{Author Notes/Review Response}

WHOOO! (Another freaking title change-how insecure am I?)

100+ Followers! WOW! Thank you guys soo much! And as long as I continue this, this will be my first story to reach over 100 in favorites and follows! You guys are the best!

Also a warning about this chapter: I wanted to cover a lot of things during this chapter, but the story might end up jumping around from time to time and isn't very stable. For that, I apologize, but I felt that most, if not all, of these parts were necessary… you might not find it, but by putting some of this now, it makes it easier for me about certain parts of the story later on.

College Fool (Ch 9): WOW! Thank you again for the amazingly insightful view. … Now I might have some trouble incorporating this right now because this chapter has been planed out, but I will keep those in mind later on.

Also, you are really, really good at reviewing. I swear I think you even found things even I wasn't fully paying attention to when I wrote that chapter. Are you some kind of successful book writer or something? Or maybe an editor, or even some super critic? Because you have some really insightful reviews.

NARUTOfan876 (Ch 3): Really, I can think of a few more besides the Blake stories… kinda? … Huh. But those stories have influenced this one as well.

NARUTOfan876 (Ch 9): Umm… they aren't that important, but they explain some plot points…

Marshallyel (Ch9): I've only ever watched the first episode of How I Met Your Mother, so I didn't really know that. Huh… Wait a sec… I've got an idea… Actually, I'm changing the title of the story again because of this. Thanks for the idea for a new title!

LoveForeverNow (Ch 3): That's what it's called? Lanchester shipping? …*Googles what Lanchester is* … A place in England? … Wait how does that fit Ruby and Jaune? And I refuse to take back that jab at Shippers. Shippers, including me, are evil beyond the demons of the underworld. *Shudders as he accidentally saw PokémonXHuman fic with an M rating and having many follows and favorites.*

The horrors… The Horrors!

LoveForeverNow (Ch 2): Of course time travel is BS that's why it's a great story device. Deus ex Machina everywhere! You get a Deus Ex Machina! And you get a Deus Ex Machina! Everyone gets a Deus Ex Machina! And I totally haven't watched 'Ex Machina' yet, but the commercials annoy me! (But seriously, do movies like Frankenstein and Terminator not exist in Sci-fi worlds such as this? They freaking keep telling us to be careful making 'smart' machines! Also the heck? Is it basically some kind of porn version of machines ruling troupe? ... Why do I have mixed feelings about this?)

LoveForeverNow (Ch 6): Why?

Benthino (Ch 9): Yes, cliff hangers suck. I too dislike them, but I also think that I'm doing them right if my readers dislike being left hanging… meh, story writing is so much harder than it looks.

"Welcome home master Jared," The older man bowed to the muddy and filthy eight year old tracking dirt all over the fancy carpet. "How was soccer practice?"

"It was awesome, Sebs! Three people lost their teeth! … And they were all on the opponent's team for some reason…" The young master addressed the close servant. At times the young boy even considered the man always wearing a butler suit like his grandpa.

It was then the old man glanced at the boy… and the dirt he was leaving by simply standing there and smiling at him… ah youth… "Well, may I suggest you go take a bath? You're tracking mud all over a newly weaved carpet woven by Mistrial's best weavers from the rarest desert silk flowers found only in Vacuo."

The young boy only blinked. "… Why the heck would we spend so much money on a carpet?"

The old servant chuckled. "Ahh, Young Master, I have no bloody clue."

"Big brother!" A small four year old girl with hair unlike her mother's and eyes much like her father's came racing towards her big brother.

"Snow!" The brother cried happily then was almost tackled down by the smaller girl.

"Big Bro! I missed you!" The girl cuddled into her brother, somehow ignoring the mud getting on her.

"Mistress Snow, you do realize you have to take another bath for embracing your brother at his current state?"

"But I missed him! Staying here is soooooooooo boring!" The little girl drawled on her words.

"Did you read a book?" The brother asked. "Auntie Blake likes giving us books."

"She likes giving you books! I can't read the ones she gives you!"

"Yes you can, you just have to keep in mind that we're not allowed to do any of those things written in the book beyond the age of eighteen."

The Servant paled at the vague sentence the young master just said. "Y-Young master! What kinds of books is Mistress Belladona sending you!?"

"Hmm? Zombie Apocalypse books, Sebs, why?" The servant had a brief sigh of relief.

