Finicky Fugitives

On the days Beacon's students had off it was commonplace to see them in full gear outside the school, wandering about; sometimes it was for a simple outing- grab some fresh air, maybe catch a movie or hit the arcade. They were young, after all... However, more often it was for supplies; as Beacon delivered more than enough for students to go on, but the food was oftentimes bland in the cafeteria, and there were few snacks or other such simple pleasures. For this reason team JNPR, or 'Juniper', was out and about.

Pyrrha was in the lead here, choosing the best places to get their groceries and supplies for sweet deals while Ren was charged with keeping Nora under something like control. Jaune was left with being the pack mule, as usual. If not for the showy outfit, Pyrrha was turning heads wherever she went for her fame as the record holder for successive victories in the Mistral Regional Tournament, but no one really caught her eye as she enjoyed the time away from school with her allies.

Their blonde, lightly armored leader spoke up for the first time in a while, at least aside from grunts and groans of effort to carry everything she had purchased; "Can... Can we find someplace to have a break? My legs are gonna give out at this rate..."

Nora was riding atop Ren's shoulders, acting like she had to keep watch from her friend the guard tower as they drew a few looks away from Pyrrha with the strange display. She had been running Jaune ragged over the past few hours... Perhaps it was time for them to take a breather after all.

"Alright, Jaune- set things down there. We'll rest at this bus stop for five minutes." He made some noise to express his relief when he set down the boxes and bags that amounted to at least twice his body weight, flopping onto the bench Pyrrha had stopped near. Ren sat down also, though Nora remained stubborn to the idea of dismounting her companion.

Jaune was trying to get some talk out of Ren, who was giving one to two words for every twenty from him, and Pyrrha casually watched the foot traffic in either direction passing by them. She remained that way for some time, and had been close to moving her teammates along already when someone finally snagged her attention; there was a glint of brass mixed into the crowd, and after closer inspection of the passerby she saw what looked like a shoulder guard... She hesitated to make a scene, but if her doubts were on the mark this was a person she could not simply ignore.

"Hank Witzer!"

A few of the people passing stopped in their tracks, and the individual she'd picked out did also. The boy had a smoky grey coat zipped up and collar folded, the bottom splaying out over his upper legs. His pants, gloves, and the bands holding his shoulder plate and other gear in place were all shades of brown that complimented a caramel pair of eyes. His belt and boots were both buckled with brass and darker brown in color, the only thing that really contrasted all of this was a deep green in his hair that reached down to the nape of his neck, parted mindlessly and messy everywhere else. He turned back to look at her, a friendly smile on his face;

"Hey, what's goin-... uh-oh."

This Hank character went from content to surprise within a fraction of a second, followed closely by misery. Pyrrha recognized him as exactly who she thought he was- meaning their day off just became a day on the job. Jaune was clueless, but Ren had already gotten Nora off of him to stand by Pyrrha, watching Hank closely.

Hank bolted, shoving three people out of his way and onto the pavement or road with disregard as he ran from the Hunters now in pursuit. Ren was fast enough to gain ground on Hank, Pyrrha just behind along with Nora and Jaune.

"Who the heck is this guy, and why are we chasing him?!" Jaune voiced his distress with the situation. Pyrrha leaped over some more civilian obstacles Hank had knocked down with a few sorries in between her clarification;

"Hank Witzer is a student expelled from Beacon last year. Against school policy, he took the equipment given to him by the school, and has been involving himself in illegal activities; so students of Beacon have been told to keep eyes out for him, and to bring him in if at all possible." She paused, glancing down at her scroll. "I've already sent word back to the school as to our location. The teachers should be tracking my scroll as we speak."

Hank whipped around the corner into an alleyway, releasing the weapon on his back into an enormous spear. The head of it resembled a Phillips screwdriver, where the blade was segmented into a cross shape. The edges reached far back on the shaft, hooking in places to make for a miserable stab wound. There were also hooks set horizontally just below the spearhead shaped much like question marks... at the moment, all he used this for was to pole vault over the fence in the alleyway, clearing it as fast as possible. Ren was already running along the wall over the fence while Hank landed, the huntsman getting too close for comfort.

