Alright, after last chapter, it's time to get back on track with the overall story. Before that though, I'd like to say how amazed I am at how popular this is. 87 followers and 43 favorites after 10-11 days is insane to me. I really hope everyone continues to enjoy the story and is happy with the quality. There will be a question at the bottom for everyone though, so please read the note down there.

Chapter 14: Out of the Shadows

"Some secrets must eventually see the light of day. Sometimes, you don't get to choose when or how it happens, other times you simply aren't prepared for what you will learn. It is for these reasons that you must always be prepared for anything and expect your view of the world to be shaken at any moment." -Oscar Zoroaster, commenting on Aurelius' return from self-exile and the resulting revelations

Beacon Academy, Bisman's classroom

The students let out a relieved sigh as the bell rang before Professor Bisman spoke up. "Before you leave, I thought I should inform you all that this class will be suspended until after the Vytal Festival." A few cheers went through the class before he spoke up. "As some of you may have heard from rumors, Vale has authorized for Beacon to send an expedition to Draconys. It has been deemed necessary that someone with knowledge of the language used on the continent take part to simplify the process. I will still be here for the next week, during which you may approach me with questions. Now, I bid you all a good day."

Everyone filed out as Ruby blinked at the man standing in front of the classroom before she felt a tugging on her arm, causing her to look at her sister. "C'mon Rubes, I thought we were going to go have dinner with Weiss and Blake. We were going to have some fun as a team, remember?"

Ruby pulled her hood up as soon as the words "dinner with Weiss" left Yang's lips. The faunus was having a hard time getting her white-haired teammate out of her head the last few days and this didn't help matters. "Calm down Ruby, you're hanging out with your team, it's not a date or anything… But it would be nice I guess…" She followed along behind Yang before she spoke up. "So how are you and Blake doing? I haven't really seen the two of you together all that much."

Yang sighed. "We're doing fine I guess. I mean, other than her hating my puns we get along pretty well. She tells me stuff about what being a faunus is like outside Vale sometimes and, well, I can kinda see why she doesn't trust most humans. She just needs someone that's willing to see past her ears…" Yang smirked and looked at Ruby out of the corner of her eye. "Kinda like you and Ice Queen." Ruby turned a bright red. "Come on, did you really think I wouldn't notice the way your eyes light up whenever someone mentions her name. Besides, I think your puppy love is so cuuuute!"

Ruby turned as red as her cape. "Y-Yang! You have to promise you won't tell anyone, alright? Weiss already gets weirded out by me loving her music so much!"

Yang held her hands in front of her. "Alright, alright, geez Rubes. It was a joke."

Ruby took a breath before responding. "Besides, if you spent any more time with Blake, people might get the same idea."

Yang sputtered before she responded. "It's not my fault nobody else wants to spar with me!"

"I can't fight with you if you use Dragon's Fury, Yang. Weiss is still practicing with Flash Freeze, so she couldn't put up a fight that well. And it kind of is your fault since everyone's terrified of you after you threatened to fuse Cardin's armor together with him in it. Honestly, I think everyone's surprised Blake's even willing to step into the ring without requesting any restrictions on you."

Yang let out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right…" Yang wouldn't admit it, but Blake was the only person besides Ruby that was willing to start a conversation with her. "C'mon, we'd better hurry before the kitty cat and Ice Queen get mad at us." Ruby rolled her eyes before the two started running.

Near Vale's Docks

Ruby looked around in wonder at the people setting up banners and decorations. While the other girls had been to the Vytal Festival at least once, this was the first time Ruby was seeing anything on this scale. "Wow, it's still a month or two away and they're already starting to set things up?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Dolt, most of the plans are put in place at least a year before the Festival happens. Besides, the Vytal Festival starts about a month before the tournament and ends two or three weeks after, so they need all the time they can get."

"So why are we by the docks exactly?" Yang asked in confusion.

"I've heard that students from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. I felt that it would be a good idea to be here to greet them to make a good first impression."

