Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY

Prologue: It all started with a drink

"Oh… someone turn out the lights, it's too bright…" Qrow Branwen groaned as he brought an arm up to cover his eyes, the burning sunlight scarring the sensitive organs. The sudden motion worsened the pounding headache assailing the hungover man and another groan of pain slipped past his lips.

"Good morning sleeping beauty. How'd ya sleep last night hmm?" An irate Taiyang Xiao Long walked into the room as soon as he heard his brother in law coming to.

"Close the curtains… it's too early for this." Qrow grumbled again and flipped himself onto his side, to get away from the sun's rays.

"Too early he says, it's two in the afternoon idiot. Now get up, if you crash on my couch anymore I'll start charging you rent." Taiyang ripped the blanket of the drunk and received an angry growl for his efforts.

"Go away Tai, dealing with a major headache here. And aren't we family? You're really going to charge your own brother rent?" Qrow muttered as he tried to return to dreamland.

"Brother in law, and don't worry, I'll give you a family discount. Get up, you have a long trip to prepare for." When Qrow didn't respond, Taiyang rolled his eyes and shoved the man off the couch with his foot.

"Ow… the hell was that for? And what trip?" Qrow grunted and finally got up, glaring at Taiyang with bloodshot eyes, not liking the Cheshire grin on his face.

"Oh, nothing much. Just… what do you remember from last night?"

"Last night? Ugh, Jimmy showed up, then uh… Oz provided the drinks?" Qrow said slowly, dragging up his distorted memories to try and piece a coherent narrative together.

"Oh yes, drinks that you spiked." Taiyang was unamused at Qrow's little stunt, although he'd let it slide for now. Qrow would be paying for it in full shortly.

"Meh, what good is a drink without alcohol in it? Anyways… after that… we were discussing the successful quelling of a bunch of restless Grimm in Mount Glenn, I think? There… there were some documents involved…" Qrow frowned as the details of what was on those papers escaped his grasp, he did recall scribbling some stuff down on them, hopefully they weren't anything important, he could do without Glynda and Jimmy yelling at him.

"Oh yes, the documents. You signed a lot of things there, you and Ironwood both." Taiyang's face splitting grin grew even wider.

"…What did I sign?" Qrow asked with trepidation. Every time Taiyang started smiling like that, it never ended well for him. It was the smile of a man eagerly awaiting someone else to finish digging their own grave so he could give him a little push.

"Ah nothing of importance, just a… few documents finalizing your transfer."

"Transfer? What transfer?" A tiny bit of panic started to set in as Taiyang's grin expanded to inhuman proportions.

"Congratulations Professor Branwen, your transfer request has been approved and you are now indefinitely on loan to Atlas Academy from Signal. The headmaster's already signed off on it, I hope you have enough winter clothes, because I'm sure Ironwood's reception is going to be… frosty." Taiyang burst out laughing as Qrow's face drained of all colour.

"What?" Qrow's voice was small and panicky as he realised Taiyang wasn't joking.

"Pack your bags Qrow, you're off to Atlas!"

"Gimme your strongest, cheapest drink." Qrow slammed down a pile of lien cards on the bar and buried his face in his hands, cursing his current situation.

"God damnit Oz, the hell do you mean improving relations? Maybe you missed the part where we hate each other's guts." Qrow rubbed his temples and thought back to his failure to get out of the transfer. Signal's headmaster had signed off on it and evidently, so had a drunken Ironwood.

The general was just as amused about the idea of him in Atlas as a teacher as he was, sadly his hands were tied and the one person who could have gotten the both of them out decided not to do so.

"I'm sure this will be an excellent opportunity to work with one another, not having you in Vale is a little troubling, but I've no doubt you'll continue your good work in Atlas." Qrow spat out in a mimicry of Ozpin's voice.

"Trouble in paradise? You're not from around here are you?" The barkeep asked as he handed Qrow's drink to him, pointing to Qrow's clothes that stood out from traditional Atlas wear.

