RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm and Disney.

A loud snap echoed through the woodlands on the outskirts of Vale, breaking the silence of the night. The interruption to the deafening silence was brief, before being consumed once again by the stillness of the woodlands.

Snap

"Can you be quiet for one second Ruby?" hissed Weiss as the young huntress desperately tore her cape off another shrub. "If that thing is such a problem then you shouldn't have brought it with you!"

Carefully bundling the tattered cloak in her arms, Ruby shot a glare at the heiress before whispering back with mounting frustration "Well it wasn't exactly my idea to sneak out of the city in the middle of the night, now was it?"

One of the remaining two members of their party snorted approvingly while the other nodded her agreement.

"Can you remind exactly why we're out in the middle of the night when we could be resting for the tournament?" Yang sighed, swatting a branch out of her path and consequently into Blake's, who dodged it much like she had for every instance of friendly fire her partner had exposed her to in the last two hours.

"Well, we may have passed the first round, but my sister pointed out that we still have quite a bit of room for improvement." Weiss stated with dedication. "Which is precisely why I've taken the liberty of investigating any Grimm we could take on in the nearby area. There are a few small villages outside the gates of Vale, close enough for them to run and take shelter during an incursion, but not close enough to be subject to their-" she ducked under the wreckage of an ancient rusted bullhead resting in the tree's above them - "laws."

Still disenthused with the curfew violation but unable to resist the challenge of hunting Grimm, Ruby perked up. "So this is basically a girls night out!"

"With monsters and weapons?" queried Blake, breaking her vow of silence to question their leader.

Ruby turned to Blake, confusion evident in her eyes. "There are other kinds of a girls night out?"

Weiss tuned them out as the hushed conversation dragged on behind her, focusing on the dim light of her scroll as she checked the flickering map she had open. Its blocky images shifted with the ever decreasing signal of the CCT, forming a path towards their fast approaching destination.

Weiss had found the mission on some of Vale's more reputable discussion boards, where she read tales of people disappearing into these woodlands and not returning. Recently, at least half a dozen humans and twice as many faunus had disappeared, unaccounted for. Normally, this wouldn't be so great a surprise if the incidents happened further into the wilderness, but the proximity to the walls and the presence of the Vytal Festival made it a much more urgent matter.

Weiss was unsure if it was fortunate or not, but due to Ironwood taking over the security of the festival and Ozpin sending out his huntsmen to secure the vast borders of Vale, the immediate area surrounding Vale found itself undermanned.

Being who she was, Weiss felt it both her duty to aid these civilians and also an opportunity to sneak in some last minute training.

'It's just Forever Fall,' thought Weiss. 'How bad can it be?'

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the suddenly loud debate behind her as the others threw themselves headfirst into a divisive and serious conversation.

"Blake, for the last time - a protest doesn't count as a girl's night out!" Yang practically yelled in exasperation.

Blake was swift in her rapport, growing uncharacteristically passionate "How would you know? It's plenty of fun! You get to make signs, plan out your outfits, figure out where to run if things get caught on fire-"

"The only fun part of that is the fire!" Ruby whined, supported by the nodding of her sister, who opened her mouth to launch into another explanation of how to be a normal person only to be cut off by the frantic shushing of Weiss.

"Would you people, no offense Blake, please stop prattalling for just one seco-"

"Did you hear that?" Blake asked, eyes suddenly alert and bow twitching.

Weiss look around in concern, searching for this supposed noise while Yang quickly deployed Ember Celica.

"I didn't hear anything, could it have been the Grimm?"

Without answering, Blake silently drew Gambol Shroud, eyes boring the woodlands ahead of them. Weiss and Ruby swiftly followed, silence reigning over the group as they formed a tight circle, looking in all directions.

A moment later, Blake's face of consternation shifted, and she relaxed slightly. "That was weird, it sounded like a low humming noise, I've never heard of a Grimm that could do that." Before further theorizing could commence, there was a break in the shadows as a King Taijitu lunged through the tree line. Its torso was far larger than the average beast, and its scales were pockmarked and covered in scars.

Just like that, Weiss was swept into their reflexive teamwork as team RWBY fell into a combat mindset, breaking off in all directions in order to confuse the beast.

