Lars Glas leaned over the deck of the boat, puffing his cigarette and looking at the black waters of the sea off the coast of Vale. In the distance, in the direction the ship was trundling along in, were the lights of the city. The boat was a respectably sized vessel, some forty feet long, and was used to carry cargo. Tonight, the hold was filled to the brim with drugs. They'd been freshly manufactured at the Guardian's main processing plant and were on their way to be distributed to the gangs and dealers of the city. Ordinarily, they'd be offloaded at the pier and taken to Freeman's, but tonight that wasn't an option. The previous night Freeman's had been hit by those Huntresses from Beacon. Lars had never agreed with Jack's decision to attack one of those lunatics. It seemed like biting off more than they could chew to mess with the most highly trained warriors in all of Vytal. But as usual, Jack would have been able to convince them even if his word wasn't law to the Guardians.

"This animal thinks she can hide what she is from the world. This girl is a terrorist; a White Fang. And now she's infiltrating Beacon," Jack had declared, "That school is for the Heroes of Humanity, not degenerate animal-freaks. If Humanity's defenders won't do what's necessary, then that job falls to Humanity's Guardians. We make an example of this cat-freak, show 'em there's a penalty for rising above their station, expose to the world what she is, then kill her. Then we clean up the rest of the animal trash at that school."

The others had all been eager to volunteer for the job after that. Taiyo had already had his spot locked in, since he was providing the Anti-Aura weapons. Rouge and Pale had been the most eager, Pale in particular wanting to "take his first pelt" as he put it. A lot of them were disappointed with Jack made the final call of who would be joining the attack. Even Marcus Ochre had demanded he take part, and when that psychopath wanted something, Jack was the only man Lars knew who had the balls to say no to him.

Even if attacking a Huntress had been a rash decision, Lars felt just as much rage as the rest of the Guardians did at Beacon's response to the attack. The Guardians had done a service to humanity by exposing not only an animal terrorist hiding in plain sight, but the perverted animal-lover she had been in a disgusting inter-species relationship with. They deserved a medal, and instead they were targets of every so-called Defender of Humanity in the city. As dangerous an enemy as they were, Lars was as eager as any Guardian to kill the first Huntsmen or Huntress he saw.

Lars took the butt of his cigarette from his mouth and flicked it into the water. He set off down the side of the sip towards the bow. A low rumble came from above and he glanced upward. His eyes widened at the sight of a Bullhead airship flying over, at an altitude of a couple hundred feet.

"Oh, shit!" He yelled, running for the hatch to the cargo hold, "We've got coast guard!"

Gerald Coch, at the helm, waved to him, "Relax, man, they're not after us. We pay them enough to look the other way. Besides, they're too high up. Nobody's crazy enough to jump from that height."

Lars stopped and looked up. Indeed, the Bullhead seemed to be flying over without slowing down. Even with the most advanced landing strategy, an attacker would reduce speed before making a leap like that. Lars grabbed a pair of binoculars that were lying on top of the control station of the ship and looked upwards. He looked up at the Bullhead. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. The side-door was opened. Looking around with the binoculars, he caught sight of a tiny shape plunging downwards. He lowered the binoculars and drew his falchion. The other dozen or so men on the boat (they'd brought extra guards now that the Guardians were under attack) drew their weapons and tensed up.

The figure had become a streak of white plunging towards the ship. As it came near, it could be made out. A young man, dressed in an armoured hoodie, holding a sword and surfing through the air on a shield. He plunged past 150 feet in height, then 100. By the time he reached 50 feet, it became obvious something was wrong. The figure cried out in surprise, stumbled off his shield, and then fell screaming into the water beside the boat. Everybody stared over the railing, blankly.

"Um..." Gerald began, breaking the confused silence.

Lars turned to Gerald to respond, just in time to catch him being flattened to the deck of the boat as another attacker came slamming down on top of him. Everybody jumped back at the sight of the girl, dressed in elegant armour and wielding a spear and shield. She stood, looked around at the men surrounding her, and adopted a combat stance, still standing on top of Gerald's unconscious body.

"Nice landing, Jaune," She called out.

"I'm fine," Came a squeaking voice from over the side of the boat.

