Blake let Yang drag her all the way to the next landing down in the stairway before pulling her arm free. It was completely enclosed, a place where anyone inside would hear anything they said and anyone outside would get nothing. As soon as she pulled away, Yang stopped moving.

For moment they waited, listening for anyone one else present to make some sounds over the beat of the music. Blake watched Yang the entire time as well. Her partner was fidgeting more than normal, tapping one foot randomly while clenching and unclenching her hands.

"No one else can hear us." Blake couldn't hear anyone else present: no breaths, no heartbeats, and no soft static of microphones. "Why did you actually miss dinner?"

Yang took a breath, then looked right at Blake. "Weiss knows about me."

"I know that much."

"What? How?"

"She heavily implied it while she was answering Ruby's questions." Blake left off that Weiss had also asked for help changing Yang's opinion about the Anathema,. Ruby's as well. That wasn't something that she was sure she could help with, but she needed to try.

"Really? I thought that she was warning me and giving me advice for the next week."

"That's odd." Blake thought about exactly what Weiss had said again. She didn't think that there was that much more hidden in her words, but what if there had been.

"Those are sort of similar, but not really the same. If she can talk like that and get different points across… " Yang's eyes went wide. "She'll be able to beat me so easily."

Blake raised an eyebrow. There was something else to that statement which might matter. She focused her Aura and the whispers between Yang's words revealed themselves. 'Weiss could flirt with anyone, right in front of me, and I wouldn't be able to tell.'

Heat rushed to Blake's cheeks. She was going to leave that one untouched. "Does that mean that Weiss is also like us?"

"I don't know. Probably?" Yang shrugged. "She refused to tell me anything, but I can't think of anything else that could explain it."

"How could this happen?"

"You've got me. I was surprised that there was someone else like me. Two others… That's nuts."

Blake was pretty sure it was three, but she didn't want to start that argument up again. Though, that did bring up something else important. "Did you tell her about Ruby?"

"What about Ruby?"

"That she can hear Aura."

"Oh crap!" Yang moved for the stairs.

Blake caught her arm. "We can't exactly tell her right now."

"Argh, you're right." Yang slammed the bottom of her hand into the wall. "She can tell us whatever she wants, but we can't warn her that Ruby might be listening in."

"Is it really that much of a problem?"

"If she keeps doing whatever she's doing and Ruby figures it out… Maybe."

"Just maybe?"

"She didn't know what it meant the first time and hasn't called us on it yet, so… If we can figure out a good enough explanation, something that makes sense…" Yang ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it past her ear. "Maybe using our Auras to change our voices?"

Blake stared at her. "Do you really think that would work?'

"I don't know. I'm bad at this."

"This would be much easier with Weiss' help." Blake sighed, her main method of lying was to simply not say anything incriminating in the first place. She also knew next to nothing about what exactly she was supposed to be hiding. "Or, if you can find out more about what exactly Ruby can hear."

"That's…" She looked away.

"We need to know what to expect. What we can't do while she's around, and you're the only one she's told this to." Blake had been careful to not draw on any of her power while Ruby was nearby. It made everything so much harder to work on.

"Yeah… But... What happened with you and Ruby anyway?"

Blake took a breath as tempting as it might be, pushing Yang was a bad idea. Also, this was as good of a time as any to explain what she and Ruby had talked about over dinner. "Ruby knows about me and the White Fang…"

"How?"

"The owner of the bookstore she brought me to was a member and he recognized me."

"You said was." Yang pointed at her.

"He's still helping them, but wants to get out."

"Okay, makes sense… How did Ruby find out?"

"We went to the back room to talk and she listened in."

Yang hissed and flinched back. "Oof, that must not have been a fun talk."

"She was… surprisingly okay with everything." Blake shook her head. "And we figured something out in the process."

"Oh?"

"We think that Roman Torchwick-"

Yang tensed slightly.

"-and the White Fang are working together."

"Why? How?"

"The Fang have a lot of high quality Dust that they got from... humans." Blake tried to make sure she wasn't saying the word with any bad inflection. When Yang didn't react poorly, she continued. "He's been on a Dust stealing spree for weeks and could very easily have been the source."

"What're we going to do about it?" Yang punched her palm. It was a relief, but getting her on board was the easy part.

"I want find out the truth. If they're working with a person like him now, and stealing that much Dust, then they have to be planning something big."

