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CRWDBY Chapter 2: The Mission

“Hey,” It took Yang a second to realize where she was. Yang was at Red Base, and so was Blake. “Yeah, Blake?” Yang asked, and instantly recognized what was happening, and knew what Blake would say next. “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” Blake asked. Yang took this opportunity to be a part of an important, and philosophical point in the tale of the Reds and Blues. “It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries isn’t it? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a god out there, with some kind of plan for us and stuff?”

The scene suddenly whirls across the canyon to see Nora and Ren on a cliff. Ren looking at Blake and Yang through binoculars.

Nora was becoming impatient, “What are they doing, Ren?” The silent teen took his face away from his binoculars, “What?” Nora restated her question. “I said, What are they doing now?” Ren became irritated with Nora, “Oh my god Nora! I’m getting so sick of you asking that question!” Nora came back with the same amount of sass, “Hey, you have those binoculars and I can’t see squat! Don’t complain about me, because I’m not gonna just sit up here and wait for something to happen.” Ren didn’t want to escalate the argument further so he tried to calm her down, to no effect. “They’re just standing there and talking, Nora. That’s all they ever do, is just stand there and talk. That’s what they were doing last monday. That’s what they were doing when you asked me ten minutes ago. And when you ask, five minutes from now, I’ll still say that they’re still just standing and talking.” Nora, being as nosy as she is, needed to ask one last question. “What’re they talking about?” This bent Ren a little too far, “You know what? I hate you”

The camera whirls back to Yang and Blake. Still, just standing and talking. Like usual.

“Talk about a waste of resources! We should go out and find new and intelligent forms of Grimm. Fight them” Yang said in the middle of a conversation. Blake agreed, “Yeah, that’s why they should put us in charge.” Ruby from somewhere in the base “Ladies! Get over here on the double!” Blake and Yang were startled by Ruby’s sudden call, “Crap, Yes sir!”

   "Yang Jesus Christ wake the fuck up or I'll make you have a dream that you have no hair!" That was what Yang woke up to the next morning, and she knew that it was her friendly AI Church, because no one she knows is that profane. "Stop yelling, I'm up!" Yang yelled out loud, startling her teammates. "Uh, Yang we didn't say anything. Are you hearing things?" Blake asked, still wondering what's gotten into Yang. "Oh, I thought one of you said that if I didn't wake up you'd make me have a bad dream." The blonde replied, 'That was me, dumbass' Church thought making Yang frown a bit. "It looks like you did have a bad dream, Yang." Ruby said, noting Yang's frown.  

Yang got out of bed and got ready for the big day ahead of them, team RWBY gets to choose their very first mission. “Do you know what kind of options we have?” Weiss asked, nervous about how she could complete a mission while dealing with the nonsense that is her team. “I have no idea, but we get to chose as a team!” Ruby said hopefully.

‘Do these missions involve dealing with whatever this Grimm thing is?’ The AI asked Yang. “Of course, missions help rid the world if Grimm. One little bit at a time.” Yang thought. ‘Damn it, those things are scary as hell, like Crunchbite. Which reminds me, if we ever see Tucker again, remind me to call his kid disgusting.’

Yang was the last to use the restroom to get ready and as she exited, she grabbed the stuff she packed last night for the mission. As she did this, both Yang and Church noticed Blake wasn't wearing her bow today. “No bow today, Blake?” Blake calmly replied, “Nope” and the team left for the auditorium for their mission assignment. Church couldn't string enough words to make a sentence and just stuttered. ‘Blake? Why doesn't… Yang, did you…?’ Yang had a hard time holding her laughter in front of her teammates and thought to Church, “You just got pranked, dude. Or as I like to call it, Yang-king your chain!” ‘Fuck you then’ Church snapped, and went offline.

When team RWBY reached the Beacon auditorium, the headmaster and assistant headmaster were on the stage, about to begin a speech of some sort. The assistant started by gathering everyone's attention and then turned it over to the headmaster, Professor Ozpin.  

(Imagine that Ozpin’s speech is here because I'm too lazy to plagiarize it)

The team was more than ready for their mission ahead of them, they just had to pick one. “This is awesome! All we need to do is pick a mission in the southeast, and we're perfect!” The red leader exclaimed as team RWBY searched for missions in the southeast quadrant of Vale. Yang didn't try to hide her excitement, “Yeah! We'll follow them during the day and give them the slip at night!” The AI couldn't control his inner Tucker and said the iconic phrase, “Bow chika bow wow” Yang had to stifle a laugh and she was lucky that no one was looking at her then.