Hank was hurrying down the alley when Nora and Pyrrha leaped over the fence, Jaune climbing the good old fashioned way. When Ren gained a burst of speed and passed Hank he stopped as an obstacle, Hank retrieving his other piece of equipment from his back; a shield vaguely kite shaped that slid over his forearm with the point forward from his hand. He trucked headlong into Ren, who braced himself with his Stormflowers and managed to hold his ground. Hank battered into him several more times while also slamming the ground behind him with his spear, his aura flashing green off his body and his strikes becoming more rapid and forceful until he knocked Ren off of his feet, running by him quickly.

Ren looked dazed at that, but got up quickly with Pyrrha's help as they continued to give chase. Hank was still easily within reach since Ren had held him in place for a good amount of time. He yelled in frustration, turning around in his sprint to face JNPR- the hooks at the base of the spearhead shot off on the ends of chains when he pulled a trigger near his grip, spinning the shaft in his one hand allowed the chains to branch out and the hooks to grab onto a fire escape attached to the wall on his right. With two mighty yanks, the first platform of it screeched then crashed off the wall before the four of them, Ren having to catch Jaune by the collar to keep him from being caught beneath. Hank didn't stop until he booted the fire escape so hard it clattered and screamed against the ground, hurtling for them at a dangerous speed.

Nora swung her hammer into it as it crossed the alleyway, sending it right back toward Hank with even greater force, but he ducked under it as it had gotten height off of Nora's golf drive of a strike. He caught sight of Miló being thrown straight for him, Pyrrha having predicted how he would dodge the escape and chucking her javelin in hopes of pinning him down. At the last moment he threw himself back in his crouch, sliding in the gravel and evading the attack. Hank stood hastily, breaking away and into an adjoining alley, Pyrrha retrieving Miló.

"I suppose this answers why he's been so successful in evading Beacon's grasp." Ren mentioned as they resumed the hunt.

Pyrrha nodded. "He's a powerful enemy, but that power comes from his semblance; As long as he carries momentum, his strikes grow faster and stronger. If we can get him to hold still for even a moment..."


There was a T-junction coming up, and Hank took a right- only to almost run straight into some guy sitting on top of a trash can, directly in the center of his path. He looked creepy as hell, black hair swept back and with his forearms resting inwardly on his upper legs. The look in his eyes was enough to halt Hank in his tracks; there was something to fear in the fellow, just what that was he was uncertain.

"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

"... I'm sorry, what? Okay, look buddy, I'm in a rush here-"

The Stranger shook his head, flicking an index finger back and forth. "No need to worry, Spank- The bush buddies are 'tied up' at the moment. Your race is over, my friend."

"Did you just call me spank?" Hank was ready to step around the can and leave him in the dust, but he didn't want to get too close; his gut feeling was still telling him this man was a greater predator than he made himself to be.

"'Course I did, that's your name; Spank Watcher. Your parents must have hated you something fierce, in hindsight. Come on, stay awhile, would'ja?"

Hank leaned backward to look down the alleyway again; no huntsmen or huntresses were dashing down the length, so he figured this nut case must be messing with him a little bit but at least had his problem under control.

"So... Is there something you want from me?" The Stranger chuckled and got off his perch, kicking the can aside.

"Good, good- so you are a man of business after all. Rumors and hearsay can be so misleading sometimes... See, I know you're in a bit of a pickle, but that pickle is crunchy and succulent like the primest of dills for me. And that's a flavor I'd like to savor for later than you might be able to cater... Comprendé?"

"No. No, I don't. Are you retarded?" Hank was getting fed up with this idiot. The Stranger shrugged slightly, and then got to the point;

"At the moment, Beacon doesn't like me. They don't like you, either, but if they think you're one of my goons they'll like you a lot less; they'll track you more mercilessly, giving me some space to go about my plotting and planning. All you gotta do for me is not get caught... And since Gimble has her eyes on us right now, Beacon will already consider you a connection of mine, so your options are pretty limited. Say yes, I pay you for your deeds in my favor. Say no, you do the job anyway but no moneys. So whaddaya say?"