The young girl huffed. "Auntie says that book is too gory for me…"

"But not for me! I already killed my first few Grimm!" Jared proclaimed proudly.

"No fair, I wanna go with big bro and father! He opened up my aura too! And I even have my own semblance!"

At that word, Jared's smile turned into a frown and he slumped in depression.

"I'm sorry big bro…" The girl tried to comfort her brother as she remembered Semblances was a trick subject around her beloved big bro.

"It's fine…"

Meanwhile, the butler tried to recall something during the two sibling's conversation. There was something at the back of his head he was trying to remember. What was it?

The main doors opened, and the three turned over to see who came.

"Now as you can see, my home is…" Her eyes fell on her two children covered in mud tracking the expensive carpet she ordered recently.

"Mother!" Both children happily cried out and waved their hands at her.

"Aah. That's what I was forgetting." The butler mused to himself as his employer was allowing the media to shadow her home for the day in order to gain more public favor.

Two young children covered in mud and tackling/hugging their mother on national T.V. had mixed reactions. Most of them were good though; they were even feature in 'Remnant's Funniest Home Videos'. Many people found it quite endearing that one of the most influential and powerful women in the world, was powerless against her own children.

[Present Situation.]

Jaune wondered how strong someone must be to lift him off his feet easily and made him hang by the neck. He could have sworn that the muscles constricting his neck where actually clothed steel getting ready to snap his neck.

How did this happen again? He just saw Weiss then something came up from behind him. Now here he was with a cold, iron barrel pointed to his head in an alleyway.

"Who are you!?" Weiss demanded. Jaune had to admit Weiss was still pretty great. Even though she's surrounded by thugs armed with guns aimed right at her and him, she was still pretty composed.

"My name is of no consequence, but may I remind you that you are in no position to be demanding questions unless you want your friend here to be sleeping with the fishes." He answered her while motioning to the barrel on Jaune's head. "Now Miss Schnee, I know someone like you would never go alone without some sort of protection. Whatever trick you have up your sleeve, I suggest setting it down slowly." He answered.

Jaune's mind raced. What exactly could he do in this situation?!

"Alright sir, it's been a minute, what did you notice?"

Right! It may not be much, but Jared has always tried to get him to observe the situation around him. The details that are overlooked can sometimes help!

Alright what can he see from this? The weather really looks nice today for one!

… Oops. The lack of oxygen seems to be messing with his head a bit. Jaune has to somehow at least lessen this strangle hold somehow!

"There's a cool aura trick I want to show you."

Aura Solidifying! Of course! Focusing as much as he could, Jaune felt his aura lessening the tightening grip of the man's arm. He could breathe just a little better now.

Jaune didn't rest after that though. He quickly decided to take a closer look at the weapons most of the grunts were carrying. They all looked like tommy guns. But what stood out to him was that some of their tattoos looked a little similar to some of the decorations he just saw at the eatery. Next he quickly looked over to their shoes. Despite all of their shoes looking like leather, there was some kind of odd black stuff around the edges of their foot. It sorta looked like… soot maybe?

What he didn't know was that the 'negotiator' had noticed his current hostage had stopped chocking. He knew he was up to something and he was running out of time.

Then Jaune heard a familiar cocking sound and the press of somewhat warm steel on his head. "You got spunk kid. But there's still a gun to your head, and unless you got some time related semblance, you can't out speed a bullet at point blank," then he barked at Weiss. "I'm getting very impatient Ms. Schnee and my trigger finger is starting to itch."

Weiss grunted then placed her hand on her hair. It looked as if she was hiding a capsule with pale blue dust hidden inside her hair.

Jaune knew he had one shot at this. Gathering Aura around his elbow, he then slammed it into the rib of the tall gangster. His aura enhanced blow made the giant drop him and quickly clutch his rib. Then Jaune grabbed his pistol and aimed it at his head.

"Boss!" The men cried.

Weiss recovered from the confusion first and quickly opened up the capsule she took out and threw it at the stupefied men behind her.

The dust capsule broke and in a pale blue flash of light the three grunts were frozen in place.

"Ha!" Jaune exclaimed excitedly. "It worked! Now don't move!" He pointed the gun at the would-be kidnapper.

Weiss had to admit that was actually pretty well done by the dunce during that particular moment. Perhaps Yang was right after all; maybe she was just being too hard on them. That little thought made her mind turn sour. She had just insulted her for simply trying to defend her friends, friends that helped save her and him in this situation.