"What do you think they're trying to do?"

"I don't know, but-" Blake cut herself off as the door one floor beneath them opened. Almost immediately after, someone got slammed into a wall and the sounds of aggressive kissing echoed up the stairwell with very deep moans. After several seconds of waiting, there were no signs of the couple stopping.

A zipper was unzipped. Blake angled her head towards the door, Yang nodded. They slipped out, leaving the boys alone.

"Drinks?" Yang pointed at the small bar in the corner.

Blake nodded, following behind. As they moved, she noticed that Yang was putting far too much hip into her stride.

Yang sauntered up to the bar and waited for the bartender to turn to her. He was young, sort of scruffy, and had a pistol on his lower back. With a nod and a smile, he said, "Ladies, what can I get you?"

"Strawberry sunrise, no ice. And…" Yang looked at Blake while the bartender started pulling bottles out.

Blake shrugged. "Something sweet-ish still."

"Black Panther Special for her and then… Virgin hot chocolate and a glass of water."

"You want to start a tab?" He'd started pouring the water first.

"Nah." Yang placed her card on the edge. "We'll just take these."

Blake watched him pour everything, keeping a close eye of his hands. He was careful, with just a little bit of flare, spinning a bottle in one hand as he put it away.

When he finished hers, he took a long look at her weapon. "You want this kicked?"

"Kicked?"

"We're good, thanks." Yang cut in with a wave of her hand.

"Suit yourself." He took her card to a machine on the side.

"Kicked?" Blame nudged Yang.

"Yeah, it's one of their club specials: dark rum, almond liqueur, coffee, cinnamon whiskey, and a touch of cream. If you get it kicked, they sprinkle a little Fire Dust on the top. Just enough to give it some zing as it goes down."

"That's… dangerous." Blake thought back to how much pain eating or injecting Dust caused some of the more reckless members of the White Fang. They thought it was the quickest way to make their Aura stronger or gain some new power. Technically they were right, but no one knew the techniques to really make use of it.

"Eh, not really." Yang shrugged. "They only offer it to people who probably have their Aura unlocked and there's barely any Dust. I probably inhale more during most fights."

Blake sighed and shook her head. There was enough danger in life already. Why add Dust poisoning to the mix?

She watch the dance floor while Yang waited. There were a few Faunus out there, more than she would've expected from a human nightclub. None of them had White Fang tattoos, but two still had the right edge to their movements. They danced further away from everyone else, keeping close to one of the exits. Of course, she couldn't get a good look at their arms or backs either. That could be a problem when she was leaving.

"Here you go." Yang passed her two glasses and headed for a different set of stairs than the one they came from.

Again Blake listened carefully. After confirming they were safe, she nodded.

"Ruby wants to do this too?"

"She thought it would be something good, which we could do, that the professors weren't helping with."

"Do you really think we need everyone for it?"

Blake raised an eyebrow.

"I think just the two of us could do it. You know, as partners." Yang grinned.

Blake blinked at her once. That statement didn't need any Aura use to find the not very hidden meaning.

"Come on it'll be fun." Yang smiled brightly. The air in the stairwell seemed to heat up. Blake's heart started pumping faster as the vision of them fighting back to back-

Blake forced the thoughts down, just like she had to during the investigation. Yang's enthusiasm was infectious enough that she was tempted, even though she knew it was a bad idea right now. "I appreciate the interest, but Ruby's telling Weiss right now. Do you think she'd be okay with us doing something this important without her?"

"We could just call it a-"

"Yang." Blake cut her off. "Can we please focus on the important problem facing Vale that we can help with?"

"I am focusing on it." Yang's smile broke.

Blake sighed and shook her head.

Yang sulked slightly. "Okay yeah. Fighting bad guys is good too… But… How're we going to do that when-"

"-you're missing your weapon and I'm still injured." Weiss gestured between Ruby and herself.

"I know that, but we don't have to actually go and fight him tonight. We can wait for Crescent Rose to be fixed and for you to finish healing."

"And everyone to mentally recover from what just happened to us?"

"I'm fine. Blake's fine. Yang's… she's better… I also think going out and doing something real would help her." Ruby had caught Yang with a pained look on her face a couple of times this week when she didn't know that Ruby was looking. "Also, it doesn't seem like it really affected you at all."

"I knew exactly what I was getting into."

"You almost got eaten by Grimm!"

