Author's Note:

1. I held off pushing this out for episode 1 of RWBY volume 2. There will likely be conflicts with backstories and how Semblance works in the future, but I'm going off in my own direction. If you prefer me to wait another six months till RWBY season 2 is done, well... tough.

2. A clarification regarding the recent comment I made about having key character perish. I'm not one to shirk away from killing somebody when the plot demands it because I don't believe in plot armor. "If the plot demands that someone shall die, then that person shall die in a manner appropriate for the situation" is the message I wanted to convey. Apologies if it rubbed some people the wrong way.

3. Regarding the Semblance choice for Mikasa, what do you think? Gradually the Semblances of the Recon Corps will be revealed, though not all of them will get it. If you have suggestions about these, leave a comment.

4. I'm desperately trying to work on the humor aspect, because too dark a story (which I believe to be one of the weaknesses Isayama had with AOT, unlike the similar but masterfully rendered work by the title of Fullmetal Alchemist) numbs empathy. Sorry Jaune!


Jaune lazily munched on an apple as he strolled down the street in downtown Vale. Pyrrha was beside him, as always, dressed in a casual summer dress with shoulder straps. The sun was slowly sinking below the horizon; the streets were filled with people as it would be during weekends, buzzing with indistinct conversations like a simmering pot or a bee hive.

"It's almost been a week of investigations now, and nothing," the blond man took a big bite into the apple as if he had some grudge against it, carving off its fruity flesh to the core with his teeth: "nothing! I thought that Torchwick guy would've made a move by now!"

"The documents we secured from the Vale Police Department indicated that he would strike in a weekly interval, almost like some hourly worker clocking in and out," Pyrrha lightly stroked her chin, "maybe supply chain problems? There aren't many Dust shops that he hasn't hit in Vale. Maybe he moved on to another city."

"That'd be a problem. We're limited in our options if we have to follow him. It's a drag, really, still having to pretend to be students at Beacon when we know they could be out there fighting for their lives, or…" Or worse, but he did not want to consider the possibilities.

"We aren't pretending to be students. We are students at Beacon. Your grades haven't been the most outstanding."

"Hey, I am working my butt off on this case! You can't blame me for sleeping in class!" He almost let the half-eaten apple jostle out of his hands in his exacerbated gestures of outrage.

"We know, Jaune. That's why Nora and Ren are out investigating. If you fail your classes your enrollment at Beacon will be in danger. The JNPR team can't have their leader flunk out."

He winced. Judging by her face, she was definitely not in the mood for arguments: "Fine, fine…"

She smiled victoriously: "Besides, we need a couple of days to collate our findings and extrapolate any leads we can get. All of these—the ancient history of the Objects, their mysterious origins, Roman Torchwick's behavioral patterns—all of these have to fit somehow."

He nodded. He was not unenlightened to the degree that he did not know there had to be some clue in the documents they collected. The files from the Police indicated that Torchwick never worked alone. No matter where he was found, he was always with minions and they were always well equipped. The Police rightly suspected that someone was funding the outlaw behind the scenes, but the minions they captured never revealed anything even under enhanced interrogation techniques.

That was one thing Torchwick was not. Due to his villainous tendencies, he would certainly gloat about his plans, but he was careful and smart: keeping his cards close to the vest was natural for psychopaths like him. Naturally, trying to predict where he would hit next was almost impossible for JNPR. His being the only lead they had with direct connection to RWBY's disappearance made it all the more frustrating.

"I think it'd be a nice change of pace for Nora and Ren, too, given how they cooped themselves in the Headmaster's Archives for the past few days," she concluded.

"Nora must have been bored out of her mind."

"From what Ren told me, she'd been sleeping all the time. When she's not bothering him with inanity, of course." The bustling commercial district was behind them, having been replaced by the tranquility of the residential district. Land in Remnant, due to the small population relative to its enormous size, was not exactly valued commodity. However, considering that large swathes of the land had a serious Grimm problem, usable land—land that had been reclaimed from the Grimm and was relatively safe—was still rather precious. It was the same in the port city of Vale; a detached single-family home was reserved for the wealthiest, and mansions were almost unheard of. Instead, the area was filled with rows upon rows of townhouses, each one two to three stories high with a family inside.

"Ren's got it tough," he took another chunk from the apple. He never understood how the quiet man managed to rein in the hyperactive girl. She was the yang to Ren's yin: outgoing, loud, sometimes outright crossing the line to obnoxious, all of it a complete opposite to his icy calmness. He was someone Jaune would rely on, but she was someone Jaune would pick when he needed someone to kick down a door and then blow everything in the room to smithereens.

What would Ruby do with the girl?

The question sounded weird the moment he asked himself. He almost chuckled as he looked down on the bite marks of the apple, having tarnished slightly from its milky white flesh to dark brown. Ruby was two years his junior in age, but she had once and again proven herself. Her grades were respectable, her practicals were flawless, and she kept the team together through one situation after another. It was her quick thinking and her team's trust that got them through the entire mess at the forest with the Nevermore. And she was the one who reminded him who he was and what his responsibilities were when Cardin pushed him to the edge.

It was no use thinking about it, he decided; not before he would find Team RWBY, anyway. He still had to pay Ruby back for that favor, though he was not sure that this would cut it.

"What are you thinking, Jaune?" Pyrrha tugged lightly on his sleeves and snapped him back to his senses. They were in the middle of the dark street, having only dim street lamps projecting warm light down on them.

"N-N-Nothing," he stammered, making a last assault on the apple that turned it into a thin core. "Just thinking about Team RWBY. It's been a week since their disappearance. I wonder if they're doing all right."

"I'm sure they're doing okay," she laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled warmly. "You know how tough they are. The only thing we can do is to find clues to the Objects."

"And to do that, we have to find that thief—!"

Explosion.

Louder than anything he had ever heard, the shockwave that swept through the street almost blew him off of his footing if not for his Aura. Windows rattled, street lamps rocked, and parked cars screeched as they resisted being lifted off of the pavement.

"What the hell?" Jaune regained his bearings after a couple of seconds, his sword and shield already in hand. His ears were still ringing from the noise.

"Dust explosion!" Pyrrha already started sprinting toward the source of the sound. "From the industrial area!"

"We need a better vantage point!" Dust explosions were never common, not since safety measures were introduced to prevent that. They may not know much about Torchwick, but they knew that wherever he went, trouble—and destruction—seemed to follow his wake, and this seemed something that they should investigate. If nothing else, they could help anyone caught in the blast.

Pyrrha's Aura flared as she leaped on top of the row of townhouses while he continued to sprint in the streets: "Keep up! This is part of your practical training! C'mon!"

Jaune gritted his teeth. Focus and synchronize, he told himself: focusing the Aura at certain points of the body, and synchronizing releases of the power with his own motions. The light around him began to accumulate, and like actual milk they beaded and flowed to his feet. Almost consciously he took his next step, shifting his mass from the ball of his right foot to the pad and the toes.

