A Knight and a Prince

by Trailblazer2500

Prince Jean of Armorica (aka "Jaune Arc"), has never cared much for a hunter's life, preferring instead to study history within the Royal archives. One terrorist attack later and he finds himself thrown into Beacon for his own safety, conspiracy abounds as he makes allies and enemies, all while being haunted with strange visions of the past.

25. Our Own Worst Enemy

Holy shit, I did not believe I would ever be able to get this out, but here it is, 15,000 words worth, the longest chapter I have ever written and indeed the longest piece of writing I have ever done...ever.

This is partly because this chapter is meant to tie you for three weeks, two weeks in July and one in August, normally I split long chapters into several smaller chapters, but after having two chapters of nothing but buildup I felt it was prudent to just get into the thing already and stop wasting time.

And so there you have it.

Enjoy.

---

Have you ever had one of those days? You know…Those days where you end up in a situation where you are just wondering:

What the hell am I doing here?

How the fuck did my life reach this point?

I need out, NOW.

I shouldn't be here, why am I here?

Where's the toilet? I need the toilet.

Such were the thoughts of Team RWBY as they awaited their fate together in their holding cell; misery and melancholy were in the air as each contemplated their fates and their roles in the present course of events that was unfolding before them.

Weiss had her head bowed low and had her hands clasped together on her lap. She was fidgeting nervously, toes curling and uncurling and fingers drumming on her own hands.

Blake was curled up in the corner with her legs on the bench and leaning her head against the wall, her eyes were glazed over and empty and she seemed to be staring off into nothing.

Yang meanwhile, paced back and forth in circles in their cell, continuously trying to fight down her temper and frustration. Her wrists were bound together with plastic handcuffs.

Ruby squirmed left and right uncomfortably in her spot.

"I need to go to the toilet." She stated.

"Ruby that's the third time in half-an-hour, can't you just hold it in?" Weiss exasperatedly commented and turned her head slightly to face her leader.

Ruby pouted in response, "I can't help it, whenever I get really nervous I always need to pee."

"Gosh you are such a child." Weiss sighed and put her head down again.

"I told you drinking all that water was a bad idea." Blake remarked without moving a single muscle barring her mouth from where she sat.

"I can't help it!" Ruby insisted, "I was dehydrating myself dry in that room!"

"Argh!" Yang threw her hands up in frustration angrily and banged her hands against the cell bars.

"Why don't you cool off before your temper lands us into more trouble?" Weiss quirked an eyebrow.

Yang blithely ignored the remark and settled for gripping the bars and attempting to wrench them loose with all her might, sadly she and the remainder of Team RWBY had been forced to handover their weapons which were now in lockdown. Also, she could not activate her semblance easily and it did no good when she herself was not damaged. She banged her fists against the bars rather pointlessly, the sounds echoing down the corridor, the bars vibrated and shook with every strike, the cacophony seemingly making a mockery of her futile attempts, insulting and laughing at her with every pulse.

"Hey!" An angry voice sounded out, making Yang stop and try to see down the corridor, a pair of guards was approaching, "Stop that this instant!" One growled angrily.

"Or you'll what?" Yang taunted with her tongue stuck out, "Beat me up?"

"Yang…" Weiss narrowed her eyes.

"You're damaging the bars!" The other stated.

"Oh what're you gonna do about it? Huh? Huh?!" Yang sneered at them from behind her bars, "C'mon you schmucks, you wanna piece of this?" She held her fists up in front of them and clenched them tightly.

"We could bill you for damages regardless of the result." The second deadpanned.

"Yeah right, as if the council cares about a lowly-"

"Yang!" Weiss finally raised her voice, turning all attention to her, "Before you land us in anymore trouble will you control yourself for once? Just this…!" Weiss face and mouth contorted as she forced back the swear word that was about to come out, "Once…" She ground her teeth to pieces and finally released her breath, her body shaking.

A moment of silence passed.

"They couldn't really do that could that?" Yang asked meekly with her shoulders bunched up.

"Do you want to test them?" Weiss replied icily, "Because I don't."

Another moment of silence passed.

"So stop banging on the bars already and cool off, it's your own fault that you're here anyway." The guards began to walk away slowly when Yang called out again.

"Hey guys!" They turned to look at her.

"What now?" The first snarled.

"Can you loosen these restraints please?" She pouted.

Both guards turned to look at each other.

"Pretty please? C'mon help a girl out here."

The first guard turned to the second; the second simply nodded and jerked his head back. The first guard then turned and walked back to the cell, he took out a set of keys, pressed it into the keyhole and twisted, and the cell door popped open. Yang backed away a little as the guard entered, Ruby, Weiss and Blake were immediately on guard, staring at the guard and waiting for him to act.

"Well? You gonna help me or not?" Yang held her hands out in front of her, a mischievous smile on her face.

The guard leaned forward until Yang could almost smell his breath, "I will tighten these restraints huntress." He hissed, and before Yang could react, he reached over to her cuffs and with one swift yank, pulled the cuffs tight onto her wrists.

"YOW!" Yang cried out and fell to the floor struggling with both of her hands, the guard walked out of the room without missing a beat, slamming the door shut as he went and locking it, leaving the blonde brawler writing in pain on the ground. The rest of Team RWBY breathed a sigh of relief and allowed themselves to relax.

"Fuck this really hurts!" Yang beat her fists angrily against floor, "Dammit get back here! This is police brutality! Excessive use of force!" She shouted as they walked away, "It's cutting the blood circulation off from my extremities!"

They ignored her as they disappeared down the corridor.

"Dammit!" Yang struggled furiously against the bindings.

"Will you pipe down already?" Weiss sighed, "It's still your fault that we're in this mess."

"I still can't believe it was only…" Blake held up her hands and counted off her fingers slowly, "how many days ago was it already?"

---

Three days after the Highway 42 Incident, two days before Team RWBY's incarceration,

Due to the disruption in communication and coordination caused by the twenty-four hour media blackout, parliament has only recently been able to convene together to vote on the creation of a subcommittee dedicated to investigating the Highway 42 incident. In the meantime demonstrations have erupted calling for the prosecution of not only the team of trainee huntresses involved in the incident, but also for the renowned headmaster of Atlas Academy and one of the Atlesian military's prime leaders, General James Ironwood. The General has yet to make a public appearance since his open house presentation a few days ago showing off where he showed off the prototype models of the Atlesian military's next-generation robot.

"GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS! GO HOME ATLAS!" Came the roaring cry of hundreds of protestors gathered outside of an atlesian base, a line of Atlesian soldiers faced them right outside the base.

Following the official confirmation that the Atlesian Paladin-290 was in fact a prototype that had been stolen by the wanted criminal Roman Torchwick, a series of protests has erupted around Vale centering on major Atlesian military encampments in the docks area as well as the vicinity of the Atlesian Embassy.

Atlesian officials have still refused to comment on the General's current whereabouts in the aftermath of the incident, both he and the headmaster of Beacon Academy have still not

It remains to be seen whether or not they would be able to alleviate fears or if they will only end up aggravating an already tense situation.

"So what now James?" Ozpin asked with a dark frown on his face as he regarded his compatriot, who was shuffling about nervously in his office, "Didn't I tell you to leave your toys at home when you came over here? And now look at what's happened, I have two teams of trainees involved in this, and one of your prototypes magically ended up in the hands of Roman Torchwick and the White Fang." He sipped from his signature cup of coffee, "You see why I didn't want your military around? The only thing you've done so far is to get your own equipment missing." He barely resisted smirking.

General James Ironwood shot him a look, "And the only thing you've done it seems, is to lose control of your own trainees and have a team of them get involved in a fight which…" He jerked his thumb out the window, "involved so much destruction that a media blackout is now being enforced throughout Vale."

"There wouldn't have been such a fight if only you'd be able to keep track of the machines that you love to put on display so much." Ozpin shot back.

"Perhaps I wouldn't need to have my machines in Vale if only you'd keep better track of the White Fang and the criminal supporting him!" the General was starting to raise his voice.

"Am I a god to you?!" Ozpin slowly put down his cup as he clenched his fists, "Am I supposed to be some sort of dictator keeping track of every single minute little detail of event in this kingdom when I'm not even the one technically running it?" He grit his teeth and faced James directly, "In case you didn't notice James, this is Vale, not Atlas, we like to have some form of freedom here and not have everyone under thumbs and wrapped tightly around fingers." He pointed out.

Both men stared at each other, sweating, breathing heavily and with clenched fists and narrowed eyes as though they were two boxers that were about to fight. Eventually though, James gave up first and put his hands up in front of him.

"Look here Ozpin, I'm-"

"Just trying to do your best, I know." Ozpin flatly stated, "And now here we are, two headmasters who are going to have to answer for their subordinates. I am going to have to either throw my own trainees into the fire during the hearing, or accept the blame and lose even more power. You on the other hand…"

"Will have to explain why a prototype military robot went missing and ended up in the hands of a criminal and his terrorist lackeys." James sighed greatly.

