrom of claws and blades that surrounded them. Embers outstretched left arm projected a stream of fire from the dust crystal embedded in her gauntlets open palm. The Grimm instinctively jerked away from the inferno, giving the pair a moment's respite and a chance to see the past the storm of blades and assess the situation. Two Gargoyles were scrabbling at the engine beside the right wing and three more delivered blow after blow to the cockpit's windshield, crazing the armoured glass as they attempted to kill the occupants. Ember turned to her first year companion, "Deal with those three, I'll hold off the others." Russell nodded and sprinted off, eager to comply with the order.

He ducked under an airborne Gargoyle and felt its talons brush the tip of his Mohawk. Russell activated his semblance to increase his speed and tackled the closest of the three Grimm assaulting the cockpit. His shoulder collided painfully with its chest, catching the preoccupied enemy unaware. He hooked his left arm around its back as he stabbed up into its chest cavity with his right dagger, a motion he repeated three more times before the Grimm shuddered and died. The two remaining enemies rounded on him, the first sweeping his legs out from under him with its barbed tail as the second leapt onto his back. Russell cried out in panic but managed to twist his body so the Gargoyle on his back slammed into the airframe instead of him. He rolled to the side, catching a quick glimpse of Cardin working at the gunner's station, frantically responding to each new target that presented itself on the screen he was viewing. In front of him, Velvet's hands danced across the pilot's console and pulled on the joystick.

As soon as he rose to his feet, both Gargoyles leapt onto him, slamming him back down onto the cockpit glass. Russell rolled to lessen the impact, still grappling with both Grimm. The three combatants bounced noisily down the windshield, causing Velvet and Cardin to glance up in surprise. Russell quickly sheathed one of his daggers and frantically clawed at the smooth surface as he slid further down the windshield, obscuring Velvets vision of the world. He jerked his head to the side narrowly avoiding the barbed tail that stabbed mercilessly at his face.

Russell finally managed to catch a break as his fingertips found a tenuous hold along the seam where cockpit glass met armour plate. His legs now hung into the abyss over the nose of the aircraft, desperately wind milling, half in an attempt to find a foothold and half to stave off the fangs of the Gargoyle that gripped his legs. He channelled aura into his left dagger, cycled the cylinder to ice dust and slammed it into the fuselage. The ice anchored the blade giving Russell a solid hand hold, freeing his right arm to shield his face from the Gargoyle just above him. The Grimm slashed down mercilessly, ripping into his aura reserves with every frenzied blow. Russell glanced into the cockpit and saw Cardin and Velvet desperately searching for a way to help him.

He decided to ignore the adversary below him for a moment and focused on the one in front of him. He pulled himself upright and seized the Gargoyles throat, fighting the urge to recoil from the touch of its scaly black skin. Russell slammed its head repeatedly into the glass and threw the dazed Grimm away from the ship, it slammed into the wingtip and its broken body spiralled towards the ground.

The distraction had cost him though, as the enemy still attacking his legs managed to clamp Russell's ankle in its jaws. He cried out in pain, struggling to maintain his grip on the dagger anchoring him to the aircraft. His free hand knocked frantically on the glass to wrestle Cardin from his stupor. "Fire the gun!" Russell yelled. Cardin couldn't hear him but could read his lips, he hurried back to the firing controls. The guns auto-loader clattered into life, a moment later the gun began firing, shredding the offending Grimm's torso. Russell cried out in pain as the percussive force of the shells drove its teeth deeper until the body burst apart, showering Russell from the waist down with gore. He nodded his thanks to Cardin and began to clamber up the side of the cockpit, using his daggers ice setting to aid his ascent. Once one dagger was secure in the ice he would cycle the other to burn dust, thawing the ice encrusting the blade and freeing it to be stabbed further up the hull, within thirty seconds he was back on the striker's roof, flat on his back giddy with the sudden relief he experienced. He glanced down at his legs, disgusted to find the disembodied head of the Gargoyle still attached to his ankle. He pried the jaws apart with his hands and rubbed his calf tentatively, relieved to feel his aura already closing up the wounds. He glanced along the fuselage spotting Ember beset on all sides by Grimm; he rose unsteadily to his feet and headed towards her.