Hank gave him a suspicious look, not the first he's gotten; "If that's the case, what is the point in hiring me? I'm doing this either way, according to you." He paused. "And who the hell is Gimble?"

The Stranger went on like the second question had never been posed; Ozpin would be proud of the level of nonchalance. "Fact is, If you accept my offer, there'll be an added extra where I'll contact you from time to time. I'll give you a place to go, and I want to be sure you go there... That's it. 15,000 bucks a pop, just for going places. All I need to know is that you will go where I tell you to. It's quite important." The Stranger eyed him for a moment, wondering which he would choose.

Hank had his arms crossed for a minute, but eventually nodded. "You got yourself a deal." He had been lacking in work lately, unlawful and no- this guy was probably banking on that fact, but there was little choice here, like he said.

The Stranger clapped and jumped from foot to foot frivolously, giving him a wide grin filled with shark-like teeth, making Hank flinch. "Now that's just perfect. Swimming. Sublime. We need more black-market chumps-for-hire like yourself on these here streets! More I say!" He stopped for a matter of seconds. "And Shmots! You had one job!"

Team JNPR had arrived from behind Hank, who had gotten into a defensive stance next to the Stranger. Shmots was probably the one 'tying up' the four students with his wires if the Stranger's pun fit the bill. Unfortunately, now that he was standing with a set of handcuffs keeping his hands behind him, The Stranger was giving him a stare of overwhelming disappointment.

"Well, time we vamoosed. Lookin' forward to workin' with ya, Spank." He glanced at his original companion now, "Shmots, We've been over this. You don't shift it into high gear and I will burn your cheques with gusto."

Shmots had somehow removed the handcuffs restricting him in the last few seconds, without Ren even noticing, clapping them on Jaune and performing a back-spring out of his other captors' grasps to the Stranger's side. A light smack to the head awaited him.

Hank turned tail and ran for the exit to the alley, while the Stranger leaped straight up onto the building next to him with Shmots following on his wires. JNPR took no time to decide on further pursuit of Hank, bursting out into the streets after the dropout. Pyrrha undid the cuffs on Jaune's wrists as they went, their leader muttering an apology.


Atop the nearby buildings, the Stranger along with Shmots watched Hank go. Glynda Goodwitch stood at the other end of the rooftop they were situated on, apparently in wait of them. The Stranger spoke to her without actually looking; "So glad you could join us, Miss Gumwatch..." Shmots appeared to note that the line would have been more intense were it not for his comrade's name calling.

"You are hereby charged with kidnapping of the Heiress to Schnee Dust Co., resisting apprehension, reckless endangerment and assault of Beacon's students. You are under arrest."

The Stranger turned around at last, looking her in the eye. She showed no signs of backing down, no faltering. "Shmots. Go."

The underling didn't have to be told a second time, leaping down from the building they had just scaled. The Stranger waltzed closer leisurely to Glynda, his hands out to the sides. "If you're so serious about this... I s'pose I'll have to show you just how little you can do to interfere."

Glynda formed a glyph in the air before her, ready to unleash catastrophe here and now, but the belligerence her adversary showed switched to panic on a dime; "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! I need to put on my serious face. That takes time, you know."

She was indecisive for no less than a second before she wreaked havoc over the rooftop, energy pouring out of cracks forming in the concrete and shattering the upper layer into hundreds of misshapen shards of stone, all bursting up at once in a wave headed for the Stranger. He lunged to his right and rolled out of the way, the large number of pointed stones coming to rest at the edge of the rooftop. Glynda controlled the shards to levitate around her in a lazy whirlwind, ready to stream where she pleased while the Stranger got to his feet.

"Gah, scraped my knee..." His leg had been caught in the wave, the cloth there tattered and gashes all over the calf; it was more than a scrape to say the least. It was also not his knee... What Glynda took notice of was the fact that his injuries were clearly rends in the skin, but he didn't bleed at all. Was this his semblance at work?

