A Semester Later

Location: Beacon Mess Hall

Aura POV

"Jeez Zinex can you look up from your scroll ever?" Yato asked trying to get Zinex's attention as he was reading something from his scroll. This was something that he had been doing as of recent, always on his scroll. Zinex glanced up at Yato with a sly grin on his face. I couldn't believe it had only been a semester since we all met, if felt like we had known each other for years...in fact I felt like we were brothers now.

"Can you ever look away from Yang for a second." Zinex asked Yato, who grimaced broadly. I chuckled a bit at Zinex's antics, as he looked back down at his scroll. He then shoved some fried rice into his mouth, which he seemed to eat a lot.

"I'm not with her today am I?" Yato asked back with a sort of 'aha' look. I then chose to enter the conversation.

"Isn't that because she said she wanted to spend some time with her sister?" I asked with a smile on my face as Yato's glare shot to me.

"Shut up!" Yato said loudly, then looked back to Zinex who was still reading off of his scroll.

"What are you doing Zinex? Yato has a point. You've been doing more reading than talking." Cypher pointed out not letting the conversation drop, Zinex rolled his eyes. I had my own theories of what was going on, things that had to do with his abnormal origins. Zinex looked up with a sly grin, broader than he had just a few seconds ago.

"Say's the guy who-" Zinex started to say but a fireball from a nearby candle flew from its wick, grew in size, then slammed into the table in front of Zinex making him flinch, which was something I had never seen before. He looked up with a look of false betrayal, barely hiding a comedic smile. "Hey… I taught you that, and you use it on me? I trusted you. You were my brother Cypher-"

"Well you were goi-" Cypher tried to complain but a lightning bolt dropped right in front of his face making him literally fall out of his seat. Zinex started laughing heavily.

"There you go." I chuckled as Yato helped Cypher up, who was cussing quite a lot.

"Yeah…" Yato said with a wide grin at Cypher's pain. "But seriously, what are you doing?"

"Remember the White Fang scroll I picked up a while back." Zinex asked, looking up at us, referring to the scroll that had given us the image of warehouse that can contain my missing parents.

"Yeah?" Yato said growling slightly, I guess he still isn't happy about his mother being here in Vale. Not that I was paying attention much, I was more focused on Team's RWBY and JNPR since they were much more entertaining at the moment; Ruby was giving a speech to her teammates while Yang was catching food in her mouth, which was being thrown at her by Nora. It was going fine until Nora threw an apple at Yang when she wasn't looking, who just threw it back. Well, that wasn't going to end well.

"Well I've been working on breaking through layers of firewalls as you would say and while most of the things that are on here are stupid, there is some interesting information." Zinex said then glanced back down to the scroll, scanning it once again. "For instance I just found that the location of the warehouse from the picture is somewhere on the southern outskirts of Vale. It's also called Transference as some sort of cover-"

"We should go." I said fearfully as my eyes started to widen. I was right, this was going to happening.

"But he isn't done talking." Cypher said not quite understanding the situation at hand as he couldn't see it... Just a second later, something large flew above all of our heads, and hit the abnormally strong window. We all turned around to see Jaune splattered against the wall of the mess hall.

"Hey Jaune, hanging around okay?" Zinex asked turning to face him as he slid down the wall.

"Yeah just fine." Jaune responded in obvious pain.

"Glad to hear that buddy." Zinex said with a grin. We all then got up and ran for the door. We just got away from the mess hall, only to be almost ran over by the dozens of other students fleeing the scene. Talk about the mother of all food fights.

"Well, that was something…" Yato said as more food was splattered across the window. I was still surprised by its superior strength.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" I asked worryingly as I looked through the window to see what was happening. All tables on the right side were stacked in a tower, which had Team JNPR on it, Team Ruby were on the opposite side of the Mess Hall ready to fight, and between them all was a mess of food.

"Course, their some of the best fighters I've ever seen." Zinex said reassuringly as we walked off, from the lunchroom. Zinex then got a serious expression on his face as he glanced at all of us, clapping his hands together which created a loud popping noise. "Anyway guys, time for a Real Talk."

"To the dorm!" Yato cheered as we started to walk off with a wide grin on his face. As we walked towards the dorm, I heard someone behind us.