Ember was a whirlwind of destruction, her legs lashed out at any Grimm trying to crawl beneath her guard, snapping necks and cracking armour plates with ruthless efficiency. Her sword was sheathed in flame, an orange and silver blur that cleaved Gargoyles apart with ease, igniting every enemy she found with her blade. Ember swung her gauntleted fist into her foes; the burn dust crystals set into the gauntlet's knuckles glowed with monumental power as fire danced along her hand. Her fist connected with the torso of a Gargoyle, bursting through its chest cavity and out of its back, splattering Ember with its shredded organs. Her armoured hand shot forward and seized a second Gargoyle by its long neck; she jerked her hand back, dragging the Grimm's head through the dripping chest cavity of its ally. A flick of her wrist snapped its neck and she spun in a low crouch, slamming both corpses into a third enemy.

Russell finally reached her side and the duo again fought together. As he felt the reassuring pressure of Ember's back against his own, he despairingly noted that despite her best efforts, Ember hadn't been able to save the engine. Beneath the right wing, smoke wept from a pair of ragged holes marring the stuttering vector engine's casing.

In the cockpit Cardin strapped himself back into the gunner seat, aiming and firing with as much finesse as he could muster, the ammo counter was now below a third so Cardin was reduced to firing short, frugal bursts to clear the path for the ship. Velvet fought with the controls as she lost power from a second engine. The glimmer of hope they had was all but gone. The airframe shuddered under multiple impacts as Nevermore feathers slammed into the fuselage.

Another barrage of feathers shook the craft, luckily most deflected off the angular hull or didn't damage any vital components when they penetrated. Fox stood his ground; he wouldn't allow any Grimm to flank Coco who stood just to his left. He slashed and punched the approaching enemies in rapid succession; Coco had long since ran out of ammo and added her own weighty blows to the ensuing melee. There were too many Gargoyles swarming into the hold for the huntsman in training to realistically handle. Another flurry of feathered projectiles were thrown at the craft, reminding Fox that even if they could hold off the smaller Grimm, the Nevermore would still take them out long before they reached safety. A rather flushed looking professor Port suddenly appeared between Fox and his leader. "Coco you have mission command until we regroup at the objective."

"Professor? What do you mean?" she asked in puzzlement at her tutor's peculiar command.

"I'll see you on the ground" Professor Port answered vaguely as he took a couple steps away from the ramp. His face was set in grim determination as his eyes focused on the final Nevermore as if he was trying to time something. Coco realized what the enraged professor was about to do.

"What? Wait!" Coco yelled but it was already too late; the teacher had barrelled past her with surprising speed. An awestruck Coco eyeballed her teacher as he leapt from the exit ramp, hollering a war cry and brandishing his blunderaxe. He collided with the remaining Nevermore that had grown too confident in the helplessness of its quarry, smashing it out of the sky. Coco watched in horror as the laughing professor stood astride the torso of the falling avian Grimm, hacking into its chest with blow after blow until both the Nevermore and her fearless teacher were enveloped by the mist and disappeared from sight.

Coco's voice rasped over the intercom. "Velvet? Velvet! The professors gone!" In the background the din of close quarter combat could be heard echoing in the enclosed space of the crew compartment.

"What do you mean gone?"

"He-he leapt out and tackled the Nevermore..." Coco tailed off, either unsure of what had just transpired or unsure that Velvet would believe her. "I'm in command now, what's our situation?"

"We're over the forest now, dropped altitude to 3000 feet, Can't outrun the Gargoyle horde anymore, engines failing, and I don't know where the R-" Velvets speech caught in her throat as a shadow, enveloped the cockpit. Velvet looked up; the diving Razorwing spread its massive bladed wings and screeched in victory. There was no way the stricken craft would be able to avoid the attack, there was only one way that they would all survive. "Brace for impact" Velvet screamed, she pulled the joystick left with all her might and killed the throttle, angling the craft so that the Razorwing bisected the airship between the crew compartment and the cockpit. The shriek of wing blades rending apart the airframe was near deafening. Both halves of the ship spiralled out of control.