All the Guardians attacked at once. Pyrrha spun, swinging her spear around at ankle level, knocking most of them down. She turned the spin into a leap, repelled off one of the Guardians still standing, and delivered a flying kick to another as she flung her shield into the guy beside him. The shield ping-ponged between a couple of the guardians before finding its way back to her hand. She took a split-second pause out of the combo she was unleashing with her spear to snatch the shield out of the air. Taking a moment to wait for an opening, Lars leapt in, thrusting his falchion precisely. The blade was parried scant inches from Pyrrha's back, as Pyrrha spun and delivered a blow to Lars' gut with her shield. Lars back-stepped, recovered, and jumped back onto the attack. His sword and her spear clashed off each other several times. He swung powerfully from the left, and she raised her shield to block. With a quick sleight-of-hand manoeuvre, he pulled his sword back, and thrust at her exposed belly. Fluidly, she let go of her spear, slapped his sword away with her hand, then grabbed her spear out of the air before it'd fallen an inch. Lars brought his sword up to dodge a swing from the spear. Instead, he was surprised by her tossing her shield up in front of his face, blocking his view. Pyrrha backflipped, kicking her shield directly into his face, knocking him backwards. He stumbled, regained his composure, and got back into combat stance. Pyrrha finished her backflip, caught her shield, and took her own stance. The two glared at each other for a moment, then suddenly, Pyrrha glanced above him, smiling coyly.

Lars glanced upwards and only saw the head of an enormous hammer as it collided with his face. Nora had used her fall to add momentum to her swing, and the impact sent Lars through the floor and then through the hull of the ship, into the water. Nora looked down at the hole she'd knocked through the boat.

"Oops," She said, watching water pour into the cargo hold, "That's gonna be a problem."

"Nice entrance, Nora," Pyrrha said, "Thanks for the help."

"Ahh, no problem. Did you see his face though? He was like "What? Ahh! Splat!" It was great!"

A Guardian appeared behind her from behind a crate on the deck, brandishing a shotgun. He levelled it at her head. She didn't even flinch as he took a barrage of bullets to the chest. Ren gracefully landed on the deck of the ship next to Pyrrha, Stormflower in hand, barrels smoking. Nora turned around and batted the wounded Guardian over the side of the ship with Magnhild. Ren flicked his wrists, dropping Stormflower back into his sleeves.

"You really should watch your back, Nora," Ren said, dusting himself off.

"I don't need to, as long as you're around, Ren." Nora said, smiling.

Jaune suddenly vaulted, one-handed, over the railing of the ship. Landing into a crouch with his sword ready, he pulled his shield from his back and brought it up to a defensive position. He looked around, readily. The rest of Team JNPR glanced over at him, bemused. After a few seconds, Jaune stood, looking a little disappointed.

"Alright, we got everybody," Jaune said, "Good job, team."

Pyrrha laughed, "Sorry, Jaune, we'll save somebody for you next time."

"Its fine, it doesn't matter," Jaune said, "Alright, we should search the ship for any information, wake one of these guys up and question them, maybe look for, like, a ship log or something..."

"We might not have time," Pyrrha said.

"Um, why not?" Juane asked, as he squeezed water out of his hoodie.

"The ship is sinking," Nora reported.

"The sh- why is the ship sinking?" Juane asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You know... Reasons." Nora said, awkwardly positioning herself in front of the hole in the deck, completely failing to conceal it

"Alright," Jaune said, looking around quickly, "Pyrrha, grab any scroll you can get, Nora, grab one of the thugs and call the airship to pick us up. Ren, get the GPS unit and the transponder from the control station, it should be able to tell us where this ship has been. Hurry."

Everybody rushed about. Ren drew one half of Stormflower and used the blade to slice the thin metal holding the transponder to the control station. Nora threw one of the Guardians over her shoulder. Meanwhile, Jaune found an emergency self-inflating dingy. He pulled the cord and let it inflate. He dragged all the unconscious bodies he could find to it and tossed them in. He left the dingy on the deck, where it would stay floating after the boat sank from under it. The airship came about, hovering over the water next to the boat, which was quickly sinking into the black water. Pyrrha leapt up into the airship, taking hold of the edge of the door to support herself. Nora tossed the unconscious Guardian up to her, and Pyrrha caught him. Nora, Ren, and Jaune jumped up onto the airship, leaving the sinking hulk of the ship. The airship's engines flared up, and it took off towards the shore, a couple of miles away.

The pilot of the airship, John Maranz, who was the pilot for most of JNPR's missions, looked back.

"We gonna close the door?" He called.

"Yeah, just a moment," Jaune said, looking at the unconscious Guardian, "Keep us below the altitude for a deadly fall."

Pyrrha lifted the Guardian up by the front of his shirt, slapped him a few times to wake him, then thrust him out the side of the ship. The Guardian woke, looked down, his eyes widened.

"Wha- oh, shit!" He yelled, "Wait, hey, hey!"

"Alright, listen up," Jaune said, "We found out from some of your friends at Freeman's that you and your asshole friends are operating on an island off the coast of Vale. But it was only mentioned in a few texts, so we don't know which island it is or where."

"Fuck you, Huntsman," The Guardian yelled.

Pyrrha let go of his shirt, letting him drop a few inches, then caught him by the throat. He flailed helplessly.

"Wait, wait, wait!" He yelled.

"Look, dickhead, you can ride back to the city with us, or you can swim there. Its not too far, actually. You'll be fine as long as you can outswim the Sea Grimm. There are probably a few swimming around down there. The price of staying on this ship is the name of the island the Guardians are set up on."

