Chapter Two: Animal Kingdom

A/N: In this AU, I'm treating the Faunus in general more as immigrants from another country (Menagerie) rather than your run-of-the-mill citizens of Vale, meaning they have their own language and culture (and, yes, their animal characteristics). As with any immigrant population, there may be some who have not learned the language of the country to which they have immigrated. It seems reasonable to me, then, that depending on the Faunus, some may speak a language that would be foreign to the residents of Vale, and that will be reflected in the narrative. As I am in the process of learning Russian, that is the language they will be using. How that will be presented (for example, regarding translation of the conversation) will change depending on the situation it is in. See the end for more notes on the matter.

-T.Y.

Previously, on Vale Confidential:

(Stomping her foot) Weiss: "Watch where you're going! You're lucky that I wasn't seriously hurt."

(Sitting at her desk) Glynda: "Miss Schnee, I can assure you that that attitude will not endear you to the officer's you'll be working with. They'll only respect those that have earned it."

Ruby: "I'm sorry for earlier."

Glynda: "Two rookie detectives, partnered together? This will not end well…"

"Has the doc given the all clear yet?" Ruby asked, kneeling at the feet of the body. She pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves, matching the similar pair already covering her shoes. She looked up at one of the uniforms standing guard over the scene, but he merely shrugged.

"I don't know, ma'am," he said politely, "but I doubt it. She only got here a few minutes ago. You must have raced here yourselves to arrive so quickly." Ruby looked down, away from him and back at the body. Her fingers twitched, eager to start her own examination of the body and its belongings.

If only you knew how fast she drove, Weiss thought as she looked around in confusion. I don't see a doctor. "Well, where is she, then? Does she expect us to stand around here forever?" She kept an eye on Rose, making sure her over-eager partner didn't overstep her bounds by touching the body before it was cleared. Someone has to be the adult here.

The officer shrugged. "She didn't seem thrilled about the flickering lights, miss," he said.

"Detective, not miss," Weiss corrected softly. The officer seemed not to notice and motioned vaguely to the fluorescent bulbs recessed in the ceiling.

"She claimed these were giving her a headache. She probably stepped outside for a few minutes." He returned his hands to his hips and blew a bubble with his gum. Weiss grimaced as the bubble popped, the sickly sweet smell of sugar mixing with the smells of the room. "What's the rush, anyway? It's just one less Fanger," he said, using the derogatory term for a member of the notorious gang. "No one will miss him. If anything, we should thank whoever did it for helping take out the trash."

Ruby stood and shook her head. "That's enough, Jim," she said, sterner than Weiss had yet heard her speak. "We don't get to decide who we help and who we don't. Whatever this Faunus' history, he's a citizen of Vale, and it's our job to protect them. Weiss," she said, turning to her partner quickly, causing her long red cape to furl with the sudden movement, "I'm going to go outside to find the M.E. You look around in here, try to find his scroll, a calendar, a journal. Anything that might tell us what he was up to last night, whether or not he was meeting with anyone, the whole deal. Looking around, I doubt he had anything worth stealing. We'll probably have to find some other motive for the murder besides a B&E gone wrong."

"Yes, ma'am," Weiss muttered sarcastically as Rose stalked out of the crime scene, intent on looking for the medical examiner. "Whoever made you the boss?" She looked around the messy apartment. It's not going to be easy to find anything here, she thought. It seemed as if the victim had decided there was a place for everything…and that place was everywhere it wasn't already. Dirty dishes filled the sink and overflowed onto the counter; laundry was thrown onto the backs of the couch; junk mail was tossed near, but not into, the garbage can and piled high on the desk. But above it all, there was the smell.

Detective Rose had not been lying about the smell.

Weiss looked over her shoulder as she pulled on her own pair of gloves, listening once again to the varied conversations playing out around her. Just like back at the station, the officers here seemed…unconcerned? oblivious? unbothered? She wasn't sure how she would describe their attitude towards the body, twisted and broken, laying on the floor only feet away, but it was not one of rapt attention. Rather, it was one of grim acceptance. Has murder, has crime, become so commonplace to them that they can so easily ignore it? she asked herself, making her way to the couch. She began to feel around, behind, and underneath the cushions, trying to find the Faunus' scroll. Winter never mentioned anything like that happening to her, but is that because I've never bothered to ask? Is that what will happen to me in two years, or one, or six months? She had never thought of herself as one who wore her emotions on her sleeve, but the thought of losing what little she did have frightened her. Her father had made it clear to her that she had little enough to offer the world as she was now; she could ill afford to leave more of herself behind in what her family had deemed a fool's errand.