Leaping to the right of the lunging beast's two heads, Weiss spat out a flurry of dust-based glyphs in order to try and find a weakness in their foes armor. Her clouds of fire and ice clashed with the King Taijitu but to no avail, as the beast thrashed in frustration at their nimble tactics rather than pain.

Weiss continued on, raining her ineffective fire on the beast's torso as Ruby attempted to take potshots at its eyes. Blake and Yang met the beast in its rampage as it struggled to deal with the two of them without diverting one head towards one target or the other.

The heiress soon found a smirk tugging at her lips as she saw the beast flail ineffectively, missing its attacks as her team flipped in and out of its range. After a particularly nasty shot from Ruby scored a hit right in the Grimm's mouth, knocking out a tooth, Weiss knew it was only a matter of time.

Pausing her assault, Weiss summoned a flurry of pale blue glyphs aimed straight at one of the beast's heads, planning to take it down with one fell swoop now that its skin was cracked and fragile.

Yet, something about the fight struck her as odd; how could a beast with so many battles to its name, having survived so close to the walls, seem so lacking in intelligence…

'It's a trap.'

Shouting a cry of warning a second too late, the twin heads of the King Taijitu snapped backwards towards the heiress, locked in her position mid cast and unable to do anything but fire off her blasts in a futile effort to stay alive.

She could see out of the corner of her eye that Ruby was launching herself towards one of the heads, burying her scythe deep within its bulging red eye. But its twin would not be stopped as it careened forwards, Yang and Blake blasts pinging off its thick torso.

As Weiss fired her final blast towards the beast gaping maw, she managed to remove one of its fangs and make the beast close its jaw in pain.

But that did nothing to stop the monster from crashing into her.

'What.. what is this…' Her mind managed to find enough power to question, as she awoke deep in the woods. She had a splitting headache and lacked the soothing feeling of aura to subdue it. Her aura had been completely shattered, and while unharmed physically, Weiss could feel the exhausting over taking her.

Soon, the trees around her started to blow as the harsh noise of combat grew fainter and the sounds of a Bullhead approaching could be heard.

Unusual for a Bullhead, the noise shifted to a more stagnant tone, and an almost strangling noise fell over the forest.

'Huh… is that humming I hear?'

She heard heavy footfalls land in front of her, and weakly opened her eyes to see a shadow standing over her.

"Bla-" Weiss started, but she was interrupted by a whining discharge. A shock ran through her before she could identity the sound, tipping her into oblivion.

Weiss stood, arms crossed, irately staring through the electrified bars at the handful of guards beyond. There were at least thirty prisoners, mostly faunus, crammed into the makeshift holding cell, a side of the large, messy storage room that was cordoned off by charged bars from wall to wall. She had given up trying to demand answers some time ago, as had the other prisoners who were bold or angered enough to talk to their captors.

Even more disturbing than the ambush and kidnapping was the fact that she couldn't seem to raise her aura or summon a glyph, and Myrtenaster had been confiscated or lost when she was knocked unconsciousness. Under normal circumstances, she would have known better than to try and fight her unidentified enemies without learning more about them – but not even having the ability to do so was very worrying.

A roaring, resonating tremor struck, almost knocking her off her feet. She reached for the bars by instinct, receiving an electric shock that threw her back. Years of fencing practice paid off, and she managed to regain her footing instead of tumbling to the ground.

The floor quickly righted itself and the prisoners burst into confused conversation. Many of them had not been lucky enough to avoid being thrown off their feet, and struggled up or helped others do so. Some of the guards came together and spoke in hushed tones, others remained in their positions but pressed their hands to the side of their helmets, a motion Weiss interpreted as indicating the presence of headset communicators.

Renewed pleas from the captives were ignored as usual, but the guards were unusually tense, their postures and grips on their weapons were tightly strung. The atmosphere only became more serious as minutes passed; eventually small thuds and clanks began to come through the rust colored metal walls. The sounds grew louder, and the guards grew ever more nervous, until the the automatic doors opposite the holding cell slid open and a few figures emerged.