Blake turned to Yang before speaking up. "She wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament."

Weiss scoffed. "You can't prove that! And if it was true-"

"Whoa…" Everyone turned to look at Ruby as she looked down the street at a store. The door was completely destroyed with several rolls of police tape covering the entrance. Ruby walked up to the officer out front, her team behind her, before speaking up. "What happened here?"

The officer looked up. "Robbery. Second Dust shop hit this week. It's getting insane." The officer left and team RWBY turned around to leave before Ruby stopped, hearing a second officer.

"They left all the money again." The group turned around to listen as the first officer responded.

"Yeah, it doesn't make a lick of sense. Who needs that much Dust?" When his partner shrugged, the detective continued. "You thinking the White Fang?"

Weiss crossed her arms and turned around with a sigh. "Well, it has to be either the White Fang or that Torchwick from before the year started. They're all just a bunch of degenerates I suppose."

"What's your problem?" Blake asked, bow twitching in annoyance.

"My problem? I just care for a group of lunatics and psychopaths."

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths. They're a collection of misguided faunus."

"Maybe that could be said a few years ago, but how can you call any group that wants to wipe out humanity "misguided" exactly?"

"Okay, so they're very misguided. It doesn't explain why they'd attack a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale."

Ruby hummed, tapping her chin for a moment. "Blake's got a point. I might not like the White Fang, but I don't see a reason for them to do this. Besides, you said it yourself Weiss, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into at the beginning of the year."

"Yeah, it could be him, but the White Fang's been going after SDC shipments for years. My family owns 60-80% of the world's Dust market, Ruby. Most Dust shops have at least some Dust mined by the SDC in stock. It's just what the White Fang do lately," Weiss said with a sigh.

Before anyone could continue, the group was interrupted by shouting from the ship as a faunus with a monkey tail ran past them with the two officers chasing him, causing Yang to smirk at the heiress. "Well, you wanted to see the competition. And there it goes."

"Quick! We have to observe him!" The four took off after the faunus and officers, rounding a corner before Weiss ran into something, falling over. Weiss watched the faunus boy round a corner before sighing and looking down, causing her to jump up when she saw the girl under her. After a brief and strange introduction with the girl and a slip up on Ruby's part, Weiss chose to speak up at the mention of the Vytal Festival Tournament. "Wait, you're in the tournament?"

Penny saluted as she spoke. "I'm combat ready!"

"Forgive me, but you don't look the part."

"Said the girl in a dress," Blake chimed in.

"It's a combat skirt!" Weiss retorted, arms crossed as Ruby appeared next to her in the same pose.

"Yeah!" the faunus girl stated before high fiving the heiress.

Yang sighed. "I swear you two are rubbing off on each other way too much."

"Wait a minute, if you're here for the tournament, do you know the degenerate we were chasing?" Weiss asked, getting a blank stare

"Who?"

"The stowaway from the boat!"

"Stop calling him that! He's a person, not some criminal!" Blake snapped, causing Weiss to look at her in confusion.

"Are you seriously taking offense to the fact I'm calling a faunus that snuck onto a boat a criminal now?"

"Just stop it!"

"What am I doing? He broke the law, he tried to sneak into Vale without anyone noticing him, and now he's running from the police. For all we know, he could be working with the White Fang."

Blake growled. "You… Ignorant little brat!" she growled out before starting to walk off.

"How dare you talk to me like that!" Weiss shouted back before Blake turned around.

"You're just a judgemental little girl Weiss, that's all you are," Blake growled before Weiss' eyes narrowed, glancing up at the other girl's bow.

"Are you honestly saying that you want a group of murders who don't care to pick their targets to represent you and Ruby?" Weiss said, causing Blake to flinch. "I know about the ears. Kind of hard not to when I'm partnered up with Ruby and how expressive hers are. It never seemed like it'd matter until now. The White Fang have made things worse for everyone, human and faunus."

"That doesn't give you the right to group us all in with them!"