"How did that happen anyway?" Ozpin asked, genuinely curious as to how a functioning military prototype had been stolen.

"Apparently," James grit his teeth as he walked to the window to look out of it, "A convoy carrying a number of the prototypes was raided in the middle of the night on its way to its base. The convoy was stopped at a 'security checkpoint' manned by Roman's gang, they then proceeded to disarm and knockout the convoy's guards and take away the prototypes almost bloodlessly, this happened only bare hours before the incident took place." He sighed and shook his head.

"If it ever gets out that the vaunted military of Atlas was tricked and basically handed over their equipment on a silver platter…" Ozpin shook his head.

More silence passed between them.

"What is the council trying to do? Pushing this vote through so quickly…?" James asked.

"They're trying to limit our available pool of allies as much as possible," Ozpin explained, "The faster they push through this motion, the faster they can get the subcommittee set up and the faster they can have everyone's heads they don't like on the chopping block…which means me and you obviously."

"What allies do we have?"

"None here…but I'm working on that.

"Oh?"

"Well…not me per se…"

At the same time as Ozpin and James Ironwood were discussing their next course of action, a certain prince-in-hiding was currently hiding out in one of the toilets in Beacon, having dismissed himself from his team's presence so that he could talk to his family back in the royal enclaves in privacy. Now he sat down in one of the stalls with his scroll in front of him trying to get a connection through to the Frostriver mansion, the scroll beeped at him repeatedly as it tried to establish a link. The Crown Prince's personal scroll was turned off, which meant he must be busy at the moment.

C'mon, pickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickuppickup-

A click, announcing the link had finally been established.

"Hello? Oh young master!" The maid Tsuki greeted with a bright smile on her face and a wave.

"Hey Tsuki, is my uncle there?" He asked, returning the smile.

"Eh? Erm…" Tsuki tapped her lip with a finger, "He's rather busy now, in a meeting with your sister I think."

"That's great! Could you put me through to both of them please?!" Jaune urged her on.

"Uh…I don't think-" Tsuki hesitated.

"It's very urgent." Jaune pushed insistently.

"Well, you see-"

"Really…really…urgent."

"…Like 'I'm desperate for the toilet because I have a stomachache' urgent? Or 'Why won't the water boil faster for tea' urgent?" She asked.

Jaune blinked, since when did Tsuki make toilet jokes?

"Let's say the former ok?" He replied with one eyebrow twitching.

"Alright, I'll see if I can get him to activate his own scroll, then you two can talk privately."

Tsuki moved off as quickly as she could, down hallways, through corridors, up and down staircases until she reached the private meeting room in the Frostriver mansion, where the Crown Prince was currently meeting together with the governess of Armorica Marina Arc and her advisors. She slowed down as she approached the door, muffled voices coming from it, usually the master disliked being disturbed while he was in the middle of meetings like this, and he had been very firm in that regard, but since his own nephew had demanded it, she supposed he was going to have to make an exception this time.

She lifted her hand and rapped on the door with her knuckles.

There was a pause, and some shuffling noises and then the door was slowly opened by a girl who she recognized as one of the Royal Protectors assigned to her master.

She kept the door opened only far enough that half of her face was shown, "What is it?" She asked dryly.

"It's for the Crown Prince and the governess, tell him that Prince Jean is requesting for him, do tell him that the young master said it was urgent." The girl nodded impassively as she closed the door and left Tsuki in the hallway.

There was some shuffling about and noises from behind the door.

And then the door opened more widely and the Crown Prince Edward and Princess Maria appeared at the doorway.

"Ah, your highnesses-"

"And what does my idiot nephew want?" Edward asked with narrowed eyes, Tsuki had to resist squeaking in fear.

"He didn't say what; he just said it was really…really…urgent." She responded, repeating Jaune's own words.

Marina's eyebrows shot up while maintaining a blank look, she turned to her uncle, "I can handle this if you want."

"No, no," Edward held up his hand in front of him as he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "if it's really that urgent, I think we'd better go and see what that idiot has gotten himself into now before anything else untoward starts happening." He looked up with a tired expression on his face.

Marina straightened her glasses, "Well do lead the way Tsuki."

"Err, wouldn't it be better for you to use your own scroll your highness? It would be far more private." Tsuki meekly suggested.

"Well the main scroll in the room should be private enough I think." Edward stated with a look. Tsuki bowed and led the way back to where she had answered the call from Jaune, upon reaching the room she gave a little curtsy.

"I shall be right outside if you need me your highnesses." She bowed her head as they walked into the room and she closed the door behind them.

Marina strode quickly over to the primary scroll which connected to a larger screen on the wall, quickly punching in several numbers and activating the system loudspeaker at the same time, the two stood and waited as a link was established between the scroll and Jaune's own scroll.

A click, and Jaune's face appeared on the screen, he looked rather surprised to see the both of them, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Marina was already speaking.

"So what's so important that I have to be pulled away from a budget meeting to address…" Marina folded her arms as she said that, "Whatever this urgent situation of yours is." She raised one hand and waved it about.

"Uh…of course! Well let's see…err…" Jaune struggled to get the words out, it was a lot harder when both his elder sister and uncle were looking at him like that, made worse by the intent way in which they looked at him.

"Spit it out Jaune." Edward narrowed his eyes.

"I might have to go attend a council hearing." Jaune spat out as fast as he could as firmly as he could.

Eyebrows went up on the other side of the screen.

"That's it?" Marina shrugged, "You might have to attend a council hearing? What did you do this time? Blow up a dust warehouse or something?" She scoffed.

"If that really is all Jaune," This time Edward stepped forward, "Then we really need to go, there are more pressing matters-" He was about to turn when Jaune spoke again.

"It has to do with the Highway 42 incident." And he had the attention of both his sister and his uncle.

"Don't tell me," Marina growled, "You were involved in that?" She seethed, "Jaune what did we say about playing the hero the last time you-"

"Wait let me finish!" Jaune held up his hands in front of the screen, "It was another team that was involved in that, but since I'm close friends with them, I might get called up as a witness if the hearing turns the team over to a court for further prosecution."

"So?" Marina threw her hands up, "Just go along with it, what…do you need us to be there to hold your hand while you do it or something?"

"Well no…"

"Just go through with it Jaune." Edward rolled his eyes, "It'll be a good experience for you to learn the inner and outer mechanisms of the council, you yourself might have to deal with them one day yourself you know."

"Yeah but…" Jaune fidgeted rather uncomfortably, "You see all three of my unofficial protectors are personally involved in the incident."

"Ok?" Marina raised an eyebrow, "They shouldn't have been wasting time playing around with some criminal and a bunch of scumbag terrorists anyway, just leave it alone Jaune, if it had been Gravelyn getting involved then there might have been a problem, but as it stands there's nothing to worry about."

"Well my identity is kind of at risk if they call me up…"

"Take a leave of absence then, they can't call you up if you're not technically in the kingdom."

A moment of silence passed through the air.

"Well if that is all then-" Edward turned to leave when Jaune chose that moment to interrupt.

"I'm not leaving or anything like that." He stated firmly, Edward turned back to look at his nephew, who was looking at the screen very determinedly, "I won't leave my friends behind to suffer like that."

Marina sighed, "Then what are you calling for in the first place? You're not asking to help arrange transport back, the only advice we can give you is just go with it, really Jaune we're busy people you can't just dial us up whenever you feel like it."

Well granted Vicky would like it if you did, but that's not the topic here. Marina shut herself up before she mentioned their youngest sibling.

"Well to be honest…" Jaune bit his lip as he inhaled sharply, well nothing for it now, he closed his eyes and took a leap off the edge and into the abyss.

"I was…hoping…you could…help my friends." He said slowly, he expelled his breath with an explosive gasp and looked for his relative's reactions.

That raised eyebrows again, and they were staying there as Marina and Edward exchanged a confused look.

"Help…your…friends…?" They said simultaneously before turning back to look at Jaune with dark frowns on both of their faces, Jaune flinched as both glared at him from the other side of the screen.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Marina straightened her glasses with a curious gleam in her eyes, her eyes were carefully searching Jaune's face, technically speaking she already had a fairly good idea of what he meant and what he was asking them for, she just wondered if he had the guts to say it out loud in front of their uncle. Her eyes shifted hesitatingly to the Crown Prince, who had let his face fall into one hand, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his index finger and thumb.

"I meant well…erm…how do I put it…?" Jaune stuttered, "Is there say…anyway in which we could help them?"

"Help them how?" Edward raised his voice indignantly, making even Marina jump at the sudden increase in volume "The Royal Family isn't some charity Jaune," He said firmly, "We don't go around dispensing help to whoever needs it freely, and I hope you do understand that you are basically abusing your own position to influence events in your preferred direction."

