Author's Note: I can be an ass sometimes, and I love it. Here is the original Author's Note, for proof:

Author's Note: Ah, the familiar routine. I write a chapter, you review that chapter, those reviews stroke my ego, I write another chapter. The way it was meant to be… :P

I have decided to make the Author's note in bold type, because variety is the spice of life. Some might argue that continuity would be a wiser choice, but seriously, who wants continuity in their writing? ugh.

Things are really picking up, now, aren't they? It'd be a shame if I were to throw a curveball in there, huh?

Also, this chapter introduces a new type of time skip, or whatever you'd like to call the setting for each section of the chapter.

Past

(Jaune's POV)

"Just stay with me, Ruby. It'll be over soon enough, just don't die on me." I muttered whatever calmed me down the most as I laid Ruby down on the small Medic's cot on the dropship. "If you die, you have no idea how bad things will be for me." A healthy dose of selfishness; that will make her want to live. "I promise, this will all be worth it."

I set her down and wrapped her abdomen with cloth as tightly as I could in such short notice, but I needed to get the engines running. I stepped back and observed for a split-moment to ensure something drastic wouldn't happen as soon as I turned my back. Nothing did, so I ran to the pilot's console and primed the engines with the key I had stolen not too long ago. It's amazing what you can find in an abandoned hangar during an emergency.

I rushed back over to Ruby to apply more pressure on her wounds, or at least the dangerous one. One of the shots grazed her side and barely did anything more than scratch her, but the one I'm worried about hit near her belly button. I'm certainly not qualified to pull these out, so the best I can do is keep pressur—

My thoughts were cut off as cold steel came to rest against the side of my neck, pressed in hard enough to draw a small amount of blood—just enough to confirm to my attacker that I had no aura left.

"What the hell is this?!" Neo's voice came from the side. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was slightly pleased that she deigned it necessary to use her voice for me. Somewhere else in my mind recognized how bad it was that she felt it necessary to threaten me with her voice. "You know the deal, Jaune. If she dies before I get what I want, then she won't be the only one."

"Well, in the spirit of not-killing Ruby, why don't you fucking take off already? We'll have to drop her off anonymously at an emergency room, unless you have a roaming squad of criminal surgeons that can meet us at the safe house." With a very frustrated huff, Neo withdrew her umbrella-blade and walked over to the console, where she started checking gauges and flipping switches until we were beginning to lift off.

"I'll shoot Mercury an encrypted text and let him know we had to find an alternate exit strategy. Think he's on to us?" I asked as I pulled out my scroll, then realized that my hands were too bloody from trying to help Ruby, who had now lost consciousness. On the up side, her bleeding was slowing and it was looking as if I didn't kill her, which was a very, very good thing. "On second thought, I can't type with my hands soaked in blood."

"Why not? I do it all the time…" Neo called back in a tone that left me uncertain whether or not she was kidding. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her pull out her scroll and begin typing one-handed without ever looking at the screen. "I'll take care of it. You just don't let her die…yet."

"What's our ETA? Oh, and…we do have the cargo, right?"

"I'd say five minutes out, and yes, of course we do. What do I look like, you?"

It's unsettling to hear her speak, and not just because she's only used it to threaten my life and insult my most basic functionality.

Silence fell in the ship as we glided down to the city below. All around us there were escape pods that had been launched and even a few other airships, Atlas and Mistralian, flying around with no one shooting them down, meaning that Mistral must have been informed that this was not an invasion. It also likely meant that no one would bat an eye when we flew down among all the escape pods.

"Well, if this isn't just a perfect metaphor," I joked darkly as I looked down at my hands, still covered in Ruby's blood as I kept pressure on her wounds. Neo looked back to see what I was talking about, but only rolled her eyes and resumed piloting. "Blood on my hands. Today did not go entirely like I had hoped it would." My musing was met with silence by Neo, though whether she was angry still, I couldn't tell.

"How many did you kill?" Neo asked finally, catching me off guard. "No plan survives contact with the enemy. We both made it to the ship, we have Ruby—though worse for wear, it's still a bonus—and Mercury is none the wiser. With all that went right, something had to go wrong for you."

"F-five." I choked out in response. "I…I killed five people that I had no intention of doing so to. They…they didn't deserve it, you know? But needs must." Neo didn't answer, but she didn't need to. It was obvious that I wasn't trying to convince her that my actions were justified; she had likely long ago made her peace with ending someone else's life. No, it certainly wasn't her I was trying to convince.