Weiss scoffed. "Do I sound like I'm grouping every faunus in with the White Fang? Every group, every family, has good and bad individuals, even the faunus. The White Fang are just the worst of all. Do you know what they've done to my family? Growing up I had to watch family friends vanish, board members get executed, not knowing if tomorrow it'd be me… And then, every day, my father would come home furious, making it that much harder on me." Ruby went to put a hand on Weiss' shoulder before she spun around to glare at Blake. "That's what the White Fang are, Blake. They're liars, thieves, and murderers!"

"Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!" Blake shouted before she could stop herself. Weiss took a step back and shouted after the girl as she ran down the street.

"Then maybe you should have waited a bit longer or picked your targets better!"

Ruby made a move to go after her fellow faunus. "Blake! Wait! Come back!"

Weiss sighed as she grabbed her partner's wrist. "Ruby… We both know we won't be able to find her if she wants to stay hidden."

Ruby looked down sadly before speaking up. "B-but… she's our teammate, even if she is, or was White Fang."

Yang looked in the direction her partner ran, frowning slightly. "You sure about that, pup? The White Fang did make it hard on you growing up… How many people do you think she's hurt."

Surprisingly it was Weiss who spoke up. "It's possible she never directly hurt someone… Or at least never killed anyone. A few White Fang members were captured from time to time and a lot of them didn't even know about the assassination attempts beyond the ones my dad couldn't keep quiet. I… I think the White Fang kept their more… Questionable activities secret from most of their members. It's possible that Blake just never knew about any of what they really did."

The group let out a sigh as they started walking down the street before Ruby spoke up, stepping away from her enraged sister. "Yang, can you calm down? You're going to set my cloak on fire…"

Vale's Streets, a few days later

Yang wasn't the kind of person to regret the things she said or did. She'd broken a bully's arm, set fire to a cafeteria when someone messed with her hair, and destroyed a night club without any regrets. Normally, she wouldn't care if someone was too scared to be around her either. Now though, she felt ashamed for being mad at Blake. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but everything seemed a bit duller, less vibrant, without her partner around. "Maybe Rubes was right, maybe I've gotten used to having Blake around…"

Ruby let out a sigh as she walked ahead of her melancholy sister and quiet partner, ears drooping and tail low to the ground. "She's been gone all weekend… I don't even know where to look anymore…"

Weiss glanced at the cloaked girl before speaking up. "Well, if she really thinks the White Fang aren't as bad as I told her, she'd probably be looking for proof that they aren't behind the… Dust disappearance…" Weiss stopped, causing the other two to look at her as she looked back with wide eyes. "There's a SDC freighter that's going to arrive some time tonight, probably enough to get Vale through the Vytal Festival. If someone was stealing Dust, there's no way they'd be able to pass up a target that big. Even if it isn't the White Fang, Blake should be there if she's heard about it."

Yang let out a sigh as they started walking again. "Great, so we're probably going to be fighting either a ton of White Fang members or Torchwick and his goons. Just the three of us with no backup."

"Why would you need to fight anyone?" Penny said behind them, causing the trio to turn around in shock.

"Penny! Where did you come from?" Ruby asked nervously.

"Hey guys! What are you up to?"

Yang glanced at Ruby. "We're looking for our friend, Blake."

"Ohh! I know who you're talking about! Can I help?"

Ruby glanced at the other two before getting a sigh from both. "Sure, just meet us by the docks tonight, okay?"

"Sure thing, Ruby! I'll be there and ready to help you!" The girl turned around and started walking off as Ruby turned to face the rest of her team.

"Is it just me or does the way she acts and moves seem a bit mechanical?" After a quick discussion, the trio went to get ready for tonight. "Let's see, we're going to need binoculars for certain, maybe radio equipment, and, just in case it's Roman Torchwick behind this, maybe a listening device or something."