And then, his Aura sent him tumbling into the air. "WAAAAAAH!" He screamed as he performed several forward somersaults in his trajectory, partly because he could not balance himself and partly because he did not expect such a powerful force launching him forward. His landing—which occurred a few seconds later—saw him crash with his face first into the pavement, his sword and shield having clattered impotently at his side.

"There's no time to waste!" Just as Jaune collected his weapons, he felt a tug on his collar. Pyrrha dragged him like a fish on the hook despite his vocal protests. "If it's Torchwick we need to catch him!"

Vale's urban planners did an excellent job, though that also meant sacrificing much the view of the ocean and the best beaches to the sea port at the mouth of the river, rendering beach-front properties rare and exclusively affordable to the wealthy. The Industrial District incorporated smelters, refineries, factories, power plants, assembly plants, and various other structures responsible for much of Vale's manufacturing output. It supplied the city and the rest of the world with products from batteries to airships. Even from where Pyrrha was, the chimneys in the district was as visible as the glittering skyscrapers in the financial district not far north of the river, though they were no longer the only ones that billowed smoke into the skyline.

The explosion seemed to have ignited a fire. Just as well; Pyrrha did not need to rely on her memories of the blast's sound to locate the source of it. At the same time, she realized that towing Jaune was slowing her down: "Use your shield as a glider!"

"What?" Jaune suddenly had a sinking feeling. His grips tightened around his sword and shield.

"On three! One! Two!" She suddenly screeched to a halt with her left foot near the edge of the rooftop before the fork of the river. Putting her left fist forward, she pointed the thumb upwards and used a single eye to gauge the distance of the smoke pillar. Her right hand, having him firmly in her grip, glowed crimson.

"THREE!" And he lost gravity's attention.


Mikasa dashed through the forest of the training grounds. It had been a while since she flew among the thick trees, but she remembered it like she was there yesterday.

Eren's trial ended five days ago because of the Recon Corps' interference, but she was not the least bit happy about the resolution. Having to stand there and witness that tiny son of a bitch pummel Eren until his face was but bruises hurt worse than having herself beaten to an inch of her life. Even without that little brat, she would have eventually found a way of rescuing him. At least, she could have cut that pint-sized bastard apart right on the spot if not for Armin stopping her. But as she was, she could only stand and watch while that rat laid into him as if he were its biggest enemy.

Hmph. Humanity's strongest soldier, indeed! One day—no, during the next excursion outside the walls—she would surpass him in the number of Titan kills. Then, she would stab him in the back. Not fatally, of course; humanity still needed his skills, but he needed to be reminded what pain felt like.

She came to a stop on top of a thick branch of a tree and stood upright. Her targets today were not Titans but two humans. Ruby and Weiss were busy with the local craftsmen and miners in the nearby village for purposes that she could not fathom. Yang and Blake volunteered to train the recruits who chose to join the Recon Corps in their art of fighting; namely, the use of Aura and Semblance.

She had seen how the two fought during their escape from Trost. Reckless as they were, they were almost equally as effective against the Titans as the recruits were, and that was without the Maneuver Gear. If they could use the Gear, they would not need to rely on terrain or Weiss for maneuverability options, but Mikasa knew that she was a special case. Most recruits took months to reach the proficiency they needed with the Gear to perform aerial maneuvers without difficulty, and time was something they were sorely lacking at the moment.

The agreement was that the Recon Corps had a month to recuperate from the losses and to get the recruits acclimatized with their strategy. Then, they would embark on a journey across the hostile lands within Wall Maria and attempt to seal the breached gate to Shiganshina with Eren's Titan powers. Commander Erwin could have bought more time, Mikasa thought; at least, he could have bought three more months based on how much Eren was hurt in the process. Still, one month or four, it would not be enough to teach the newcomers how to use the Gear. Instead, the more productive methods—and one that she agreed with—was for them to learn the basics of using Aura and Semblance.

She balled up her fist and grunted, looking for the strange sensation that she felt when it was unlocked for the first time. If what Blake said was true, then Aura was nothing more than the force of will, one thing that neither Eren nor any other recruit who had been through the hell in Trost and still chose to join the Recon Corps lacked. As she opened her eyes from her exertion, she could see her hands glow with a faint smoky color. It tickled, initially, but then she found her muscles surging with vitality.

Aiming for a sturdy branch about ten to fifteen meters ahead, she leaped. Her legs worked like giant springs; they almost snapped the branch she was standing on as she left it. The next moment she knew, her foot made contact with her target. She could not stop there, however, as the branch cracked and buckled under her weight. It seemed that although Aura enhanced her strength and agility, it could not compensate for her excessive momentum yet. Having found another tree, she leaped again, twisting her body so that she could use her hand to latch onto the branch and spun on it as if it was a horizontal bar. It bled her momentum enough that she came to a rest, and she pulled herself up onto the branch, squatting as she searched around the forest.

Her team's mission was simple: find Yang or Blake within the forest and defeat them at hand-to-hand combat. Each of them carried a small red scarf around their necks; Mikasa's was tied loosely around her usual scarf. If it was taken, they were to report back to the camp, for they would be eliminated from the exercise. It was the same for Blake and Yang; if one of their scarves were taken or every recruit was defeated, they would sound a whistle to indicate the termination of the exercise.

It was almost unfair having a dozen people fan out and search for two, and they never said that the recruits could not gang up on them. Still, they seemed rather confident that they were going to win at this exercise, and for good reason; searching for two people in this forest was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. At least a magnet would be useful for finding a needle; Mikasa mused. She was not familiar with either Yang or Blake's habits. If she was, she could have devised traps that lured them to a certain location.

In thickets like this one, eyesight was not the most useful sense. Therefore, she closed her eyes and poured her attention over her ears. Birds chirped and leaves swayed; ambient noise like those were easy to filter, and easier still for her when she concentrated.

The world was quiet. She could pick out footsteps at her four o'clock. She could pick out pops from the Maneuver Gear as someone launched wire after wire to move through the forest; that was at her nine o'clock. And then, there was a scream. That was not Armin; no, that scream was way too masculine. Jean? Maybe. She could not tell. The scream came from her one o'clock.

What happened to him? Did he screw up and hit a tree? Unlikely. Jean may be a coward in Eren's—and consequently Mikasa's—eyes, but he was neither stupid nor incompetent. It gave her more reason to investigate. Maybe he had found one of them.

She opened her eyes and habitually tried to reach for a blade in her Gear's box, but she failed to find any. It was for the best; those blades were meant to cut Titans, not humans. Giving a small bitter smile, she allowed herself to fall forward before using her Gear again to gain altitude. It was the most natural way for her, after all.

Trees zipped by. The distance to cover was not exactly great, but it felt like an eternity. When she landed, she saw Jean sprawled in the undergrowth, the red scarf around his neck gone.