Ruby was the first to notice a mission that fit the team’s needs. “Here it is! Quadrant 5 needs Grimm eliminated!” Everybody agreed, but when the team tried to sign up, the screen read, “First year students are not allowed to take this mission” the team was disappointed, except Church chimed in, ’Hold on give me like five seconds.’ Yang created a small diversion, “Are you sure you spelled it right Ruby?” The team leader was a little offended by the question, “Of course I did, do you doubt my spelling abilities, my dear sister?” Church returned to Yang as Ruby was speaking,’Ok I cleared you guys for this mission, you should also beef up your security. That was way too easy.’ “Why don't you try again, Ruby, just to be sure” Yang asked, curious to see if the little AI actually allowed them to do the mission. Ruby re-entered their team and much to the team's surprise it worked this time. Yang took this as an chance to gloat over her sister, “I thought you entered it right, Ruby?” The young leader was dumbfounded, and so was the rest of the team. All of them tried, and failed, to find an explanation to how the system rejected them, but seemingly changed its mind.

As team RWBY made their way across the expansive courtyard toward the port, Church interrupted Yang’s thoughts. ‘So why does Ruby and the team need to get a mission strictly in the southeast?’ Yang could never get used to the sensation of Church talking, but she continued her step as if nothing happened. “What to do you know about the White Fang?” She thought to Church, who replied, ‘Aren't they a radical group of Faunus fighting for equality?’ Church asked, and Yang responded, “Yeah, and Blake used to be a member of them, but don't tell her you know, and we caught wind of a staging area for the White Fang hideout southeast of here, and that's where we are gonna mess up their plans!” Church used his superior AI mind (Delta) to make a quick calculation and made an observation. ‘From what I can see, the only reasonable place for a criminal staging ground southeast of here is a settlement named Mountain Glenn.’ This gave Yang a little bit of hope that they picked the right spot. “Sweet, that's exactly where we're going! Church was going to respond to his new friend, but was interrupted by Yang’s team.  

“YANG!” A gunshot from Crescent Rose quickly followed her owner’s scream. “Ruby! What did I tell you about blindly firing into the air? You probably just killed an innocent person!” Weiss squealed towards Ruby. “How else were we supposed to get her attention? Tackle her?“ The red head retorted, Weiss huffed and looked away, clearly offended. “Yang, we've been trying to get your attention for three minutes. What's so important that you have to tune us out?” Yang was able to think of a reasonable lie, “Uh… I was just thinking about how this is our first mission! I can't wait to kick some White Fang butt!” Blake could see through the lie, but she needed more time and evidence to prove that something is up with her friend. Blake put this in a mental folder aptly named ‘Proof Something’s Wrong With Yang’ and put it back in her mental filing cabinet.  

The team got to their assigned dock and waited for their airship to take them to Mountain Glenn. After a minute or two of waiting, an airship arrived at the teams dock, and put zipped Professor Oobleck. Team RWBY and Church knew they were in for one hell of a mission.

[crwdby]

Chapter 1 - First Encounters

From what Yang could see, this was not a good situation to be in. At one end of the room was a group of colorful soldiers holding a variety of weapons. At the other side, was a partially blocked off door being cut by some tool that wasn’t seen. This looked like the setting for one of those photos with a cheesy inspirational quotes like, “Sometimes all you have is faith to go on.” But something was off. No one was moving, suddenly a small blue soldier of a similar style of armor appeared and began to run calculations on how to get his team out of this.

The stress of trying to find a way to escape was too taxing on the little guy, and he started to glitch out. He knew what would happen next and knew he wouldn’t be able to be there for his friends, so he did the next best thing. He recorded a message.

“Start a recording for me D.” The blue man said. Another green soldier said “Recording.” And disappeared, leaving the blue guy to his message.

“Hey guys… if you’re hearing this then it means you did it. You won. You kicked the shit out of Hargrove’s forces. I knew you could… But this is my last stop. See, when I came into this world, I was really just a collection of somebody else’s memories.”

As he speaks, the Yang looks around at all of the soldiers there, it seemed to Yang that there were two sub-teams a Red group, and a Blue group.

“But with your help, these memories… they-they took form! They became my voice, my personality. And, after a while, I… I began to make brand new memories of my own. All of these things are what make me who I am… but they’re also holding me back.”

The soldier turns and looks toward the person in the center, with a different armor style.

“I can’t run this suit as Epsilon, but if I erase my memories, if I… deconstruct myself, the fragments I’ll leave behind will have the strength to get you through this. I believe that.”

Suddenly, Yang was in another place, some kind of airship with another group of soldiers. All while this soldier, who has a super weird name “Epsilon” continues to speak from no where and every where.

“I wish that there was another way. But I’m leaving this message, as well as others, in the hopes that you’ll understand why I have to go this time… *small chuckle*It was actually… Doyle, who made me realize something that I’ve never thought of before. There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after.”

Yang is suddenly returned to the original room, with the colorful soldiers. Epsilon looking sadder than when he first appeared.