She grimaced in disgust as her hands wrapped around something wet, and she withdrew a takeout box from a noodle store down the street. She cautiously sniffed the contents. They're not spoiled yet, so they can't be more than a day or two old. Maybe they're what he had for dinner last night? She placed it on the floor by her foot and reached in again, thoroughly checking the couch and, after finishing, the armchair as well. Nothing, she thought, upset that she had to dirty her hands for so little.

She stood and looked around the apartment, trying to decide where to look next. There was a small desk over by one of the windows, covered in a mess of bills and other mail. Maybe something there will help, she thought, and headed over.

"Nora, come on, you can't stay out here forever. This is your job." Ruby was pulling on Nora's arm, trying to drag her out of her van and back into the apartment. She was having about as much success as if she was pulling against a team of oxen.

"No you don't, Ruby, not as long as those lights are flickering like that. I don't trust them." The young police doctor's high-pitched voice came out of a mouth wearing one of the widest grins Ruby had ever seen. At least some of the rumors about the resident doctor were true, then- the girl loved to get physical.

"This from the girl that used to go around sticking her tongue in electrical outlets…" Ruby said, her breathing heavy as she decided to let go of Nora's arm and instead reached for her scroll, pulling it out of her coat pocket.

Nora stuck out the aforementioned tongue. "Exactly, Ruby, I know a thing or two about bad electricity. I'm not going in there, and that's final!"

Ruby finished dialing and held the scroll up to her ear. "Well, that's fine, I guess. I can't force you to do anything, that much is obvious." Then, as if an afterthought, "By the way, do you want me to say hello for you?"

The question stopped the giggling Nora in her tracks. "Ruby, who are you calling?" The defiant resolve and the grin fled Nora's face. "Ruby, who's on the phone?"

Ruby covered the mouthpiece, even though no one had picked up yet. It's almost better if he doesn't. I don't need the call to actually go through for this gambit to work. "I'm calling Ren. I figured he'd want to hear about this. You want to say hi?"

"No no no, I'm going! You don't need to tell him anything about this! Rather, just tell him how quick I work! That'll work too!" Nora leapt out of the van and ran back into the apartment building, calling with her hands for her assistants to bring the stretcher. They gamely followed after their boss, intimately familiar with her frequent antics.

Ruby smiled and put her phone away. Glynda might think that I'm just a rookie, but I've had six months of hanging around the station listening to the detectives talk, and a lifetime of stories from my father and uncle. I've picked up on a few of their tricks already. Nora, for instance, was hopelessly in love with Lie Ren. Ruby had only met the paramedic once, and he hadn't said much, but she got the feeling he was a professional through and through who didn't have time for foolishness. So if you were to threaten telling him about Nora's lack of a work ethic, it'd be an easy way to get her to listen.

Ruby made her way back inside, moving her sunglasses to the top of her head. What would the detectives do next? she asked herself. They would listen to Nora as she gave them a rough cause and time of death, check his pockets for any belongings, canvass the area for any witnesses who might have seen or heard something, wait for the forensics team to complete their examination of the room…In her mind, it was all an easy, smooth process, one that had been tested and refined over years of use. In practice, Ruby was worried that it would be much harder than it first looked. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and the criminal would always be caught. Ruby knew the unpleasant truth. Nearly half, a good forty percent, of all murders went unsolved in Vale.

She once again entered the apartment, looking around to find her partner. I hope that she didn't mess anything up. Was it unfair of her to assume the worst about Weiss? To have passed the tests, she would have to have some measure of skill and a double measure of knowledge. Am I just believing the worst because of how we first met? Ruby liked to think of herself as a positive person. Not as positive as her sister- Yang was the most relentlessly upbeat person Ruby knew, even more so than Nora- but still, Ruby thought she saw the best in every situation. Her brief time with Weiss was already trying that assumption. Admitting that at least of a part of their run in could be blamed on herself was supposed to build a bridge between them. And maybe it had, to an extent. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. She had heard the muttered sarcasm as she had left the room. There was still time to improve, though. The situation wasn't hopeless yet. "You find anything yet, Weissy?" she asked as she walked over to where Weiss was standing, hunched over a small desk.

"Do not call me that again…and yes, I think so. There was some takeout stuffed into the couch, from a place I saw as we drove here. It might be worth it to check with them, see if they remember him with anyone. It hasn't spoiled yet, so it can't be more than a day or two old."

Ruby pulled out a notepad and scribbled down a reminder. "Yeah, that might be something…What about the computer?" she asked, pointing with the butt end of her pen. She looked around the apartment. "Looks a little too new, a little too expensive, for a place like this, don't 'cha think?"