A leader of some sort stepped forward, flanked by escorts wearing the same style of armor as the guards.

'A...a faunus? No…'

It had the body of a humanoid but with an ugly, reptilian head. Bony protrusions distinguished the top of its cranium, leading down to a pair of full red eyes with thin, horizontal black pupils. A stub, repulsive snout lined with small, sharp teeth completed its frightful appearance.

The creature barked orders in an incomprehensible language - a very new concept for Weiss - and the remaining wardens rushed to new positions. One of them opened the cell's door, little more than standard bars enclosed by a square perimeter of metal so they could swivel open in place. The prisoners were ushered out, starting with those closest to the opening; Weiss was on the other side.

The guards stood along the left side of the path they wanted the captives to take. Some of them produced whips crackling with thin lightning to strike stragglers, others menacingly trained their weapons on the group as a whole.

By the time it was Weiss' turn to leave the cell, she already knew this wasn't going to end well. Resolving to take her opportunity, she carefully stuck to the edge of the column until she passed very close to a guard with a firearm.

In a lightning motion, she flung herself to the side, driving her left elbow into him and seizing his gun with her right hand. Before he could react, she pulled back and tossed the gun up, catching it by the grip in her left hand and delivering a point blank salvo into his chest. Her requisitioned weapon fired hot red bolts that broke through the guard's chest armor with barely any effort. She didn't recognize the discharge, nor did she smell the telltale sign of Dust, but there was no time to ponder the issue. The gun worked.

She expected to be inundated in fire when she looked around after his body hit the floor, but instead of targeting her the guards unleashed their weapons on the entire group. Weiss darted straight for the door, firing and downing the guards she rushed past. They all seemed to be more focused on taking down as much of the group as possible, rather than dealing with her lonesome run.

When she almost reached the door, the bestial leader standing in her way sneered at her. His attendants turned to their weapons on her, but she was too fast. Her gun was heavy and unfamiliar, but at this range she couldn't miss, even as she spun and twirled to avoid their return fire. The three guards around the leader had fallen by the time she reached them, and the beast now lunged with extended claws and an enraged glare. Her muscle memory kicked in and she raised her weapon to block like she would use Myrtenaster, but the cumbersome gun was not her masterfully tailored rapier by any means. The beast knocked it out of her hands with the attack it blocked, and she had to lurch her body back to avoid a swipe of its claws from the side.

She was undeterred, driven by the screams and sounds of panic still coming from behind her. She rushed forward, spinning when she got close to allow her back and propped elbow to slam into the creature's chest with momentum. The reptilian was only pushed back a step or two - she simply didn't weigh enough to knock it down - but it bought her enough time to retrieve her gun from the floor and swivel to deliver a coup de grace.

Leaving the smoking beast behind her, she pressed on into the adjacent room, a large area resembling the first. Fortunately, this one was empty, though the sheer amount of clutter made traversing it difficult. She climbed over upturned barrels and massive plates of metal, all of it universally stained and discolored with the same green and dark orange spots that covered the walls. Though the recent seismic shocks had clearly knocked much of it over, the sheer state of the mess indicated it had been just as scattered and disorganized before. Weiss muttered disapprovingly to herself, offended by the clear lack of proper organization and basic order.

She worked her way to a door on the other side of the room, noting the growing strength and frequency of the echoing thumps and clangs with growing trepidation. Occasionally the bass sounds were accompanied by shrill, high pitched noises that traveled through the open, industrial venting tubes that opened along the room's ceiling.

'Gunfire.' They were the same sounds her new weapon made, but distant and distorted.

She slowed down as she approached the door, an automatic device with two panels that split at the middle and disappeared into the doorway's sides to allow passage. It was the same design as the earlier door, but this one had thick outcrops of reinforced steel lining the top and sides, an imposing mark of importance that would have been accomplished by ornamental engravings in a less brutish place.

She paused and steadied herself for a few seconds, preparing for whatever was beyond. Again she tried to raise her aura, but with no luck. She knew it had been drained, but why hadn't it recovered at all yet? Weiss' aura had been broken before, and this didn't feel similar at all...she just couldn't feel anything. No hint of her aura - or her semblance, for that matter.