"Work issues mostly, I'm from Vale, teach at… used to teach at Signal, got transferred to Atlas recently." Qrow said and downed his drink in one shot.

"Oh, you a huntsman then?" The barkeep smiled as he took back the empty glass.

"Yep, used to be more freelance but now I'm on contract with the army, damnit." Qrow complained.

"Hehehehe, we Atlessians get that a lot, most foreigners don't see a reason why the huntsmen academy has to be so closely tied to the military but the way I see it, it makes things more efficient, what with better cooperation and all. Here, on the house, as thanks for your efforts to improve our great nation." The barkeep passed another glass of higher quality liquor to Qrow and the professor accepted it with a quick nod of thanks.

"You know, this would be so much easier if you just authorised my transfer back to Signal." Qrow said as General Ironwood shook his head with a sigh.

"I tried, Signal denied the application. Evidently, with you here there's less headaches for them. In fact, they're pestering me to strike of the requirement that you're to return to Signal and teach a few classes every once in a while. So you're stuck here for the time being specialist Major Branwen."

"Damnit all. So, what you need me to do? School year hasn't started yet, got a Grimm killing mission or something?" Qrow decided to stow the complaints and just get to the point straight away.

"In a manner of speaking. The prototype Hammerhead destroyer is finished and ready for a test flight. It's equipped with the latest in combat tech and there's a Grimm infestation on the outskirts of Vale available for field testing." Ironwood said and handed a file with the details to Qrow.

"Okay, and where do I come in? I can't fly a ship." Qrow said as he started reading through the documents, his eyes glazing over at all the technical stuff he was expected to memorise.

"You? Fly the ship? Heavens no, I'm not trusting you with something that costs half a billion lien." Ironwood shot down the idea instantly.

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence boss, really feeling the love here." Qrow deadpanned and stared flatly at the general.

"So, if I'm not flying, then what am I doing? Manning the weapons? Maintenance? Cleaning? I swear if it's the last one I'm going awol."

"Yea… no. You're not touching any of the sensitive equipment. I already have team of well-trained technicians to handle the ship. As for gunners, there is a manual fire mode, but the Hammerhead is equipped with the latest AI control systems. The ship will be running on complete autopilot, there's no need for you to do anything except be on board." Ironwood said.

"Oh? That's… a real good use of my talents. Really, it is." Qrow muttered.

"Your talent for getting drunk won't be of use here I'm afraid, sorry to disappoint you. Regulations require an officer of sufficient rank aboard the test flight, unfortunately, all of my other officers are needed elsewhere and I'm busy preparing for the first semester in Atlas. That leaves you. Get on, sleep in your quarters if you must, but don't touch anything." Ironwood ordered.

"Meh, paid to sleep on the job, I can live with that." Qrow shrugged and accepted the assignment cheerily, Ironwood's ugly expression just made his day better.

"Can you be professional for once?" Ironwood growled out.

"I am being professional, you should see me when I'm off duty. Don't worry Jimmy, I'll make sure not to push any big red buttons inside the ship." Qrow saluted and Ironwood just sighed.

"Whatever, get out of my office. And please for the love of god, don't break anything."

Qrow idly flicked a piece of hard candy at wall and watched it bounce off and land perfectly on his tongue. "So this is the new hammerhead class airship eh? You'd think with the money they spent on this they'd be able to afford a better paint job, but nooo… everything has to be the same exact shade of grey."

Spinning around in his swivel chair, Qrow's gaze roved around his criminally under furnished quarters, trying to find something, anything to pass the time. A simple double-decker bunk bed, a desk and two chairs, that was all the furniture in the room.

And all of it was grey.

The sole source of colour in the room came from the single window, but with the Hammerhead cruising through the cloud cover, there wasn't much to see out there either. The 'Grimm extermination mission' if he could even call it that had already concluded. Nothing more than a small pack of beowolves, easily obliterated by a few shots from the main gun.