The students in the crew compartment were slammed around the hold while still being assailed by a few Gargoyles. Dove grabbed onto a bulkhead leaving Sky's back undefended. Sky's line was cut by one of the few remaining Grimm and he was dragged inexorably towards the new hole in the airframe by the slipstream. He yelped in panic and clawed at the decking trying to arrest his fall towards the hole. Sky's legs hit the full force of the rushing airflow outside and he screamed as he felt himself being snatched into the air.

A black and green glove caught his wrist in a vice like grip and pulled him back into the falling wrecks interior. Sky looked up at his second year saviour; the stoic swordsman of team CFVY. "Thanks, Yahtzee" Sky said breathlessly.

Yatsu closed his eyes and shook his head, "It's Yatsuhashi" he sighed as the ship slammed into the ground.

The Razorwing's attack had severed both Russell's and Ember's safety tethers, both students were now in free fall, plummeting after the remains of their airship.

Ember glanced over at the flailing form of Russell as he clawed at the air, his back to the ground that rushed up to meet him. Ember sighed and propelled herself after him with a spurt of flame from her gauntlet, the superheated air generating lift.

She finally managed to hook her free hand onto his hood and immediately channelled her aura into her gauntlet; another gout of flame directed straight down slowed the pair's descent. The flames licked at the tree canopy for a moment before the two students crashed through the branches. The twigs tore at their clothes and skin as they fell the last few feet to the cold embrace of the Forever fall's red petals.

Russell looked up. he hurt all over, his clothes smouldered in places from his proximity to Ember's makeshift thruster and his recently chewed leg ached like a bastard... but he was alive. The charred hole in the tree canopy allowed a glimpse skyward, Russell saw the horde of Gargoyles circling around a pillar of black smoke. Dove and Sky were over there, Yatsu too. He needed to help them.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and checked himself over, relieved to find he'd suffered no additional wounds during his descent. I should probably thank Ember for that… he thought, glancing at his second year companion. If he was honest with himself, she intimidated him, she was just so badass. Fuck it, say something. "Um… hey Ember… uh thanks for saving me up there… you were amazing."

Ember snorted "You weren't so bad yourself Russ." She replied, glancing around the clearing, keeping a watchful eye out for any Grimm that might try to creep along the treeline.

"So… uh… what's the situation" Russell asked tentatively.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Ember answered with a question of her own, surprising Russell.

"Um… bad news first I guess?" he replied uncertainly.

"Ok, so the airship crashed, with all our supplies, ammunition and friends aboard. The first sign of life from the wreckage is going to trigger another attack from the Gargoyles. An attack our friends are probably too injured or dazed to deal with. So unless we get our asses in gear, they're screwed."

"-Kay… so what's the good news?" Russell asked, hopefully the second year had some sort of plan.

Ember smiled and reached into one of the pouches on her belt. "My smokes survived the crash" She retrieved a cigarette from the cardboard packet and clicked the fingers of her sword hand. A small wavering flame danced on the tip of the pyromancer's thumb as she lit her cigarette and exhaled gratefully, the blue tinged smoke flowing freely into the air.

Russell clambered to his feet and drew his daggers, inspecting them for damage and cycling their dust cylinders. "C'mon, let's go save those assholes."

Please Review!

Special thanks to MechaG11 (check out his art on deviantart or the RWBY forums), Pastrami, and Nemris (who has a top notch story on the way soon).

Thank you to all of you guys too, you readers, reviewers, recommenders, fans and critics. All of you help me in your own way, stay awesome!

Well there is the start of the mission, took a while getting here I know, but trust me its worth it. Don't worry we will get back to Weiss's revelation in a couple chapters, I didn't want to take away from the action that I have planned for the next two chapters. Also sorry to let you know there probably wont be a chapter next week (I'm going down south to London on holiday whoo hoo!)