So he was attacked; at the same time Mikasa immediately became alert. She did not know what to use to bait either Blake or Yang, but they certainly knew what to use to bait her or her teammates. She was the first arrival at the scene. If more than three people were here, then they would think twice before carrying out that ambush, but now…

Mikasa did not even need to turn around to smell the intent for violence. She rolled to the side, barely dodging a forceful chop. The next moment, she kneeled on the ground, only to see the shadow clone fade into the air.

Blake.

She tried to reach for her blade again. Having failed to find any, she lunged forward a split second before the black-haired girl appeared behind her, this time trying to put her into a strangle hold. Mikasa entered another roll and sprinted up a tree without using her hands, the faint smoky glow of her Aura having concentrated around her legs and feet until she reached a branch. She looked down, yet Blake was nowhere to be found.

Sneaky little…

Mikasa squatted down and placed her left hand on the branch, her right hand still holding onto the Maneuver Gear's controller through sheer habit. Titans were huge targets and hard to miss; if anyone could be so ignorant as to miss a regular Titan, the monsters could just pick them up and eat them, since they were not going to be helpful anyway.

Where is she? Where is—!

There was no mistake it. She could feel Blake's breath down her neck. Instinctively she leaped forward into mid-air, her Aura flaring on her legs and feet, but she had to use her Gear to anchor herself on a branch to the right to avoid slamming face-first into the tree trunk a good twenty meters ahead of where she was.

Damned Aura…!

Mikasa growled, but there was no time for more thought. She used the Gear to swing; the moment she released the anchors, though, something crashed into her in the chest. It was not exactly a light object, either, because she was kicked down to the earth and nearly had the wind knocked out of her when she landed on her back. Her Aura flared again to absorb the impact; she had plenty of practice taking punches and kicks from a bull during the last couple of days.

She had no breather. Blake's shadow loomed over her as she landed, looking ready to pounce. Slapping her hand down on the soft undergrowth, she used all the control she had with her Aura to enhance her strength, flipping her body to the right just as Blake made her move.

One narrow escape after another! It's like I'm a damned mouse running from a cat…!

Mikasa rolled on her side. When she stood up, Blake was once again no longer there. Seething in a breath through her teeth, her eyes darted all over the place, searching for her target. Then again, if she could find that black-haired little sneak this easily, Blake would not be doing her job.

But she was certain. Blake was around. Somewhere.

Somewhere close.

She spun around and threw a punch. It was just a hunch, but surprisingly her forearm connected with something. It was Blake's forearm; she parried the blow and grabbed Mikasa by the arm, her other hand going for the red scarf.

How the hell did she get behind me without making any noise!?

There was no time to ponder. Mikasa slapped aside the attempt and turned around with her back to Blake, throwing her over the shoulder. The moment she lifted the sneaky girl off of her foot, though, she felt the weight of the body suddenly disappear.

Another illusion!?

It was just so. With a light ruffle of the bushes, Blake once again merged with the meadows. All of these little engagements with her ended with only a couple of contacts, but she felt that if she did not give her absolute best, she was going to be taken down in one of these.

This is now beyond frustrating…!

Mikasa growled again. Now that she had a moment to examine her surroundings, she came to a painful realization. She was inside Blake's trap; of course it would be laid where Blake would have the maximum advantage. The entire area was encircled with bushes and trees: plenty of hiding spaces and poor line of sight. Her sense of hearing was useless as well, because Blake did not even make a sound during the last contact. Only her sheer intuition had saved her scarf.

Only her tactical acumen would work at the moment. Where would she be if she were to ambush someone who was aware of her presence?

"OOF!" Another grunt of pain entered her ear. That was from her seven o'clock. That had to be Yang taking out… a girl, or someone girlish. Who would that be—!

God damn it, Mikasa cursed under her breath as she was swept off balance. Since when did Blake appear behind her again!? And how could she even fall down when her Aura was active around her!?

That did not matter. She had to stabilize her stance. Using one hand she executed a backflip, landing on her feet again and searched for her opponent. Blake approached from the front, her golden eyes glinting with confidence.

With arrogance.

Mikasa had to parry Blake's first attempt at grabbing her red scarf since half a minute ago. And then, there was a flurry of exchanges. The sneaky little woman was fast, no doubt about that; Mikasa was having trouble keeping up with her. She needed to put some distance between them quickly, but every time she took a step back, Blake took a step forward until there was no more space behind.

She was coming up against a tree behind her.

Come on, Mikasa. Think of something!

She growled. If defending to buy time was not the answer, she had to go on the offensive. Pushing the latest attempt to grab to the right, she twisted her body and hopped to the left, and then with a series of clumsy steps she put some distance between Blake and her, all the while keeping the black-haired girl in her sights.

She doesn't have the speed Ruby did. As long as she could be tracked through sight—!

Blake split into three in her pursuit. It was like the old game of one marble and three cups, only this time Mikasa had to play under pressure. Every strike reached for her scarf, and she could not risk to guess which one was real and which one was fake. Even if one was fake, they felt real enough; one claw almost shredded the skin on her face.

She needed to untangle herself from this mess. And given that Yang was taking care of the other hapless bastards coming her way, it was unlikely that she was going to get any help any time soon.

Maybe this would work…!

Taking one step backward, Mikasa suddenly lost her footing, giving a sharp surprised inhale at the same time. While tumbling backwards, one grab missed her nose by a hair, but this gave her an opportunity. Raising her legs, she landed a firm stomp with both her feet on Blake's stomach before entering into a roll. There was unmistakably a sharp grunt; she had hit the real deal. The two shadow clones that had been pestering her at the sides disappeared in puffs of black particles.

The roll put distance between the two fighters. Mikasa was panting. Though she was the ace of recruits, in hand to hand combat she was slightly worse than Eren, and definitely not as good as Blake was. Compounded with the tricky use of Semblance from the black-haired woman, it made this fight almost too lopsided to win.

If only she had her own Semblance to rely on…!

"Semblance is the projection of one's self on the external world, the will of your soul made manifest," she remembered being taught these words. "In other words, twist the world's laws and rules till they do what you want. It may sound preposterous, but it makes incredible feats possible."

Preposterous? It was magic. Sorcery. Witchcraft. There was no way that it was going to happen.

Then again, Blake just showed her that she could create shadow clones that felt and fought like the real one, even though they lasted mere seconds.

"Believe, and it shall be so."

Seriously?

If only she had Semblance…

But she didn't even know what her Semblance would do!

Mikasa took a deep breath. Even though it was a brief window, Blake hesitated just like she did. Then, just as quickly as the window fled, the black-haired girl resumed her approach, clones—this time, six of them—sealing off every angle of escape.

Every angle but up.

Oh, what the hell—!

Mikasa focused inwards onto her Aura. She could feel the power surge from inside like a tidal wave. Her skin flushed, her scalp tingled, and most importantly her back muscles tightened somehow.

What did that mean? What was that for?

"Believe, and it shall be so."

And thus, despite the questions she had in her heart, Mikasa believed.

Gravity no longer had any hold on her.