For now, some credit was due. "That was well done. Good job Arc." She admitted.

Jaune smiled. "Aww really? Thanks." He blushed as he put a hand on his head.

Suddenly, Weiss eyes widened, as did the gang boss. The taller man quickly swept kicked Jaune off his feet and then slammed his foot on to the downed boy's neck.

"I can't believe you just let your guard down kid." The man told out in disbelief, yet smiled as he used his free foot to kick away the gun in his hands.

Weiss felt the urge to smack him in the face for letting his guard down, but she supposed this was slightly her fault as well. She quickly summoned a glyph behind her and jumped from it.

The mob boss instinctively saw her and moved back from her. However, Weiss simply grabbed Jaune by the shirt mid-momentum and dragged him along her jump.

"AHH!" Jaune yelped as he was yanked upward by Weiss using her semblance to escape.

Weiss sighed as she jumped off several of her Glyphs and landed on top of a roof. Jaune gracefully landed on the ceiling on his body and a loud thud.

"I can't believe you let your guard down! You had him you dunce!" Weiss scolded.

Jaune slowly got up. "I… I wasn't expecting him to do that?" He offered weakly.

"You weren't expecting him to take advantage of your guard down?! We could have—" Weiss realized mid rant that the situation would have been completely worse if Jaune hadn't done what he did. "… We… no, you did great Arc…"

"R-Really?" Jaune asked in slight disbelief.

"You technically saved us from that situation, so I suppose I do owe you an apology…" She folded her arms and looked away in the distance.

Jaune felt some initial guilt rising up, his lack of self confidence felt somehow… this was all his fault. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that maybe this was all of his fault. "Well… to be honest, I guess it's my fault all of this happened. If I wasn't so adamant about going on a date with you, Resh wouldn't have made you go on a date with me, and we wouldn't have been in this situation," Jaune sadly exclaimed before sighing. "I'm sorry, I guess I really am a dunce."

Weiss turned her head back. She wasn't expecting him to look down so hard on himself.

Before she could say something, the sky turned strange.

There looked to be some kind of field they were under that encompassed the entire area.

"What's this?" Jaune called out in confusion.

"My Semblance."

The two quickly looked to the side, and saw the mob Boss standing a few good feet away from them.

Weiss acted quickly summoning another Glyph, but to her surprise, the towering man almost teleported right in front of her.

Weiss briefly wondered what type of semblance he had before trying another Glyph and putting it in between them.

Jaune's mind saw this was becoming a lot worse when he saw the man smash through one of her glyphs. His mind raced and he quickly reached for his scroll and thanked Monty for speed dial.

As soon as he tried connecting a call, the man surprised Weiss by appearing behind her and karate chopping her neck as if he hit a pressure point.

The call answered. "Sup, Romeo, how's your—"

"Weiss! GAH!" Jaune cried out, ignoring Resh's call before the man instantly appeared in front of him and back handed him, making Jaune let go of the scroll and made it be tossed to the ground.

The Boss quickly looked at the scroll then looked at the boy. Jaune weakly got up and glanced to the man glaring at his scroll then back to him.

Jaune's mind raced, if he would suddenly appear like he did a while ago, then he would destroy his scroll in an instant, but as he saw the man throw back his fist to him, Jaune's mind raced faster than it did before. He looked to his scroll. What could he scream? He thought of instantly screaming for help, but how would that actually help Resh and Yang? They wouldn't know what to do before the man would destroy his scroll. Jaune thought ahead quickly. What could he say—wait! The odd detail that stuck out to him! It had to count for something!

"Resh, they had soot on their shoes—HAK!" Jaune was knocked back into the ground.

"Sir!? What was that!? Sir!? Answer me! Ja—" The boss quickly crushed the scroll under his foot. He looked over to the two unconscious adolescences and gritted his teeth. He wondered what exactly the kid meant by that, but he wasn't going to waste any more time. He needed to act fast.

As the large man turned off the strange forcefield around them, he failed to notice a cloaked figure peeking at him from the streets below with a pair of binoculars.

[A few minutes ago…/Meanwhile…]

Jared ran as fast as he could. Where could Yang have stormed off?

Jared slid to a stop and noticed a bunch of guys staring off in a random direction as if something stunned them.