Weiss nodded. "That was exactly what I thought, once I uncovered it. He had a whole six days' worth of mail stacked on it."

"Six days' worth?" Ruby asked, her eyes continuing to roam around the apartment. She put the pen in her mouth and began to chew on it. "That's oddly specific."

"The mail on top was from the fifteenth," Weiss explained, pointing to the postmarks. "The ones on the bottom were from yesterday. So six days' worth." She moved to stand near the window, parting the dusty curtains and peering down onto the street. "Now, can we focus on the important thing here? I think we should make sure the forensics team takes it back with them to examine it. Maybe the victim was involved in some form of wire or computer fraud."

Ruby shook her head, but dutifully scribbled it down in her notebook. "If he was, he wasn't very successful at it. People with money don't live here. I take it you didn't find his scroll?"

"No. Maybe he has it in one of his pockets."

"Nope!" Nora called out, standing and waving her assistants over. They lowered their stretcher to the ground and began to move him onto it, preparing to transport him to the morgue. "He doesn't have anything on him. Now, I'll have more for you after the full autopsy, but for now I'd put time of death about eight hours ago, sometime between one and two this morning. You probably saw the slit throat, and I'm calling that the cause of death for now, but the Faunus had a lot of bruises too. Someone beat him pretty badly."

"Do you have a time for that?" Weiss asked.

Nora shook her head. "I don't even want to guess at it without knowing more. But it's been a somewhat slow week for business; I'll ride with him back to the morgue and get started right away. Three, four hours and I'll have some more answers for you."

Ruby thanked her as she left, Weiss already moving into the kitchen. She rifled through a few of the cabinets, then sighed. "This place is a mess."

Ruby joined her, thumbing through the trash on the table. "I don't think there's anything else here, Weiss. That just leaves the bedroom and the bathroom. Which one do you want?"

The white-haired girl looked upset at the choice. "Bedroom."

"Who lives here?"

Weiss looked at the list the building superintendent had given them. "Flora Bole."

"And this is the last one?"

"Yes. Apartment 3B, Flora Bole."

"What do you want to bet are the chances that she didn't see or hear anything, either?"

"People don't just drop dead of a slit throat, Detective Rose. There must have been some noise. And someone must have heard it."

Ruby paused, her knuckles mere inches from the doorframe. "Weiss, do you know where we are?" she asked, furrowing her brow and biting her tongue slightly.

Weiss shrugged. "The Salmagundi."

Ruby pulled her hand away from the door and turned to fully face her partner. "Weiss, you don't know anything about this city do you?"

"Why would I need to know about the city?" she asked, folding the list of names and slipping it into a pocket in her coat. "A GPS can direct me to any crime scene that we're assigned too, so I don't need to know my way around." I've also only lived here for a few days. Am I expected to win first prize in a trivia contest?

"Weiss, you're right, this is the Salmagundi District. This is probably the poorest, most roughshod, hard-hit community of Faunus immigrants this side of Mountain Glenn. These people here? They don't walk around with their heads held high because they don't know and they don't want to know what the humans might be dropping on them. They're lucky to have food to eat each day, let alone a place to stay or a job. You think any of them want to risk rocking the boat by sticking their nose in their neighbors' business? They don't. Add to that the fact this area is right in the middle of the White Fang's territory, and we're lucky as many answered the door as they did. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That's the motto they live by. That goes double when it comes to the police."

"Don't they know that we're here to help them, though?" Weiss countered.

Ruby knocked on the door. She sighed. "I know that, and you know that. But them? They don't, and who can blame them? They only ever see detectives when there's trouble. We don't come around giving out medals for good citizenship. If we're here, it's probably because someone they love was murdered, or someone they love murdered." Ruby seemed ready to continue her speech, but a frail voice came through the door.

«Кто это?»

"What did she say?" Weiss asked. She had never learned Menagerie, even as a way to rebel against her father's authority. To her family, and to her, Faunus were only labor.

Ruby shrugged, not understanding either, and turned away from Weiss to focus on the door as she heard movement behind it. "Excuse us, Ms. Bole, but we're with the VPD," she said, holding her badge up to the peephole. "You're not in any trouble, we'd just like to ask you if you heard anything suspicious last night."

There was further movement behind the door, and Weiss began to reach for her weapon. Ruby lowered a hand to and stopped her, whispering, "What are you doing? We're just here to ask questions. We don't want to escalate things." Louder, she repeated her earlier message. "Ms. Bole, we'd just like to ask you a few questions about last night."

The door handle began to turn, and the door opened a crack before being stopped as the door chain pulled taught. They could just see the right side of an older woman's face through the narrow opening. «Что это?»