"I know." Jaune said simply.

"Then why?"

"Because if I have the opportunity to do something, shouldn't I take that opportunity?" Jaune asked forcefully, "If I can influence events in my favor, shouldn't I try?"

"Should you?" Edward shot back, "Should you continue to risk your fragile position and identity? I would also like to remind you that we as a general rule do not try to interfere with the Vale politics, they are still very much our masters and we are broadly speaking still beholden to them no matter how much we wish we were independent."

"I know that." Jaune grit his teeth and forced himself to not hiss out every word. His mind raced, he had to convince his uncle to help somehow, there were few other options available to Team RWBY otherwise. Ozpin had already stated that he had done his best to help them out in his own way, although Jaune himself was not too sure of what exactly that entailed.

"Then stop wasting our time and be off with you already." He turned to Marina, "Cut the connection."

Marina shrugged and moved to the scroll with one hand outstretched to tap the disconnect button.

"Wait!" Jaune called out, Marina stopped her hand midway and lifted an eyebrow at Jaune, "Please! Uncle, sis…they're my friends, I really, really want to help them." He pleaded.

Marina withdrew her hand fully, sighed and rubbed her forehead, "Jaune," She began slowly, "It's not just about whether or not we can or should help them," She folded her arms and turned to face her younger brother, "the point is even if we did help them…what do we get out of it?"

What do we get out of it? The words rang out and echoed in Jaune's head, the answer was self-evident, nothing of course, what on remnant would the House of Vale gain by standing up for a team of reckless trainee huntresses? What would it accomplish for the royal family other than potentially earn them the ire of the larger populace of Vale? It was cold, hard logic, they were not going to give something for nothing, that concept was not how the Royal Enclaves worked, scarce resources meant that everything had to be justifiable and written down in black and white for everyone to see.

Not to be used at the whim of a prince trying to save his friends from an uncertain fate.

"We might gain the loyalty of a whole one team of hunters…which is nothing compared to the fallout that could ensue."

"Is there…" Jaune bowed his head low, until his eyes almost disappeared, "Is there nothing we can do at all?"

Well we could bribe some of the council members to try to show their support for your friends, on the other hand money is kind of tight here and if it goes wrong it could really blow up in our faces. We could also try to exert influence by getting friendlier council members onto the subcommittee, which would automatically seem rather suspicious… Marina tapped her foot idly, thinking of the possibilities that she knew were not going to come true anyway, no matter how much Jaune might wish it.

"Nothing we can do," Edward stated as he tilted his head upwards and crossed his arms, "And nothing you should do." His tone had a sense of finality to it, his eyes staring right at Jaune, demanding that he accept the reality of the situation and give it up, urging him to be reasonable on his own terms.

Sometimes, you just can't have everything. Were the unspoken words.

"Is that all from you?" Edward asked.

Jaune remained silent.

"Then Marina, please disconnect the call and we should be getting back to the meeting." Without another word, Crown Prince Edward turned around and made for the door, just as he touched the doorknob, he realized his niece was not following on behind him; instead she stood there, staring at the image of Jaune on the screen. Apparently, the other side had not disconnected yet.

"…Make it quick." He sighed and exited the room, Tsuki bowing her head as he left.

"Jaune…" Marina started, using the softer tone that she reserved for him in private.

"I know, I know, it was wrong for me to overstep myself like that right?" He looked up with a weak smile; Marina noticed his eyes were slightly watery, "Ah, uncle is such a hardass sometimes."

"You know he means well."

"Yeah I do."

There was nothing that Marina would have preferred more in that very moment to be able to reach out and hug her little –and only- brother the same way she had in the aftermath of the White Fang attack two years ago, he looked absolutely terrible in the state that he was in. She still vividly recalled holding on to him as he cried miserably in the hospital in the aftermath of the attack, armed wrapped tight around each other, hot tears pouring from eyes…

"I guess I'll see you around sis." His words snapped her back to reality, and she re-focused her attention on him.

"They must mean a lot to you don't they?" Marina had not had many friends growing up; an edgy older sister and an excitable older twin sister gave her enough interaction in a day to satisfy.

"Yeah, they do." Jaune nodded with a slightly brighter smile.

"I see," She pursed her lips; "Good luck brother, and stay safe." She nodded, there was nothing else to say or do at this point.

"You too sis." And the connection cut out.

In Beacon Academy, Jaune slumped his side against the wall of the toilet stall, breathing heavily. That had not worked out at all, but of course why should it anyway? He himself had had no real plan in mind, no idea for what could have been done, no strategy to effect, he had called up his uncle and elder sister pointlessly to make an empty request for assistance that they would not be able to give.

Stupid, stupid! He smacked his own forehead, he sucked in a lungful of air and breathed it out, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, it was pointless to cry over it, he would have to settle for another path, this one was clearly blocked out for him.

He got off the toilet seat, pushed open the door and walked over to the sink, turning on the tap, rubbing his hands and letting the cold water distract him from his thoughts, he splashed the water onto his face, exhaling a sigh of satisfaction as he did so and blinking away the droplets out of his eyes. As he did so the door to the toilet opened and in walked Cardin Winchester.

Jaune glanced at Cardin out of the corner of his eye; the two regarded each other for the barest of a moment as Cardin walked past to the urinal.

"Good luck Arc," Cardin sneered as he walked behind Jaune.

In that moment, Jaune wanted nothing more than to bash his face through the toilet sink.

Shaking off the thought and the comment, he headed back to Team RWBY's dorm, where both teams –and Sun and Neptune- were gathered and were trying to help each other out with what basically amounted to a Q&A session to prepare for the hearing, at this point the vote was more or less confirmed even if it was technically only minutes away from taking place. He knocked a few times and entered.

"I'm back." He dryly remarked to the other seven, all of whom were sitting in a circle.

Weiss had taken the lead in these 'lessons', trying to coach Ruby to be more tactful and graceful in her words and trying to get Blake to speak more than a single phrase at a time, but mostly trying to prevent Yang from mouthing off to a bunch of people infinitely higher in authority and power than she was.

"Ms. Xiao Long, why exactly did you think going along with your sister's plan was a good idea?"

"Erm, because she's my sister and my leader and I should be supporting her?"

"You did not for a moment think that you should perhaps stop a reckless action such as this?"

"Well hey! It seemed like a good idea at the time! It's not like we could've anticipated being dragged in front of a bunch of old men and women-"

"Yang!" Weiss scolded, "focus!"

"Ok, ok!" Yang scratched her head and sighed, "I felt that it was my duty to be by my sister's side and do my best to help her out in her endeavors, besides if I weren't there then Ruby might have run off on her own to do something dangerous and end up in a situation where she could not have easily received help." She folded her arms and nodded with a small smile on her lips, clearly proud of her answer.

"Ok…" Weiss picked up a sheet of paper and scribbled something on it, "I think that was…ok…?" She glanced up to look at Jaune for approval.

"Or she could follow up by asking if Ruby has always been this reckless since she was a child." Jaune said as he sat down.

"Hm." Weiss hummed.

"I give up!" Yang threw her hands into the air fell backwards, "I swear to god there is never a right answer for any of this shit!" She swore loudly.

"There never is Yang," Blake rolled her eyes, "The only way is to use answers to lead into the questions that we want them to ask."

"Wait, we want them to ask questions?"

"The easy questions."

Ruby meanwhile, looked completely lost and seemed to have drifted into a trance in the middle of the discussion; she was aimlessly fidgeting with her fingers and flapping her knees in a cross-legged position.

"Moving on…" Weiss turned to Ruby, "Ms. Rose, please tell us exactly what your plan was for dealing with the White Fang?"

"…huh…?" Ruby snapped out of her trance and looked around the room, "Oh is Jaune back already?" She looked rather hopefully at him, he had after all dismissed himself in order to make a personal call back home, and since she already knew who his family was…

Unfortunately, Jaune could only answer her with a passing shrug, and her rather hopeful face fell back down to the ground.

"Ruby pay attention!" Weiss exasperatedly called out.

"Huh? Oh! Err…What was the question?" She asked, completely unaware of what was going on.

Weiss facepalmed.

---

Two days later,

In the end the result had more or less been obvious from the start, no matter how many prayers were made or how many tears were shed. In the end, the vote was in favor of Team RWBY being made to stand before a committee to answer for their actions during the highway 42 incident; they were not alone though, General James Ironwood was also being taken to task for the usage of a highly classified robotic prototype having been used in the incident by Roman Torchwick over the protests of the Atlesian Council who wanted to deal with Ironwood in their own way. They would also be joined by Headmaster Ozpin seeing as it was his students who were on the firing line.