"They were just doing their jobs. Th-they didn't know. They couldn't have, could they? Do you think they could see it in my eyes, that I was sorry but I had to?"

I was met with silence.

"I stared directly into this one guy's eyes. He was just at the terminal in the observation deck, minding his own business. I charged in and he saw me attack Ironwood. I had to do it; I couldn't just leave such a large loose end. We need as much time bought as we can get, right?"

Silence. The hum of the engines, the howl of the wind, and nothing more.

"Jaune." Neo barked back sharply, trying to get my attention. "Focus. If this all fails, they died for nothing. When we land, I have an associate who can do some emergency surgery on Ruby and dig out the bullets. From there, I'll have someone take her to the hospital. Do you remember your jobs?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Intercept Mercury. One of two landing spots, I go to one and you the other. Are your teams in place?" Neo nodded and I nearly fell over as Neo pulled up to slow our decent suddenly. She's not kidding around; we're coming in hot.

"I don't think a team of thugs alone is going to be enough to get him. One of us has to be there."

We landed shortly in the lawn of one of Neo's large mansion properties, and as soon as we did teams of people started rushing on the ship as I made my way off. Two men with laptops and wires, here to disable the ship's tracking. Several men pushed through with some medical supplies, so Ruby would (probably) be fine. Others still walked around to the cargo hatch with an empty cargo crate.

I pushed out and found two motorcycles waiting, engines already started. I hopped on—and yes, I put the helmet on—and switched the engine into gear. Thank dust that my dad forced me to learn how to drive a stick. It may not have been a motorcycle, but it was enough to get me through it.

I made my way through traffic at a frantic pace that scared the daylights out of me, but I didn't have the luxury of slowing down. If I was sticking to the script, it would still be pushing it for time. But…I had one more stop I needed to make. I pulled up in front of the Nikos' residence and dismounted the motorcycle, while leaving it running.

I walked up to their front porch and took off Crocea Mors, laying it gently in front of their door. I sat there and stared at it for a moment, the pristine sword and sheath combo almost mocking me now.

"Fair's fair. I used her weapons to re-forge mine. Besides, it's not something I deserve to wield anymore."

I ran back to the bike and hoped back on, racing a few blocks away until I came across a storage facility. I didn't have time to worry about not appearing normal as I charged through, using the codes Neo had lent me. I finally found the locker and opened it, revealing one of Torchwick's weapon caches—and not just normal thug weaponry. These were weapons that would suit a Huntsman…in a pinch, at least. I didn't have time to be picky or to grab something specialized, so I grabbed some pistols and tucked them in my waistline, before grabbing an unassuming sword—nearly as long as mine, but nothing so drastic that I couldn't use it—and a plain old square shield.

Now armed, I locked the shed back up and raced back outside to the motorcycle, before I drove off to where I hoped on my life that Mercury would not be landing.

Mercury had not landed at my landing zone, and after an hour of waiting, I had ordered Neo's thugs to follow me to the original rendezvous that Mercury would have made his way to after landing—and where he would have expected Neo and I to meet him. However, after a few more hours waiting there—with radio silence from both Neo and Mercury—I dispersed the thugs.

Another three hours of waiting before I finally got a text.

Ice-Cream: Got him. Successfully. Have been handling other things. R alive too. Meet at Point Charlie.

Me: Copy.

The spot I had been waiting for Mercury had been a coffee shop—a real hole-in-the-wall sort of place that would have hidden us from view well enough—and it was in a semi-seedy part of town. Because of that, I didn't understand all the weird looks that I received when I stood up and destroyed my scroll. Surely these people have seen someone who didn't want to be tracked; this is the kinda place where you just look the other way.

Behind me, I heard an explosion. A very familiar explosion, too. As soon as I heard it, I understood why everyone was looking at me funny. It was because there was a furious berserker launching herself at me, with murder very plainly plastered across her face. Oh, and the battle cry she let out was terrifying, too.

"JAAAAAAAAUUUUUNNNNNNEEEE!" Nora's voice approached me at an alarming pace, letting me know just exactly when her hammer would collide with my face. Spoiler alert, it didn't take long. I was launched into a brick wall with enough force to shatter a lot of the brick, and I slumped down immediately. My aura, which had been repairing itself slowly since earlier, shattered again as I hit the wall, leaving me battered and defenseless after one blow.

I looked up just in time to see Nora's hammer coming down on me, and before I could even process what would easily be a killing blow, it was deflected to hit the dirt next to my head by Ren.