Vale Docks, later that night

Ruby watched the bullhead came in to land in the center of the cargo storage area, looking through a pair of binoculars while Weiss, Yang, and Penny watched quietly. The moment the first figure stepped out she sighed. "White Fang, if Blake's here-" She stopped when she heard a familiar voice.

"Hey! What's the hold up? We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves right now, so why don't you clowns try to pick up the pace."

Ruby groaned, causing Weiss to glance at her. "Ruby? What's wrong?"

"The White Fang are working with Torchwick," Ruby said, causing Weiss and Yang to glance at each other. "I don't know why they're working together, but we need to figure it out… And Blake just ran up to him and put a knife to his throat, great." The cloaked girl got up and looked at the trio behind her. "Time to go, we need to help her before she gets killed." They quickly nodded before splitting up, moving between the shipping crates. The sound of more bullheads approaching and an explosion got them moving faster as Ruby turned on the radio. "Torchwick's cane has some kind of flare gun that shoots shells of Burn Dust. Try to draw him away from the cargo area or at least avoid letting him hit any cargo containers. One mistake and the entire harbor could go up in flames."

Ruby dashed between stacks of crates, using her Analysis to map the area out and figure out where everyone was while running toward the sound of gunfire. As she rounded the corner she charged at Torchwick with a yell, managing to get within arm's reach before being pushed away. "Well, would you look at this! The mutt in red is back! Again! Don't you have some other criminal mastermind to go torment or do you brats get assigned one when you go into school?" Ruby smiled as she noticed the frustration and panic in the man's voice before making a move to charge at him, only to see a series of blades come out of Penny's back before she started mowing through the White Fang members. The two watched as the blades spun in front of Penny before firing a beam of energy, cutting through three approaching bullheads. "Oh, are you fucking kidding me? Are any of you normal?!" he shouted before running to a nearby bullhead, debris falling around him as he took a seat with a sigh. "I swear, these kids just keep getting weirder…"

In his panic, Torchwick failed to notice that Ruby had planted something in one of his pockets…

A short time later, outside the docks

The members of team RWBY and Sun let out a sigh as the police finally let them go, Penny quietly being led off earlier. Weiss turned to look at Blake with a neutral face. "So, did you find what you were looking for?"

Blake looked down, shaking slightly. "I didn't want to believe it… Some part of me knew it was true all this time, but it was so easy, you know? So easy to assume the killings and attacks really were caused by someone who snapped and went rogue like we were told. If the White Fang is able to go against their ideals like this, w-what could they have been doing that I didn't know about? How many people were hurt by information I found?"

Blake felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up, seeing her blonde teammate looking at her. "Relax kitty cat, it's all in the past. All that matters is you left before you got any blood on your hands and our team's back together…" Yang smiled slightly before taking her hand off the faunus' shoulder. "It's… Good to have you back, Blake. You're always welcome with us."

Blake smiled back, trying to avoid crying. She might have lost one family today, but she knew for a fact she'd gained another. One that wouldn't abandon her and one she was truly happy to be a part of.

Beacon Academy, Bisman's Office the next morning

Ruby let out a sigh as she glanced over the stack of books and scrolls that Bisman had on his desk. "So, I guess this is the last stack until you get back?" Bisman looked up before smiling

"No, I talked to Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch and cleared it. Until I get back you're allowed to come and go as you please, just remember to lock up on the way out," he stated before placing a key on the desk. "Now then, where did I leave that map…" Bisman turned around and started searching his desk while Ruby rolled her eyes, glancing through the stack, making note of a few interesting things.

"Let's see… There's something in here about how the old Dust Sages were able to control Dust, maybe I could learn a bit about it…" She glanced at the next one, a seemingly normal book on growing roses, before she stopped at a chapter on blue roses, rereading it a few times. "W-wait, blue and black roses can be used to invoke a blessing or curse on someone?" As she read through, she found something that made her eyes go wide. "C-communing with the dead? S-so I can use a blue rose to speak to someone if I go to their grave?" Her thoughts drifted back to Patch, a sigh leaving her lips before she came across the next thing in the stack.