"Ms. Bole, do you speak Common?" Ruby asked, still holding her badge in clear sight. The woman behind the door shook her head, looking behind her into the apartment and calling out. There was more noise inside, and Weiss moved where she was standing to try and see inside clearer. She couldn't.

«Мама, что это?»A younger voice came through the door, and Weiss was just able to see the speaker. The older woman began to move her hands as she explained why she had called out. There was the noise of more movement, and the door shut briefly before the chain was slid from its place, allowing it to open fully. A young woman stood there, a bathrobe pulled tight around herself, a worried look on her face. An older woman stood several feet behind her, her confusion evident on her face.

"Can I help you?" the younger asked nervously. Her short, triangular auburn ears were pressed back against her head. She's nervous about something, Weiss thought. She began to look past her, into the apartment, trying to see anything suspicious inside, anything to explain the Faunus' body language.

"We're sorry for interrupting you," Ruby was saying in the background, mostly ignored by Weiss as she focused on the room. "We're asking everyone in the building if they heard or saw anything late last night or early this morning."

The woman pulled her robe tighter around herself, looking even more uncomfortable. "No. Can you tell me what this is about?"

"There was a murder on the floor below you last night. You must have heard something," Weiss said directly. This is not the time to mince words, Rose. We need to wade right in, throw her off balance, and strike while we can. Their approach with the other tenants of the building had been on Ruby's terms; polite, cordial conversation. The same approach that Weiss had on several occasions noted as being ineffective and naïve.

The woman looked shocked, her ears rippling on her head. "Oh my, that is terrible. Who was it?"

"Daff Sal. He lives on the second floor, in the apartment below yours. Now, did you hear anything?" Weiss was still forward with her words, not softening the blow in any way.

The Faunus was about to speak when she was interrupted by the older one, who clearly wanted to know what was going on. She hadn't taken her eyes from Weiss since the door had opened, but now she was shouting at the younger fox Faunus. She recognizes me, Weiss realized. She sees my hair; she knows my family. Several times now Weiss had considered dying her long white hair, but had always decided against it. I will turn it into a badge of honor, not a sign of ill-repute, she vowed.

Ruby and Weiss took the time to look around the apartment, trying to see if there was anything that stood out to them. Compared to the victim's apartment, the one they were in now was immaculate and in far better condition than the rest of the building. Weiss nodded approvingly, glad to see that these few Faunus at least cared for the condition of their rooming. "Detective Rose, what do we do now?" she whispered to her partner. The two Faunus were still yelling at each other, clearly in the middle of an argument. "Do you understand any of what they're saying?"

"No. I only know how to say hello and a few curse words," Ruby admitted, whispering back. "That's all my uncle ever taught me. My last unit, the SPU, had a Faunus, but she's third generation and doesn't know very much herself, so she couldn't teach us even if she had wanted to."

"So what do we do with this?" Weiss was uneasy about the situation she found herself in. "Should we arrest both of them for causing a disturbance or something like that?" Once again she lowered her hand to her weapon, while mentally steeling herself for action.

"No! We're not arresting them! For now, we just stand here?" she asked, not sounding very confident in her answer. "I think?"

"Okay." There wasn't anything else to say, but at least the argument seemed to be winding down. The older Faunus threw up her hands and marched off down the hallway towards what Weiss assumed was her bedroom, her long tail twitching from side to side, likely in anger. Certainly the mother, Weiss thought. Both of them are fox Faunus.

"I am sorry for that," the daughter was saying, her words thickly accented but understandable. "My mother, she does not speak Common, and she assumed worst when she saw your badge. She demanded to know what I might have done to warrant a visit. I tried to tell her that I have done nothing, but she asked then why you were here. I had not heart to tell her that our neighbor died."

Ruby let out a nervous chuckle. "We understand, Ms. Bole. I'm Detective Ruby Rose, this is my partner Weiss Schnee. As I said, we're asking for anything you might have noticed last night, no matter how small. Were there any loud noises? Did you see anyone suspicious hanging around the building? Any cars parked outside that didn't seem to belong?"

The woman looked away, pulling her robe even tighter around herself. At some point she's not going to be able to breath, Weiss thought, not if she keeps up her pace like that. "I'm sorry, Detectives, but I was…working…last night, so I don't see how I could help in any way."

Hesitation over what she was doing last night, Weiss noted. We'll have to come back to that. Ruby, though, seemed to ignore it, asking, "Would your mother have noticed anything?"

"She was asleep," the woman answered quickly.