'Huh, a bunch of stupefied men. That's a good bread trial to follow.'

After walking a while, he also started to notice some tough and handsome looking guys beaten up as he followed the trail of shocked and now traumatized men.

It wasn't long before he followed her trail towards the pier of all places.

Jared saw her just standing on some random dock folding her arms and just staring into the sea.

Jared fought the urge to sigh. Instead, he walked to the side of Yang… and sat down to watch the sea.

A few seconds past by the two of them until Yang, still not looking towards Jared, asked, "… Well?"

"Well what?" Jared repeated while also staring out into the sea.

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"Something."

"Oh Haha. You know what I mean…" Yang said rather sullenly.

"OK then… what do you want me to say?"

Yang threw her arms in the air. "Ugh! Why are you so passive about this? When you goofed up, I confronted you directly about it!"

Jared chuckled, making Yang look towards the boy and narrow her eyes. Then he answered her. "Yeah that's you. Me? I just decide to let you figure it out and tell me what's wrong. It's surprisingly effective, no one shouts as much if not at all. Plus, sometimes I don't have to do anything…" Jared let his feet dangle at the edge as he swung each leg after the other.

"You know, saying it out like that makes me not want to do that," Yang told him. "I'd rather punch an idiot in the face."

"Ha!" Jared mockingly laughed. "That's the thing about idiots. The world is full of them, heck you and I are idiots, but it's just that there's a disturbing amount of idiots you can't sock in the face."

"Huh?"

"Just the way I see the world. We're all idiots," Jared took a piece of rock next to him before attempting to skip a non-smooth rock on ocean waters and failing. "We claim to have some of the best technology we can have, but the Grimm can still kick our collective butts. We fight among ourselves just because some people have more parts sticking out than others. And ultimately, we're idiots because people think they know what's best for the world when in reality, no one really knows anything," Jared threw another rock but also failed to make it skip once. "But enough about me complaining about the world, why are you so glum?"

Yang gritted her teeth. "Isn't it obvious? It's about that Snow Bi—"

"Language." Jared interrupted her.

"What? She is though!" Yang snapped.

"Hmm. I'd be lying if I said no to that," Jared looked to her as he got another rock nearby him. "But then have you wondered why she acts like that?"

"Because she's some rich little, pampered princess who gets what she wants, and looks down on everyone around her." Yang spat darkly.

"… Maybe," Jared threw the rock and he failed again to make it skip at least once. "Why do you think that?"

"Is there a point to all of this?" Yang quickly asked back.

"I'm just choosing to listen to you. Also, I'm actually comparing notes. After hearing this, I'm remembering all the great things Jaune said and told me about her."

Yang raised her brow. "I don't know what Vomit Boy even sees in her. She probably treats him worse than the rest of us!"

Jared looked at her with a calming smile. "Want to hear something interesting? Do you remember that test Doctor Oobleck gave us on history of the ancient kingdoms?"

"Oh Monty that test was rough. He even gave us two weeks to prepare for it! … What about that?"

"Did you know the moment it was announced, Weiss immediately started studying for it?" Jared told her.

Yang then recalled seeing Weiss read books much like Blake did during that period of two weeks, but she never really thought of it. Mostly because she started dragging the rest of them into studying a week later… huh wait, was that why she was able to correct Ruby so much during their study period on it? Because Weiss studied privately about it before hand?

"Don't you think that kind of contradicts what you just said?" Jared pointed out.

Yang sighed. "OK, maybe she isn't handed everything on a silver platter as I imagined, but she's still a Bi—" Yang saw Resh's eyes narrow. "You know. Wait a sec, how did you know about that?"

"Jaune told me," Jared tossed the stone into the air and back into his palm. "Sometimes when he doesn't flirt, he finds himself staring at Weiss. You'd be surprised at how much Jaune sees from her when no one else is looking… and I don't mean that in a perverted way at all," Jared chuckled light heartedly. "In fact, whenever I hear him talk about Weiss, it's always about how great she is in what little things she does amazingly."

Yang let those words sink in. It was odd to hear Jaune say things about Weiss like that. Still, she didn't really care for that. She was still ticked off at her.

"She's still a you-know-what…" Yang said. "She talked a lot of smack about me, and I have half a mind to beat her to a pulp."

Jared looked back at the sea before throwing the rock in his hand, and actually making it skip several times before dropping into the water. "Of course, she's an idiot after all—it's why I call everyone an idiot really. But socking her won't make the problem go away. Why don't you do the same thing you did with me? Confront her and just talk with her?"