A complete let down in his opinion, and the only reason he wasn't sleeping off the boredom was because he'd slept on rough ground softer than the things Ironwood had the audacity to call beds.

Qrow glared balefully at his surroundings as he could feel the room leeching the positivity out of his soul. "Eerrhhh… at least the autopilot is great. No need to put up with noisy pilots complaining about drinking in the ship."

Pulling out the bottle of whiskey he had the presence of mind to smuggle aboard in advance, Qrow poured himself a shot to improve his mood. Feeling the liquid burn all the way down drew out a satisfied sigh from the man, crappy as the environment was, things could always be worse.

"At least this beats running around the countryside on missions for Oz. Now I just gotta sit back, relax and wait for this tub to bring me back to Jimmy-ah crap, I just jinxed myself." Qrow slapped his face for his misstep and waited for the universe to answer.

He received his answer in the form of a massive explosion that rocked the ship, alarms blared as several more smaller explosions followed up. Unprepared for the sudden turbulence, Qrow was thrown off his seat and landed with a painful thud.

"Ow, what the hell was that!?" Rubbing his behind to ease the pain, Qrow reached for his scroll to check the status of the ship and swore like a sailor. Nearly all of the ship's systems were offline and the it was being held aloft by a single engine instead of the usual eight.

The ship shuddered as another explosion rocked it, Qrow just sighed as his fears were confirmed. The sole green light on his scroll's screen turned red as the one good engine was critically damaged by whatever explosion that was. "And there goes the last one."

The ship went into uncontrolled freefall, intermittent explosions working to shake the ship to pieces with Qrow still stuck in it.

"Oh… I'm gonna be sick…" The veteran huntsmen was green in the face as he fought down the urge to upchuck everything he ate and drank in the last couple of hours.

Dragging himself towards the window in the zero gravity conditions by pulling himself along the furniture, Qrow gave the stricken airship slightly over a minute before it hit the ground given its current altitude.

Clinging to the windowsill with one hand, he tried smashing in the reinforced glass with the other. His eyes bugged out when steel shutters came down as soon as the glass started to crack, sealing off the window and nullifying his efforts.

"For fucks sake! Everything's breaking but the security system!? Oh this is going to hurt!" Pulling himself into a ball and focusing everything on keeping his aura defences up, he braced for the inevitable impact, bitterly cursing the fact that he stored Harbinger in the armoury instead of keeping it with him.

Qrow's world exploded into a riot of colours when the airship hit the dirt. The hull folded in instantly and the ship went rolling on the ground, sending Qrow pinballing around the rapidly deforming room.

His aura took the brunt of the beating except for a particularly nasty bounce where his left arm wedged into a crack in between the wall and the bed before being violently wrenched free. When he finally came to a stop, the man was bruised all over and cradling a broken arm.

"Ow."

Groaning in pain, Qrow pushed himself up with his good arm and crawled towards a rent in the side of the airship that sunlight was pouring through. The hole was just big enough for him to squeeze through, as he staggered through it, he felt a pair of small hands pull on his arm to guide him through the jagged edges safely.

A young blonde boy let go of his arms when he was safely through. The child staring up at him with wide blue eyes couldn't be more than twelve years old, about the same age as his nieces actually.

"Are you okay mister? I saw your airship explode and crash here." Jaune said as Qrow righted himself.

"I've been better. Stupid semblance messing with me again." He grumbled and made an effort to avoid swearing around young impressionable minds. The last thing he needed was child protective services called on him… again. Taiyang would never let him live it down.

"What's a semblance?" Jaune asked, rolling the unfamiliar word around to see how it felt.

"A semblance is a manifestation of one's soul, tied to your aura. Aura is something everyone has but is usually locked until it's unlocked by someone else or awakened by yourself. All hunters need to know how to use their aura to protect themselves and assist in their fighting and semblances grant a person special abilities unique to them that can be of great help… oh err just ignore that." Qrow laughed sheepishly as he accidentally slipped into lecture mode, having given more or less the same speech to Signal first years more times than he cared to remember.