She swallowed, suppressing the thoughts. She would figure out what was going later. For now, she just had to get out of here. She began to take a step forward, then froze.

'Where is my team?'

They hadn't been among the prisoners she was with. In the initial shock, she hadn't thought about them at all. Had they escaped? Had they - she looked back in the direction she came from, trying to hear anything - suffered the same fate at those others?

The others she left behind?

The realization hit her hard. She was supposed to be a huntress, someone who protects the helpless with their own life, and she had abandoned the other prisoners so she could get away.

'But I couldn't have helped them! Not without my semblance or even Myrtenaster…'

It was an excuse, and she knew it. But now wasn't the time to beat herself up. She had to escape. She had to find her team and figure out what happened.

'What I caused…'

Winter always pushed her, always inspired her to drive herself more. Weiss knew she did it out of love; Winter wanted her sister to be able to break free and follow her dreams. She wanted to make sure Weiss was strong enough to overcome whatever obstacles she would face.

Her meeting with her older sister had convinced her she needed to push herself even more, and now that she had a team, that included them as well. But going out at night to hunt Grimm was stupid. There was a reason all of their live fights were carefully supervised by the instructors in some form or another. Weiss was a first year huntress student trying to act like an Atlesian fairy tale warrior, and now because of her the others on her team could be-

'No. I won't think like that.'

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. She needed to focus on the task at hand.

She raised her gun to her chest and stepped forward, walking through the doorway as the panels slid open.

The area in front of her was larger than those before, and clearly much more important. Various doors lined the walls at equidistant points, indicating it was a central hub. She stepped inside, having exited from a entrance close to a corner. Immediately on her right was the room's edge, and along it perpendicular to her were hastily constructed barricades with the kidnappers behind them. Each side of the room featured a balcony with twin sets of stairs along the walls, with the one opposite the barricades harboring a large, prominently centered blast door.

She didn't have time to act before a shattering explosion seized the attention of everyone present. The fortified bulkhead was thrown out to the center of the room. Thick brown smoke poured out, and figures mostly shrouded by it marched out of the breach, moving in disciplined lockstep towards the stairs that flanked the balcony.

Weiss could barely make them out through the fog, but they wore uniform white armor that sharply contrasted with black rifles. They opened fire on the kidnappers as soon as they began moving down the steps into the room.

'Those must be Atlas soldiers!'

The response from the defenders apparently confirmed her deduction, and the room was rapidly flooded with glowing red bolts.

Weiss ran to the closest barricade, moving behind it and blasting the two beings crouched within. She had to duck down to avoid withering fire from the position next in line; the burning snippets of light signed her hair and scalp as they passed centimeters over her head. She took potshots from behind the barricade as she could, occasionally looking over her shoulder to the white clad soldiers steadily moving forward.

Just a few meters away from her, hugging the wall, one of the troopers hurled a small sphere. The grenade landed squarely inside the position she was trading fire with, a perfect throw. The resultant explosion made her cover her ears, and her own barricade's loosely arranged barrels and sandbags were dislodged from the force of the detonation just two meters away.

She didn't intend to see if the cover would hold. Taking advantage of the distraction, she rushed forward, crouching as she ran. Her new allies were quiet efficient - only a single barricade in the line was still manned, a heavily reinforced position holding a tri-pod mounted heavy weapon. Two kidnappers manned the large gun, rapid firing thicker versions of the omnipresent red bolts in a unrelenting stream that covered the room. Two more flanked the weapon team, covering their flanks with slower, aimed shots from behind the cover.

Weiss closed the distance quickly, jumping into the air and front flipping over the barricade's low walls to land behind it. She had forgotten how much she relied on her aura for maneuver; her upright landing reverberated through her shaky legs and sent her tumbling forward. She broke her fall with her hands and rolled over, retrieving her gun without pause. The surprise of her arrival saved her; the two free defenders were still staring in shock when she fired the first shot. The one on the right slumped back before his companion began to aim at her, and she ended him before he could pull the trigger.

The weapon team abandoned their gun and reached for holstered pistols, spreading out as they turned to face her. It was far too late; she downed them both before they could get a clear shot off.