Curiously, the motion itself had been significantly altered from the initial piece, neither Sun not Neptune were required to be a part of the proceedings, rather it seemed that they were to be confined to Beacon due to their status as foreign students, although it seemed to be more due to the fact that they were not personally involved in the Highway 42 incident itself, even if they had been essentially 'aiding and abetting' Team RWBY.

Team RWBY had done their level best to prepare themselves in only a few days' time, and so as they waited at Beacon's landing pad for the bullhead along with Ozpin and Team JNPR, each of them carried a file filled with their own handwritten notes and words. Weiss had the thickest, and then Yang, and then Ruby.

Surprisingly, Blake had the thinnest file of all.

"I'm surprised you're tagging along Mr. Arc," Ozpin looked at Team JNPR's leader, "You weren't asked to be a part of this."

"Its fine," Jaune brushed it off, "I wanted to -*HRK* be there to provide moral support." He waved off his nausea and swallowed.

"Oh you." Weiss rolled her eyes, "I heard General Ironwood might be there as well, where is he?"

"He has his own personal transport," Ozpin smirked, "In any case the good General will not be joining us per se, his problem is rather uniquely different from ours and will be handled separately. We will have to take a designated transport vehicle ready for us at the landing pad, expect to see the press, they will be demanding answers and there'll most likely be a lot of lights and cameras waiting for you when we land."

"I suppose we won't be taking the designated transport?" Jaune asked.

"Nope, you'll have to make your own way there."

They boarded the bullhead together and sat opposite each other, remaining quiet, each doing their own thing to pass the time, Ruby was fidgeting nervously and tapping her feet against the floor of the bullhead, Weiss was going through her notes repeatedly while Yang decided to take a nap and Blake…

Well Blake was curled up in her seat, her head in her knees, arms wrapped around her legs.

"Hey Blake," Jaune turned the attention of the bullhead to the cat Faunus, she lifted her head and looked at him with weary eyes.

"Are you alright?" He asked, even though he knew he was a complete hypocrite to ask that question considering his airsickness, in any case the answer was probably going to be 'I'm fine' or some variation thereof.

He often did it himself after all.

Blake put her head back down between her knees and exhaled a great sigh of lamentation; she turned her head ever so slightly so that she could look at both Weiss and Ruby out of the corner of her eyes.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I dragged all of you into this," She looked quite gloomy.

"Ah forget about it," Weiss waved her hand dismissively, "What's important now is that we convince them that we were doing what was right, and that we successfully unveiled a conspiracy by the White Fang and even managed to disrupt their activities."

"Yeah, we're a team aren't we? One for all and all for one!" Ruby cheered as best as she could, although it was pretty evident that even she was not feeling very good about herself.

Ozpin seemed to chuckle at that, "While I admire your determination Ms. Rose, getting your team through this hearing is going to take a lot more than heart and resolve, the committee will not hesitate to put you in a difficult spot and pressure you as hard as they can, and this time, Crescent Rose will not be there to help you." He explained.

"Wait what?" Ruby lifted an eyebrow.

"You will all have to give up your weapons obviously; they can't possibly let in armed and dangerous people into the hearing can they?" Ozpin straightened his glasses.

"But we can still use our hands to break legs if we need to right?" Nora asked.

"Well…yes…but that would not be a recommended course of action Ms. Valkyrie, it might incite even worse emotions."

"Aw." Nora shrank back in her seat.

"With that in mind, I presume that you have a strategy like any good team for this situation?" He back to Team RWBY.

"Of course," Weiss nodded, "Since Ruby isn't such a confident speaker, I will take the lead in answering the questions, if need be Blake will back me up." Weiss confidently said.

"So then what will Ms. Rose and Ms. Xiao Long do?"

"If anyone asks me a question, I rephrase the question with my own question and then throw it back at them in such a way that it works!" Ruby nodded confidently.

Ozpin lifted a questioning eyebrow, "For example?"

"Ok, Ms. Rose," Weiss immediately adopted her formal persona, "Why did you feel that taking your team without official sanction to investigate the White Fang was a good idea?"

"Well did my team have the most experience with handling the White Fang? Yes we did, even if it was an accident, my team was involved in the docks incident earlier this year and as such we were more familiar with the group than most would be." Ruby was beaming as she said it.

"Interesting, but what else is there?"

"Ms. Belladonna, how exactly did your team manage to gather together enough Intel about the White Fang that you were able to infiltrate one of their rallies?"

"We managed it with great difficulty." Blake deadpanned without looking up.

"Mmhmm, go on." Ozpin nodded.

"Ok, Ruby?" Weiss gestured to herself.

"Right!" Ruby held up a finger and cleared her throat, "Ms. Schnee, would you kindly tell us what the stated objective of this investigation was supposed to be?" She said in her deepest voice, which drew a laugh from Team JNPR.

"Well sirs, many of us do question what the objective of this investigation was, and it is with great pleasure that I inform you that in the event of such another incident, such a question will not have to be asked again."

Ozpin blinked, rubbed his chin and looked over Team RWBY, not entirely sure if he should either congratulate the team for coming up with a series of strategies like this or if he should be feeling more than a little worried that the team of teenagers was capable of coming with strategies such as this.

On the other hand, they had an heiress and a prince on their side, so maybe it was inevitable?

"You also have a cover story don't you?" Jaune asked in-between dry-heaving.

"Yep," Ruby nodded, "It was an accident that we encountered Roman Torchwick, we definitely were not infiltrating the White Fang or anything like that!" She smiled reassuringly.

Everyone fell into silence after that.

Pyrrha rubbed Jaune's back comfortingly as he threatened to start heaving again; he smiled at her in thanks as the bullhead finally landed, Yang yawned and stretched her limbs, "We there yet?" She mumbled.

"Well I guess this is it…" Jaune clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

"Stop acting like you're the one who's going to be suffering." Blake rolled her eyes.

"Hey I'm trying to be encouraging and…" As the bullhead's doors opened, they were immediately greeted by a pair of armed guards walking into the bullhead.

"Team RWBY? Headmaster Ozpin?" One of them asked.

"Present and accounted for." Ozpin replied.

"Your ride is waiting outside." They gestured for the team and the headmaster to follow them.

"Hey Rubes," Jaune placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder just before she walked out, she glanced up to him with a curious expression. He took a hold of her hood and flipped it up and onto her head.

"Keep your head low," She lifted an eyebrow, "Camera flash." He explained.

"I don't suppose you have any last minute cavalry to save us all?" She meekly asked while pushing her index fingers together, "I mean…you know since you're…" She trailed off.

Jaune scratched his head awkwardly when she said that, "Eh, well I can't have everything either I guess, I'm more surprised the Schnee family isn't taking a bigger interest in this."

"Oh, well Weiss said-"

"Ruby stop stalling and come on!" Weiss called out angrily.

"That's my cue; I guess I'll see you guys at the edge of the abyss." She nodded and quickly ran after the rest of her team.

"Good luck and stay safe gals!" Jaune waved at them as Team JNPR exited the bullhead as well, watching the limo drive off.

"Jaune…" Pyrrha asked with a strange tone in her voice, "What did Ruby mean back there?" Jaune turned to face her and she seemed to look a little sullen for some reason.

"What? What did Ruby mean?" Jaune asked obliviously.

"It seemed like some kind of inside joke between you two." Ren cocked an eyebrow as he stood beside you.

"Yeah, what have we been missing out on?" Nora demanded angrily.

"Look guys," Jaune tried to calm them down, "She probably just means that I'm the one who's always coming up with ideas and stuff."

"Really…" Pyrrha did not seem especially convinced.

"Look shall we just get over to the hearing? I don't want to miss anything." Jaune said firmly as he walked to the road to flag a passing cab.

One stopped, all four piled in and off they went.

They stopped a short distance away and walked the remaining distance to the Parliament building, arriving to find a large crowd gathered on the field lining the road leading to the parliament building. Some of them were holding boards with slogans on them demanding the departure of the Atlas military, some of the boards had insults and angry slogans on them directed at either Ozpin or the team of huntresses themselves.

Pyrrha shook her head in disgust, "I didn't think there'd be so much hate like this…"

"People will always find things to blame." Jaune commented with mirth in his voice, "C'mon, we'd better-"

"Hey is that Pyrrha Nikos?" A voice sounded out from the crowd.

And then suddenly, the spotlight was now on the crimson champion from Mistral.

"Ms. Nikos! Any comment on the current situation?!"

"What are your thoughts on seeing the recklessness of the Beacon huntresses?"

"Do you have any regrets coming to Vale?"

"Are you in any relationship right now?"

"Uh…" Pyrrha was caught completely off guard.

Well that's a celebrity for you I guess… Jaune thought as he held his arm up to shield his eyes from the bright camera flashes. Both Ren and Nora were looking rather lost and were standing closely with each other, Ren was gritting his teeth as he backed away slowly, even Nora uncharacteristically looked rather nervous being under so much attention at once. Unfortunately the crowd had surrounded the team such that they were all standing with their backs against each other with no visible way out of the situation.

