"You all must not fail." Jet said, insistently, as he raised his lance, the purple flames surging around him. "If we want to bring this fiend down, we must work together."

A chorus of "Yeah!" of varying enthusiasm levels answered this statement.

Nouvelle combed through the daily news on her scroll. Sat in the library, she flicked the touchscreen, searching for Grimm activity. Blake sat opposite her, doing the same.

"Nouvelle, Blake, I need you to check the news. Find any Grimm sightings and/or disappearances, particularly if there's a pattern. You two are the best with lots of information. See what you can find."

"It vill be done, Jet."

"Got it."

Yang sat at Junior's bar, watched over by several distant bouncers. She was waiting for Junior.

"Yang, I need you to check on the darker networks of information. Find out if your friend Junior knows anything about sightings and disappearances. Rumours and speculation."

"I gotcha."

Weiss, Izzet and Lilac flew across several rooftops as they passed by a street. Unceasing, they continued their swift scouting of Vale.

"Izzet, Lilac, Weiss, I need you to group up and move through Vale. I need you to record anything suspicious, and take particular note of any areas of Vale that people avoid."

"You can count on us."

"Very well."

Ruby stood next to Jet as they surveyed Beacon from the roof of the cafeteria. He had his arm around her, and she held him close with both of hers wrapped around him.

"Ruby, stay with me. If anyone finds anything, we need to be on high alert. I'll need you to be with me to be at full combat potential."

She looked at her love. He was staring out into the distance. His hard look had returned.

Jet was in his 'purposeful mode'.

She squeezed him tighter, causing him to turn towards her. His emerald eyes softened as they met hers.

"Jet, this madness thing." Ruby said. "Can you return to normal after Flux is beaten?"

Jet was silent, and Ruby couldn't help but worry. Then, he turned and hugged her.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Jet replied. "But you and I, we're like demi-gods. The world is our oyster." He smiled at her. "We can do practically anything if we want to."

That didn't reassure Ruby, who shuddered a little. Jet was dancing around it, and he knew it.

"What if you can't?" Ruby asked, keeping a tight hold. "What if you go mad, and leave me?"

She heard a sigh from her love, before he gently broke out of her grip and took her hands in his own.

"Thank you for worrying so much about me." Jet said with a warm smile, akin to the one he wore when they had first met. "But one of the main reasons I'm fighting this hard, sacrificing this much of myself, is for you, Ruby." He put a thin finger on Ruby's mouth as she attempted to speak. "I would die a hundred deaths, then burn in hell each time, if it meant you could see the light of day. If I fall to this corruption, I would fall knowing I protected you and ended one of the many threats to your safety, and the safety of the people around you."

He released her, and Ruby immediately grabbed his loose hand. Tears had sprung to the surface of Ruby's eyes.

"Don't you know I feel the same way about you?" Ruby asked him. "When I see you like this, throwing everything away, not caring about your own life or your future, it really makes me sad. I wanna be with you Jet, for a long time, until we die." She held up the ring Jet had got her on her finger. "So I don't want you to die before our life really begins. I don't want you to lose everything before you leave with me. I want you alive, and whole, with me. Can't you see that?"

She was full on crying at this point, but Ruby didn't care. She desperately wanted Jet to see the point. He was still smiling at her.

"Ruby, I can promise you one thing. I am not going to fall easily. You can count on that." Jet reassured, and then pulled the still tearful Ruby into a hug, allowing her to dry her eyes on his jacket while he looked outwards on the snow-flecked grounds of Beacon.

Izzet slowed time as she crossed the gap between two rooftops with ease, catching up with Lilac and Weiss. Her teammate, having her adaptive hair semblance, was using it to spring from roof to roof, elongating it quickly and hardening it before subsequently returning it into its original form.

Weiss constructed another Glyph, soaring up to a taller building after making eye contact. Concerned, Izzet opened a telepathic connection with Lilac.

'She's avoiding me.' Izzet thought.

"Me too. You think something's bothering her about us?" Lilac asked.

'I'll take us to her.' Izzet sent, then held out a hand. Lilac took it, and she completely stopped time. Lilac picked her up and jumped, following Weiss.

Upon landing, they saw Weiss had already crossed two more of the grey buildings.

She hadn't waited for them.

'Something's definitely wrong.' Izzet commented. 'We need to trap her and find out what.'

"Got it." Lilac responded as she leaped over the distance in one bound, stopping in front of the statue of Weiss. Izzet, unprepared for the sudden jump, flew forwards off of the small building's roof!