Most of the firing had died down by now; but the remaining defenders were entrenched on the balcony directly above her. She moved away from the ruined barricade line and out into the center of the room, doing her best to fire at any defenders that popped out of their cover above. It was a futile exercise, however - her gun was strange and heavy, and the smoke and heavy stench of gas made her eyes water and cloud.

Despite Atlas' focus on technology, Weiss had always disliked ranged weapons in favor of close combat with her sword and, if necessary, supporting fire from her glyphs. Winter had tried to persuade her to practice marksmanship regardless, on the grounds she might need it someday, but Weiss had stubbornly refused, insisting such barbaric weapons were simply beneath her.

That was yet another life choice she regretted today.

Despite gritting her teeth and doing her best to focus, every one of her shots missed, flaring out harmlessly against the assorted junk protecting her targets. Some of them under or overshot quite severely, striking the ceiling or the underside of the balcony. Fortunately, the white armored soldiers were much more accurate. In the corner of her eye she saw them advance past her, cleaning up the upper level with steady, precise bursts.

For a brief moment, there was silence when the last of their enemies fell. Then a door centered behind the barriers under the balcony - immediately in front of her - opened, revealing a squad of her former captors. This time most of them weren't wearing helmets, revealing them to be more of the dreadful reptilian creatures.

The opposing groups stayed still for a second, clearly not expecting to come face to face so close. Someone was going to die.

Standing in the open right in front of the new arrivals, Weiss knew who would be first. She could try to throw herself towards cover, but they might hit her anyway and she didn't trust herself to be of any use with her gun in a firefight. Instead, she did the only thing she knew.

She charged forward, ducking a bolt from the first opponent to react. They rushed out, spreading out and firing as the white clad soldiers engaged. In just a few moments Weiss was upon them. She ended her sprint with a controlled fall and skid, letting herself slid past the first one and trip him forward with her legs. Without her aura, the friction cut up her bare skin, but she barely noticed in the context of survival. She twisted and fired into the fallen creature's back as she rose, turning just in time to block a rifle bludgeon from another one. The reptilian angled his gun over her arm towards her and fired; she pushed up and ducked at the same time to avoid having her head vaporized. When she pulled away from the contact, she was the first to fire, putting three bolts into its stomach.

A third creature appeared to her left, raising his weapon. With pinpoint reflexes she traced the angle of its barrel and twisted, preemptively dodging the searing bolt that flew past her an instant later. She used the motion to launch herself towards the reptilian, holding her gun out vertically in front of her, braced by fully outstretched arms. It knocked the creature's own arms away and pressed up against his chest when they collided; she wasted no time in pulling the trigger, sending bolts up into his jaw and skull just inches above the muzzle.

When the decapitated corpse fell backwards away from her, Weiss observed that the rest of the hostile group had met similar fates. She noticed something unusual as she relaxed - she was trembling; she could feel adrenaline rushing through her veins.

'This is new.'

Weiss was rarely so galvanized fighting Grimm. There was something different about fighting intelligent, humanoid beings; something animating about fighting without aura or even a semblance. The rare sensation of blood drawn from her skin, the omnipresent knowledge that she could die from a single mistake, the novel experience of dimly recognized pain that she knew was there but her brain suppressed in the heat of combat.

This was new indeed.

She propped her gun against her left shoulder and sighted down it, a position she had seen countless times but had never before taken up herself. It felt so natural. Still shuddering, she focused on the empty hallway the reptilians had emerged from. She slowly backed away from it, staring at every crevice and turn beyond the doorway, ready to blast anything that appeared from any one of the corners.

She felt an ticklish electric pulse strike her from behind and travel through her.

Then she felt - vaguely - her limp body hitting the floor.

That was the last thing she remembered.

AN: Hey guys, thanks for reading our story! And yes, I did say our. 'Snowtrooper' is a pet-project between myself and my good friend Darthbrowser, born of a lot of theoretical discussion and the abscence of fun stories in the star wars niche, not to mention the abscence of crossovers that aren't a steam roll. We've got a lot planned for this story, and we'll be posting the chapters as they come. Please let us know what you guys think with follows, favorites and reviews!

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!