"Ms. Nikos is this person your boyfriend?" One gestured at Jaune, the person in question rolled his eyes at the remark.

"No!" Pyrrha denied, although her face went beet red at the comment.

"Is this the one?" Another one gestured at Ren.

"Hey back off!" Nora growled reaching for Magnhild, Jaune quickly caught her hand before she did so.

"Nora don't! You'll only make things worse." Jaune chided her, although at that point he was frustrated enough that letting her go to town on the crowd with her hammer was a damn tempting thought.

How to get out of this? He wondered, and then it hit him.

"Nora!" He called out, Nora turned to face him with a questioning look on her face, "Smoke 'em." He grinned as he checked, Nora returned it with an even more malicious look on her face as Magnhild appeared, a single round was loaded and with thumping sound, the area filled with dense white smoke.

Holding his breath, Jaune reached out and grabbed a hold of Pyrrha's hand, she had been caught off guard again by the sudden cloud of smoke and was choking and hacking as Jaune pulled her out of the crowd with Nora and Ren following close behind. They exited the area outside the building and were able to duck into an alleyway a short distance away to catch their breath.

"Well that was…" Ren was at a loss for words, never having experienced such a thing.

"Weird." Nora completed his sentence.

"I'm sorry you guys," Pyrrha apologized with a glum look on her face.

"Don't worry it's not your fault." Jaune released her hand, rubbed her shoulder and flashed an encouraging smile at her.

She returned it, although still flushed from hearing Jaune be referred to as her boyfriend.

"C'mon this is our chance; let's sneak through while they've all gone back to herding aroun the front." Jaune waved his hand.

Sometime later, a lot of pushing and bustling and hustling, Jaune getting Pyrrha to tie her boot laces every once in a while and a lot of:

"Hey is that Pyrrha Nikos?" One person shouted.

"Oh she gets that a lot!" Jaune hollered back as he tugged Pyrrha away.

Team JNPR had finally managed to get themselves a position sitting in a small corner at the edge of the room not too far from the main doors.

"Well here goes." Jaune rubbed his hands as the committee filed into the room in front, all around them were stationed armed guards standing at attention with their guns at the ready, in the middle of the room sat Team RWBY at a single table, flanked on one side by Headmaster Ozpin, all of them appeared rather nervous and twitchy, even Weiss seemed to shifting uncomfortably from side to side.

The Headmaster in question lifted an eyebrow as he saw he was leading the opening address, "Good morning, fellow councilors, ladies and gentlemen, headmasters…" Councilor Nyla spoke slowly, her eyes trailing over the assembled audience and defendants, "huntresses. I am Councilor Nyla, chairwoman of the committee charged with investigating the recent altercations by the team of trainee huntresses named RWBY corresponding to their involvement in what has now been termed the highway 42 incident, the committee is also involved in investigating the appearance of a highly classified Atlesian military prototype robot during this incident, this robot was subsequently engaged and destroyed by Team RWBY, the resulting engagement destroyed much of the surrounding area around the Highway and caused a pile up resulting in significant civilian casualties."

Ruby and Yang were suddenly feeling incredibly sleepy; the former took a sip of water from a cup in front of her to try to stay awake.

"So to begin with," She cleared her throat, "perhaps Team RWBY could explain to us exactly what they were doing before the incident happened?" She gave them a questioning look; her face remained completely blank otherwise, seeing this Weiss quickly cleared her throat and took the lead.

"Chairwoman-" She tried but was soundly cut off.

"Starting with Ms. Rose."

The person in question immediately tensed up and wary of all the watchful looks on her, slowly stood up and…

"Ms. Rose, what're you doing?" Nyla lifted a questioning eyebrow.

"Err…standing up?"

"For what purpose exactly?"

"To…answer the question?"

"…You may sit while answering Ms. Rose."

Geez I'm never gonna get used to being called that, I'm too young to be Ms. Rose! Ruby thought frantically and she fell back into her seat with a sigh of relief and promptly fell silent.

"Ruby!" Weiss elbowed her sharply.

"Hey! What?" Ruby narrowed her eyes irritably.

"Answer the question!" Her partner hissed angrily.

"Huh? Oh right! Erm…" Ruby thought hard, "I was…meeting another friend."

"Meeting another friend?"

"Yes."

Well she threw me into a dumpster so…yeah. Ruby stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

"You were not already with your team?"

"No, we had…separated for the day."

"All of you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Erm…what…?"

"Why Ms. Rose?" Ruby was completely confused by Nyla's question, the councilor sighed and said, "Why did your entire team separate for the day?"

"Oh! That was because…"Wait I have an answer for that! Ruby quickly opened her file and flicked through a few pages, I don't have an answer for that?! She looked stunned and turned to Weiss, who was giving her a 'why are you looking at me?' sort of look.

"Ms. Rose please answer the question."

"Because…" Ruby tried to think of something, "We…all…had…our…own…things to do?" She said slowly, flinching as the words came out of her mouth.

"And I suppose in your case, this 'own thing' would've been meeting another friend yes?"

"Err…yes precisely that!" Ruby nodded quickly.

"Can this friend confirm this statement of yours?"

That statement caught Ruby off guard, how on earth was she supposed to explain that her friend was a robot who had dumped her into a dumpster and then walked off with two other Atlesian soldiers?

"…No…"

"…Ok…Fair enough…" Nyla turned to the next person on the table in front, Ruby breathed a little easier as she took another sip of water, "And what about you Ms. Schnee?"

Weiss exhaled a short breath, her time had come, she would definitely do her family proud here, the short timespan between the incident and the hearing meant that she had little time to contact or organize anything with her family, leaving her primarily to do her own thing. Still that did not mean anything, she was a Schnee, and she would get through this just fine.

"Chairwoman thank you, right before the incident occurred, I was in the Cross-Continental Transmit system tower in Beacon contacting my family, and you can easily verify this by way of the camera system in place at the tower itself."

"…I see, and what about you Ms. Belladonna?"

"I was…" ok stick to the plan Blake "I was also meeting with another friend, Sun Wukong from Mistral, we were just eating together at a café."

"The Monkey Faunus from Mistral? The transfer student?"

"Yes, that's him."

"Alright then, and how about you Ms. Xiao Long, where were you at the time?" She turned to look at the blonde brawler.

Yang had nearly dozed off in her seat and was not paying attention to the proceedings, her eyelids were drooping low and she was having trouble sitting up straight and not falling face-first into the table.

"Ms. Xiao Long?" Nyla called out.

"Bwah?" Yang's eyes shot open on hearing her name get called, she looked left and right, a lost expression on her face, "Did someone…call me?"

The rest of Team RWBY resisted facepalming in reaction, Ruby took a gulp of water.

"Ms. Xiao Long where were you just before the Highway 42 incident?" Surprisingly, Nyla's face did not show a trace of annoyance or irritation, she remained for the most part, completely impassive, one could say almost uncaring in her manner.

"Erm…I was…" What was I doing? "I was just…going for a ride on my bike, you know, just riding around Vale, taking a break from Beacon, catching a breather so to speak, that sort of thing." Yang tried.

"I see…" The tone of Nyla's voice absolutely dripped with boredom; as if she had better things to do than manage this committee, "With all this in mind then, how exactly did all of you end up in a confrontation with Roman Torchwick seeing as all of you were separated from each other before the incident started?"

Blake swallowed, this was her cue.

"I was the one who found the robot in Roman's possession; it was then that I called the rest of my team over to assist me."

"Assist you in what Ms. Belladonna?"

"Erm…" Blake took a moment to think, "Assist me in combating the robot ma'am."

"To assist you in combating the robot," Nyla seemed to accept that explanation, "And how exactly did you come across Roman Torchwick, the White Fang, and the robot together in one place?"

"It was all an accident; I didn't mean to find out all about that."

"Do clarify what you mean by 'accident' Ms. Belladonna."

"I mean I followed them to their hideout and found them there."

"So you accidentally followed them to their hideout?"

"No! I meant…!" Blake took a deep breath to calm herself and sort out her thoughts, "I mean I happened to overhear a suspicious conversation between two men at the café I was at, I followed them to their hideout and discovered the rally there."

"You deliberately followed them to their hideout."

"Yes."

"On purpose."

"Yes."

"And Mr. Wukong? How does he fit into all of this?"

"He was with me the whole time."

"And he agreed to follow the suspicious men with you."

"Yes."

"Ok…" Nyla scribbled something down on a notepad, "So Ms. Belladonna, tell us how you and Mr. Wukong accidentally-on-purpose stumbled onto a White Fang operation that happened to include Roman Torchwick in it?"

"It wasn't easy." Blake answered.

"It wasn't easy to stumble onto a White Fang operation?"

"…No."