She laughed, as if letting it go. "Yeah… not really like me to run away from a fight… still…" She pondered a bit. "Hey Resh?"

"Yea?"

"Do you think I'd make a good hunter?"

Yang saw Jared pause at that answer before he closed his eyes and turned to face her. "I can't answer that."

"Why not?"

"I'm not you. It's all up to you really," Yang looked down into the waters beneath her. "But…"

Yang glanced back at Jared.

"If you do truly decide to be a hunter, I know you'll be great at it. You'll be great at whatever you do." He finished calmly. Briefly, Jared wondered why he said that instead of trying to assure Yang that she would be a great hunter. She was a legendary hunter in almost all of his future memories, so why did he say that? Maybe he was caught up in the moment? He was so focused on the 'now' that he forgot about the tomorrow?

"Huh," Yang scoffed, a smile returning on her lips as she let those words sink in. "Your talks are really weird. You could have just said half of those things simply."

"Yeah, if I don't throw in some kind of deep-thinking metaphor in some of my speeches, I won't fill my quota of seem smarter than I actually am," Jared smiled back before standing up. "Welp! Wanna go see of Lover Boy was able to calm down The Abominable Snowflake?"

"Oh I am using that name next time!" Yang exclaimed with returned life in her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, just make sure it didn't come from me… tell her Jaune called her that," It was then Jared's scroll started ringing. He checked it and saw the Caller ID. "Ahh speak of The Romantic," He said before answering, "Sup, Romeo, how's your—?"

"Weiss! GAH!" Jared's eyes widened at the sound of his father's voice that seemed filled with concern and fear. There was a loud thud sound and the scroll felt like it was moving somewhere.

"Resh, they had soot on their shoes—HAK!" Two loud thud sounds were heard.

"Sir!? What was that!? Sir!? Answer me! Jaune are you there!?" Resh screamed back to the phone, but he heard the line go immediately dead.

Yang looked horrified at Resh's sudden change of character. "What's going on!?"

"I…" Resh struggled with the words rising in his mouth. His mind was working overtime to cope with what happened. The first hint went back to Jaune crying out Weiss then hearing a grunt of some kind—feminine like— it was Weiss's voice. Why did she grunt? She was attacked since that would be the only way she would grunt like that. They were attacked! Why? Wait, Weiss is still the Schnee heiress, and we all practically came here armless! "I think they were kidnapped!"

Yang's eyes widened as Resh looked back at his scroll and quickly replayed the call on loud speaker. Thank Monty for replaying calls feature.

This time Yang heard the few lines and sounds before Jaune's line went dead. She clenched her fists, but at the back of her head she was wondering… did she... do this?

Resh replayed Jaune's only message to him again.

"Resh, they had soot on their shoes—"

Soot? He noticed their shoes? Was Jaune observing the situation? Oh thank Dust he was listening to his lessons.

But what exactly did that do? What did soot have to do with anything? "Soot!" Resh screamed out, surprising Yang. "Soot is something that comes out of stuff that burns basically right?" He pointed to her, as if not really asking but just a need for some conformation.

Yang nodded. "Y-Yeah. What did Jaune mean by that?"

"He noticed their shoes, which meant that they were walking somewhere there's a lot of soot… but that doesn't narrow things down at all! That was only one clue!" Jared looked to Yang. "Yang call the police, or even our teams, have them bring your weapons and the rest of mine or something!"

Yang acted quickly. However, her first call was towards the police. She looked toward Resh who closed his eyes and seemed to be deep in thought.

Jared calmed himself for a second. One trick that Uncle Sun and Neptune taught him and Xia was that sometimes you would have to think like a criminal in order to figure out how to catch them.

Now he put himself in a kidnapper's perspective. If he was aiming for Wiess, somehow someway, they were able to catch Weiss at her weakest, unarmed, and nearly unprotected period of time. Something was very off with that, but Jared moved past that phase. Confronting the Schnee heiress would be easy if she was unarmed, but something must have happened when Jaune appeared. It would explain why Jaune was actually able to get a call in, he must have interfered with their capture process, albeit momentarily. Now Jared focused in more to this part: where would they hide Weiss and Jaune after capturing them? They had to have a base somewhere and Jaune told him the clue, which was soot. But it's not exactly specific is it? Anywhere could have soot… wait… but if this was planned, then let's ask another type of question…

What place would be big enough to hide Weiss, Jaune, and a group of people protecting their prized possessions that the police wouldn't know where to look first? And did it have soot?

