Chapter 1: The Start of a New Beginning

Weiss woke up to a regular day in their dorm. Well, as normal as it could be for Team RWBY. "TWEEEET." A whistle sounded. Weiss scream in surprise as she fell out of bed. "What was that?" She yelled in a frantic tone.

"Good morning, Team RWBY!" Ruby was heard, yelling enthusiastically as Weiss saw the rest of her team bolt up in shock like her.

"Ruby," Weiss said, exasperated. She looked at the fully dressed girl in annoyance. "Was that really necessary?"

"Nope." Ruby replied in a happy tone. "But, get up. We have important business that Team RWBY must attend to," she said in a fake, snobby tone.

"Ruby," Yang was heard from her top bunk. "Couldn't it wait five minutes? It's still… FIVE IN THE MORNING?" Yang groaned and slammed her face into her pillow out of annoyance.

"Nope," Ruby said in yet another happy tone. "We're going back the city to see what we can do to help. JNPR's already there, so get up, and let's go!"

Weiss, Yang, and Blake all pinched the bridges of their noses in sync. It's true, the Breach happened less than a week ago (3 days to be exact), but they were tired of the work they had to do. First, they had to help find civilians, two days ago, they were stuck in a hospital to help with the injuries, and yesterday, they were sent to clear out rubble. "Fine," Weiss said after a moment, "just give us time to get dressed and wake up."

With a nod, Ruby set out to go find them breakfast. As the rest of her team slowly got up, she rushed around to see what they were scheduled to do and to find cookies for her and her team. When she came back with four bags full of sweets, her team was fully awake and in their usual attire. "You guys ready or what?" Ruby questioned.

"We're good. By the way, what's in the bag?" Yang asked in anticipation.

Ruby held up three of the four bags proudly. "Cookies!"

Once again, her team groaned. "Ruby," Weiss started, "couldn't you have gotten something, oh, I don't know, healthy and not just for you?"

"But, it's cookies." Ruby said in shock. "Are you telling me cookies are not a food to be eaten for breakfast?"

The rest of Team RWBY stared at her for a few seconds, all having a blank expression. "Yep," the three of them said.

Ruby started to pout. "Don't worry sis," Yang said, throwing an arm around Ruby's shoulders. "We can make do for a day. Right guys?"

Blake and Weiss nodded, albeit with a groan from Weiss. Ruby grinned back. "Great! Now, Team RWBY will start their new adventure of… search and rescue!"

A few minutes later, the four girls were eating sweets on a Bullhead to Vale. "What's the mission now, Ruby," Blake asked after swallowing a bite.

"Yeah," Weiss stated, holding back a yawn. "I want to know why we have to get up this early for something we've already done."

Ruby had an uncharacteristically serious expression. "Well, according to Professor Goodwitch, a signal from someone's scroll activated about half an hour ago, and since everyone else is on duty or came back from the midnight shift, they wanted to send us."

Blake's ears twitched slightly. "But, why would they want to send us? I mean, couldn't they have sent some of the volunteers from the city to help with the search?" Blake asked, confused.

Ruby shook her head. "It's not that. Of course there are volunteers still searching, but this is a special case." Ruby said, looking at the ground. The rest of her team looked at her incredulously (AN: Love that word). She looked back at them, dead in the eye. "The scroll, it belongs to a student. They didn't want to send civilians into a place that a Hunter-in-Training has a hard time getting out of."

The rest of Team RWBY reeled back in shock. Weiss remembered the guide for all students. According to the guide, if a team was in a dire situation, all available members must activate a distress beacon to call for help. "If only one is on," she thought, "where's the rest of them?" The others mirrored her thoughts.

When they got to the beacon's location, they found a horrifying scene. Half the block's buildings had collapsed, and the rest were completely unstable, showing holes in walls, broken pillars, crumbling roofs, and fires that were still raging on. Even scarier were the bodies. Dozens of bodies littered the streets, and even though there were no Grimm in sight, the air of a battle zone was still thick in the air.