"In that case, perhaps you could tell us how did you stumble onto a White Fang operation?" Nyla almost smirked.

"Well-" Blake begun but was then soundly cutoff.

"Chairwoman, if I may?" A man seated to the left of Nyla faced her with a pleasant expression on his face, Nyla glanced at him before nodding. He was a sort of pudgy looking elderly figure, he wore dark-rimmed spectacles and was balding.

"Please do Councilor Whitemore."

"Ms. Belladonna I find it very difficult to believe that a few mere trainee huntresses were able to simply stumble –as you so succinctly put it- onto a major terrorist operation just like that. Now bear with me here for a moment, I'm not saying that it's impossible for such an event to have occurred, merely I find it improbable that you did so without any form of outside assistance or aid."

"Well sir, as you said so yourself, such an event is merely improbable and not an impossible occurrence." Blake confidently answered.

"Yes indeed, improbable enough that we have never had such an incident such as this," Whitemore noted with a strange tone, "Improbable enough that it makes me wonder how much of a coincidence this is."

"I…don't understand sir." Blake –and indeed the rest of Team RWBY- was genuinely confused, where on Remnant was he going with this?

"It's a strange coincidence, especially with how this incident was treated by both parties in the immediate aftermath." He replied in a matter-of-factly tone of voice.

At this point, Ozpin who had been keeping quiet chose to speak, "If you have a question regarding my handling of the aftermath, you would do better to address me directly councilor Whitemore." He deadpanned.

Whitemore seemed a little taken aback, by nevertheless leaned forward across his desk, "I'm questioning the response by Beacon in the aftermath of the incident, not only was there absolutely no information given out or indeed any form of reassurance made, rather there was complete silence on the matter by both parties, yours and General Ironwood's." He said rather simply.

"That can be attributed to the fact that we were busy trying to gather all the facts of the incident before we made any presumptions." Ozpin explained tersely.

"Excuse me?" Whitemore lowered his head to look at Ozpin from behind his glasses, "I beg your pardon headmaster but I don't think anyone in this room has any presumptions as to what happened that night." He bluntly stated in a sort of arrogant and smug tone, and immediately Team RWBY could feel a tremendous dislike start to boil for him, if he noticed the glares he was getting he did not comment on it and merely continued speaking, "A team of trainee huntresses, apparently with no help whatsoever, were able to stumble across and disrupt a major operation just on their own? I think everyone can see that there is more to this than just the surface."

"Excuse me councilor?" Ozpin actually sounded angry, "Are you insinuating that I deliberately put the lives of not only my students at risk, but also the lives of dozens of innocent civilians just to root out a White Fang hideout?" His eyes were narrowed and his face a dark frown.

"I was merely-"

"Merely what councilor? If you think for even a moment that I would venture to risk valuable students and innocent civilians on busting terrorists –which by the way should be the job of the police- then you are sorely mistaken, the role of students at Beacon is first and foremost to counter the threat of the Grimm, that is what our curriculum is based on and that is what they are trained for."

That was apparently good enough to shut Whitemore up for the moment.

"Well now that that has been settled…" Nyla cleared her throat as she re-organized her papers, and then noticed something odd on Team RWBY's table.

"Ms. Xiao Long?" The blonde brawler was slouching in her seat, with her chin on her chest; her head bowed low, a thin line of drool coming from her mouth, on realizing this Blake sharply elbowed Yang, causing the person in question to sit up straight in a shock, her eyes wide open, she quickly wiped the drool of her chin and tried to sit up straight

"Ms. Xiao Long I request that you take this hearing seriously." Nyla narrowed her eyes.

Yang grunted a non-response and rubbed her eyes, "Why the hell am I even here?" She grumbled, not realizing she said it out loud, and then she noticed the rather disapproving looks the rest of her team was giving her, "What?" she gave a shrug of confusion, and then it dawned on her, "I said that out loud didn't I?"

"Ms. Xiao Long, not even a week ago you were involved in a disastrous incident that claimed the lives of a dozen innocent civilians, wrecked major public infrastructure and then walked away from it unscathed and untouched while a pile up ensued on the highway with civilians, none of whom reported any other help besides emergency services. So if you'll forgive my impudence Ms. Xiao Long, I believe you know the exact reason why you are here." The completely deadpan, almost bored tone in which Nyla said it, with her lip curled and twisted in disgust silenced the brawler in an instant. At that moment there was nothing ang would have loved to be able to do more than to shrink

"Headmaster Ozpin if this is the sort of ill-disciplined behavior that your academy promotes regularly surely even you must see why both you and they fail to inspire any real confidence in us." Whitemore smirked.

"Excuse me Councilor? While I agree that Team RWBY has proven to be rather eccentric amongst my students, they are no less disciplined than any one of my other trainee teams, perhaps they are exceptionally unlucky in that regard, but that is all there is to it."

"And yet this explains why they are the same team that was coincidentally involved in the incident at the docks earlier this year?" Whitemore shot back, "Perhaps further down the road we shall see them involved in one more incident with the White Fang, and perhaps this time it will involve more of Vale being destroyed!"

It was a rather sobering argument for Team RWBY, neither of them were immediately involved in the argument between their headmaster and the councilor, on the other hand not one of them would doubt that they were really in the wrong for this one, the fact that Ozpin was standing up for them and catching a severe amount of heat for actions which they had committed of their own accord greatly shamed them to a certain extent. Ruby was shifting very uncomfortably, it hurt to see their headmaster be abused like this, and she really wanted to speak up, to say something, heroes might be able to save the day, but they also took responsibility for their own actions right?

Right?

"Wait!" She suddenly found herself speaking up in the middle of the argument; all eyes were suddenly on her, "Erm…" She fidgeted nervously.

"Yes Ms. Rose? Do you have something you wish to add?" Nyla asked blandly.

"Ruby what're you doing?!" Weiss hissed out quietly.

"We can't just let the headmaster get all the crap like this!" Ruby whispered back.

"But we'll be endangering ourselves if you just open your mouth like that!"

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

"What can you do?" Weiss asked, "What can we do? We were in too far over our heads then! If you speak up now we might overstep ourselves again!" Weiss gripped Ruby's shoulder tightly, "Look, just trust in the headmaster, I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

"Perhaps the both of you would like to share the results of your discussion with the rest of us?" Nyla had a strange tone of bemusement in her voice.

"Her hand just slipped, that's all. I was just scolding her for making a scene." Weiss calmly stated, no one looked particularly convinced.

"Y-yeah, that's…that's all…" Ruby tried her best to say confidently with a cheeky smile, she lifted the cup to her lips and found that it was empty, "Erm..actually…" She put her hand up uncertainly.

"Yes Ms. Rose?"

"Could I get a refill? Please?" Ruby held her cup out in front of her, Nyla nodded to one of the guards, who walked over to Ruby and took the cup out of her hands and walked out of the room.

Blake rolled her eyes, "Don't drink so much now, we don't know how long this will go on for."

"Well I'm thirsty." Ruby replied.

"Well before we were so rudely interrupted…" Whitemore shot a look at the team, "As I was saying, I think this incident really highlights the headmaster's apparent inability to deal with his own students in a satisfactory manner. Furthermore, I honestly think that this is rather disgraceful, here we are about to host the Vytal Festival –by your own insistence I might add- with the rest of Remnant watching us, and here your students are playing silly heroics!"

"Councilor Whitemore." Nyla spoke up, trying to get his attention.

"And it is not this incident that is the first, as shown previously on multiple occasions we have already seen the results of your inability to control your own Academy's trainees, letting them constantly wander off on their own and-"

"Councilor Whitemore." Nyla raised her voice, loudly enough –but not a shout or cry- such that the whole room could hear her, forcefully enough that it silenced aforementioned councilor, turning all heads towards her, "Rather than harp on, for some diversity in opinion, I think we should actually give a moment to hear from the headmaster?"

Whitemore fell silent, and Ozpin cleared his throat.

"Thank you very much Councilor Nyla," Making himself sound as exasperated as possible while nodding to her with a small smile, she remained impassive in response, Ruby suppressed a giggle, "Chairman, councilors, today I have heard much asked about my conduct my conduct in regards to the amount of control I exert over my trainees and whether or not either they or I remain fit to stand in our respective positions, I would now like to point out that these trainees are very much still in their youth, and who here can say that they have not made their mistakes in their youth? I take pride in the fact that before I send my students out into the world to protect and defend the innocent; they are at least able to have a semblance of normality before doing so."

"This is all well and good, but Headmaster I question your conviction on this matter, as far as I can tell these girls have chosen of their own free will to be huntresses each with their own reason. It then stands to reason that they should be treated in accordance with the willingness to take on the responsibility and burden of defending our people and our homes, not allow them to fool around like a bunch of teenagers who think being a huntress gives them a blanket pardon to do what pleases them!" Whitemore waved his hand and pointed out angrily, "These are the people who we entrust the future too! And you are suggesting we treat them like a bunch of children playing heroes and villains?" He asked with a cocked eyebrow, his expression burning holes in each of the trainee huntresses, "There are people out on the streets right now demanding culpability for this tragedy."