Ruby looked over at Weiss, clearly noticing the speed of the woman's response. So she isn't entirely ignorant of what the woman is and is not telling us. Was it fair of her to assume the worst regarding her partner? She's a detective, just like I am. She must have proven herself capable somehow. Again, though, Ruby chose to ignore the potential weakness in the Faunus' testimony. "That's alright, Ms. Bole. But are you sure? Anything, no matter how small, may be able to help us. Anything," Ruby said, trying to keep her voice calm and reassuring.

"I do not know anything, Detectives. Thank you for your time." She tried to lead them to the door, shooing them out of the apartment. Ruby only barely managed to force a contact card into her hand before she shut the door behind them immediately, and they heard the sound of the door's multiple locks being turned.

Weiss and Ruby looked at each other. "Well, that went well," Weiss said. She looked down at the notebook she held, the page nearly devoid of ink. "Where to next? We should probably return to the station and see what the autopsy revealed, and if the forensics team was able to uncover anything in their in-depth look that we might have missed just looking at the surface."

Ruby looked at her scroll, checking the time. "Nora won't have finished the autopsy yet, so no sense in returning now. I think we should just continue asking around. We can work our way down the street until we get to the noodle bar. Maybe the shopkeeper can tell us something about our victim. No one else seems to know him."

"Didn't you say that the people here wouldn't talk to us?"

"That doesn't mean we don't have to try, at least. Even if they don't want help, we're here to give it."

"You're wrong. If they're not willing to talk to us, we shouldn't waste our time with them. We can solve this without their help. We return to the station."

"Weiss, I'm telling you that they won't have anything for us there yet. And the people around here might."

"Whatever. I'm getting in the car and driving to the station. You can either come with me, or not. We'll see who solves this first." Weiss walked away, leaving Ruby behind in the hallway. She could faintly hear the girl say something quietly behind her, likely a complaint, but Weiss didn't pay attention. If she wanted to say something, she should speak up and say it.

Alone, she walked down the three flights of stairs and sat behind the wheel of the police SUV. She looked at the apartment building, wondering if Ruby would come with her. She didn't see her. Oh well, Weiss thought. So much for us being partners. She reached for the ignition.

"We're supposed to be partners." Maybe if she had spoken up, Weiss wouldn't have left her alone. Maybe if she hadn't spoken up about how the Fuanus didn't trust the police, Weiss wouldn't have left her alone. Damned because I did, damned because I didn't. Isn't it great how the world works sometimes?

She stood in the center of the crime scene, ignoring the dirty looks shot her way by the forensics team as they were forced to work around her. Something here doesn't add up, she thought. She knew it. It wasn't based on experience- this was her first official case, after all. But it was a feeling in her gut just the same. There is definitely something here that doesn't meet the eye.

She flipped open her notebookand looked at the few notes she had written down. There wasn't much, at least not yet. Victim was in his mid-twenties. Probable cause of death: blood loss due to slit throat. Probable time of death: between one and two in the morning. Many bruises: possibly from a struggle? Expensive computer equipment, much nicer than rest of belongings. Used for wire/computer fraud? Leftover noodles in couch, possibly from the night of the murder.

She had told Weiss that they should check with the owner of the noodle bar. Weiss herself suggested that we check out the restaurant, Ruby remembered. So why did she leave me here? Ruby wasn't the greatest at reading other people, something her father had warned her would hurt her career if she wanted to be a detective. I always told him that I'd be fine, or that I'm getting better. I guess that there's still a long way to go before I'm at the level he was. She wished that she was more like Yang, easygoing and approachable, and always at ease with meeting new people. Yang wouldn't have let her partner leaver her. Yang would have found a way to make it work.

She turned and walked out of the crime scene, then the building itself. She thanked the officer who lifted the crime scene tape for her as she passed under it. She looked down the street, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Weiss had changed her mind, and hadn't left her. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the SUV was no longer where she had parked it. I'll have to take a walk back to the station, then. She could call a taxi, or ask on of the officers to drive her, but she wanted to be alone. She decided she'd interview anyone she saw as she walked down the street to A Simple Wok. She pulled her cloak tighter around herself, trying to shield her body from the chill as a sudden breeze picked up, the wind whipping around her and sapping her warmth. Winter was starting out colder than normal this year.

She kept her notebook and badge ready as she walked, talking with a few pedestrians as they passed by. Just as with the residents of the apartment building, all of them claimed to know nothing about anything. She left her contact information with all of them, not expecting them to ever call her. She had seen one throw her card away as soon as he walked past her.

No, Ruby, don't think like that. Admitting defeat before you've even began only means you won't fight when presented with difficulties. No matter how many refused to help her, or truly couldn't help her, if even one of them was willing to take a chance and come forward, that would be enough. That would make it all worth it. I can do this. I can.