She fell into the streets, where she hit the ground, hard.

Izzet felt pain everywhere, and tried to roll over, but she was rewarded with a further fall into a dark hole, where no light existed.

She tried to sit up, and as she did so, she felt something wet with a horrendous stench, and screamed as loud as she could. Disgust and horror overtook her.

Jet wondered briefly how his team of six, not including himself and Ruby, had progressed in their assigned tasks. He and Ruby sat on the same roof as before, and he watched as she played with Crescent Rose.

She was bored, but there was nothing he could do. He was absent-mindedly tossing a spark of his aura from hand to hand, and he was not above admitting to himself that he was bored too.

Suddenly, a grey light appeared before him, before it switched to purple, then back to grey. Ruby watched it, almost entranced, until Jet cuffed her with his wing to get her back into reality.

"That's Lilac's signal. She's calling us." Jet explained, getting up. He crouched, offering his back, but a huff from Ruby made him look up.

"I can move on my own, you know." Ruby pouted, and Jet gave her a small grin.

"Try to keep up." he teased, and took flight immediately, looking behind him to see a red blur already streaking across the buildings in his wake. He picked up speed, and soared, half relaxing and half speeding through the air.

Jet landed before Lilac in a flurry of black rose petals and purple flames, feeling Ruby next to him instantaneously. He looked upon Lilac and Weiss, who wore worried expressions.

"Izzet fell from the roof, landed in there." Lilac said, quickly. "She yelled for us not to come in there."

"Is it Flux?" Jet asked, forgetting that only he, Ruby and Ozpin knew what she looked like.

"We don't know. We called you because you're invulnerable to anything that might be down there." Weiss replied. Jet turned to Ruby.

"Wait here. I shouldn't need to go far. You know the signal if I need help." Jet instructed, then leapt down the manhole, into a complete blackness.

'Izzet? Where are you?' Jet sent, the smell of the sewer that he was in momentarily causing him to gag. He flared his flames, trying to get through this unnatural darkness, but to no avail.

'I'm here, Jet! H-help!' Izzet called, and the darkness lessened just enough to see she was trapped against the wall by a tendril of what looked like slime and darkness. Grabbing it, and not thinking about what this gooey, slimy, unsanitary thing could be made of, ripped it with a single tug. It came loose with very little resistance, and as it broke, the darkness dissipated.

He pulled Izzet away from the wall, and the shuddering girl clutched at him. He looked up at the ceiling in time to see a message carved into the stone.

'I'm closer than you think.'

"Flux." Jet growled aloud, causing Izzet to look up at him worriedly. "Well, we at least know she's active."

'Can we get out of here? I can't see anything!' Izzet called out.

'No problem.' Jet replied, before picking up Izzet and carrying her in a bridal carry back to the manhole, before he used his unnatural strength to leap back out of it. Bursting forth, the sudden entry into the sunny street blinded him.

Shutting his eyes, he lowered Izzet down blindly, before catching an 'eww' from Ruby.

"What's the matter?" Jet asked, using his sixth sense to locate her while his eyes adjusted.

"You're all smelly, and covered in green…stuff." Ruby said.

"It does smell pretty bad." Lilac commented, as the silhouette of Weiss he could 'see' with his senses held its nose.

"Fine. Izzet and I will retreat to the showers." Jet announced. "Ruby, join up with Weiss and Lilac, but don't ever let yourself get hurt."

"Yes dad." Ruby said in a bored tone.

"Don't get up to anything funny, you two." Lilac added cheekily. Jet's eyes shot open and he knew Izzet would be surprised too.

"What do your take me for?" Jet countered, flashing her a grin. He then turned to Izzet. "We'll meet up at our dorm. See you there."

He then stopped time, and begun the journey back to Beacon, only remembering to take flight after making it about halfway. Truthfully, he was more than a little distracted by the repugnant smell coming from his hands.

Upon his warp to the dorm room, he discovered Izzet already there. She gave him a little smile, as if to say 'I beat you here.' He gave her a pragmatic grin, and realised that she had already showered. How she had done it that quickly was beyond him.

He tipped his head to the shower, and she nodded. Between him and his partner, no words were needed, telepathic or otherwise.

In Theyl, where they had first met, they were known as the Storm of Silence.

Entering the expanded shower (on Lilac's insistence – she was actually claustrophobic), he hit the on button and the water shot out in great gouts of icy streams. He retreated, shuddering from their touch, and raised the thermostat.

'Jet?' Izzet sent via telepathy as he stepped inside.