Blake's eyes widen as two pairs of smoky translucent wings sprouted from Mikasa's back. They were thin and delicate, almost like the wings on a dragonfly, or…

Or those of a fairy, Blake decided. Though, the "fairy" in front of her was much too big and too masculine to be the ones in tales of old. The wings vibrated as her clones closed in on her cornered prey, and then Mikasa's body shot upwards. The vertical motion only lasted for several seconds, but by the time it ended, she had already disappeared into the treetop.

Blake remembered when her Semblance first woke. The situation was not nearly as playful as this one. She still remembered the streets of Vale and her mother. There were protests, and frequent ones. The White Fang was much more peaceful ten years ago, but correspondingly the persecution was much worse. The segregation, too; public toilets, parks, even water fountains were marked "for human and pets only". Faunus could not think of going to a restaurant, because unless they worked there as some kind of exotic attraction they would just simply be thrown out. They had to work harder than a human worker for much lower wages. They had to scrape by for their families from garbage bins, and even then…

Blake was a little girl back then. She did not understand why the human kids on the block avoided her. She never understood why her mother always hid her in their basement home during daytime. Her mother was a seamstress; she mended clothes for the humans to get some meager coins, but Blake knew that it was not enough to pay the bills. Often, her mother would head out for an entire night, and come back the next morning with bruises on her pale skin; then, they would have enough food to eat for the next night.

They were poor, but they were happy. The White Fang organized members to drop by once in a while, mostly delivering medicine and checking on the mother-daughter pair. They also unlocked her Aura. All Faunus kids had their Aura unlocked early, because it gave them extra protection in case human kids bullied them. All that did—it seemed at the time—was to encourage the kids to skirt and sometimes cross the line of the law. They were all good people, Blake knew; they were compassionate and warm, and they were doing everything they could.

But it was not enough. They had thousands of families needing aid, most of it being in Vale's slums in the inner city. Few humans ever thought of stepping foot into their little ghetto; those who did were either attempting to assuage their conscience as the hypocrites spent some of their ill-gotten gains from exploiting the Faunus back, or they were simply pitying the lesser race like feeding stray dogs or cats.

So, the day when the White Fang organized a massive protest involving every Faunus in the city, she did not hesitate to attend even though her mother wanted her to stay out of trouble. The organizers, too, thought it was premature for her to be there, but she did not care. It was a massive undertaking; thousands upon thousands of Faunus—and even a handful of humans here and there, who could no longer abide by the guilt in their hearts—joined the march. According to the reports, cities all over the world had similar protests joined with similar numbers. They chanted, they sang, they drummed, they prayed; they were angry, but they would not let violence take hold of them as they demanded what was their birthright, what was their human right. Only civil discourse would give them that.

If only the other humans shared the ideal. Police with riot shields, batons and guns stood on their way to the City Hall. At first they attempted to beat back the protesters. Using their numbers and their passion, the protesters pushed back against riot shields with nothing but their bruised bodies. It mattered not how hard the police hit, they would not stop, would not rest until they get equality.

Then, bullets started flying. They were less-lethal rubber bullets at first; several protesters were incapacitated after they were shot. Tear gas canisters were tossed into the crowds. Brave souls—sometimes women and children—leaped onto the canisters to try and slow their spread, to buy time for the others to break through the barricade.

They were making progress. Blake was not on the front lines, but she was there, all of seven years old, and trying her best to help out. The sign she was holding was made out of wood; it felt warm to the touch, and its handles were made extra-long to compensate for her limited stature. It was heavy, but she hung on to it as if it was the old patchwork teddy bear she had at home. Adults on all sides shielded her with their bodies; occasionally yelps of pain broke out as someone was hit, but all they did was flinch for a brief moment before standing upright again.

But then, real bullets started flying. She never knew who fired the first one of those; though the history books recorded it as someone having shot a police officer fatally in the face, she knew better than to trust something written by the victor. Not everyone was trained to stop a bullet with their Aura alone, and certainly not these protesters. Combined with the surprise of the entire thing, it made it far too easy to cut them down in droves.

Blake remembered blood. So much blood flowing between the cracks of the paving stones, between the cracks of the mortar, and between the fingers of lifeless bodies. "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!" she remembered an officer pleading, but it was too late. She stumbled as the tide of panicked people swept her away. She stumbled on the arm of a child, not a couple years older; the arm tripped her over, and she fell face first.

Blood was pooling around her. She could not tell. Was it her blood? Was it someone else's? Or was it the child's?

She wanted to scream. She found no strength to scream. She had to run. She had to…

And so she did. In the middle of the blistering sprint she was making, she found a bullet almost touching her face as it zipped by. And she screamed.

And then four copies of her were running with her side by side.


Mikasa's first experience with her own Semblance was something to remember.

The abruptness of its manifestation was marked through a violent collision with a thick branch on her back as she bolted upwards. The branch itself was high up in the treetops, almost a hundred feet above the ground; it was fortunate indeed that she saw another branch not far from where she was, and used her Maneuver Gear to reach it.

She could only marvel at what she did when she came to a stop. For the first time in her life—for the first time in the history of this world, she reckoned—she could maneuver in three dimensions without relying on the Gear. In fact, she was probably the first human in this world to achieve flight, brief as it may be.

The sentimentality was lost rather quickly because she was still in the middle of a fight, be it a training exercise or not. She was in the middle of the treetop almost a hundred feet above the ground. Dense foliage obscured her visibility above, below, and around her; sight was useless and so was hearing because of the deafening rustles of leaves all around.

Some people would even feel claustrophobic here even though they were outside; Mikasa mused, but that did not stop her from considering the tactical implications of her location. Her shooting into the treetops could not have been anticipated. That meant Blake had as much an idea about where she was as she did about where Blake was. For once, she was not in the open. It was little comfort because she could not do much without knowing where Blake was.

Blake and Yang baited them with Jean. Perhaps she could bait them with herself.

Silently she reviewed the feeling she had when her Semblance activated. Her back itched a little when it did; the wings seemed to respond to her thoughts instead of her muscle movements; all she did when it happened was that she thought about "flying up".

Perhaps by thinking about what the Semblance would do in more detail, she could control it better; Mikasa theorized, touching her back tentatively. The next thought made her shudder: what if her Semblance was not flight? What if it was something else, like super strength? It had to be quite a bit of luck for this situation to actually happen.

Reckless as the exercises seemed to be, Mikasa was glad that it actually happened. She was not one to want to bet everything on something she did not know in a fight to the death. Now, if she could only verify her hypothesis about how to control her newfound power…

She focused again, shifting the bulk of her Aura onto her feet and legs as she slipped off of the branch. Using her eyes and her feet, she leaped between branches to slow her descent until she reached the bottom of the foliage. The descent was slowed as she flexed her newfound Semblance: smoky wings sprouted from her back and expanded like a parachute, giving her a smooth landing in the undergrowth. She was in the middle of the clearing again, standing beside Jean who had just woken up.

