The Investigation Begins

"I gotta admit, I never really saw you as much of a fighter" Yang commented to Doctor Oobleck as they were about to reach their drop zone.

I admit that I do fancy myself as more of an intellectual, but I can assure you that as a huntsman I have had my fair share of tussles."

"Like the mushroom?" Ruby asked with confusion.

" "Those are Truffles" " Jaune and Blake said simultaneously.

"Like the sprouts?" Ruby asked.

" "Those are brussels." " Jaune and Yang said simultaneously.

"Besides, given my expertise in the field of history as well as my dabbling's in archaeological surveys our dear headmaster saw it fit to assign me to this particular...assignment." Oobleck answered.

"What does history have to do with this?" Weiss asked, and Rinoa nodded in agreement with Weiss.

"Why what a preposterous question you silly girl. Why, history is the backbone of our very society. And the liver! Probably the Kidney's as well if I were to wager." Oobleck insisted

"And that means?" Weiss asked.

"Quadrant Five in the Southeast of Vale is home to Mountain Glenn" Jaune suddenly spoke before Oobleck could answer "It was an expansion of vale, but fell to the Creatures of Grimm because of one madman." he had already reported the truth behind Mountain Glenn and Doctor Merlot's involvement, and it was still being investigated, so he did not mind mentioning it in front of Doctor Ooleck.

"And now it stands abandoned as a dark reminder" Oobleck answered.

"And a likely place for a hideout" Blake added.

"Precisely." Oobleck agreed.

They got into position and Oobleck jumped out of the Bullhead first, followed by the other eight, before the Bullhead lifted away and headed back towards Vale "Ladies and gentlemen, you may still be students, but as of this moment your first mission as huntsmen and huntresses has begun. from this point forward you need to do exactly as I say. Do you understand?"

He suddenly looked at Jaune "I thought I said to leave your bags behind"

"You did, sir, but this is something useful to us." Jaune removed the backpack and opened it up and suddenly a somewhat unusual-looking orange cat walked out lazily.

"A cat?" Oobleck asked with confusion.

"It's a kneazle." Jaune corrected Oobleck "Kneazles are much more intelligent then normal cats, and more importantly they can sense emotions and recognize whether or not someone is good and trustworthy. In our case, little Crookshanks here can sense the underground crime network we are looking for and lead us right too them. He can also sense Grimm." even though this was a pureblood Kneazle, he still named it after Hermione's Half-Kneazle."

"I've never heard of such a creature" Oobleck admitted with confusion.

Crookshanks was immediately drawn towards Ruby who was the most innocent and jumped into the girls arms. With the exception of Pyrrha, who kept her calm demeanor, as she had been secretly introduced to Crookshanks on the Bullhead, the other girls gathered around Crrokshanks thinking he was adorable. He was little older then a kitten, though, so of course he was adorable.

Crookshanks had no problem with Blake, Ruby, or Weiss, but seemed a bit more cautious, though not hostile, towards Yang and Rinoa. In the case of Blake, Ruby, and Weiss, Crookshanks detected them as her masters mates on top of being not completely awful people, so of course they got preferential consideration.

"Kneazle's can be hostile towards bad people and only bond with good people. Ruby is sweet and innocent so she'd probably have the easiest time of bonding with one." Jaune explained to the others "That's why he went straight to Ruby first."

"Fascinating" Doctor Oobleck answered "Well, since he is already here with us, I guess I'll just have to observe what he is capable of in the field, then."

Jaune had decided to retrieve a Kneazle from his system last night since thanks to the butterfly effect, Zwei hadn't been sent to Ruby and Yang by their father, so Jaune needed an excuse to lead them underground to deal with the White Fang force that he assumed should be there.

While many things had changed, it had seemed to Jaune like many more things stayed the same, so he had no reason to believe that the base would be elsewhere. There certainly wasn't any place better to attack Vale from.

The latest update to his system had actually added to it the ability to create a few creatures not native to the world of Remnant, three types of creatures were known in fact, though the Kneazle would be far less troublesome to explain to others, and would actually be much more useful in this world then would be a 'Faerie Dragon' of a 'Kitsune'

'Faerie Dragons' were creatures with bodies like a dragon and wings like a fairy, but they mostly excelled at illusion magic and their breath 'attack' caused euphoria and did not harm physically. Unlike true dragons, they did not grow much larger then an average domesticated cat, and their abilities, while useful against people, were absolutely useless against creatures of Grimm.