"And where does the culpability lie in this case? With a group of trainee huntresses trying to do the right thing? Or to your own incompetence in dealing with the White Fang such that they were able to hide several pieces of stolen military equipment to be used against us? If Team RWBY had not discovered the plot then we could be in greater jeopardy now! And this when we have reports that of an increase in the number and density of Grimm around the kingdoms!"

Whitemore was clearing seething with anger, "Headmaster Ozpin, if you think that just because you-"

"Gentlemen! Before we sidetrack ourselves any more than we already have." Nyla raised her voice above everyone else's for the second time, "Shall we get back to the main point? Team RWBY as far as I can ascertain, you maintain a position that your involvement in the incident was purely a coincidence, you stumbled onto a White Fang hideout, were caught in the act and were subsequently chased leading into the incident, am I correct?"

"That is correct ma'am." Weiss answered for her team.

"That said though, I would like to be absolutely sure on something," Nyla continued, "During the course of your little…accident I trust that you handed over whatever additional information you may have gained to the appropriate authorities?"

And that question put Team RWBY into another bind, they did in fact know that there was yet another major White Fang operation somewhere down southeast of Vale; no one else but they knew, not even Ozpin knew yet and they had agreed to keep it amongst themselves for the time being, by the knowing looks that they exchanged with each other, all knew that if they were to reveal this now, they might end up in even worse straits. Besides there was still time to pursue the matter later, they would focus on getting through this hearing first with their skins intact.

At this point, Ruby's cup returned to the table, she muttered a thanks and only received a silent nod in reply.

Before any of them could speak, Ozpin spoke first, "I've already thoroughly debriefed them councilor you can rest assured-"

"I believe I was speaking to them Ozpin, not you." Nyla swiftly cut him off.

"Ah, we didn't really learn anything in the first place ma'am." Blake spoke up now, "It didn't really take them long to find us out, and once we were found out the chase was on." She stated clearly.

"I see," Nyla nodded, "Now I suppose we should get on to more pressing issues now, namely your conduct during the battle itself." So saying she began to rearrange some of the papers in front of her while the rest of Team RWBY swallowed hard gulps.

This was it then, the hard part to put it mildly.

"When you engaged in battle, were any of you aware of the surroundings as you did so?" She asked blithely.

"Ma'am although Blake and Sun were the first two to engage in battle, the rest of us took time before we were able to arrive. During that time the engagement had already spread far from where it had originally started."

"That was not answering the question Ms. Schnee," Nyla shook her head slightly, "What I meant was why was greater care not taken to ensure a limit to the damage that was dealt to the surrounding area?"

Before Weiss could continue, Blake chose to intercede, "Ma'am if I may, we were primarily concerned with our own safety at the time, so we took the fastest and easiest possible route to escape."

"Yes, but not quite the safest route I presume?" Nyla cocked an eyebrow as she leaned back into her seat and folded her arms.

"I…I beg your pardon ma'am? I don't-"

"In the entire time of your battle, not one of you apparently sought to limit the damage done not only to the surrounding area, but also to the resultant casualties caused by the engagement."

"With all due respect ma'am we were running and fighting for our very lives! You can't expect us to…to…" Blake stopped herself before she finished her sentence, realizing what was about to come out of her mouth.

You can't expect us to be able to save others and ourselves at the same time. She completed it in her head.

"Can't expect you to…what Ms. Belladonna?" Now it was Whitemore's turn, "Protect the people just like we have entrusted you to do so? Because you were too busy trying to play at being the heroine?"

Venom dripped from his tongue.

"As Ozpin was so kind as to remind us," He nodded with a smirk directed at the headmaster, "you are all still technically a bunch of teenagers, gifted teenagers no doubt, but teenagers nonetheless, still prone to making mistakes and errors in judgement. This is a completely understandable and forgivable fact of life…were it not for the fact that we as the people entrust you with our lives so that we may sleep peacefully at night, and how can we do so if actions like these are being committed?"

Blake was silent.

"Which brings us back to the original question Ms. Belladonna." Nyla leaned forward, folding her arms on the desk, "How did you stumble onto a potential White Fang plot…and yet completely fail to notify anyone else other than your own team?"

"I…I…" Blake stammered out, unable to respond.

"I doubt if you did not have ample time to alert any form of higher authority whether it be the Beacon faculty or perhaps the Vale Police Department, allowing perhaps a more appropriate response from the appropriate authorities to have been developed to counter this threat as opposed to having a team of inexperienced trainee huntresses trying to take down a criminal organization."

We wouldn't have to if only you'd just do your job and take them down in the first place! Blake wanted to scream at them, but otherwise remained silent and tried to maintain a straight face.

It apparently failed as Whitemore took the opportunity to speak again, "Perhaps this is due to a lack of trust in higher authorities? Now why would that be?"

Yes, yes it does. Blake answered in her head.

"Councilor where you going with this?" Ozpin had been silent up until now, his tone was more measured than before though.

"I am speaking to your students headmaster."

"Evidently," Ozpin did not hide his eye roll, "I thought this hearing was about their actions?"

"And we are getting there, as soon as we find out what exactly they were thinking when they went about with this foolish course of action and how we can go about resolving this mindset."

"I'm fairly certain it was already stated that it was the merest of a coincidence."

"And yet not one person aside from them and their two other friends apparently knew about this? If it is true that it was a mere coincidence that some trainees stumbled onto some nefarious plot, then it stands to reason that either they have committed a dangerously reckless action by not informing anyone else, or that they deliberately kept it to themselves in order to try for a chance at the glory of taking down criminals as trainees."

Team RWBY felt a yawning pit in their stomach as he said that, the councilor had no idea just how close to the truth he had come, and if Team RWBY had their way he would never find out.

Ever.

Ozpin fell silent and let Whitemore continue, Team RWBY shot glances at him, and get he remained stoic and unresponsive to any other stimulus. At this point, Whitemore chose to open his binder and begin flicking through it, "Now back to the main question, I have read through the records and histories of some of the huntresses," He looked up from the file briefly, his gaze fixing on both Ruby and Yang, making the both of them exceedingly uncomfortable.

"While the records for Ms. Schnee are of course, nothing by exemplary as far as I can tell," Weiss let herself a small smile for that, "and the records for Ms. Belladonna are remarkably clean…" Blake flinched but exuded a sigh of relief, it looked like Ozpin's work had come through for her after all, "I have noticed a few…somethings in the record." He almost grew a devilish smile.

Once again the team was stumped, where on earth was he going with this?

"Especially for you Ms. Xiao Long," He clicked his tongue a few times, "I have here a statement from a club owner," He held up a piece of paper, and immediately Yang went rigid as rock, Blake noticed that she was gripping both of her fists under the table on her lap and grinding her lower jaw with her face set in a tight grimace, "Testifying that some time before your entry into Beacon, you entered his club looking for information on the whereabouts of a person, when the club owner denied knowledge, you attempted to first seduce him, and then after that…" He trailed off as he turned the paper around, "as far as I can tell you destroyed his club in a fit of anger, what can do have to say about that?"

"…I fail to see how this is relevant to this hearing." Yang said tersely, barely biting back a snarl.

"Oh really?" Whitemore lifted an eyebrow, "Because to my eyes it shows a pretty record of a history of violent tendencies and responses, according to the report you were bailed out by your uncle Qrow Branwen who also paid for the damages himself."

Unfortunately, no one close to Yang could really refute that accusation, not even Ruby could really say otherwise, besides being a bit of a tease and a shameless flirt, few who knew Yang would outright disagree whenever the blonde brawler's anger was brought up as a potential issue. It was not necessarily an often occurrence, just that it could be a considerably frightening experience when it did occur.

"It was one time." Yang replied.

"Yang, don't fall for his provocation." Blake hissed as quietly as she dared.

"I doubt so Ms. Xiao Long, because when I dug deeper into your history, I found that there have been multiple reports of other similar incidents in which a certain blonde girl wearing gauntlets has been looking for a specific piece of information apparently relating to her missing mother, and I don't just mean your birth mother, I mean your stepmother as well."

A small gasp came out from Ruby.

In that moment, there was nothing that Yang wanted to do more than to cave the councilor's skull in with her fists, still for the sake of her Team, she grit her teeth and bit her tongue to fight down a comeback.

"Such a rather...difficult history with your family, parental abandonment, makes me wonder if there are perhaps ulterior reasons for such gung-ho recklessness on your part?" The sheer smugness on Whitemore's face, that arrogant smirk on that man's face, combined with the oppressive atmosphere and the tumultuous memories that those words brought up triggered something within Yang that was not going to be suppressed no matter how hard she might have tried.