"Mikasa?" He moaned as he rubbed his belly. It seemed that Blake ambushed him and gave him a sharp beating to coax a scream before incapacitating him. "What are you doing—!"

His eyes widened, and she could already guess what was going on. Furiously spinning around, Mikasa kicked behind her with the back of her ankle. Blake narrowly avoided the kick with a back flip, but in the next moment, Mikasa was already in front of her, wings extended to give her a burst of speed.

For the first time, Blake found herself at a disadvantage. The punches Mikasa threw were not only powerful, they were incredibly fast, leaving her no room to breathe and counter. She was talented indeed, if she had mastered the Aura to such a point that her speed matched that of a student from Beacon in just three days. Blake let out a small smirk before she suddenly dropped down on the floor. Mikasa's latest attack grazed her scalp and her ears, doing nothing to stop her from kicking at Mikasa's shin.

Though, her kick did not connect. Mikasa lifted off of the ground and darted back, hovering an inch above the undergrowth. Her gossamer wings sparkled slightly as they trembled, seemingly imitating the vibrating wings of a hummingbird as it hovered in front of a flower.

To think that she would have such a degree of control over her Semblance less than five minutes after she unlocked it! "Most impressive," Blake gave Mikasa an approving smile, once again striking into a good stance, "now we're on even footing."

The only reply was a charge toward her. Fair enough; they were in the middle of a fight after all. The first punch landed on a shadow clone and shattered it into a cloud of soot, but two more closed in from either side, all reaching for the red scarf. Mikasa barreled forward through the blackened particles, spun around, and charged through the new black cloud formed by the shattering of the shadow clones that collided against each other.

She rolled upright again and scanned her surroundings. The baiting was working, though grabbing the actual scarf from Blake's neck was proving to be a completely different challenge. The girl was fast, silent, and smart, not to mention that she had complete dominance over her Semblance. No doubt that was achieved through years upon years of practice and application, Mikasa thought. But as much as Blake would try, she could never fly or float without outside help.

Perhaps this would work…

Mikasa floated up just as Blake charged at her from behind in triplicate. The lunges missed, of course, and the shadow clones collapsed into black mists briefly before disappearing. She smiled and glanced around. There were only so many sturdy branches at which point Blake could launch an attack that would be high enough to reach her. If she could reduce the number of approaches, she could—

Blake's smirk entered her field of vision.

What the!?

Mikasa moved to block her attack, only to feel something tug at the back of her neck, having been surprised completely. Blake easily pulled loose the knot and removed the vulnerable scarf from Mikasa with a shadow clone before falling back down on the ground.

Damn it.

She let the wings behind her back disappear, landing softly in the undergrowth before involuntarily sitting down on the soft ground. She had not noticed how exhausted she was until then, especially the muscles on her back. It seemed that even though consciously she was only thinking about flight, unconsciously she was using those to direct her wings.

"That was well done," Blake smiled at Mikasa, squatting down beside her. "You gave me a heck of a fight."

There was no response but a light sigh followed by deep breaths.

"What just happened…?" Jean had apparently recovered enough that he could stand and walk again, though his eyes showed his disbelief better than his words. "Mikasa, did you just…?"

"Fly? Yeah," Blake answered for her. "Apparently that's what her Semblance is; the ability to move in three dimensions without the Maneuver Gear. I wonder how many other people found their Semblance today."

"Is there an easier way to do that? Like, without involving a fight like this?"

"Well, the next best thing is to throw you at the Titans without gas in your Gear, and I think you probably wouldn't want to do that."

"Uh, no. Of course not." Once was enough.

"Hey, Blake!" A cheerful call came from behind a tree as Yang emerged. The blonde held more than a dozen scarves in a bundle in her hand: "I got everyone else but Mikasa—oh, there she is! Any progress?"

Blake's smile at her and a slight glance at Mikasa was all the answer Yang needed: "Awesome! You must be exhausted. Let's head back; we can talk about it while we grab some chow."

Soon after, the whistle's shrill scream echoed in the forest.


Captain Hange Zoë of the Recon Corps adjusted the clipboard in her hand. She could barely suppress her excitement. After all, there were two magnificent Titan specimens in front of her, the only two captured since… well, since a couple years ago, and the sixth occasion on which they had "captured" live Titans. There was so much that they still had to learn about the Titans, so much that they still did not know, that she could not wait to dig into them—intellectually, of course.

The addition of Eren Jeager to the list of curiosities did not help to satiate this hunger; in fact, it made her all the more desperate for information. How could a boy barely fifteen years old be such an anomaly? How could he transform from a mere human into a massive Titan capable of untold destruction all in the blink of an eye? How could he have retained intelligence and recognition of his surroundings in this state? How did it even feel to turn into a Titan? The people up there—even Levi—chalked it up to him being a Deviant, but Hange knew better. She had conviction; Eren would be the key to victory over their monstrous foes.

The mystery of the world deepened with the appearance of the strange guests now seconded to the Recon Corps in secret. The thought about them put a small dampener on her mood. She was nowhere close to being as interested in Ruby and her friends as she was in Eren, partly because instead of studying them she had been learning from them about the mechanisms of their world since it was known that they also held true here. Eren knew neither what caused him to transform nor why he could do it; that was part of the excitement around playing with him. Ruby and Weiss, on the other hand… those girls knew everything about how their powers worked, why their powers worked, and even how others can use their powers.

That was not everything, though. They were political hot potatoes. Even though she was but a Captain with in the Corps, she was ranked high enough to be knowledgeable on matters of intrigue. She scoffed; nothing about politics was intriguing, but because of its necessity she had studied it. The Commander was adamant that the newcomers be included in any deal on the reasoning that they could be used to bolster the Corps' numbers as well as assist in taking back Wall Maria. That certainly cost additional political capital: favors had to be called, promises had to be made, and so on. She suspected that the oafs in the Military Police had intended to have them take the newcomers, but that was all the more reason they put up resistance. It was politically-viable extortion, after all.

She stared at Sonny in front of her to clear her thoughts. They had converted the former Garrison in Trost into a hold for their two subjugated prisoners of war. The 4-meter class Titan was in a sitting position, restrained with thick, taut ropes around its neck fastened with dozens of steel beams hammered into the earth around it. Its arms and legs were nailed to the ground with dozens of large steel spikes. It had a blond head of hair and blue eyes; it panted almost constantly with its large and intimidating mouth.

Bean, the 7-meter class Titan, was to Sonny's left and similarly imprisoned, though due to its size there were a lot more steel beams and the ropes were instead steel cables. The nails driven into its arms, legs, hands and feet were also thicker and a lot longer, though the latter fact was not apparent. It was rather lucky that they did not feel pain, Hange thought with a small sigh; it would be beyond unsettling if they were like humans.

"Captain," a voice interrupted her thoughts. Her second-in-command, Moblit Berner, stood at attention behind her: "She's arrived."