'Kitsune' meanwhile looked like red foxes as kits, but as their magic grew they gained additional tails, with each additional tail granting a new magic ability. the first tails ability is usually illusion while the 9th tail would usually grant the Kitsune the ability to take human form, though variations were possible for these two tails. Additionally, their coloration could change as they grew more tails.

Without a doubt, Kitsune was the most powerful option, but it also required the most time and effort invested into it t fully mature one. Jaune thought that the 'Faerie Dragon' seemed to be similar to one he recalled from a tabletop game system called Pathfinder, but the Kitsune seemed different from that. Sure, more tails gave more powers, just like the Pathfinder species called Kitsune, but he was pretty sure that the pathfinder version had a default humanoid form, which the one in his system did not.

Actually, his system's Kitsune came in 13 different types. The thirteen different kinds of Kitsune each have their own preferred element which was the strongest for them, including Heaven, Dark, Wind, Spirit, Fire, Earth, River, Ocean, Mountain, Forest, Thunder, Time and Sound, which also did not remind him of Pathfinder at all.

Jaune could only assume that in was either a creature from a world he had never read about or it was from a world that he had forgotten about. Unbeknownst to Jaune, it was a mythical creature in his original world and had been created based on his original selves interpretation of what a Kitsune should be, combining aspects from different versions of Kitsune and similar creatures across different fictional worlds and regular mythology. The Kitsune his system could give life too could be considered to be a true chimera creature, though it looked like a simple fox and not monstrous at all like typical Chimera's.

Jaune never could have programmed creating such complex lifeforms, but was not opposed to taking advantage of it. There was actually another species he could create through his system but it was labeled as merely '???' so he was hesitant to summon something he had no idea about what it even was. For all he knew, he could summon a tarrasque and that was an oh hell no. Summoning a Tarrasgue or an Elder God like Cthulhu were definitely things he wanted to avoid.

It probably wasn't anything that bad, but Jaune could wait a couple more months and allow the timer next to that life-form to disappear and hopefully the timer meant that it would be revealed to him then.

Doctor Oobleck got the girls to get serious and soon they were following the lead of little Crookshanks, with Jaune reporting the approach of Grimm before they appeared thanks too Crookshanks' advanced senses and his own telepathy.

As a Kneazle, Crookshanks was just as capable of complex thought as were humans and faunus, though still lacked the vocal cords to speak the language. Telepathy was a good match for a person that bonds with a kneazle. He decided to offer a Kneazle or a Kitsune to Fox when he returned to Beacon.

Over the course of the day, they slayed many creatures of Grimm and with the exceptions of Jaune and Ruby, Doctor Oobleck asked the others why they decided to be huntsmen or huntresses. Yang answered similarly to 'canon', but Weiss and Blake diverged due to their different upbringings compared to 'canon'.

"My grandfather is the most loving and honorable adult I know. He is my role-model and I want to make him proud. Since Winter took over the Schnee Dust Company, I decided that the best way to honor him and to represent the Schnee legacy and to do it honor was as a Huntress. It may have been a bad reason to start with, but I've made incredible friendships along the way, and I have no regrets. I know in my heart that I made the right decision." was Weiss's reply.

"Back before my father, my mother, my brother and I were forced out of the White Fang, when father led it as a peaceful movement, I learned to fight when needed to protect innocent protesters, and I believed I was doing the right thing, but many others who received the same training as I did stayed in the White Fang and started using those skills to hurt innocents and were giving the faunus a bad reputation. I decided I couldn't stay in Menagerie and let the White Fang be the only voice for our people. I'm not sure how much I can do alone, but I've dedicated my life to becoming a huntress to represent and hopefully inspire more faunus to follow in my footsteps and hopefully begin healing the wounds of resentment between out two species." was Blake's reply when she was asked.

Rinoa admitted that her main concern was having the strength to protect herself and the ones she cared about, but that there was also someone she admired and wanted to make him proud of her. She was of course talking about Jaune.

Pyrrha said that she was trained from a young age and was very good at fighting, so that she couldn't even fathom herself choosing any other career. To her, being a huntress was her destiny.

Nexus didn't even consider lying, which led to Jaune having to explain Neptune's origin as a synthetic human capable of generating an aura. As for what Nexus said, it was along the lines of him being built to be able to fight, and while he hadn't been ordered to do so, he felt that if he did not become a huntsman and use his gifts to help others then he would be wasting the precious gift of life that was given to him.

RWBY and JNPR already knew the truth about Nexus, so they just convinced Doctor Oobleck not to tell anyone about Nexus and he agreed.

Eventually, when they were setting up camp, Oobleck invited Ruby and Jaune to secure the perimeter, which led to, as Jaune expected, being brought to where all the Goliath were marching in the distance.