"Cool! You're a huntsman then? Your… semblance? Allows you to make things explode!? Can I do that too?" Jaune fired off a series of questions and Qrow grunted, taken off guard by the sudden enthusiasm.

"Slow down kid, yes I'm a huntsman, my semblance causes things to explode occasionally, I don't think you'll be able to do the same as me but if you go to an huntsmen academy or join the army, you could learn how to blow things up there." Qrow heard a howl in the distance followed by several more and frowned.

'Beowolves, must be a whole pack at least, they must have been alerted by the crash. Damnit, I can't protect the kid and destroy the wreckage at the same time. And I can't just leave with the kid either, if the white fang or some other criminal group get their hands on this there'll be hell to pay.'

Qrow fumbled with his scroll in his good hand while he checked the status of the demolition charges stored aboard. "Hell yes they're still intact and ready to blow, score one for typical Atlas paranoia. I'll never complain about redundant backup systems again."

The veteran huntsman eyed the boy warily, the kid was off in dreamland muttering about explosions and academies. Getting him involved was risky and Jimmy would probably mount his ass on the wall for this, but it was the lesser of two evils.

"Kid. You like explosions?"

"Yup!" Jaune answered instantly.

"How'd you like to make a big boom?"

"Can I!? CanIcanIcanI!?"

"Sure, just follow the simple instructions on the scroll while I fight off the Grimm." Qrow handed Jaune the scroll and hefted Harbinger. The one piece of good fortune on this endeavour had been the armoury cracking open on impact and allowing his weapon to land nearby. If it was stuck in all that wreckage… good thing his semblance didn't screw with him on that.

Switching harbinger to scythe mode, Qrow gave the weapon a few test swings, it'd been awhile since he fought with it one handed, but distracting the kid with gunfire would be a quick way for him to mess up and initiate a system lockout, and that wouldn't end well for anyone.

As Jaune furiously mashed the keys on the scroll, Qrow watched the bushes for movement. A ruffle was the only warning before a large mass of black and white pounced at him, the beowolf ate a scythe blade for its efforts and Qrow batted the disintegrating corpse away from him.

Like that a dam broke and the Grimm started pouring out of the woodwork, rushing at him en masse. Their howls rang in his ears as Qrow struck down the closest ones, blade glinting in the firelight, death awaited all who approached.

An alpha beowolf was cut down when Qrow slammed his foot down on its head, sending it crashing to the dirt and flipped the scythe round, the edge resting under its neck, a simple pull and its head went rolling.

"How much longer kid!?" Qrow yelled as his wounds started to catch up to him. Any other day such a pack would be no issue for him but right now he just survived a crash and one of his arms was broken. For all his successes, he was being pushed back and the horde showed no sign of letting up.

"Uh… just a bit more… DONE! I think? Um it says armed and there's a timer. 10… 9… 8… 7…"

Qrow blinked and tossed harbinger as far as he could before turning and grabbing Jaune. He didn't even have time to swear as he hoisted the boy over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and started sprinting like a bat out of hell.

As the countdown hit zero, the wreckage went up in a ball of heat and sound, the largest explosion Jaune had ever seen. As the heatwave scorched them and left him feeling sunburned, Jaune could only stare into the flames entranced, the terrifying Grimm that his parents had always warned him about evaporating into nothingness as they were all consumed in the cleansing fire.

"Cool…" Jaune whispered in awe and his first step down the way of the explosion was taken.

"Oh thank you very much, that hit the spot." Qrow said as he relaxed in his chair and slowly sipped from a mug of hot chocolate.

"Yes, yes, now what are doing here Mr bad luck charm?" Arthur Arc asked with a frown on his face, thoroughly unhappy at his son's near-death encounter.

"Would you believe me if I said bad luck?" Qrow shrugged before wincing as the broken arm in a sling shifted and sent a spike of pain through him.

"haaa… I hate it that that's a perfectly reasonable answer coming from you. Well, it doesn't matter, get out as soon as you can." Arthur said in a tone that brooked no compromise.