“But the hero… never gets to see that ending. They’ll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference.

Epsilon begins to change color and look like several different people.

“They’ll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith.”

The sound of glass shattering is heard and Yang’s vision goes black. Yang assumes that that is Epsilon ‘dying’ or ‘fragmenting’ or whatever he wanted to call it.

Yang jolted up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, to her surprise there was a small man in full armor floating in front of her, “Calm down it was just a nightmare,” The cobalt ghost said. “Who are you?” The blonde asked in fear. “I could ask you the same question.” The soldier retorted, confused about how he got here, talking to this girl.

“Yang… go back to bed…” The red leader said dreamily, unaware of Yang’s new friend. The blue apparition quickly disappeared as to not be discovered ‘I must be dreaming’ Yang thought as she laid her head back down to go back to sleep, “You aren’t, trust me.” the blue ghost said just before Yang drifted into unconsciousness.

Yang was woken up the next morning by Weiss yelling, “Yang if you don’t wake up I’ll shave your head!” The blonde teen quickly woke up in fear that she’d lose the one thing she loved the most. “I’m up! Stop yelling. I had the weirdest dream last night. I saw a group of soldiers, and then one… a tiny blue one started to spout a depressing speech about how he couldn’t be there with his friends, and had to 'deconstruct himself’” Weiss was curious about this. A tiny blue person, having to deconstruct itself? “Was this tiny man an AI by chance?” Yang, being Yang wasn’t much of a tech nerd so she said in a fashion all to familiar, “AI…  What’s the A stand for?” Weiss irritated with her teammate’s ignorance for artificial intelligence, said quickly “Artifical” Yang was still in the dark, “And what’s the I-” she was cut off when Weiss anticipated this follow up question, “Intelligence” Ruby than caused Yang to question her previous statement, “Are you sure it was a dream, I remember waking up last night to you talking to someone.” Yang didn’t know what to think, “We’ll talk about this later, I’ve got to get ready for class!” Unknown to Yang, Church, who thought he was the Alpha, because all he can remember is his name, but is really just a confused Epsilon, was trying to figure out where he was and how he got implanted into a high school teen, only he didn’t know what today was in store for him.

Throughout the whole morning Yang tried to contact this mysterious AI, she had forgotten what the A stood for again so she planned to ask Weiss what is meant again soon, finding conveniently loud times in the hallways to say things like, “Hey blue guy, are you there?” And trying to think him into talking to her, nothing worked, so she could only assume that it was a dream, and by lunch had almost forgotten about the mysterious cobalt man.

It wasn’t until lunch that the soldier spoke up, after researching what he’d landed himself into by covertly transferring himself to Yang’s Scroll and learning everything he could. What he said made Yang jump a little bit in her seat, in the middle of biting into her sandwich. “God, Remnant is fucking weird,” The before mentioned jump didn’t go unnoticed by her teammates, “Yang? What’s up?” The brawler’s sister asked. “It’s nothing, I thought I heard a fly go by by ear.” Her team went along with the lie and thought nothing of it, while Yang tried to understand the the person she met last night was real. 'Oh my god, you’re real!’ Yang thought, very surprised about the sudden appearance of the soldier. “Of course I’m real! I’m not some figment of your imagination, or your search history. You better clear that shit before someone sees that. Your Faunus friend wouldn’t like it if she saw that.” Yang was confused by his last statement. 'Who? Velvet?’ “Is Velvet the girl in front of you, with the bow?” Church asked not knowing anyone’s name, despite having been in Yang’s Scroll. 'Uh no, that’s Blake, and I’m pretty sure she’s not a Faunus, the bow is just for fashion.’ “I bet if you ask what’s under that bow she’ll tell you it’s cat ears.” The ghost stated, confident that Blake was a Faunus. 'Ok, when I get a chance, I’ll ask, to prove you wrong!’ Yang thought loudly, also very confident that Blake wasn’t a Faunus.

Team RWBY got up from their table to go to they’re next class, history. When the team got there and sat down, Professor Oobleck greeted them, “Good afternoon ladies, are you ready for another exciting day of history?” The professor spoke so fast the the team could only agree and hope it was the right response. At the same time Church was dumbfounded. “Holy fuck is that Caboose?” Church thought in Yang’s mind, as Church thought about Caboose, memories flooded Yang. Everything from the blue idiot calling Church’s girlfriend a slut, all the way to Epsilon-Church fragmenting himself to save the Blood Gulch Crew and Chorus, although, most of it was a bit skewed, because all Church knew was what Caboose had told him, and that never goes over well.