"NORA!" He screamed, only just barely breaking her of her attempted murder. Well, it wouldn't be murder, I suppose. She'd more likely get a medal than handcuffs. "We still don't have Ruby!"

Heh. Nothing to do with not wanted to kill a friend. As if to accentuate that he wasn't opposed to violence against me, Ren swiftly kicked me in the temple, knocking me out.

Present

(Dr. Watts' POV)

"Ah, Mr. Arc. I had begun to believe that no one survived your mission. It's been over 24 hours with no contact from any of you." I stated flatly, though my real meaning was not difficult to infer.

"Yes, well, our escape plan hit a snag." The boy stated back.

"And what would that have been?"

"We never got the chance to use them." He stated back quickly, though he didn't seem invested in his own joke. "Atlas clamped down on both Mercury and myself much more quickly than they should have. Neo evaded capture and came back to get me out of custody."

The boys answer felt very carefully worded, and while that was suspicious, it didn't necessarily mean that he was lying. He clearly recognizes the importance of me believing whatever he tells me, so he's just as likely to rehearse the truth as he is a lie; a truth, poorly told, is easily mistaken for a lie, after all.

"So you left Cinder's man to rot in an Atlas prison?" I asked pointedly, hoping to test him. If what he was telling was the truth, then it would be easy to separate it from a lie with a little pressure.

"Mercury was never on the books. As a terrorist, they took him to some unlisted torture site, I'm sure. Jaune wasn't a wanted terrorist, and he was a former Huntsman, so it was more difficult to make him disappear." It was the girl—Neo, Torchwick's successor, if rumors are anything to go by—who answered. Disappointing that the kid kept his mouth shut there, but again, it was a situation where he wouldn't have had an answer anyways.

"Well, I assume this call is to confirm that you completed the mission?" I wasn't ready to believe everything they had said, but whether or not I believed it, there still was the matter of the original goals of the mission. A raw data hack—possibly even just stolen hard drives—means there is no telling what was recovered, but that also means there's a chance that there's something fun on them. "I'll need to speak with my employer about getting your payment shipped to Mistral, and from there we will orchestrate a simple exchange. That is assuming, of course, that you still have something to exchange that is…worthwhile."

My words were a very clear challenge to the boy to produce something of actual value, and I know that he recognizes it. The stakes here are much higher for him than they are for us, after all.

To my slight surprise, the boy didn't shy away at my pointed words; in fact, he actually grinned at me.

"Well…" he reached down and picked up what appeared to be two hard drives that had been resting out of frame, "…it seems that I have two Atlas hard drives right here, cherrypicked—or rather, cherry-yanked—from the 'hush hush, no no' server hidden deep in Atlas' onboard server room. These must have loads of juicy secrets, huh, Neo? How much data do you think is here?" The boys voice grew bolder—playful, even—as he riffed with the girl next to him.

"Oh, I'd say at least a gigabyte." She answered back playfully, much to my surprise. For someone who refuses to speak, she sure seems to talk a lot.

"Oh wow, a whole gigabyte? That sounds like a lot!" The boy mocked back, before finally turning his face back to the camera. "How does that sound, a whole gigabyte of Atlas state secrets?"

"If you only recovered one gigabyte from two hard drives, then I would say you probably just got your friend killed." I answered back flatly, although I did enjoy playing their little game. I just preferred to win it.

"Aw, shucks. Well, we tried, huh?" The boy answered back, still mocking. With any of Salem's other generals—or dust forbid, Salem herself—such flippant behavior would have very quickly caused violence, but truth be told, that never was my style. When you keep the grand scheme in mind, small things like this were no annoyance. "Wait, aren't I forgetting something? It seems like I had something else I wanted to show you."

I raised an eyebrow as he looked to Neo with his faux-concern on his face; she just shrugged at him. Had he brought more than the deal required of him? Smart kid, apparently. Trying to appease Salem with an additional offering, or hoping to sweeten the pot so as to ensure that he got his payment.

"Oh! I remember now!" He announced as he pointed the camera off to the side, where someone small was on their knees—in chains, with a bag over their head. The boy walked over and removed the bag, and this time I made no effort to conceal my surprise. "Ta-da!"

Sitting there on her knees, with her neck and her wrists in chains, was Ruby Rose, the girl that Tyrian failed to abduct not a month ago. Salem had ordered her to be captured alive or otherwise left untouched, meaning that if you could not guarantee that you could capture her without causing her harm, then you should not try: doing so required a great deal of confidence, which was why it was all the more surprising that Salem's sanctioned attack by Tyrian failed. This…this is unexpected.