"Oh come on Arthur, can't an old friend stick around for a bit? I thought we were buddies." Qrow said, face falling slightly when Arthur didn't crack a smile.

"Emphasis on were, Beacon was a long time ago and I'm not an active huntsman anymore. I left that life behind for a reason Qrow, and I do not appreciate you putting ideas in my son's head." The Arc patriarch glared at his former schoolmate, more than a little ticked off at the man for giving Jaune the idea to try and become a huntsman.

"Is that so bad? Kid likes explosions evidently, and he wants to be a hero, what's wrong with wanting to be a huntsman?" Qrow asked.

"What's wrong? What's wrong with not wanting to bury my own child? What's wrong with not wanting my son to go through what I did? I buried my whole team Qrow, and you… your team lost Summer too." Arthur pointed out.

"That's… a low blow Arc." Qrow reeled back as though Arthur physically punched him in the face.

"There are safer careers out there for Jaune, he could always be a farmer or something. If he wants to be a hero and save lives, he could become a doctor. There's no reason for him to risk his life out in the field."

"Maybe, but if it's what the kid wants to do with his life are you going to oppose him all the way?" Qrow asked softly.

"He's twelve, what could he know about what he wants to do with his life? Children like him should be playing with their friends, worrying about grades, not thinking about taking up a lifelong suicide mission."

The two men sat in silence, neither really knowing what to say after that. Qrow was the first to break the silence. "Alright, I see your point, I assume you've at least been training him?"

"Training? Why would I do that? I'm not sending him out to fight Grimm." Arthur replied.

"You and I both know Grimm and bandit attacks can happen without warning. You can protect him now Arthur, but what about ten years down the line, twenty, when you're too old to fight anymore, or when he's far away from your protection?" Qrow fired back.

"Why are you so insistent on getting my son to be a huntsman? Hasn't there been enough death? I'm tired of losing people, I won't lose my son too." Arthur looked away to hide the brief flash of pain in his eyes as he recalled everyone he ever lost over the years.

"I'm tired too, I'm bad luck remember? Maybe I see potential in the kid, maybe I just want him to be strong enough to protect his own precious people. Well, I'm just the messenger in the end, the choice is his… and yours. Nice seeing you again after so long Arthur, I think I'll go for a walk, all this sitting around is killing my arm." Qrow smiled bitterly and stood up, making for the door.

Arthur Arc just sighed heavily as he heard the door close behind Qrow. He said nothing as his wife Victoria Arc came up behind him and started massaging his shoulders. "He has a point you know, we can't protect them forever."

"I know, I know… but…" Arthur sighed again.

"What should we do?"

"We could always leave it to Jaune to decide. It's not like he'll be a huntsman as soon as he enters one of those fancy academies, there's the combat school first and then one of the big four. There's always the chance he could change his mind along the way." Victoria offered.

"And what if he doesn't, what if he insists on being a huntsman? What then?" Arthur asked.

"Then, we be good parents and support our child in his endeavours, what else?" His wife said with a smile.

"Yeah… you're right."

"Of course I'm right, when am I ever wrong?" Victoria stepped back as Arthur rose from his seat.

"Excuse me for a bit, I need to go apologise to Qrow and then threaten him for a bit. He got the idea into Jaune's head, he's going to be responsible for training him up enough to make sure it works. If he doesn't, I'll break his other arm." Arthur promised.

"Ever the merciful one, if he doesn't, I'll make sure he never has a child of his own." The Arc matriarch said with a pleasant smile on her face, getting her husband to shiver slightly.

"You're scary you know that?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, don't you have a certain drunk to hunt down?"

Author's notes:

Here it is, Atlas Arc, a spinoff of the chapter Murphy's Law from Arc-ventures across the multiverse. Don't have a fixed schedule for updates, I'm just writing whenever the inspiration strikes and the chapters will go up as soon as I finish. Will have a couple of OCs to fill in for the people in Atlas until other canon characters start appearing later.