"You…" Yang dropped her face, her bangs covering her eyes as they shone red; she clenched her fists tightly under the table, upper and lower jaws grinding together.

"Yang!" Blake gripped her hand to try to calm her down.

"Fucking bastard!" She yelled, shoving Blake to the side, she leapt right over the table and made a beeline for Councilman Whitemore, she barely got one-and-a-half steps before something tackled her into the ground in a flutter of rose petals.

"Let go of me you-!" She turned to grab her assailant, and only stopped midway when she realized she was about to grab hold of Ruby by her head.

"Yang calm down! You're not helping the-"

Ruby was brutally cut off by a chorus of clicks sounding out from around them.

Both sisters looked around them, a plethora of armed guards surrounded them both, they faced black gun barrels that were shoved in their faces, safeties flicked off, fingers on the triggers, ready to shoot at the first sign of an errant, slightly-less-than-stable trainee huntress trying anything remotely destructive with them.

Both remained stock still as the world seemed to slow to a crawl around them, whispers, cries and words began circulating all around the room as the atmosphere and tension went through the roof.

"She's a crazy bitch!" Went one cry

"Lock her up!" Went another.

"She's nuts,"

"I don't wanna be here,"

"Let's get out of here before she kills someone,"

"Whoa that's a real snap,"

"Didn't know one of the outstanding eight was so fucked up."

"How the hell did she even become a huntress with that temper?"

"What do you expect? She's just some teenager with a gun,"

"Hey!" Both turned their attention back to the guardsmen surrounding them, "I said put your hands in the air!" Eyes wide, lip quivering, teeth chattering, body trembling, Ruby slowly stood up and got off Yang and raised her hands into the air.

"Hey!" Weiss called out, "What the heck are you doing? She just saved your life you nitwit!" And then she too was set upon by armed guards, "What the- let go of me! Don't you know who I am?!" She shouted indignantly, right beside her Blake was just off the floor when she too was set upon, she gave an almost cat-like hiss of anger as she was roughly forced to her knees but realized that there was no way she was going to fight her way out of this, not in a room full of civilians.

Ruby was roughly pulled away to the side stumbling and pushed to her knees by a pair of guards, her eyes full of fear and terror and she glanced from side to side, trying to look for anyone she recognized in the blur, she was nearly in tears as the guards forced her to keep her head low with her hands on the back of her head, preventing her from seeing anything but a blur of uniforms surrounding her older sister. She had no idea what to do or what was going to happen to them, there was no plan for this, this was not a fight with the Grimm where she could go to town with her baby Crescent Rose, instead here the law itself was turning on her and her team.

And for what? Because she had decided to try to take down a criminal and a terrorist group that she had no business tangling with, some part of her deep down did realize that it was a rather dangerous course of action that might lead to problems down the line, but if she had known that she would end up on the wrong side of the law? Being thrown about and disparaged by the very same people that she had sworn to protect?

She would probably have given a little more thought to the whole "youngest Huntresses to single-handedly taking down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale" concept, since as it turned out, her team was way out of their league.

C'mon think Ruby think, there's got to be a way out of this! She thought as she was haphazardly pulled to her feet with her wrists bound in plastic cuffs, looking around at the remainder of her team, they were all similarly restrained as they were hauled to their feet, Weiss was looking at defiant as ever, Blake looked resigned to her fate, Yang meanwhile was still struggling.

"Yang stop struggling," Blake called out, and then grit her teeth and frowned when the brawler failed to comply, "You're only making things worse!" She raised her voice in anger.

Yang's head flicked up to look at Blake, cold, aloof Blake who normally never raised her voice against anything or anyone was now glaring daggers at her, a demand and a plea clear in her eyes for Yang to cease and desist before she created even more trouble for everyone. The red slowly faded out of Yang's eyes as Blake focused her gaze on her, the Faunus girl shaking her head from side to side as if to say 'please don't do it'.

With that last action, Yang finally relaxed long enough for the guards to cuff both her arms and legs on account of her struggling.

Ruby's head flicked away, her eyes searching desperately for anyone to come to their aid even as she was pushed away with the rest of her team, where was her uncle? Or her father? Or even the Beacon staff? And then her eyes fixed on another person.

Jaune Arc.

He and his team were standing off to the side looking rather lost and aimless, their faces twisted in a muted horror at what was happening. Jaune stood in front of all of them, watching Team RWBY get taken away by the armed guards, helpless to do anything as their friends were led away.

Ruby wanted to call out to him, plead for his help, ask him to use his position to call off the guards and get them to safety, but as they looked at each other and she looked into his eyes, she knew that at that point…

There was nothing he could do for them.

"No…" She whispered, so quietly no one could hear her, surely there was some kind of help coming, something his family could do? He was a prince right? His grandfather was the king of vale! Sure he was nothing but a figurehead but that must have counted for something in these parts right?

Right?

As she was pushed and shoved forward together with the rest of her team towards the doors of the room, she realized in that moment that he was just as powerless as she was now, there was not going to be a happy ending here, they were not going to get saved at the last minute by some golden light of miracles from the sky that-

With a loud *BANG* the doors to the room were thrown open, the entire room went quiet as a man dressed in suit bent over and put his hands on his knees, gasping and panting hard

"I'm sorry for the interruption sir! But I just came to announce that His Majesty the King of Vale is about to land at the Vale City Airport!" He shouted out as loud as he could.

Silence reigned as everyone looked at everyone else, and then…

"YAHOO!" Ruby squealed and cheered loudly, "We're saved guys!" She turned to her team with a bright smile on her face, they gave her weird looks, but she did not give a damn about that, her prayers had apparently been answered, "We're saved! We're saved! The king is here guys! He's gonna save us and we're all gonna be heroes! WOOHOO!" Ruby cheered excitedly, and then she spotted Jaune again, so this was what he had planned all along? Bringing the big guns all the way to Vale?! What a brilliant, magnificent man to have for a friend! Eleventh hour rescues did exist!

In her excitement, she completely missed the stunned and bewildered expression on his face.

Marina, uncle...what did you do? He wondered with wide eyes as he watched Ruby wave at him excitedly.

"Hey Jaune!" Ruby bounced on her heels excitedly as she grinned from ear to ear, "You didn't say-"

"RUBY!" Blake cried out, trying to silence the girl before she accidentally said something she was not supposed to.

"What?" Ruby stopped bouncing and turned to look at Blake quizzically, Blake snapped her head to the side and nodded towards the rest of the room, all of whom were looking at her in complete silence with strange looks on their faces.

"…What?" Ruby returned their questioning looks.

"Put them in a holding cell for now, we'll deal with this after we see to his majesty." Councilor Whitemore almost spat out the last two words in disgust.

Ruby's smile vanished.

---

"Whoa, it feels like forever since we've been in here." Blake noted bemusedly.

"It only feels that way because of a certain pair of sisters." Weiss blandly replied, looking at the Faunus, "One needs to go to the toilet every quarter of an hour," She jerked her thumb at Ruby, who pouted and stuck her tongue out in response, "The other is a raging maniac." She gestured to Yang, who continued writing on the floor and grunting in pain as she struggled to release her cuffs.

"I still need to go to the toilet by the way." Ruby remarked.

---

Phew! That's all done!

I wanted to do the hearing first because it made the most sense to me, first comes the investigative hearing and then after that comes the prosecution in court...IF it gets that far, I might not let it go that far though, King ex Machina aside, I don't think I can get that far, I think I already made this chapter a bit of a stretch, I don't know if I can continue.

As far as everyone knows, RWBY just happened to do a thing, and most definitely were not trying to bring down the White Fang and Roman at all, no sirree, after all in canon they kept it a secret all the way until that thing with Cinder and the tower during the dance

I really wanted to have at least one mudslinging guy to just throw everything and then some at RWBY and the headmaster, deliberately nitpicking here and there. If anyone remarks on any of the good points he made about their actions, that's kind of the point because after all RWBY aren't exactly clean in the incident, and Whitemore kind of hates Ozpin and so does his best to make Ozpin's life as difficult as possible, first trying to make the hearing about Ozpin, and then when that doesn't work he goes after the students instead to get at Ozpin.

Cliche politicking? Because why not?

As the saying goes, we are our own worst enemy, and for Team RWBY, I felt that having Yang explode from the one mudslinging councilor seemed fairly appropriate to cause their current predicament, I also felt Blake and Weiss as the two most 'mature' -so to speak- members of team should be taking the lead, on the other hand I wanted to really pressure Yang since she is the one who already has a record of losing her shit and going to town when she gets angry. And so it seemed natural that in the course of all this she should lose it at some point and try to off someone, which of course lands the whole team in the drink.

No omake! Because the chapter is already so long and because I can't think of anything.

That's it until sometime mid-August! I appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!