Yang looked on in horror. "How did no one check on this sooner?"

Blake shook her head in disgust. "I don't know, but we better start clearing out the area."

As they started loading up the bodies in the Bullhead, they didn't notice a figure dressed in black and red watching them from a rooftop warily. As Ruby loaded another body (every time she did this, her body kept trying to throw up her breakfast), she noticed a weird feeling in the air around her. Yang felt it to, and looked around. She quickly saw the figure about to shoot what looked like a pistol at her. "Ruby, watch out!" Yang yelled.

Out of habit, Ruby threw the body into the Bullhead unceremoniously and dived to her left. A loud "SNAP" was heard, and the area where Ruby's body used to be was engulfed in flames. Blake was the first to react to the failed assassination by shooting at the mysterious character. All he did in retaliation was moving his arm in the bullet's path, deflecting off what seemed to be his skin. Blake stopped shooting out of surprise, and the figure jumped from the roof onto the street in front of the 4.

Weiss yelled at the pilot to go back to Beacon for backup. As the Bullhead rolled away, she heard a growl. Team RWBY turned around to look at the mysterious figure. "Where are you taking those bodies?" They heard him ask. For the first time, they had a good look at his attire. He was a man who about as tall as Yang and was completely covered head-to-toe in a black material. He sported a red hood similar to Ruby's, only it obviously wasn't made from wool or cotton, and had traces of black in it.

"I'll ask you again," the figure said, looking at them with one red eye and one blue eye. "Where are you taking those bodies?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, bub," Yang retaliated, as they all got ready with their weapons.

Just then, a loud and rapid pinging noise came from Ruby. Everyone looked at her in confusion, and she was just as confused as they were. Taking her scroll out of her pocket, she saw that they were standing right in front of the distress beacon. She looked up in suspicion. "Where's the survivor?"

The man looked at her in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Ruby said in a bold tone. "There's supposed to be a student survivor here. Where is he or she?"

To their surprise, the man started laughing. "Are you saying that you're students from Beacon? Only Beacon and police issued scrolls can hear those things."

All four girls narrowed their eyes. "Yeah, we are,' said Yang. "So, you gonna tell us where the guy is, or are we going to have to beat it out of you?" Yang emphasized her point by punching her gauntlets together.

To make them even more surprised and confused, the man continued to laugh as he got to his knees, staring at the sky. "Hey, are you deaf or insane?" Yang angrily asked.

"You mistaken me. I'm asking for the location of the bodies because they're my friends. And I'm asking about you guys because I'm the one you're looking for." The man got on his hands and knees, almost bowing to the team. "Thank Oum, it's over. The horrors are over."

Team RWBY relaxed their stances but were still wary. "Wait," Ruby questioned. "You're the student we're looking for?"

The figure stood up, straightened its figure and nodded. "Sorry, you probably don't recognize me." He stopped laughing and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the black material surrounding him molded into clothes. Now, he wore a red shirt, a black wool jacket, black pants with small red stripes on the sides, and black leather boots. His hooded cape was still the same, only this time the hood was off so you could see his face. It was a young boy's face with lightly tanned skin, black hair, red and blue eyes, and he had three scars: one on his left cheek, another went over his left red eye like Weiss, and the last went from the right side of his mouth to the bottom of his cheek.

He donned a bitter smiled, slowly made his way towards them, and stretched out his hand in greeting. "The name's Daniel Gotzon, and the three of the bodies you carried off were the rest of my team."

AN: Hey guys, Fireflame here. I'm happy to say this is my first Fanfiction and my first public story outside of school stuff. I'm trying out two different ideas right now: one about the OC character which I will release his bio in the next chapter, and a plot idea that will develop. Hope you guys will love me for the character and love/hate me for the plot idea. Anyways, leave a review, favorite, follow, or do all three. It really helps me out. I need help since this is my first free write story ever. Signing out, Flames of Fire.