The REDS of war

Volume Seven Chapter Five

The sun rises over Atlas Academy while Team RWBY snores in their beds.

"Salutations!" Penny shouts.

Team RWBY are startled awake by Penny shouting her greeting in the middle of their dorm room.

Penny speaks in a sing-song voice. "Good morning, Team RWBY!"

"Ugh, Penny. What time is it even?" Yang asks groggily.

"Time to be Huntresses, of course!" Penny strikes a pose, holding up two fingers by her head and winking. Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang groan, while Ruby Rose excitedly gets to her feet.

"Wake up sleepy head!" Dusk roars in Rei's room inside Dusk's mansion, Erin stands behind him slumped over trying not to fall back asleep.

Rei opens his eyes as he sits up with a groan. "Ah, what the fuck?" Rei gathers himself for a second. "Seriously...?"

"What the hell man?" Sky says rising from behind Rei as she and him both look down at Dusk who's laughing to himself.

"Well, you two are sharing a bed, I think it's cute." Dusk jokes walking out of the room. "Time to get ready for the day!" He sings. Rei deadpans, and Sky lays back down tired.

Jaune Arc walks into a briefing room with a coffee mug and heads over to where Team RWBY, Team REDS, the Ace Operatives and his teammates are sitting. He takes a seat and cheerfully prepares to sip his steaming hot coffee, only to notice Marrow Amin staring and wagging his tail. Jaune frowns and hands the mug to Marrow.

Jaune sighs. "Sure, take it."

Marrow drinks the coffee, while Jaune hangs his head.

"Eyes up, Huntsmen. Time to get used to the new normal in Atlas." Clover says. Sometime later, Ruby and Qrow Branwen are riding in a truck that is being driven by an Atlesian Knight-200. Qrow has fallen asleep, so Ruby looks annoyed and elbows him awake. "Your top priority is Amity Tower. That means protecting supply runs from Grimm and bandits. And protecting the site itself."

Rei and Sky drop down from the sky toward a Manticore outside the Schnee Dust Company Mine #2. Rei severs its tail, and Sky punches it through its skull.

Weiss then levitates a group of Beowolves into the air to allow Ruby to more easily kill them, then turns her attention to a group of Sabyrs. Weiss forms a replica of her Arma Gigas' sword out of ice and uses a glyph to swing it, instantly slaying the Sabyrs. With the Grimm in the area killed, Ruby gives a thumbs up to three Mantas as they fly overhead.

Rei & Dusk spend hours brainstorming ideas on new weapons, ships, and other upgrades for Atlas' military. Dusk test-pilots his single-pilot fighter several times, the rest of Team REDS as well as Glossy & Rai repeatedly are sent out into the tundra to retrieve him and the remains of the ship.

"Diverting most construction resources to Amity Tower means there are going to be gaps in Mantle's defenses against Grimm. They'll need help on the perimeter."

Nora Valkyrie follows Lie Ren along the top of Mantle's outer wall, playing with his braid. Ren hears growling below and stops to look, causing Nora to bump into him. The two of them look down at the Sabyrs approaching the wall and draw their weapons.

Inside of the abandoned Dust mine, Yang, Blake and Marrow fight Beowolves. After they kill a few of the Grimm, Marrow turns to Blake and Yang.

"Hey, have you two ever thought about branching out a little? You always pair up, but I don't know if your styles really--?"

Yang's eyes turn red upon spotting another Beowolf that comes running toward her. She uses the recoil from her weapons to launch herself at it and punches it in the head. She then rapidly attaches several explosives to its abdomen and slides between its legs to get behind it. Blake tosses her sickle to Yang, who stabs it into the Beowolf's chest and fires Ember Celica to launch the Beowolf into the air. Blake tugs on her ribbon to throw the Beowolf toward two more Beowolves closer to the mine entrance, at which point Yang's explosives go off, killing all three. Marrow watches the whole event and turns back to Blake and Yang, who give him disapproving looks.