"Hey, Aura!" Someone called. I turned around to see Velvet, the bunny faunus, waving to me, I noticed she was also standing next to someone else. The girl was slightly taller than Velvet and had had short, wavy dark-brown hair. She wore a bracelet with black roses as decoration, which were accompanied by black gloves and necklaces. She also wore a beret of a darker brown and a pair of black, wire-rimmed aviator sunglasses. She was holding a black shoulder bag with gold studs, which was held by a bandolier strap. Man… Serenity had taught me well.

"I'll see you guys at the dorm, I need to say hi." I said pointing to Velvet and her friend. They all looked at me and just laughed. "What?"

"Oh, nothing" Cypher said with a grin of pure humor as I frowned, I don't know why they all had similar grins.

"Have fun Romeo." Yato waved as he began walking to the dorm again. It took my brain a minute to register what he had meant by that, and when I did finally grasp what he meant I just blushed and groaned.

"Oh come on, it's not like that!" I shouted back to them flustered and annoyed, but none of them turned around to face me.

"Sure it wasn't" Zinex yelled sarcastically, as he waved. I just sighed and began walking to Velvet and her friend.

"Hey Velv." I greeted the nervous girl, who seemed to be shifting around rather uncomfortably.

"Hi Aura" She said kindly, yet nervously, with a giggle. "Aura, I would like you to meet my friend and teammate, and leader of team CFVY, Coco Adel" She said gesturing to her friend/leader named Coco, who held her hand out.

"Coco Adel." She said formally introducing herself as I shook her hand, she had quite the powerful grip.

"Aura Sharp." I said introducing myself to her. I waited for a laugh, even a chuckle, but it didn't come. I was immediately awestruck at the fact that she didn't even smile when she heard my name. "Wait… you didn't laugh at my name."

"No, I did. Velvet told me about you a while ago." I looked over to Velvet to see if this was true, to see her looking to the side rubbing her shoulder, I guess it was. "Anyway, I wanted to thank you for helping Velvet with Cardin Winchester, and for teaching him a lesson as well a while ago."

"It was no problem, really" I reassured with a warm smile.

"Ah, polite, smart, cute. I see why you went to him first Vel" Coco said nudging her friend, who was blushing madly. Again, it took my brain a second before putting the pieces together again, before I began blushing madly as well.

"It's. Not. Like that!" I fussed, obviously flustered by the fact that everyone in both our teams thinks we're together.

"Yeah yeah, anyway, we gotta go." She said turning around, grabbing Velvet by the arm and walking off. "Nice to meet you Aura"

"Same with you Coco" I said with a bow. "Bye Velvet."

"Bye Aura" Velvet said waving back at me. So that was Velvet's teammate? She seemed like a nice person. Realizing that I had plans of my own, I began to run back to my dorm, knowing that we had to discuss the plan of entrance into the warehouse.

Timeskip: Night

Location: Team AYZC Dorm

"So that's the plan, right?" Yato asked in a shaky voice as he seemed a bit confused about how our plan was going down.

"Yes, It's as Zinex said" I began to explain again for Yato's sake as well as mine. We had discussed so much it was hard to keep track. "We have enough information about the warehouse, so infiltration should be easy."

"Finally, we get to show these idiots whose boss." Cypher said cracking his knuckles as he chuckled a bit. Cypher was currently packing things for our plan to work. He was laying out black clothes for us as well so that we would be hidden.

"And thanks to our White Fang friend we have the location of their secret entrance to the building. All we need to do is get through these secret tunnels and we'll be there. That should keep us blind to the outside cameras." Zinex explained as he laid out a paper map of the building he had seemingly made. He had spent quite a large amount of time on this. "Now according to what I've seen there aren't any cameras on the inside of the building but from what I can find, it's shrouded in darkness."

"Really? Why does it have to be darkness?" Cypher growled in annoyance as he finished setting out out clothes, moving on to a backpack he was packing.

"Because faunus can see in the dark, the best way to stop their enemy is darkness. Humans don't have that luxury of amazing eyes." I pointed out and Yato nodded along with me.

"That's the basic idea." Zinex shrugged and Cypher sighed again.

"Then why are we wearing these black clothing?" He asked as he pointed to the combat clothing. "I did all of this and for nothing."

"Because their vision isn't perfect, the less light we reflect the less they will be able to see us." Zinex pointed out and Cypher gave up.

"Wait Zinex, what about your eyes? They uh… glow." Yato asked, which brought up a good point. His eyes were always something that alerted me to where he was in the dark, it was sort of like a beacon...no pun intended.