"Whaaa? What is that?" Ruby asked with surprise. "It looks awesome."

"That, my dear girl, is a Grimm." Doctor Oobleck answered.

"Specifically they are called Goliath, Rubes." Jaune added and chuckled.

"Lets kill them." Ruby suggested, readying Crescent Rose and loading a dust cartridge into its barrel.

"Crescent Rose wont be able to do anything but agitate those Goliath, Ruby" Jaune warned her "I could kill them, but it would make a lot of noise and may alert the ones we are trying to find, so it may be best to avoid conflict."

"But what if they attack us?" Ruby asked.

"Fret not, Ruby, those Goliath are not concerned with us" Dr Oobleck told her "Ruby, not every grimm is mindless. Or rather, not every grimm is still mindless. You see, the grimm you see before you are so powerful, so superior to the grimm you've fought that they have undoubtedly lived hundreds of years. And in that time between killing humans and attacking our borders they've done one important thing. They've learned. They've learned that when they attack our borders they're likely to die, and that what we lack in strength we make up for in will, and that killing one human will only bring more."

"Then why are they still so close to the city?" Ruby asked. "What are they doing?"

"Even if they understand they are likely to die if they attack Vale, Ruby, they still have an instinctive drive to destroy humanity." Jaune told her "They are likely waiting for the right moment."

"I agree with your conjecture Mr. Arc." Dr. Oobleck said before turning to head back the way that they had come from.

"Dr. Oobleck...I've been wondering..." Ruby said as she and Jaune started following him again.

"Wondering why I've been interrogating your two teams all day?" Oobleck guessed

"A-actually, I was wondering, why did you want to become a huntsman?" Ruby asked.

"Look around and tell me what you see." Oobleck suggested.

Ruby started looking around "Lots of old buildings... Empty streets..."

"I see a tragedy that never should have happened." Jaune answered nonchalantly "Lives that shouldn't have been lost, families that shouldn't have been destroyed, all because of that sick bastard Merlot."

"I see lives that could have been saved. As a huntsman it is my job to protect the people, and though I am capable of doing it with traditional weaponry I believe I can make a much larger impact if I do it with my mind. As a teacher, I am able to take knowledge, the most powerful weapon of them all, and place it into the hands of every student that passes through my classroom. I look at this wasteland and see lives that could have been saved, but I also see an opportunity. An opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy, and therefore become stronger. I am a huntsman, Ruby, because there is nothing else in this world I would rather be."

------

Upon the trio returning to their chosen campsite for the night, they found that the remaining members of Team RWBY and Team JNPR were around a campfire.

"Oh wonderful, a textbook campfire." Oobleck answered approvingly.

"Oh, fire." Ruby jogged over and knelt with her palms in front of her "Oh warm."

"Very good. Eat your dinners then hurry to bed." Oobleck instructed them. "We have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow and we'll need you to take turns keeping watch over our temporary abode. Any volunteers for first watch?"

"Yo." Ruby raised her hand to volunteer.

"I'll join first watch as well" Jaune volunteered

"Ruby, did Oobleck ask you why you wanted to be a huntress? What did you tell him?" Yang asked.

"No he didn't. Weird." Ruby answered "Oh well. Good night guys." Ruby started walking over to the lookout point and Jaune chuckled and gave Yang a hug "Don't feel down, Yang. Ruby's reason for becoming a huntress is obvious. She's an idealist who wants to be a hero and do her part to create a world where everyone can be happy. Oobleck doesn't need to ask her since the answer is as plain as day."

Yang did not resist being hugged by Jaune "Did he ask you, Jaune?"

"No, he didn't, but then why would he?" Jaune asked Yang "My motives are basically a perfect fusion of Ruby's and his own, so he should be able to read my just fine as well. I'm sure he has other questions for me, though he'll probably wait until we are back at Beacon to ask them if I were to guess."

"Weren't you planning to behave while we are working lover-boy?" Yang said to him teasingly, seemingly recovered quite a bit from her previous state that seemed a bit weird to him.

Jaune chuckled and parted from the hug "I guess you are feeling better Yang. That's great. I'll go join Ruby for first watch now."

When he walked over to join Ruby he found Crookshanks already curled up on her lap looking adorable.

Jaune chuckled and sat next to her as the watch began.

Though Crookshanks slept, it's passive awareness would awaken it if anything 'dark' came too near, so he was still a great Grimm radar even in a sleeping state.

Ruby lightly petted the furry little cat-like magical creature while their first watch started.