For her mother.

"Excuse me, sir," she said as she opened the door to the takeout restaurant, happy to be inside and away from the cold winter air.

The old man behind the counter looked up at her as she entered. "We're not open yet, ma'am. Sorry." He went back to counting the money in the register.

Ruby looked at her watch. It is still early, isn't it? She had assumed it was later in the day than it was. Instead, it had only been a half-hour since she had checked the time outside Ms. Bole's apartment. "That's okay, sir. I'm not here for lunch. I'm Detective Ruby Rose with the Vale Police Department. I'm wondering if you can tell me anything about this man." She held up a picture she had taken of the victim, the photo only capturing his face, not any of the unpleasantness that started at his neck. "He lives in a building down the street, and there were signs that he had been here within the last day or two. No one else I've asked has been able to say much about him one way or the other."

The old man squinted at the picture, then looked up at Ruby. She sensed he knew something, but was hesitant to speak. "Anything at all might be able to help us, no matter how small or inconsequential it seems to you."

"What happened to him?"

There wasn't any way Ruby could think of to sugar-coat the brutal truth. "I'm sorry to have to say this, sir, but he was murdered earlier this morning. Did you know him?"

"Murdered? Oh man, that's terrible." The man's face fell as he swallowed and sat down, then nodded. "Yeah, he is here all the time. Three, four days a week at least. Murdered? Really? What's this neighborhood coming too?" A shiver ran up the man's spine, and he hugged his arms tight around himself.

"Was he here last night?" Ruby asked, trying to draw something out of the shop owner. Finally, she had someone willing to talk to her. She didn't want to lose him to his own musings about better times or fear of the future.

"Yeah, he was. And no, he didn't act different. He seemed himself. Maybe a little happier than normal, but that's a good thing. It certainly wouldn't make me think it was related to something terrible happening to him."

"Happier than normal? Did he mention why? Perhaps he had come into some money?" The file the VPD had showed he had been a one-time member of the White Fang. If he had joined up with them again, and if he had been involved in a robbery, then perhaps someone had decided to get even with him.

"Money? As far as I know, he was fairly well off, at least for this area. Not living paycheck to paycheck, at least. I try not to pry into the finances of my customers. As long as they can pay, I'm happy. No, I think he was happy because he had a young woman here with him."

"A woman? A relative, you think? A friend? A date? How young?"

"Not a relative. She wasn't a Faunus. Probably around his age, but hard to tell. Very short, but dressed like an adult. Maybe a friend from work, but I'd put my money on a date. He was getting pretty handsy with her."

"What did she have to say about that?" Ruby asked as she took notes. Maybe he got too touchy-feely, and she put a stop to it.

The man laughed, and stood. He's gotten over the shock of hearing someone he knew died, that's good. "She didn't have much to say about anything. She didn't even order for herself, he took care of that. Honestly, she'd have been frightening if it wasn't for how attractive she was. But I don't think his affection towards her was unwelcome, at least. Like I said, she didn't do anything to try to stop it."

So it's still a possibility that he tried to go too far with her, even if there weren't any signs of it here. He might not have been looking for them, or the victim could have gotten bolder after a drink with dinner. "Do you know her name?"

The man shook his head. "Man didn't say it, I didn't ask, she didn't give it."

"Do you have any security cameras here?" Ruby asked. Either way, this woman might know what happened to him.

The man pointed behind her. "I have them, but they're more for show than anything. They only save the last hour of footage. If you were hoping to use it to find her, then they won't help. They were in early last night, about five o'clock. I closed the shop at ten, so the footage of them would have been long since erased."

That's a setback, Ruby thought. She handed him one of the few remaining cards she had stored in her pocket. "Thank you for your help, sir. If you think of anything else, or if the woman you saw with him comes in here again, let me know, alright?"

"Detective Ruby Rose…" the man said, looking at the card. "Yeah, I'll do that, Detective. Good luck."

What would Winter do now? Weiss asked herself.

She certainly wouldn't just sit her and stare at her computer.

That was all Weiss had been doing for the last half-hour now, ever since her pride had demanded she return to the police station instead of working as part of a team. She had met with the overly talkative IT girl and set up an account to gain access to the VPD databases and search features, found her desk in the bullpen, sat down in the extremely uncomfortable office chair, turned on the computer screen, and…

Nothing. Since then, she had done nothing.