Little did Yang know, her emotions took over and she started to cry, in the middle of class. “Yang, what’s up? Why are you crying?” Weiss asked, almost like she was concerned about her teammate. Yang was unaware of this and wiped her cheek to see that she was indeed crying. Trying to think of a quick response, she went to the first thing she could think of. “Oh, I was thinking about how my little sister was able to skip years of training to be able to go to the same school as us!” This made Ruby blush and Blake to begin to question Yang’s behavior today. The secret Faunus made a note to ask about it when she got a chance.

“Smooth” was all the cobalt ghost said after the blonde’s quick thinking. 'I’m a charismatic, what can I say?’ She thought as the team left the classroom to spend the rest of the day training. As Yang got Ember Celica from her locker, she quickly thought 'Oh I never introduced myself, I’m Yang Xiao Long. Nice to meet you.’ Church appeared inside of her locker so only she could see him. “I’m Leonard Church, but that’s the guy who made an AI after himself, who was given the name Alpha.” Yang was bombarded by Church’s memories of Project Freelancer and how the Director tortured the Alpha in order to make AIs for his agents. “Oh, uh… Sorry about that. Even I have difficulty remembering that without wanting to breaking something.” During that memory episode Yang didn’t know whether to cry again, or to use that to help her train and get it out of her system. “But most people call me Church” the AI sarcastically added before Yang left the locker room to meet her team.

After a well needed training session to get her, and Church’s emotions out, Church took note of Yang’s weapons, “Sarge would love to get his hands on those wrist shotguns, I don’t know how Grif would like them, though.” That made Yang laugh a bit, which the team found odd because no one had said anything. “Yang what’s so funny?” The ice princess asked. “I just thought of a joke,” the punny blonde said. “What do you get when you combine something cool, with Weiss?” “What?” The team asked in unison, preparing themselves for an abysmal pun. “The bees Schnees!” The punster yelled, Ruby doubled over in laughter and Blake gave a chuckle to satisfy the blonde, but Weiss on the other hand, was not amused. The heiress put her rapier in her locker, and stormed off to the teams’ dorm while the sisters couldn’t stop laughing. Church cracked a smile, but no one saw it, because he has a helmet on, and he wasn’t projecting himself.

The team had gone to their dorm to clean up before dinner, and it was Yang’s turn to use the restroom. Church took this opportunity to talk to Yang while they had privacy. “So I see you haven’t told anyone about me.” The small AI said as Yang closed the door. “Well I want to know that you’re not gonna hurt my team or be some sort of spy.” The blond responded while getting ready for her shower, comfortable enough with the AI to trust him to be decent enough not to look. “Hey just be glad you have me, and not Tucker.” Church said laughing a bit, not looking, confirming Yang’s theory of decency… for today. Yang laughed too, at the memories Church gave her of Tucker. “Yeah I’m very glad”

When Yang was done cleaning herself up, she exited the shower, ready for dinner, but her team had something else in mind. “Yang, we know something’s up with you. Don’t lie, and we won’t touch the hair!” Ruby declared, trying to be threatening. “What are you guys talking about, I’ve been me this whole time!” Yang began, thinking of a way to explain this weird day.

“We know you’re good at puns, but lately, you’ve been too good. Almost like you’ve had help.” The red leader started, but Yang interrupted before Ruby could continue. “Is this what’s happening? An intervention about my puns? Nothing more serious like, *imitating Ruby* 'huh you’ve haven’t been yourself lately Yang, have you been stressed out lately?’ or, 'hey why have you been different lately? Is it because you’ve been taking too much time thinking about our first mission as a team this year?’” Ruby was taken aback by this outburst, “Yang it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, gosh way to be a Debby downer.” Ruby sighed as RWB left the room to go to dinner, leaving Yang and Church to think on what just happened “They have no idea I exist, huh” Church said after a minute. “No, I guess they don’t.” Yang said sadly, because she probably ruined her little sister’s joke, thinking they knew about her new friend. “I’m gonna go catch up with them and apologize.” The blonde said as she ran out the door to meet up with her team.

“Guys I’m sorry I took your little intervention too seriously. I really have been taking this whole mission thing too seriously I guess.” Yang apologized to her team as they entered the big mess hall. “Yang it’s ok, we just didn’t expect you to get so serious with it, we just thought your jokes were more… intellectual than in the past.” The heiress said flatly. Yang pulled out a comically large book with the title 'Big Book O’ Puns’ in large letters on the front and said, “Well I have been studying Punology recently, I was wondering if you guys’d noticed.” 'Christ, Yang where do you keep that book?’ Church thought inside of Yang worriedly, the brawler quickly responded, “You’d be surprised how much I can fit in here” mentally referring to her cleavage. 'Yeah I don’t want to know anymore’ Church replied quickly and went into Yang’s scroll to do calculations with Delta, just to get out of that conversation. “We knew you had some sort of help. We thought it was a person, but a book works too.” Ruby said, glad that everything was normal. “Lets eat dinner and then we get to pick our very first mission as a team tomorrow!”