Jaune searched in his scroll. There had to be something in Vale that was big enough to hold a lot of people, a place no one would ever go nearby, and had something to do with soot…

Like an abandoned iron factory downtown?

Jared looked to Yang who was having trouble trying to talk to a police phone man who didn't seem to be taking her seriously. "Yang, I think I know where they are!"

"Oh finally something good! Screw you lady!" Yang shouted before hanging up.

"Did you just insult a cop?" Jared raised a brow as he motioned her to start moving out of the docks.

"She was so not a cop. She wasn't even doing her job right!" Yang whined. "I'm calling Ruby and the others after I launch our lockers to our coordinates—so Skater boy where are they?"

"It's just a guess, but that hint Sir screamed at me before the call ended might be suggesting the old abandoned Schnee Company Iron factory downtown… ironic actually now that I think about it. Anyway, I'll put in Jaune's locker code as well, I was saving it for a future prank but glad to see it helps like this."

The two quickly placed in their numbers, but even with their weapons on route, there were still quite a ways for it to come.

Jared and Yang got back to the streets.

"If they have hostages, we can't go gun blazing." Jared reminded Yang.

"No fair! I've been wanting to smack something really hard for the past ten minutes or so, and now that we actually have something to hit hard, we can't?!"

"Let's put that thought on hold and focus more on the "friends are captured" part of the situation. We should be all stealthy like Blake trying to hide and read her porn—" Back in Beacon, Belladonna sneezed. "To save Sir and Mam then proceed to kick all kinds of ass before the feds clean up our act. How does that sound?"

"Now you're are speaking my language! Keep sweet talking like that, and you might get a reward tonight~!"

Repressing imagery of his hot potential mother, Jared cough and secretly pinched himself to repress the lustful urges. "Unless you mean watching a marathon of Psychic Detective, I'm not interested," Jared quickly responded and looked up to the skies before Yang could say anything else. "Oh look, our lockers, let's continue this conversation—never."

{Author notes.}

Why is it that when something's too long, it's a bit worthless, but when I like to write something short, even I want to write more to it?

Weird.

Sorry for the second cliffhanger, but once more I feel that the pacing of the chapter was a little weird and there's a little more into this kidnapping that meets the eye. The story tends to be somewhat split around here, and I don't want the story to jump around too much.

The next chapter is going to be a little shorter… maybe, or maybe not since the things I want to add in make the story a little split and I would like a little more practice in trying to make it contribute more clarity into the long run of this story. (Not to mention I still have other things to do later in my life.)

I have some plans about the action packing sequences of the rescue operation later. (The Hint is in The Mob Boss's Semblance. It's a lot more complicated, but I think it's fun when I reveal what it really is.) Jared and Yang are going to have some trouble before rescuing the Damsel in Stress and the Knight in Competent Armor.

So sorry again, maybe next week you'll hopefully get the finale to this mishap then I can get into the even juicer part of this story. (It'll still be a while, but my 'plan' is slowly coming to fruition! When it comes, I shall laugh for an entire chapter for my own expense and I will drink my own tears of joy along with my drool.)

Thank you for reading.

[Yesterday…]

"Come in, come in. Hello Mr. Kolc, to what do I owe this unexpected surprise?" Ozpin asked warmly.

Jared rubbed the back of his head before sighing. He walked through Ozpin's grand office before standing in front of to his desk. "Can I ask something, sir?"

"If it is about your academia, I believe I must turn you over to your professor in charge of your curriculum."

Jared shook his head. "No, no… Umm… I just want to ask: what has my brother told you about me?"

Ozpin took a second to drink from his mug.

"Also," Jared voiced out. "I really hope you're meeting your dentist about your coffee addiction. Those things aren't the best for your teeth."

Suddenly Ozpin placed down his mug. He cleared his throat, folded his hands together, and answered him accordingly. "Your brother was very enigmatic when he and I first met. After he submitted your files, he came up to me and told me a rather fascinating tale of how the future is killing the past. … Of course it was just a tale. But he told me that when you and I would meet, he asked me to emphasize the word 'time' as an inside joke."