"I ain't telling you shit, you little punk. And you ain't dropping me! If I have information you need, you can't afford to drop me! There's nothing you can-"

"Got it!" Nora said, reading from one of the stolen scrolls, "Deumont Island! This mentions that the compound is there!"

Jaune grinned, and turned to the Guardian. The Guardian stared back, blankly.

"Thank you for your help!" Pyrrha said.

"Wait, can we-" He began.

Pyrrha let him go, pulling the door closed without even watching him fall.

"Alright, so, where's Deumont Island?" Pyrrha asked.

"I've heard of it," Ren said, "It's a pretty big island to the southwest. There was an attempt a few decades ago to build a Dust mine there, but was abandoned when it was discovered that the island had a much higher than average concentration of Grimm."

"So if the Guardians were able to set up a base there," Jaune said, "they must be much more powerful then we thought."

"So, next move?" Pyrrha asked.

"Call team RWBY, they'll want to hear about this."

Blake looked around the storage building of Vale's port, tensed and ready for any guards that they missed. The walls, floor, and some of the shipping crates were decorated with bullets holes, strewn casings, and Dust burns from the brief fight that had happened a few minutes previously. There were several unconscious guards laying about. Several employees at the port had surrendered without a fight, and were now on their knees in a row, being held at gunpoint by Ruby. They weren't Guardians, and most of them didn't even know about the drug shipment that was due that night. Blake had been disappointed about what she thought was another wasted night, but Weiss had insisted that they had made progress by shutting down the shipment. Blake could tell Weiss was dissatisfied too, but appreciated her attempt to be optimistic. The team was long overdue for a bit of optimism. Still, the lack of progress was frustrating.

"Alright," Weiss said to the men in front of her, "Now I'm going to say this again. If anybody has information on the Guardians, it would be in your best interest to come forward. Anybody who gives us something useful is free to go before the police arrive. Anybody who tries to lie... Ruby, please make your gun click loudly for dramatic effect."

Ruby chambered a new round, causing an unused cartridge to fly out of Crescent Rose. Ruby caught it out of the air, looked at it quizzically, then pocketed it.

"Thank you, Ruby- ...will regret it."

Ruby leaned over to Weiss, "Weiss, I'm not actually going to shoot any of them, right?"

Weiss put her palm over her face, "No, Ruby, but up until you just said that, they didn't know that."

"Oh, right," Ruby said.

Ruby's scroll started beeping, and she shift Crescent of to one hand, pulled her scroll open with her teeth, and looked down at it.

"Oh hey, Jaune!" She said, before turning to Weiss and Blake, "It's Jaune, guys! What's up, Jaune?"

"Ruby, we got lucky. Intercepted the Guardian's drug shipment."

"You have the boat?" Blake called to the scroll.

"Uh, no. The boat kind of sank." Jaune reported.

Weiss looked confused, "Why did the boat sink?"

Nora's voice came through the scroll, "Reasons!"

"Did you get any useful information?" Blake asked.

"Oh boy, did we," Jaune said, "We know where the Guardians are hiding. Deumont Island. Call the other teams. We have to plan our next move."

"Got it," Ruby said, "Thanks, Jaune!"

"Alright, talk to you later." Jaune said, before hanging up.

"Okay, then" Ruby said, turning to their hostages, "I guess you guys are free to go."

"Hold on," Blake said, "Before you go, does anybody have a scroll I could borrow?"

Ruby held out her own scroll to Blake.

Blake smiled, "Thanks, Ruby, but I need one of theirs."

Looking confused, one of the port employees reached into his pocket and handed Blake his scroll. She pulled it open and quickly dialled a number. A moment of silence passed, only broken by the sound of ringing from the scroll. Suddenly a familiar voice came through the scroll.

"Uh, hello? Sheriff Auburn speaking," The voice said, "Who's this?"

"You told me to call you if I had more information." Blake said.

"Miss Bel- I mean- yes?" Auburn was confused for just a moment.

"The Guardians are shipping drugs into the city through the port. Its too big of an operation to not be noticed by somebody. We think the Coast Guard is being paid off."

"...Okay, that's very useful. There'll be a lot of red tape to work through before we can start a formal investigation, but-."

"That's fine. Just keep going after the people the Guardians are connected to. Leave the Guardians themselves to us."

"Uh... yeah," Auburn said, "Wait, before you go, there was an incident at a place called Free-"

Blake closed the scroll. She walked over to the door, leaned outside, and chucked the scroll into the water. The scroll's owner stammered in confusion.

"Alright, get out of here." Blake ordered.

Blake, Weiss, and Ruby left the building and walked towards the pier. Blake looked out at the sea, thoughtfully.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Weiss said.

"Deumont Island," Blake said, nodding, "Its time to take the fight to them."