'Yes?' he returned as he begun washing his hands of the green goop that had covered him before.

'What's our next move?' she asked.

'Two days left before we move.' Jet replied. 'Ozpin will be offering us a mission which matches with ours. We strike Flux on that day.'

Jet leant back underneath the shower, allowing his hair to be soaked by the onrushing water.

'Do you think the others are ready?' Jet heard Izzet reply.

'Ready? In what way?' Jet responded. It took a small moment for Izzet to send her response.

'I think our spirits are low, even yours, Jet.' Izzet replied. 'Even if we work hard, morale can mean the difference between life and death out there. Belief is as important as strength or soul.'

'What do you suggest?' Jet asked. 'Some sort of uplifting activity?'

'Well…' Izzet mused as Jet rubbed shampoo into his black locks, 'perhaps we could take a leaf out of Yang's book. Invite all of them out to a bar, maybe a disco night? Something that is both bonding and exciting. Ruby's not of age, there again neither are you…' she trailed off.

'That shouldn't be a problem.' Jet replied. 'We can pass for eighteen, and if anyone gets near us, just remember what I am.'

'An Angel of Darkness.' Izzet asserted, as Jet washed the suds out of his hair. 'How are you feeling?'

Jet considered this as he switched the water off. He stepped out of the shower and reached for the towel marked with his name, black, like most things around him, and dried off. The question resonated within him.

How did he feel?

Fear. Determination. Anger. Insecurity.

All of these emotions surged through him in torrents, concealed behind his sanity, a roiling maelstrom that he did his utmost to conceal.

Fear of losing Ruby.

Determination of ending Flux's threat.

Anger at her disregard for humanity, and at the need to hide themselves in darkness.

Insecurity of his purpose, and his body, which was nearing the verge of destroying itself.

He tried to transmit that feeling to Izzet, the tide of emotions that he very rarely allowed to show. He hoped she'd gotten the message, the full feeling as only a telepath could feel it.

'Oh my.' was all she replied with, before he dressed and stepped through the door, into Izzet's waiting arms. 'You poor thing.'

Jet let her cuddle him. He needed it. His whole body was shaking. Rare was it that he felt this way, so uncertain, so vulnerable. His own emotions, mostly repressed ever since Flux had arisen again, finally shook him. He mentally slapped himself as his emotions continued to dominate his mind.

'Keep it together, you idiot.' Jet thought angrily to himself, but it seemed Izzet had heard him.

'Don't be so hard on yourself.' Izzet reprimanded, now refusing to let go. 'If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have seen just how badly you need support.'

'I don't need help.' Jet thought back. 'I need to be strong for those fighting with me, for Ruby, and for you.'

'No man is a fortress.' Izzet replied. 'If you insist on keeping yourself bottled up, then I won't force you. But at least let your true emotions loose while it's just you and me. I wanted to support you since the beginning, and I will not back down from the love of my life now.'

She was hugging him tighter as she said this, and she pulled him onto her own bed, never once letting go. She was right. He could drop the façade while he was with her, a privilege he didn't even get with Ruby, lest he worry her even more than she already was worried for him.

He heard the door to their dorm room open, and felt Izzet shift as she laid his head in her lap. His eyes were closed, but he still sensed his two teammates enter before jumping back in surprise.

"Sorry, Izzet. Ve have ze results." Nouvelle said, and Jet guessed that Izzet had reprimanded them for the noise.

"It's fine." Jet spoke aloud as he sat up, forcing Izzet to release him. "What did you all find?"

"So nothing." Jet concluded, after about five minutes.

"Yup." Lilac replied. "Apart from Izzet's fall, nothing much happened. Based on Team RWBY's reports, nothing useful was gleamed either. Junior didn't know much, Blake and Nouvelle's search came up with nothing, and we didn't see anything. What now?"

"We all know Flux will strike soon, thanks to our forewarning here." Jet said, patting Izzet's shoulder, causing the telepath to blush. "But after a bit of thought, I think we should cut loose. Send an invite to team RWBY to join us at Junior's bar right now. Once we do, we'll have a little fun for a change."

"Wait, I do not understand." Nouvelle quipped. "If Flux vill attack soon, we should be trying to defend against 'er. Drinking vill only make it easier for our enemies."

"That's the thing." Jet replied with a grin. "We know she won't move for another five days. We only need two to reach her. Do you really need three days to recover?"

His response was met by Lilac giving him her trademark cheeky grin, Nouvelle breaking into one of her own, and Izzet concealing her sign of happiness behind her hand.