"So…" Jared carefully chose his next words. "You don't know what it means?"

"Not unless you tell me what he meant by that."

"You don't mind if I keep that a secret? … It's… private…"

"Very well then. Is that all?"

Jared fished his pockets. "Not really," Then took out a USB and placed it on his desk. "My brother asked me to give this to you."

"What is it?" Ozpin asked.

Jared realized that was a rather touchy subject. He glanced around the room, to see if there was anyone here or if there were any public cameras.

Ozpin seemed to notice what he was searching for an immediately pressed a button to change the tinting of his office window, making it black and not see-through. "All Video feeds from the hidden cameras in this room are directly connected to me. No one else will see them unless I choose to show it."

The boy simply rubbed the back of his head. "Uuhhh… the USB has files on… Project… Pantheon?"

Ozpin seemed to not move at all the minute Jared finished his sentence.

"Mr. Kolc, are you telling me that this USB your brother told you to give to me… contains one of the Atlas Kingdom's greatest secrets from a century ago?" How Ozpin himself seemed to know this himself didn't seem as much of a surprise as Jared learning of this secret.

Much like a deer in head lights, Jared's response was just as graceful. "… Is that a trick question?"

Ozpin raised his brow before taking the USB. A digital monitor appeared on the screen that signified a loading sequence. "Mr. Kolc, are you aware what kind of penalties and consequences are if one steals secret files from the Atlas military?"

Jared subconsciously fixed his collar as if it was choking him. "… You know these are really some life changing, thought provoking questions your asking sir. I'm sure that they are rhetorical and are never meant to be answered. At all."

Ozpin, to his credit, didn't react to that. "You should know, Mr. Kolc, when he and I first met, your brother was also very keen in hiding unfavorable topics. However… he warned me that something out there 'has stopped watching'," Ozpin chuckled. "The oddest thing was that the way he phrased it made it sound as if he was quoting me."

"Well, I heard rumors you like to be strangely enigmatic in front of others. Why can't someone be the same way too you?" Jared offered weakly.

"Let us stay in topic, shall we?" Ozpin relaxed back into his seat as he viewed the files. "Your brother informed me that there is an 'unknown' that wishes no longer to be unknown. As if to say that the current problems I had were not enough, but now there is something else that may threaten us all, yet his only answer to my questions was that 'his little brother will give me a hint'."

Jared seemed rather surprised how the Legendary Ozpin was actually kept in the dark about something. By this Chronos Kolc no less.

"He does that to you to?" Jared empathized.

Ozpin raised his brow at the comment. "At the sound of that reaction, may I assume you also know little about this?"

Jared didn't exactly know how to explain that, so he rubbed the back of his head while looking away before saying, "… Let me just say I don't know my brother as well as I should." Jared worded carefully.

Ozpin seemed deep in thought until something popped up from his screen. "A sealed file?" He then glanced over to his student. "I don't suppose you know the password?"

"No. I wasn't even given a clue," He answered honestly before checking the clock then his crimson eyes widened. "Um, sir? You don't mind me leaving right now, do you? I have this previous arrangement."

A coy smirk curled up Ozpin's lips. "Does this have anything to do with Mr. Arc's date with Ms. Schnee?"

Jared rubbed his hands together while chuckling nervously. "Maaayybe?" He drawled. "Wait, how did you know about that?"

"Rumors travel fast. But not as fast as the recent rumors of you and Ms. Xiao Long being a part of Mr. Arc's elaborate Harem."

Jared twitched. "Excuse me what? I'm a guy."

"Females and some males can have some wild imaginations. Especially after hearing other rumors of both you and mister Arc escaping in the morning only to come back later, gasping, hot, and sweaty…"

Jared shivered. "Oh my…" The he shook his head from the thoughts of that form of ince—OH LORD! "NO!" Jared screamed with absolute refusal and blush reaching both ends of his ears. He felt himself almost barf trying to hold back that nightmare fuel.

"I do hope you enjoy your double date with your friends Mr. Kolc, just be sure to use protection if necessary." Ozpin somehow said that with a very straight face and only a small smile.

"I'm going now…" Jared told Ozpin in a slightly sullen manner before dragging himself back into the elevator.

"Ahh, youth…" Ozpin smiled before looking back at the file. What was the purpose of a century year old secret?

Then his eyes widened as he saw the rude sketch of an experiment called the 'Armor of Zeus.'