"That's why I have this." He said holding up a pair of sunglasses that seemed completely blacked out. "They will cloak my eyes, hopefully not getting us caught. Now by what I've seen the most logical place to hide people is in the main central bay as the entrance to the warehouse opens into an annoying maze meant to deter intruders. Luckily I've already memorized that pattern."

"Then we have the plan?" I asked standing up from where I had been sitting. "We save my parents and deal with any White Fang members that get in out way.?"

"Yeah and if we run into Iris…" Yato said clenching his fists in anger.

"We'll take her out Bro-man" Zinex said showing his trademark grin. It may not have been the most… complex plan, but it should work.

"Okay, seems like a plan, let's go" Yato said as we quickly got dressed, minus Zinex who was already wearing black. Yato then opened the door and exited, with Cypher in tow, carrying all of our stuff in a bag. Before I could go along with them, Zinex grabbed me by the shoulder, and looked at me with a serious look on his face.

"Aura, listen…" Zinex said sounding serious as the other two disappeared from sight "I don't know what it is, but I have a bad feeling in my gut about this. If I get detached from the group in any way, take this."

"What is it?" I asked confused about what he meant. He handed me his scroll which seemed to have a map on it. "Why are you giving me your scroll?"

"In case… just take it man. It has a map of the building on it, not to mention it has some other information important to us. Not to mention it can track me, just in case we get seperated." He said slightly tightening his grip on my shoulder. For the short while I knew Zinex, whenever he gets like this, there was always a concrete reason. If he said there's something wrong, there is something wrong.

"Okay bro, whatever you say…" I said holding a fist out for a fistbump, to which he returned.

"Hey guys…" Yato said peaking his head through the door, getting our attention. He had quite a large grin on his face. "Can you two make out later, we need to go." He said quickly bolting off, because he knew what was about to happen. Me and Zinex quickly ran after him, with anger in at least my veins.

"YATO, YOU STUPID LITTLE SHIT!" I yelled as I ran to catch up with him, he wouldn't be hearing the end of this anytime soon. Zinex and I eventually caught up to him and Cypher, who was running as well; but before any of us knew, we all bumped into someone, causing us all to fall over. When I recovered, I looked up to see Team RWBY getting up. Realizing that who we were on, I quickly pulled us off of them, getting a good look at everyone. Both of our teams paused.

Ruby was wearing an outfit consisting of a long-sleeve, light gray shirt with black belted cuffs near the ends of the sleeves. Over top of the gray shirt was a black pinafore with two vertical lines of red stitching that resemble the lacing on a corset. She wore a red skirt with a large black print of her emblem on the side and matching black tulle underneath. Her stockings and shoes remained the same as her usual outfit, though the boots lack the red trim that decorated the top. A few pieces of metal arranged in an abstract shape are attached to the shoulder of her left sleeve, and her cloak hood has been wrapped around her neck in a scarf-like fashion, while the rest hangs down like normal.

Yang was wearing an outfit consisting of a deep-collared cream vest worn over a low cut black shirt; both are covered by a dark gray shrug with a raised collar, three quarter sleeves adorned with a single black stripe down the outside of each sleeve, and gold cuffs. A black mini skirt was worn under the cream vest. A pair of crooked black belts with gold accents were slung around her hip, with a purple piece of fabric attached to the left-rear section of the lower belt. She wore thigh high stockings attached to her miniskirt by garter-belts on the front and back of each thigh, decorated with four golden studs above her knee and her emblem on the outside of each thigh in gold. She also wore black ankle boots with multiple buckles and white ribbons on the back tied in a bow. Around her neck was a purple pendant set in silver.

Blake was wearing an outfit consisting of a white, v-neck, zip-up crop shirt with a black hem and three quarter sleeves. Her emblem was printed in off-white on the left side of the shirt. She wore black pants that have a vertical gray stripe on the outer side of each leg and a black belt. Attached to the rear of the belt was a black piece of fabric that covers her from hip to hip. Underneath this was a longer, translucent, purple piece of fabric. She also wore black high-heel boots with two straps and buckles and purple undersoles, reaching to mid-calf. She retained the black ribbons on her forearms and her black bow.