"Well, then. Let's get this over with. I don't want to waste any more time." With quickened steps both of them walked toward the Garrison building itself. It withstood the battles to defend and retake Trost, but it had seen better days. After they retake Wall Maria, they may have to rebuild the structure and replace all the cracked stones instead of merely repairing it with mortar and cobblestone. Ever since Eren sealed that breach with that massive boulder, the Garrison's presence in Trost was decreasing. After all, that boulder was much larger and sturdier than the Gate, and not even the Colossal Titan may breach it easily.

"Yo, Dita, what's up?" She waved to the man with a white bandana on his head. Dita Ness was a Sergeant, or team leader, under Levi, but Hange was never one so formal to let ranks squash friendships. He usually was responsible for maintaining the stables at the Recon Corps headquarters as well as breaking in newbies. Well, since the newcomers were training the newbies (Hange had to wince at that thought) in their crafts, he was left largely free in the mornings.

"Not much, not much; just shuttling VIPs around," the gruff man with a small moustache chuckled and waved back in response, gesturing to the diminutive figure standing behind him to the right. "Not much for me to do while they go play around in the forest."

"Thought you'd be enjoying your break."

"You know me; I get restless the longer I'm in town. The little missus here is all yours. You've met before, right?"

Hange spared a glance at her guest. Having donned a Recon Corps cloak with a small bulge on the small of her back, she attracted little attention from the surroundings. The suitcases she carried were also plain ones with exteriors of woven flax. "Yeah, we've met," she nodded, her smile having been dampened somewhat. Given that she was one of the newcomers, it was only natural for them to want to know about the Titans, but to specifically request Hange to be present…?

Not that she would leave Sonny and Bean alone with them, anyway.

"Great; that spares me the introductions. I've got to get back to the camp; those kids need to learn the ropes."

"Don't kill too many of them now."

"No promises," Dita turned around, waving his hand as he casually strolled away, leaving Hange and Moblit with their small guest.

"Well, then, that's that," Hange let out a short and heavy sigh, "now that you're here, is there anything you need?"

"I, um, just want to see the Titans and how you experiment on them," she pulled back her hood and revealed her head of short black-red hair before glancing at the flaxen suitcases in her hands, "and, if you would permit, I would like to test these on them."

"Come on, then. We've wasted enough time." All of them strode back into the yard where the Titans were restrained. Dozens of Garrison and Recon Corps members were checking and maintaining the restraints, making sure that they were still secure enough.

Hange heard Ruby took a small sharp breath. It was not uncommon; these Titans looked disturbingly human, after all, and those who would not bat an eyelash at the sight of a nail through a human limb—like Levi—were ones that warranted concerns.

It was a good thing, indeed, that Sonny and Bean could not feel pain.

"We had to chain them down like this, or they'll be running rampant," she explained softly to Ruby. Her grip on the clipboard tightened. "I understand" was the response. Good enough for now, she thought.

"Good morning, Sonny. Did you sleep well?" She took a step toward Sonny, flashing the widest, most radiant smile she could have under the circumstances. There was no response, like the other times she tried talking with it. In her peripheral vision, she saw Ruby gently put down her suitcases, laying them flat on the ground and carefully undo the buckles.

"How about you, Bean?" She turned to the larger Titan, which regarded her with empty eyes and a huffing mouth. She knew better than getting closer than that; the steel cables were surprisingly flexible and its neck was rather strong.

"Do they understand speech at all?"

"No; at least, not the ones we've captured," she turned around to see Ruby assembling something from the objects she took out of the suitcase. "I have a session with Eren in the afternoon. We're going to use him as another test subject…"

"To find out whether or not he could understand you in his transformed state. These are the control group specimen," Ruby finished her sentence for her, much to her surprise, "What tests have you done with them other than communication?"

"We measured their speed of regeneration. I had soldiers from the Recon Corp cut fingers and toes off and then observe as they regenerate and measure the time it takes for each portion to heal back to full and because the clock isn't that accurate we had to do it several times with the same parts and then go to the next part and that took a while..."

"So, uh, how long does it take for them to regenerate, say, the index finger? Did it matter how many fingers were cut off? And, how similar are their body to human tissue?"

Hange frowned as Ruby interrupted her: "On average they take around 3 to 5 minutes for the fingers regardless of how many we cut off all at once. Their bodies are similar enough to human tissue in terms of density. I don't know too much about the composition and the exact differences, but the skin seems to be tougher and the muscles more fibrous."

Ruby hummed as she stood up. Hange's eyes widened as she saw what Ruby took from the case. It looked like a pistol, or that was what she thought. Instead of a smooth curved wooden stock for the pistol, it had an almost fully metal body. Its grip was similarly curved to the pistol she knew, and the trigger was largely the same. The barrel was of similar length—around seven and a half inches—as a regular pistol, except it had a small nub above and slightly behind the muzzle, and it had a rod-like structure roughly to the right side of the weapon. The largest difference came from the bulge above the trigger. It seemed to be a metal cylinder sat in the middle of a frame; the cylinder had notches carved on it, the purpose of which remained unclear. Behind the cylinder almost directly above the trigger was a protrusion. The firing mechanism—the hammer, flint, powder pan, et cetera—was nowhere to be seen.

Ruby gently pulled open a small piece of metal behind the cylinder. Then, she produced six shiny brass cylinders from her pocket, and pushed them into the cylinder one by one, slowly rotating the cylinder as she did. Closing the piece of metal, she twirled the gun on its trigger guard a couple of times before levelling it at the Titan in front of her.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Testing my new gun." With a couple of sharp clicks, Ruby used her thumb to pull back the metal protrusion above the trigger and behind the cylinder. Her left index finger curled around the trigger, and…

BANG!

Hange's ears rang for a couple of moments. She expected a large amount of smoke from the muzzle, but instead all she saw was a small white puff after a brilliant flash of light. The bullet produced almost no injury that she could see, so she rushed forward to Sonny's secured foot, at which Ruby shot. A small hole—no bigger than a finger thick—was produced, and quickly it was closed.

"I thought that would happen." Hange instinctively turned around to find Ruby standing at arm's length behind her. "Forty-five caliber isn't big enough. But maybe if we used explosive rounds and something like the 25-mm caliber, maybe that'd be enough to blow the Titan's neck right open."

"Guns aren't effective on them at all. We know this from a long time ago. Hasn't anyone told you about that yet?"

"But portability is a factor. Magazine capacity, too… even if they can produce enough rounds to supply a machine gun, there's no way people can carry it without Aura support… and the rounds need delayed-impact fuses if they are to be really effective. Given how small the shell would be, a fuse like that would also be small, but miniaturizing that fuse is probably outside the realm of skill for the blacksmiths. I seriously wish I could see the wound channel, though; just how far could the bullet reach if it was fired somewhere around 100 feet away from the Titan…?"

"Uh, Ruby…" Hange growled a little. The little girl held her chin with her fingers and bowed her head, showing no sign that she even noticed her words.