Ruby blinked in confusion as she found herself looking at an obviously modern map, indicating that it was from a previous year's Initiation test. "Is this the map Professor Bisman used for his prank?" She quickly glanced at the notes on the side, noticing a team STRQ mentioned in one of them before looking across the map, quickly finding the two spots Bisman had mentioned. One of them had two names: Taiyang Xiao Long and Raven Branwen. "So that was dad and Yang's mom… W-wait…" Ruby paled as realization dawned on her. "Bisman said both pairs in that team fell in love, right? I-if that's the case, who-" She glanced to the other spot and her mind shut down at the names next to the mark placed square in the middle: Summer Rose and Qrow Branwen.

Bisman heard the whimper before he glanced over, but he knew the moment he saw the look on Ruby's face exactly what happened. "Shit… I really should have put that back a long time ago…"

So, this one was fun to write. I might have hinted at this way back in chapter 4, but in this story Qrow is Ruby's dad. If you've been paying attention, you'll know why this makes the most sense for this story: Summer, as a Rose, would prefer being around someone that understood a need for secrecy and was willing to put up with her. Qrow, always stressed about his semblance (which I've had to make changes to in order to fit the story's semblance classification system) would naturally end up being a more ideal friend, partner, and romantic interest for the more enigmatic Summer, along with being willing to keep her family's secrets if need be.

This however brings us to the dilemma I'm having right now: Ruby will confront Qrow and Tai about it, and I need you guys to give me some input. Do you think Ruby, after finding out that Qrow is her father, should continue calling Qrow "Uncle Qrow" and Tai "Dad" simply because it's what she's used to? Or do you think she should start calling Qrow "dad" and Tai "Uncle Tai" to reflect that she's accepted the truth and views Qrow as more of a role model (even in canon if you think about it) than she does Tai? Please leave your response in a review.

Also, yes, the thing about invoking a blue rose to speak to the dead at their grave isn't something I just put in for my amusement. That will be used at least once during the course of the story.

Another thing: as might have been clear, I've been giving the villains a bit more depth to them compared to canon. This is because, other than Torchwick and post-Beacon Cinder, none of the other villains really have a clear driving force behind them (besides maybe Tyrian) and this makes them a bit boring to write for me. From now on, if I introduce one of the villains or they're mentioned, I'll put a description of their personalities and motives in a note. The same thing will be done with Ozpin and other characters when I've revealed enough about them to do so (for simplicity's sake, Bisman will be discussed in the next chapter)

So far, we've met Torchwick, who is more or less the same as canon with a few differences: while his main goal is still self-preservation, he's also far more pragmatic than in canon. While canon Torchwick showed frustration at having to work with the faunus, he's willing to disregard any beliefs he has about them in this story simply to make working with the White Fang easier, as well as to reduce the chances of them slitting his throat for a casual remark. Not only that, but in this story, he's also driven mainly by fear; the only reason he works with Cinder and, by extension, Salem is because he's terrified of them and doesn't think there's anyone that can stop them. If he ever discovers a group that has a strong chance of stopping them, he might switch sides simply to avoid his own death. As many might have guess, Ruby's bugged him to figure out his motives.

After that we have Dr. Arthur Watts. While in canon he hasn't said much and hasn't played much of a role, Dr. Watts in this story is a hunter with no moral compass. For him there's no good or evil, only a worthy hunt with worthy prey or a pointless hunt with a trivial foe. In this story, he sided with Salem not for power, survival, or domination, but because it gave him the opportunity to hunt, in his eyes, Remnant's most dangerous prey: the Rose family. By the time he carried out the murder of Summer Rose and two others in Vale, he'd already killed around 6-8 other members of the family on his own, making him the most dangerous threat to Ruby in this story, outside Salem herself.

Salem, Cinder, and Tyrian will be discussed later. Hazel Rainart is currently the only member of Salem's inner circle I have yet to figure out a motive for, however. Adam Taurus' motivations and personality will be revealed next chapter.