"And that was within the bounds of what I expected. I would have been disappointed in Beacon as an institution if they hadn't done something like that."

"It isn't what we, as Hunters, should ever do."

"Sometimes, there are only bad options and you need to find the least bad one."

"That was so far from least bad that I don't even know how to explain it."

Weiss took a deep breath. "Which are worse, the Anathema or the Grimm?"

"Both." Ruby answered immediately.

"Both isn't a valid answer!"

"Yes it is!"

Weiss gestured for her to continue.

"What options are worse changes depending on everything else. If the Anathema really do create or control the Grimm, then they're obviously worse. If they're people who made pacts with demons or the Grimm or something then… They're equal I guess? But that still doesn't mean that letting the Grimm eat people who might be Anathema is ok."

"What's so wrong with using one threat to fight another?"

Ruby slammed a hand on the table. "If you become a monster to kill a different monster, then you haven't solved anything. There's still a monster running around, only now other people think that it's ok to do whatever you did which will just make them worse."

Weiss looked at her for a few moments before responding. "The Grimm are the monsters in such a scenario, not the people using them."

"Using the Grimm to hurt people, on purpose, is one of the worst things someone can do." Ruby clenched her hand as the pressure build around them. How did Weiss not get this? She mentally repeated herself and tried to shove the world to one side, but it just sort of wiggled around her and all of her energy dissipated into the air.

She exhaled sharply. That happened around Weiss more than anyone else. It was like she tried to push in a direction that didn't really exist and got knocked off balance because of it.

"Ruby." Something flickered across Weiss' face, but Ruby couldn't figure out what it was. "I can't agree with that. There are far worse actions which someone could take than allowing the Grimm to torture someone."

"Like what?"

"Letting thousands of people die instead of admitting you were wrong."

"That's… not fair." Ruby stood up and glared at her.

"Life isn't fair."

"That's not what I meant! I-" Ruby forced her mouth closed. Weiss' argument wasn't a fair comparison at all. But, if she got madder, then Weiss would walk all over her, just like last time. It was a fight, a verbal fight, and she needed to think about it like that. How could she do this?

'How can I make this work? How can we come to an understanding?' She whispered to the strings of the world. They sang a song back to her, a vision of the ripples that she could cause: she could continue arguing, get angry, call the others in, back away, punch Weiss, and so many other options. What did she want, how could she get it?

She made her choice.

"I'm done." Ruby took a deep breath and sat back down.

"Done?"

"We're not going to agree on this, so I'm not going to keep fighting about it." She needed to find a better argument to get to Weiss. Blake seemed like she got it, sort of. Even if she didn't, she'd be able to figure out what to say.

"Very well." Weiss leaned back. "I still don't think that we should do anything that risky until we're prepared for it."

"All we need to do is look around town. We don't need to fight anyone or do something dangerous."

Weiss gave her a skeptical look.

"Okay, so we don't need to but… We're all really good Huntresses already."

"We're still students."

"We're…" Ruby caught Yang and Blake coming back with the corner of her eye. She waved. "Yang! Tell Weiss that we can handle fighting Roman Torchwick's goons."

"Huh? Of course we can." She set a mug of hot chocolate in front of Ruby and plopped into her own seat.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "We're still students. He's beaten many different adult Hunters by himself."

"That's not really a high bar. We could probably take most of the seniors and they're… well, most of them are better than a lot of actual Hunters. Like the guys who guard camps from Beowolves and Ursa."

"Thank you for ruining my plan to keep us safe, Yang." Weiss sipped her water with a look of indignation on her face.

"That's what I'm here for." Yang gave Weiss a thumbs up and sipped her orange-red drink... that smelled suspiciously like rum. Blake's glass did too.

"I thought you weren't going to drink!" Ruby yelled, pointing at the glass.

Yang shrugged. That argument never worked on anyone else in their family either.

Ruby groaned and looked at Blake, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Blake, can you back me up too?"

Blake looked from Weiss, to Yang, then back to Ruby. "I'd like to at least look into this tonight."

"Fine, I'm outvoted." Weiss crossed her arms and sipped her water. Then she licked her lips and smiled very slightly. "What took you two so long?"

Blake started coughing mid sip. She slammed her glass on the table, almost spilling it while she she took quick breaths. "We didn't-" She took a quick breath. "We didn't take a long time."

Yang squinted at Weiss, who smirked back at her. Blake blushed more and held her eyes closed.