"But if I expand the caliber to, say, a 40mm cannon, then maybe I could get the Garrison to replace the wall emplacements with them. No, 40mm is a bit too small… maybe 77mm? 88mm? It would be nice if the blacksmiths can build an 88mm anti-tank gun with a good muzzle velocity and a flat trajectory! But then there's the problem with optics and shell supply. They don't exactly have a TNT and cordite production facility yet… and even if the barrel can hold out, they can't aim past their nose with that thing…"

"Ruby?"

"The next step would be to calibrate the optics for the gun, but where can I find a good lens crafter? Then again, on top of that wall, a good pair of eyes would be enough to see out to two kilometers. Or maybe instead I should mount a telescope or something on top of that gun and then sight it…"

"RUBY!" Hange had to raise her voice. It was not that she did not understand what it was to be like to be stuck in her own thoughts and be oblivious to the world; it was that she was actually excluded from this conversation that irritated her: "You want to tell me what you're talking about!?"

"WAAH!" Ruby almost dropped the gun. "Oh, sorry! I was just thinking about how to improve the stationary cannons on top of the wall! You see because those guns currently aren't rifled and you don't have the necessary optics or knowledge in ballistics to train your gunners properly you can't hit anything further than a few hundred meters and because the Titan targets are so small you can't use them reliably to destroy their vital parts so I thought I could help you modify the cannons and add the correct fuses for explosive shells to add angular momentum to the shell and increase the stability of its trajectory in flight as well as initial muzzle velocity and—"

"Slow down!" Hange rubbed her temple as she interrupted Ruby. "You've got to slow down, Ruby. I don't even understand half of what you were saying!"

Ruby took a deep breath and then bowed her head: "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I understand how it is to immerse yourself in thoughts like that," Hange sighed as well, patting Ruby on the head, "Anyway, let's get back on topic. What were you planning to do by shooting at him?"

"Oh, I was just trying to test out the effect of the bullet on a Titan. It was a half-jacketed lead bullet, so I wasn't sure if it can reliably pierce the Titan's skin," Ruby scratched her head with a sheepish smile. "Now I know that it can, I can make plans on ammo production. Can I have a scalpel or something to pull out the bullet? I want to see how much it mushroomed and fragmented."

"Uh, you probably won't get anything out of it."

"Well, I've got to try. Also…" Hange was once again surprised when Ruby seemed to disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye, returning with her other flaxen suitcase. "I want to see how incendiaries work against them."

"Incendiaries? As in things that start fires? Why?" Fire may be good at scaring people and causing painful burns, but against something that knew neither fear nor pain fire may just as well be a nuisance.

"Well," Ruby pulled out a small glass vial with a lump of milky white solid immersed in what seemed to be water inside, "You know white phosphorus, right?"

"Yeah. There's really no good use for it." Toxic, flammable and extremely dangerous; at least Hange knew that much. Having seen how Ruby was with weapons, she could only imagine what insidious use of that dangerous material the little girl could dream of.

"Well, I found one really good use for it. If we could use bullets or cannon shells to deliver white phosphorus to the Titans, it would continuously burn at their flesh. The gas it produces would dissolve in the bodily fluids and turn into an acid, and then that acid would eat away at the flesh again. I thought this way it may hamper the Titan's rate of regeneration and keep them down longer." Hange's jaw slacked a little at Ruby's descriptions. It was a good thing that Titans did not feel pain, she told herself again. Ruby's cheerful demeanor did little to comfort: "So we could probably fill a shell up with powdered WP dissolved in something like kerosene jellyand put some explosives in the middle as an insert and then hook that up with a fuse at the tip of the shell and when the shell hits it'll explode inside the titan and spread the jelly everywhere which would then ignite and—"

"Okay, okay, I get it, you want to burn them to death," Hange held up her hands. She could feel a shudder travel up her spine as she tried to envision the effect of that weapon. It did not take much for her to convince herself that it was a rather bad idea.

"High explosive rounds are easier for regular-sized Titans if we have enough explosives, but if something like that Colossal Titan shows up, we might need these incendiaries to slow it down."

"…Aren't you at least curious about the Titans? About how they worked? If they had thought and reason?"

"Uh, to be honest? I wondered about it. You know, about how they could stand upright despite their large mass, how—from your descriptions of them—they had an instinct that devours humans and nothing else, and how they come about to be so similar to humans in appearance yet so bizarre," Ruby scratched her cheek with that smile of hers. "But there's really no point in studying their habits when humanity's under such intense pressure to survive. I think the first order of business is to devise a strategy and the necessary equipment to repel them. Isn't that how humanity survived? You know, to adapt to the environment first, then control the environment, and then study it in detail?"

Fundamentally, they were the same, Ruby and her; Hange thought. They were women of science, if that was the right term. They both pursued knowledge and used knowledge for humanity, though they were working from different angles. She was working from mostly a behavioral point of view, discovering the Titan's habits, their biological characteristics, their intelligence, and so on. Ruby, on the other hand, was focused on using the laws of nature to defeat them in order for humanity to survive. It was the goal in a much shorter term, so to speak. She had a point: without the necessary tools to ensure survival, studying their enemies' behavior and lifecycle seemed futile.

"Ah, of course I'd want to know about their composition, their body structure, their biology, and all that!" Ruby fidgeted and stammered after seeing how Hange was silent for quite a while: "And studying their behavior would help us plan our incursions into Titan territory much better! And…"

"I know," Hange returned a smile. "Well, I think I can put my tests on hold for a while. I originally planned on attempting to communicate with them with drawn signs and maybe sign language, but I can put that off. As long as you don't kill them, you can do whatever you want with Sonny and Bean with your guns."

"Really? Seriously?" Ruby looked like a little girl on Christmas morning getting that red dress she always wanted. Or, in her case, the red machine gun: "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Hange quietly looked at Ruby hopping around in place. It might not be bad to have a little sister under her care.


Jaune screamed all the way from where Pyrrha was to the center of the explosion. In the middle of the screaming, he managed to secure his sword on the hip, and he also managed to hold onto his shield. Alas, attempts to use the shield as some sort of a wing to glide and land in a less-than-painful fashion failed spectacularly; his face could attest to that, as soon as he could stop kissing the pavement. His Aura protected him from injuries, but it did not protect the ground. It was amazing how much damage one could do to even concrete if he was travelling at a high enough velocity, as shown by the mini crater his face made on impact.

A couple of moment later, he rather comically pulled his face out of the hard slab of cement like an ostrich that had its head buried in the sand for the past hour. Even though the Aura protected him from injuries, he still needed a few moments to reorient himself and make sense of the situation in front of him, something that he desperately needed to do because there was devastation all around. It was only natural; a blast that could generate enough of a shockwave to almost sweep cars off the ground had to be pretty powerful.

He was not ready for this. There was not a lot of blood around comparatively; he shuddered to think what the scene would look like if this were to happen on a weekday. Probably hell on earth, he decided. Not that it did not already look like that: there were shattered bricks, broken glass and mangled metal everywhere around him. In front of him was what he assumed to be the origin of the detonation. That building was gone; gutted from inside out. He could only marvel at how a couple of supporting pillars still survived, battered as they were. The surrounding buildings did not do much better. A couple of them—mostly smaller brick constructions—were blown apart, a couple more collapsed on themselves, and the larger ones lisped visibly away from the blast, never having righted themselves.