What the Arc boy did not need to know was that Salem had already authorized me to make the exchange, though it did not come without her instructions. The orders were short but specific: no double crossing him, and don't show up in person. Salem seems intent this deal go through and that Miss Nikos be returned, so whatever she did to try to convince her not to take up arms again, she must trust the results. The other part of the order was more confusing. Why wouldn't I be there in person for an exchange? Conventional wisdom says it means she expects to be double crossed, but I can always bring more men; it isn't as if there is a threat. Could it be about insubordination? So far, the Salem has shown this boy far more interest—and lenience—than any of us would have. Judging by the sharp words I received earlier, she knows how we all view this situation, as well, so this order could be to keep me from investigating the boy further.

Under the expected circumstances, it was an order that I would begrudgingly follow. But now, when this boy is offering up a prisoner that Tyrian couldn't even capture as a bonus to sweeten the deal? Well, now I just have to meet this kid.

"I…am not often at a loss for words, but it appears you have stunned me here, Mr. Arc. I have many questions, but they can best be summarized by 'how?'

"Earlier you were a prisoner of Atlas, and now not only are you free, but you also took a highly sought-after prisoner?"

"Ah, well…" The boy fumbled his words. It would seem his prepared lines didn't cover this, but I hardly noticed. I still can't fully believe it. "It was certainly a crime of opportunity. One might even say it was dumb luck."

I narrowed my eyes at his answer. "Mr. Arc, I was under the impression you didn't believe in luck."

"Heh. I make my own luck." He answered quietly, after a small chuckle. It was almost as if it was an inside joke with himself.

"I shall send the details of the exchange to your scroll shortly. My employer will be…quite pleased, I am sure."

With a short nod exchanged, I ended the call. Immediately, I began dialing in the encrypted address for Salem's private communications line. It rang for a few moments before being answered.

"Yes, Watts? What news necessitated this call?"

"My Queen, I have quite the news for you…"

Future

(Salem's POV)

"Mr. Arc, please take a seat. Ms. Nikos too." I called out as the two in question strode through the door. The table I sat at was empty—I had already sent all of my minions away for the time being. This meeting was to be a private affair, and one that I have been looking forward for a long time, though I must say I was surprised that Jaune would show up uninvited.

"Why, Jaune Arc, are you here?" I asked.

"I'll tell you why. My mother had this…thing about her, where if she learned any minuscule detail of your life through means other than you telling her, she instantly decided that things were the worst case scenario."

"From what I understand, things with you usually are the worst case scenario."

"The problem…" he continued, slightly aggravated that I had interjected. It takes a lot of courage—and foolishness—to treat me like that. "…with this policy of paranoia, is that once she has made up her mind, no amount or reasoning can change it. In the long run, it is much smarter to control how she discovers your secrets so that you can do damage control. And if she did find something on her own, you have to 'come clean' about it before she ever confronts you about it."

"And that is why you are here? I remind you of your mother?" I asked, slightly bemused. His analogy, however, did make sense.

"Oh hell no. You're way less scary, but you resemble her, so I would prefer to not piss you off…anymore so that I already have."

"You have certainly grown bold, Jaune." I responded with a light chuckle. "I will say, there are not many people in this world who would—quite frankly—have the balls to double cross me. But of those who have, they have then spent their life running, nay, praying that I did not find them. And yet, here you sit before me as a guest."

The boy had the good sense to flinch as I mentioned double-crossings, so at least he isn't stupid, though I'm sure that had already been established.

"Look, I'm here to explain to you why I did it, and hopefully convince you to either not hold a massive grudge, or to at least not take it out on those around me." The boy looked up to meet my eyes, and made a point of holding my gaze, either to show he was not afraid or that he was serious. "I'm sure that you're aware what my friends mean to me, and they didn't have anything to do with this. Everything I did, I did it without their knowledge, so it should only be me that you come after." The girl at his side shot him a look, but was easily pacified when he glanced her way for a moment. She's wrapped around his finger.

"Well, Mr. Arc, I'm all ears."

Author's Note 2: This last section required an edit to keep it consistent with how the story actually plays out. I wrote this section just to set up an easy epilogue in the Future setting, but as it drew closer I changed some of the delivery to make a better ending/epilogue, and this last section has been changed to be consistent with that.