And finally, Weiss was wearing an outfit that consisted of a white, double-breasted jacket with black piping, cuffs and buttons over a white, pleated full skirt with black lace trim. She also wore a pair of white, thigh high boots with black heels and lace-topped black stockings. Out of everyone's outfits, Weiss's was the most simplistic.

"We never saw each other." Zinex said, the first to speak when no one else did. Both of our teams we're obviously doing something we weren't supposed to be.

"Never." Yang said, obviously just as guilty as we were.

"And we're obviously not going anywhere we shouldn't be?" Zinex said in a questioning tone as we stayed silent.

"Obviously." Weiss agreed glancing at her team.

"Good luck then...on sleeping of course." Zinex said specifically looking at Blake this time, did he know what they were up to?

"You too…" Blake said slowly as we walked around each other and headed in separate direction. Well, that had been awkward.

"Do you k-" I was about to ask but Zinex held up his finger.

"Like I said, we didn't see them." He said quickly then began leading us to wherever the tunnel was, that part he hadn't told us, I sincerely hoped we were ready for this and Zinex's feelings weren't right.

Location: Vale: White Fang Warehouse

"This should be it." Zinex said as we stopped in front of an unmarked building that seemed rather run down. It didn't really look to me like a place I wanted to stop at, as it seemed rather… destroyed and univiting.

"Are you sure this is the place we're looking for?" I asked as he pulled out his sword, which seemed to shimmer in the darkness. For some reason the sword he was holding looked different, but due to the darkness around us and the pure black of the sword I couldn't be sure. He walked to the door, which had a rather large chain on it and winded up. He swung down on the chain and I expected it to bounce off but his sword cut right through causing a shriek noise to piece my sensitive ears.

"What the hell, Z?" Yato asked in a irritated voice as Zinex turned back around, his sword gone from his hands.

"Cyphers fire would have taken too long, the longer we spend here the easier it will be to get caught." He pointed out as he opened the door for us, his eyes glowing in the darkness of the area. It seemed to blind me just a little bit, but I blamed that on the lack of light around.

"As if what you just did wouldn't have done the same." I groaned in pain and irritation. Zinex laughed a little as we all walked through. When we entered the abandoned building we noticed it had been a store that sold dust, how fitting.

"Alright where's the entrance?" Cypher asked as he set the backpack down in front of the door as Zinex shut it. Cypher pulled a device out of the bag and began setting up what looked to be a tripwire.

"In the middle of the store, should lead us to the tunnel." Zinex said as he walked to the middle and pulled a trapdoor open like he knew it was there. I suddenly began to share his feelings of nervousness, something really didn't seem right.

"Alright Zinex I got the warning set." Cypher said quickly as he was the first to go down the trapdoor, leaving the backpack behind. It seemed Zinex hadn't exactly told all of us the same plan, I never remembered him tell us about a trap at the main door. I didn't bother to ask what he had planned because I knew from experience that he wouldn't give me a straight answer.

"Alright then I guess it's time for these." Zinex said putting on the pair of sunglasses which nearly made him invisible as I no longer could see his eyes. I did notice a very soft and faint glow around him, was that the false aura he had told me about. However as I looked more I noticed it disappear, at least he was saving his energy.

"Alright then so we go." Yato said as we all made our way to the tunnel, which made the darkness even more oppressing. Even my faunus eyes couldn't pierce the darkness, I had no clue which was was what. Suddenly I saw a faint glow just a bit in front of me, it was just a small point of yellow light but it was enough for me to see.

"Follow me." I heard Zinex say in a soft tone. As the point of light began to move further away from me. I followed it and heard nothing but the sound of muffled footsteps for quite a long time. It honestly felt like we had been walking forever until the point of light finally stopped. "We're here. From here on out, I can't guide you as well. You'll have to really pay attention to my outline, don't speak. Just follow. If you get seperated just keep moving, it's a maze. The more lost you get the safer you'll be from the White Fang, but do not run, yell, or use any form of weapons or semblances until you make it to the inner circle. We cannot afford to break our cover until we get Aura's parents. Now let's go."

I began to follow as we walked out in more complete darkness and honestly I didn't notice any change we went through from the tunnel to the warehouse, even the air felt the same. I didn't hear either Cypher nor Yato beside me, and I didn't dare lose the outline of Zinex. After a few minutes of the slowest walking possible, I thought we were finally getting somewhere, that is until I smacked my head into something and stumbled back smacking into what I assume to be Yato or Cypher. I felt a pair of hands grab me before I fell or moved any further, judging by how large they were I sort of knew it was Cypher.