There was something else going on that Ruby had missed. She sipped her cocoa and watched them carefully. Yang had done… something.

"Yang." Ruby drew out her sister's name. Once she had Yang's attention, she eyed her, watching her face very carefully. "What exactly did you and Weiss do while we were at dinner?"

"Uh… I." Yang's pupils dilated and she froze on a worried half smile for a fraction of a second.

"I have pictures if you really want to see." Weiss waved her scroll in Ruby's direction. The smirk was still there and Ruby could practically hear the taunting follow up. "Do you really want to see your nearly naked sister posing?"

Ruby gulped and shook her head quickly. "Nope, nope. I'm good. I- uhh..."

"Are you sure?" Weiss hovered her finger over a button. "They do look very nice."

"Weiss." Yang raised her voice slightly.

"Or should I ask about what you and Blake were up to in the remaining hours?"

"We read books!"

"What kind of books? Were they the-"

Ruby waved her hands wildly. "No! I'm sorry. I don't care what you and my sister did or didn't do. I won't pry, just put your scroll down and… and… Torchwick!"

"Yes, him." Blake nodded quickly.

"We need to… Uhhh… figure out where he is and then catch him." Ruby resisted the urge to flinch under Weiss' glare. "Catch him at some other point, that is… like... tomorrow?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "How about, when Crescent Rose is fixed?"

"So, two days from now?"

"You can't fix that much damage by then"

"If I go all night, and get lucky with my first cuts, then she should be good by that afternoon."

"You'd also be too tired to fight. I'd rather find a temporary weapon and stop his next crime." Blake said, her drink half finished. Her cheeks were still bright red.

"Girls, we'll be fine. We can handle it, even if it's the three of us-" Yang nodded towards Weiss and Blake. "-plus half-asleep Ruby with a rifle."

"I can make a good enough scythe in a couple of hours." Ruby said under her breath. She'd broken a good number of scythes when she first started training with Uncle Qrow, so she had that down pat.

"That doesn't change the fact that we have no idea where he is or how to find him. For all we know, he could be here right now." Weiss gestured towards the back of the club.

"Don't worry about that. I've got this." Yang finished her drink with a grin.

"What are you going to do?" Weiss said deadpan.

"Figure out who might know him and then talk to them."

"Yang." Ruby sighed. "Are you going to burn down another bar?"

"Hey, I've only lit two buildings on fire and neither burned down!"

"Two?" Blake and Weiss asked simultaneously.

"One of them was an accident." Yang turned away from them. "I'd just graduated from Signal and Uncle Qrow wanted me to lite some shots on fire to celebrate. I got them… along with the bottle of whiskey... and a few others too. Which blew up... and got the tablecloth and the curtains."

"I can see where this is going." Blake shook her head.

"It wasn't too bad." Yang laughed. "We helped evacuate the room, then dad blasted it with Air Dust until the fire went out."

"I was washing ashes out of my cape for weeks." Ruby shuddered.

Weiss groaned. "What was the other one?"

"Oh, that was Melanie's boss's club." Yang paused for a moment. All three of them were staring at her. "Melanie… The girl in white who wanted to pick a fight with me."

They nodded slowly.

"Anyway, I wanted to get some information from him, but he was kind of a jerk so I wound up fighting him instead. Well, first his guys, then Melanie and her sister, then him. Everything was going great until he yanked my hair."

Ruby winced. That would do it. If he seriously damaged Yang's hair, then it was a surprise that his bar was still standing.

"How do you know that won't happen here?" Weiss pointed at Yang. "Your hair is a rather impressive target."

"Simple. I've been watching the crowd and I'm pretty sure Melanie's the best fighter here besides us."

"How would you be able to find someone who knows Torchwick?" Blake asked, glancing from Yang to Ruby.

"I've got a feeling about it."

Blake rolled her eyes. "You just want an excuse to show off for us, don't you?"

Yang laughed and grinned at her.

Ruby groaned. Mission accomplished, sort of. What was the worst that could happen?

Actually… She took a moment and thought about what could go wrong. The nagging feeling in the back of her head that danger was lurking around the corner was missing, so there wasn't anything really risky that would happen to Yang. Yang also liked the idea and neither Weiss nor Blake was complaining about letting her work her magic nearly as much as Ruby would've expected them to.

Ruby placed her empty mug on the table. "Let's do it."