She debated with herself what to do next, crossing off each idea as it came to her. Should I return to the crime scene? What would be the point? The forensics team was doing their thing, and her own basic search hadn't turned up anything. Going back would be useless right now. Should I interview the owner of the noodle restaurant? No, Ruby had probably seized control of that lead and done it already. Should I talk to the doctor, what's-her-name? The one with the crazy pink hair? No, she had made it clear that even without anything else to distract her it would be several hours before she had any results. Should I go down to the IT department and ask if they've looked at the computer we asked to be brought back? No, the girl there was off, to put it politely. She didn't want to deal with her alone, even if the forensics team had sent the computer off to be analyzed already, which they probably hadn't.

Should I just give up and return to Atlas? To home?

No. She wasn't going to give up this early.

Should I call Detective Rose, meet up with her, and make this work? Yes, that was the one idea that didn't have flaws associated with it. Weiss reached into her coat, drew out her scroll, opened her contact list, and saw the flaw. She didn't have her number. They had been so quick about investigating the scene that she had never bothered to take care of the basics. Shoddy work so far, Weiss, she chastised herself. You're off to a great start. You'll be lucky to last a week at this rate.

And then you'll have to crawl back crying to Father.

"Hey there, beautiful," a smooth voice said. "Haven't seen you around here before. You uh, you new here? The name's Arc. Jaune Arc." Weiss rolled her eyes as she looked up from the crack in the tile she had been focused on. Standing near her, leaning against one of the support pillars set in the floor, was an officer with shaggy blonde hair. He smiled at her, probably in his mind a charming one.

Weiss met the man's eyes. "Get lost," she said. She looked back down at the crack in the tile.

"I'm already lost," he said. "Lost in your eyes."

Smooth, Weiss thought sarcastically, especially since I'm no longer looking at him. "I'm not in the mood for this right now, Officer. I'm having a busy day."

"It doesn't look like it," Jaune said, standing and walking over to her. "But I'll tell you what, beautiful. You ever need a ride anywhere, don't hesitate to ask for me. Whenever you're ready to join team Jaune, I'll make sure there's an opening for you."

"Officer Arc, don't you have a patrol to be on?" Captain Goodwitch shouted down from where she stood at the balcony in front of her office.

"Yes, ma'am!" Jaune shouted, standing straight and saluting the woman above him. He ran off towards the garage.

"Detective Schnee, I didn't expect you back so soon. Please, come to my office. You can fill me in with what you've uncovered so far. I'm expecting great things from you, if you're back so soon. Bring your partner in with you."

Wonderful. Just grab Ruby and bring her with me. "Maybe I should've visited the IT department again. I'd rather be talked at than talked to," Weiss mumbled. She pushed her chair away from her desk and stood, using her hands to straighten out her skirt. No sense in giving the captain any more ammunition to throw at her than she already had. Though, Weiss had to admit, the fault was her own. She was the one who had left Ruby, not the other way around. She was the one who left the scene without interviewing all the witnesses, not Ruby.

She walked up the stairs, a bit slower than she had earlier, allowing for the full heft of her mistakes to weigh upon her. Postponing, but not precluding, the inevitable. Eventually, soon, she would be in front of her captain's door, expected to make a report without any information. To update on a case she had let her pride prevent her from working.

Well, Weiss, time to face the music. She knocked. The captain answered. She entered.

"So, tell me, what have you found so far?" Glynda was sitting behind her desk, filling out several different forms. She stopped when Weiss didn't answer right away, looking up at her in confusion. "Detective Schnee? Where's Detective Rose?" she asked.

"Not here, Captain. I'm sorry. We can start without her. The victim's name was Daff Sal, a Faunus with ties to the White Fang. He's spent a few years in Beacon for various lesser crimes, all gang-related but stopping short of murder. No violent crimes of any type, actually. Mostly petty theft and breaking and entering."

"Any current ties to the White Fang? What's his PO have to say about him?"

"I- We- haven't heard from him yet." True enough, even if it's because I didn't think to call him. "Time of death was the early hours of the morning, but the doctor won't have finished her autopsy yet, so we don't have anything more than that."

"Dr. Valkyrie does good work. She'll get back to you soon enough. There must have been some witnesses, then? Someone must have seen something solid, or else you'd still be out there looking for more."

"No, none of them claimed to have seen anything."

"I see…" Glynda said, returning to her paperwork. "Where's your partner, then?" she asked again.

"I uh, I don't know, Captain," Weiss said. "We had a disagreement about how to proceed, and I left her back at the crime scene."