There was no time to let him recuperate; Glynda created a secondary glyph to her left, where violet orbs appeared and homed in on him from there while the earthen storm she willed on came for him from the front. He gripped his forehead for a second like this was all just a simple nuisance, and then held his other hand out in front of him, hand open and palm up. A cyan glow crept up his arm and appeared above his palm, looking like a small globe of his aura which he crushed in his grip. This ignited into a blast of this light, looking like a translucent sphere that expanded from there dissipating a few feet from him in all directions. This energy deflected all of Glynda's attacks that came in contact; erasing the homing shots and making the many stones scatter around and beyond him. Further than that, the stones lost all traces of Glynda's control, the aura fading from them and leaving them lifeless once more.

The instructor still had a small maelstrom of the debris from the roof swirling about her, but her eyes were wide with shock. Sealing an individual's semblance had been bad enough; whatever this field was that he was capable of making cancelled out the effects of glyphs as well as aura itself, whether it were a standalone attack or manipulating objects. The danger this man posed rocketed ever upward each time he appeared... She doubted it could erase her glyphs themselves, and even then she could spawn more, but if he got that close he would use that hand technique...

She decided to keep a distance, casting more long-ranged attacks against him to see how much stamina he had; perhaps these abilities were physically taxing. She hurled the last of her stones in a curving streak to her left at him, while she swung her switch in a haze of violet to form a multitude of smaller spheres than the ones she had sent for him before. The Stranger crushed another blast of aura to divert the majority of all this but had to slip by the remainder physically, closing the distance between he and Glynda in a flash and aiming an open-hand strike at her chest. The litheness he had was not going to let her remain far with her ranged attacks.

Knowing this was not a hit she could afford to take, she caught him by the wrist and led him past her as she moved aside, striking the heel of her boot into the left of his lower back and forming more orbs with a swipe of her wand. He was too close for the time he needed to make the cancel blast, so the Stranger bobbed and weaved between the many projectiles as they chased after him, still reeling from Glynda's kick. With some well-timed manoeuvres, he took out each orb individually with his hands; though they seared his palms he minimized the damage.

The Instructor was already upon him by the time he knocked out the last of her pests, nailing him in the shoulder and side of the head with two quick hits of her wand as well as a boot to the stomach with those painful heels of hers. He stumbled back, losing his footing on the terrain she had made uneven beforehand and falling to one knee. Glynda brought up a sweeping kick into his jaw, hurling him up into the air to land on his back.

He sprung to his feet, giving her a look of satisfaction with her performance as he took up that odd stance again. Dipping low to the ground, he almost appeared to slide rather than actually move his legs to close in on her once more. She brought up one leg to stop his hand from making contact with her abdomen, slapped his other away from her throat with her switch, and caught the first again by the forearm and redirected it above her shoulder, but he finished by stomping on her foot and biting the hand she held her weapon in. She cried out and dropped it, and he followed up by grabbing the hem of her suit and bottom of her skirt, taking her off her feet and tossing her underhand with a great deal of force into the floor. She landed painfully on her back, but caught herself before she continued to tumble and landed in a crouch.

The Stranger made a mocking gesture from side to side with a wide smile on his face, but the expression faded after a second as his eyes were drawn elsewhere. His arms drooped, and he sagged forward with his head down, seemingly disappointed. "I'd love to stay and chat some more; unfortunately I'll be meeting with some less than pleasing company if I do. So we'll just have to take a rain check, sweetheart. I'll let you know when I've got the time for more foreplay, ahright?" He had been backing away from her indolently as he talked, and Glynda was already forming another glyph to stop him when he abruptly changed his course to the right, hopped off the building, and shattered the window next door upon entering. She followed inside the structure, and though she could hear the echo of his laugh he was nowhere in sight, despite the fact that the barren and abandoned abode contained no means with which to hide. She searched for a few more minutes through both hands-on and surveillance, but eventually gave up the fruitless endeavor. He was already long gone.

Glynda looked over the incisions left on her hand by her opponent's teeth, noting that Ruby had been right on the mark with her observation. Though she had come out on top during their clash, she couldn't shake the notion that he still hadn't been fighting her with everything he had. Checking her scroll, she could see that Pyrrha had stopped moving, and her teammates had also... They had most likely lost their quarry as well. Before she could set her scroll aside it began receiving a call from the Headmaster, conveniently for her to answer in haste.