He quickly searched for any sign of human life. Sniffing hard at the air, he coughed and snorted as a particularly nasty ball of dust went into his nostrils; he took solace in the fact that he smelled neither burnt or charred flesh nor blood. Scanning around his surroundings, he strained his eyes to examine every little detail, trying to make out any potentially human-shaped object in the darkness.

A cough caught his attention and it was not his own. Turning quickly toward the source, he had to look up at the roof of one unstable building. The figure stood up after a couple of seconds, coughing and gasping as he did, his foot having made rather loud noises on top of the metal roof. It was a lithe figure that he both loved and hated to see at the moment: "Ren!"

"Jaune? What are you doing here?" There was a slight hint of disbelief in the youth's voice when he hopped down from the building. The minute he landed, the entire warehouse collapsed like a tilting domino; no doubt his leap pushed the integrity of the structure over the tipping point. Ren was still wearing his signature green tailcoat, though that was then tattered and almost shredded. That magenta lock of hair almost glowed in the background darkness, as did his eyes. His weapons—the pair of machine pistol with a long, hooked blade pointing downward in front of the trigger guard, so named Storm Flower—were holstered at his hips.

"I could ask you the same question. Aren't you and Nora out hunting for Torchwick? Where's Nora? What exactly happened here?" Jaune was confused.

"She was with me a couple moments before it went off—crap. Nora!" Ren used his hands to form a makeshift loudspeaker and bellowed out her name.

"Nor—wait what the—OOF!" Jaune did the same, though he was interrupted when a large mass crashed into him, sending him tumbling away.

"HI JAUNE!" The energetic orange-haired girl spun in place, her hand raised over her head. The short and stout girl glanced around almost immediately, searching for the blond boy she just knocked out of the way: "Where are you?"

"I'm… here…" Jaune answered hoarsely. Thank goodness his Aura flared just at the right time, or he might have broken a couple of—make that a dozen—bones.

"Oh! There you are!" And then, Jaune took a ribcage-crushing bear hug from the girl just after he stood up again. "I can't wait to tell you the things we saw on our trip! We had so much fun together!"

"Nora, we weren't on a field trip," Ren drawled out a long sigh and drew his weapon. "Do you know where Torchwick went?"

Torchwick? Roman Torchwick, the man they had been trying to find for a week? "Wait, you mean, you were with them?"

"That nice man with a white suit and a big cane! Yeah! He offered us a flight back to Vale! That was awfully nice of him!"

"Wait, he offered—what?" Jaune's brain ground to a halt.

"We boarded the aircraft without them knowing, but then they found out thanks to a certain somebody and we had to fight our way out of the mess," Ren summarized in that characteristically cool voice of his.

"So the whole explosion and everything was…"

"Because the plane crashed right here, yeah."

"Jaune! Are you okay?" Pyrrha panted as she approached the rest of her team, emerging from between two dangerously slanting buildings. She had her javelin in her right hand, and her buckler strapped to her left forearm.

Just the woman he wanted to see: "Pyrrha, promise me you won't do that next time. I'm not a javelin, you know." Though, flying through the air felt kind of good.

"Jaune, aren't we forgetting something?" Ren scanned the perimeter, having leveled his weapon at whatever he was examining with his eyes. "Torchwick could still be around."

"Ooh, that suit guy's still around? Let's beat the crap out of him and get some answers!" Nora hopped with a cheer and then hefted Magnhild in her hands, transforming it into its giant warhammer form. "I'm tired of being stuck in a library where I can't even talk!"

"You sure he isn't dead, though? I mean, that explosion was pretty massive." And it was. Leveling an entire building, destroying almost a dozen more, and making its shockwave felt almost a kilometer away? That was probably the largest instance ever of stuff blowing up in Vale. Jaune could hear sirens of emergency vehicles slowly approaching. They had not much time if they wish to capture Torchwick and whisk him away.

"I'm positive. We don't have that kind of luck."

"Good luck, or bad luck?" Jaune nodded, donning his sword and shield. Taking a step forward, he stood at the front of the group: "All right. Let's move toward the crash site. Heads on a swivel, and watch each other's backs."

"Nora, no charging in this time," Ren added, standing to the left behind him.

"Aw, and I thought I was going to be the first one!" Nora had her back to Jaune, her disappointed voice accompanied by the sound of Magnhild collapsing back into its grenade launcher form.

"On you, Jaune," Pyrrha was behind him to the right, her buckler ever ready to block attacks from unexpected angles.

The place was too quiet for his liking. Only the crackling of flames and the howling of the chaotic wind filled his ears. The closer he moved toward the pillar of smoke and fire, the hotter the air became. Ash and dust were like gritted sandpaper against the skin when the wind blasted against them; some of the larger grains pelted against his shield, giving off a flurry of pinging noises as he moved forward.

"It's too quiet." Pyrrha spoke his mind for him.

"Yeah. It's like nobody's here," Ren acknowledged.

"Don't tell me he got away," Nora groaned.

The crash site was in view then. A couple dozen tons of mangled aircraft aluminum stood like a twisted monument in the center of a rather large crater of devastation. The aircraft—another Bullhead like the one used during the night Team RWBY disappeared—was burning, with what seemed like flaming fluids dripping from various ruptures along the hull. The surrounding was also burning; anything flammable was ignited, and anything light was blown away.

"How did you guys survive this?" Jaune dropped his guard slightly, standing upright with his shield at his side. All of the signs he saw so far indicated a catastrophic crash.

"We jumped out of the plane when the pilot lost control of it and it took a nosedive. Then it was a matter of using our Aura and praying for pure luck."

"That was fun! We should do that again someday! Oh, I know! Maybe we should go climb on top of the Headmaster's office and jump into the courtyard! We could use our bed sheets as giant parachutes!"

"And Torchwick wasn't with you when you jumped?"

"No, Nora! And, no, Pyrrha, I'm pretty sure I never saw him come out of the plane."

He walked around the wreckage, clearly aware that the sirens were drawing much closer. They had little time left: "The plane can't be carrying enough explosives to have this kind of a blast. It obviously crashed through the roof of the building before exploding inside… hmm?"

"We should grab the plans for this part of the district and figure out what the building was used for. My guess is that it may be a Dust warehouse, and whatever Torchwick was carrying on the plane must have set off all the Dust inside," Pyrrha followed up with his train of thought.

"Yeah, we'll take care of that," said Ren before he saw Jaune pick up a fragment of something: "What'd you find there?"

It was a fragment of a spherical device. The fragment had studs on the outside and what seemed to be large holes on top of the studs. The inside of the fragment had strange lines etched into them, far too angular and far too artificial to be cracks or burn marks.

"I think we found the pieces of another Object," he smiled.