"Detective Schnee, do you know why we assign detectives to work in pairs?" A rhetorical question, obviously, as she didn't give Weiss a chance to answer. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one, just as two brains are better than one. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses, and by working together you can build of your partner's strengths. You're meant to be a compliment to each other. Do you understand that? You have been given a wonderful secular education, Detective Schnee. And it shows in your transcripts. To graduate at the top of such an elite class is a testament to your knowledge, Detective. Your partner, Detective Rose, did not attend a formal academy. She might not recognize the chemical formula for trace evidence recovered at the scene off the top of her head; she might not be as familiar with hostage negotiations as you are. She won't have had the same training in conducting interrogations. However, what she has instead is a rich and storied family history of law enforcement, and six months' experience as a member of the SPU based right here in this precinct. She knows this city; she knows these people. That doesn't make her better than you- in my mind, you're both rookies and have no place being named detectives. Certainly I don't know why you were named to Homicide instead of starting off in Robbery or even Vice. Singularly, I don't think either of you are worthy of the badge you were given. But together, as partners, you might just become a whole. Something for this department, for this precinct, for me, to be proud of." There was a knock at the door. "Come in," she called.

Ruby entered, smiling nervously as she shut the door behind her. "Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but I heard that you wanted to see Weiss and me."

The captain looked at her. "Yes, I did. But I have a feeling it can wait. I was just telling your partner that detectives work best as a team. I suggest that you exit my office, go down to your desks, compare the limited notes that you have at the moment, and come back to me as a team, not just today but for the rest of your careers as detectives here. Am I making myself clear?" She smiled as both Ruby and Weiss nodded. "Good. You're dismissed. Come back to me before the end of the day. That gives you about…oh, about five hours still."

Ruby and Weiss stood and exited the office, looking down at the floor and not each other.

"I'm…sorry about earlier," Weiss said. "It was rude of me to leave you alone like that, not to mention foolish. I won't do that again."

"I'm sorry that I told you the Faunus wouldn't talk to us. I shouldn't have made an assumption like that based on stereotypes."

"I shouldn't have let my own feelings about them color my judgement either," Weiss admitted. "I'm not normally one to give someone a second chance, but I'm hoping that you'll allow me to do so here. When we first met, I yelled at you for something that was in some small part my own fault. Then, when we were more properly introduced, I refused to shake your hand. Allow me to correct that now. Detective Rose, I'm Weiss Schnee." She held out her hand.

Ruby grabbed it immediately. "Wouldn't that make it a third chance, then?" she asked, shaking Weiss' hand enthusiastically.

A smile slowly made its way onto Weiss' face. "Don't start with me," she said, but her words lacked any real anger behind them.

"Weiss Schnee, I'm Ruby Rose. But you knew that already," Ruby said. "Though I guess I also knew your name already too, since you told me it earlier when you didn't shake my hand. Oh, I shouldn't have brought that up again. Though you just did, so maybe it's okay? Is it okay? I don't want to make you angry or anything. And please, just call me Ruby."

Weiss gave up trying to contain her smile, letting it grace her face fully. "Alright, I can try that. I'd say you can call me Weiss, but you've already been doing that, haven't you? So, how about a fourth chance…Ruby?" She said the name as if it were foreign to her. "Why don't you just give me your number, instead of your name? That way, when I need to get in touch with you, I can. Then I can give you mine, and we can count that as our first meeting."

"Of course!" Ruby reached into her coat. "This is my last one. My dad told me I'd use these, but he never told me that I'd go through them this quickly." She handed the contact card to Weiss.

"If it's your last one, I can give it back once I put your number in my scroll," Weiss said. "I don't want to leave you short."

"Nah, it's fine. I need more anyway. You can keep it as a memento of our first day together."

Weiss finished putting the number into her scroll, then put the card carefully into one of her jacket pockets. "Okay, Ruby, if you say so. If we're going to solve this, then we're going to solve it as partners. Now, then, because I left you I don't have anything new to add. That means I'm in your debt, at least for now. Have you uncovered anything?"

"Maybe," Ruby said, pulling out her notes. "I went to the noodle place, like you suggested…"

Next time, on Vale Confidential: -Chapter Three: The Suspect-

Weiss: "'Young, attractive, short' doesn't give us much to work with. There are thousands of women in Vale who fit that description."

Bei: "I'm a forgiving man, Detective Schnee. I sat him down, talked with him one on one, man to man."

Ruby: "Tell me something I don't know, Nora."

Cinder: "Make the call."

A/N: Part Two: Translation of what the elderly mother said "Who is it?" followed by "What is it?". That was then the same question the daughter asked her mother immediately afterward. I'll try to avoid the "Gratuitous Russian" TV trope by only putting it in situations I feel warrant it, such as an immigrant that never learned the language of his/her new home, and I'll have it spelled out properly using Russian, not just a transcription to English letters. I won't, for instance, just have Velvet or Blake running around saying "da" or "nyet" all the time.

-T.Y.