"Good evening, Headmaster. I regret to say that the perpetrator has fled... I have ascertained more of his capability, however."

Ozpin's voice came through from the other side, "Good work, Ms. Goodwitch. Fortunately, I have fine news as well- we have a lead as to the man's identity."


Team Strength's time spent at Beacon ran smoothly, but when they took care of menial things like shopping trips to Vale, Steven was less of a leader and more like their mother. They of course liked his cooking, but Helena was drawn to every high-value object like a fly to a lamp, trying to make him purchase albino caviar or specially brazed boneless duck from halfway around the world, each time succeeding in being told to put it back from wherever she got it from. Nicole and Teresa collected things they could eat on the go and bland vitamin and protein supplements, followed closely by hoarding together armfuls of sugary snacks and desserts. They received the same treatment as the princess.

Setting themselves down on a bus bench awaiting the public transport, Steven had a meager selection of things he could make for the next week or two but Teresa curiously rifled through half a dozen bags someone left there. He had been about to tell her much like a parent that these things weren't hers and that she shouldn't be touching them when another four Hunters came jogging down the street to stop where they were, the blonde boy at the front snatching away the bag that Teresa was currently investigating.

"I take it you forgot these, Jaune?"

"Oh thank god... It's all still here Pyrrha." Jaune took a second to reassure his redheaded companion that their purchases were all accounted for. Only now did he realize there were others in front of him.

"Steven? What are you doing here?"

"Same as you are, by the look of things. With less weight." They shared a small laugh; Jaune and Steven were mild acquaintances from a ways back, having met at the same school at a younger age. There were birthday parties and other childish memories between the two, but they hadn't become actual friends until they met at Beacon and caught up; with Cardin prowling for targets as passive as Jaune, he had been having it hard in the friend department besides Ruby Rose and his own teammates. Meeting with Steven had been a big relief and quite welcome, Steven much the same minus the bullying. Funny enough, Steven was to Jaune basically what Regis was to Cardin.

The two of them kept watch over their goods while the six others mingled; Helena and Pyrrha having known one another from somewhere before and Nora shocked to see a pair as undividable as she and her best friend Ren.

"You're not legit, are you Jaune?" Steven asked levelly.

"What? Of course I am!" Jaune acted defensive, even hurt by the accusation. Steven remained stone-faced, brow lifted. He wasn't going to be persuaded by anything short of the truth.

"It's harder to talk out of when someone knows you from before... This is what I need to do, Steve. There's no going back." Jaune replied with low volume. The silence that followed made him think for a moment that Steven really was mad about the fact and would rat on him about it, but he let out a sigh and chuckled.

"I'm not even gonna ask how you pulled off a forged entry, but if you put the effort in to succeed here, then I think you belong as much as anyone else. If you quit, that's when we'll have to talk." Jaune nodded to the two-sentence pact like he was signing in blood.

Eager to change the subject and relieve the tension, Jaune moved on. "How do Helena and Pyrrha know each other?"

"I guess they met up in that Mistral tourney Pyrrha kept winning in. That record she holds? Helena was a close competitor for the title. Last three years or so, I think."

"... and they're friends? " Jaune asked. They were both talking rather seriously about someone Pyrrha had run into that day, but the boys couldn't hear exactly who from where they sat. Despite the undertone of the conversation, they didn't appear standoffish.

Steven shrugged, prolonging the gesture. "It's a healthy respect for one another's skill. Unlike most people, they seem to know what the term 'sportsmanship' actually means."

The bus arrived at the stop, and the eight of them piled in with country bumpkins Jaune and Steven the designated loading crew for groceries. Apparently Pyrrha hadn't the intention of using the bus and wanted Jaune to carry the heavy cargo back to Beacon mostly on foot, but they gave chase to some kind of wanted criminal that day and she spared him the workout in exchange for nearly being crushed by a fire escape. That sounded like a fair trade.