"Sorry." I muttered as I put my hand on Cypher's shoulder.

"Where is Zinex? And Yato?" I heard him right in my ear, talking as quietly as possible. I looked around and couldn't see either outlines of them, they were completely gone from sight. I resisted the urge to call out for them, even though I wanted to extremely badly. I remembered Zinex's conversation with me earlier about him getting lost from me, and remembered the scroll he had given me.

"Are you wearing your leather jacket?" I asked nearly without voice as I pulled out Zinex's scroll.

"Yes." He answered, I pulled up one side and he took the hint and pulled up the other. I hoped this would block the light from the scroll. I turned it on and Zinex had kept his scroll on the darkest possible setting, thankfully. The map was already loaded onto the scroll as I turned it on, and it showed me my location but unlike Zinex had said, it didn't show him. How odd.

"Okay we have to shuffle so I can direct us." I said as quietly as possible as I began to lead our shuffle. It took literally ten minutes for us to shuffle to the center of the warehouse, which was absolutely excruciating. I quickly pulled away from Cypher's jacket and turned the scroll off. I looked around for the outline of anyone but saw nothing. It seemed completely barren here. I walked around the circle looking for anything but I found nothing, it was just an empty place.

"Isn't this the middle of the warehouse?" I asked confused glancing at Cypher who probably couldn't see a thing. What had happened I thought they were supposed to be here?

"Indeed it is…" A calm feminine voice rang out. Before either of us could react, several large and powerful lights turned on and streamed towards us, temporarily blinding me. When my eyes adjusted, I looked around to see that me and Cypher were surrounded by several dozen White Fang members, all holding guns pointed at us. I quickly held my hands up as Cypher had done. Up on a catwalk that was above us stood a woman with a pure red dress on that seemed rather tight. She had what looked to be a four daggers on her belt that all were blood red. "Hello Cypher and Aura, I'm so pleased that you could join us."

"Iris... " I growled in anger at seeing her. While I didn't know for sure what Yato's mom looked like, his description of her matched quite well. Just the expression on her face made my skin crawl.

"It's a pleasure to see you here tonight, Mister Sharp. I will give you credit, your approach method was something I hadn't expected. But of course that is something we can discuss later." She said ever so calmly, which just pissed me off even more. "Would you like something to drink, or are you here for something else?"

"Cut the crap!" I yelled in anger, but not moving. I didn't dare test the people surrounding me. She laughed a little, obviously not caring about my emotions. "Where are my parents!?"

"Oh, your parents?" She asked sounding cocky. "I never had them…"

"What!?" I yelled in anger as Cypher stayed oddly silent. He seemed to be looking in another direction, just beyond Yato's mom.

"Or should I say I did have them." She said starting to laugh at my confusion. "They both managed to escape me sadly. But to my surprise and enjoyment you, their son, show up instead. Isn't that just wonderful? Not to mention with my deserter of a son." She said starting to laugh hysterically.

The image… it was fake!? And she never had my… argh! This fucking bitch played us. As I was thinking, I heard a lot of struggling as looked to the source of it and saw Yato being brought in by four guys. He looked badly bruised and beaten. His left eye was swollen shut and I noticed multiple cuts and rips in both his skin and clothes. He looked at me with anger in his non-swollen eye.

"Speaking of my bastard son, here he is." Iris said with her smile even wider. Hearing this just made my blood boil hotter than it ever has. I growled in anger, but I knew if I tried to move I would meet an even worse fate that he. I looked back to Iris as my anger began to build more and more, hate rising in my body. She seemed to look around for something else. "Where is the other one?"

"We could not find him Lady Iris." One of the faunus said that was finishing restraining Yato so that he couldn't move. Iris growled then with a quickness I had never seen before, she threw a knife directly at the faunus's head, ripping right through it. It broke my anger immediately and instead brought a sickness to my stomach. I turned away not wanted to see it, and instead looked up to Iris. Now with my anger out of the way, I felt fear build in my stomach. She was ruthless, uncaring and brutal… she was not going to spare us. As I looked at her rather insane gaze I began to notice something behind her, edging closer and closer to her. At first I thought it was my imagination but as I scanned the thing more I noticed one detail that brought a smile to my face… a pair of glowing yellow eyes.