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We made 300+ alerts! So I hope you enjoy this semi-serious, mostly fluffy and funny chapter.

Chapter 25: Leads and Circles

"Are we safe?"

"Just keep running!"

"I can't hear grenades anymore!"

Team RWBY fled from the hotel as if their lives depended on it, mostly because their lives depended on it.

As expected, Nora did not take news of Ruby's decision to patrol with her team well. The moment they sat down at breakfast to discuss the day's plans, Nora opened with a list of things she wanted to do with Ruby like enter a pie eating contest and visiting a cake shop, completely disregarding any intention of actually doing any work.

Not that Weiss, Yang, or Pyrrha could have argued against her.

Instead, Ruby sheepishly told her that they really should focus on the mission and that she was planning on going with her team because Weiss and Blake got hurt yesterday.

The temperature immediately dropped as Nora slowly turned her head to face the offenders. Her eyes were cast in shadows by her bangs; they weren't sure if they wanted to know the expression she was making.

CLICK

Everyone froze.

"Ahhh…" she sighed. "Magnhild, you didn't get to rampage around enough yesterday?" she whispered to her beloved war hammer as it engaged to its full form. Her fingers closed loosely around its handle, but everyone knew of the deathly deftness with which she wielded it.

"Nora, let's not be hasty," Ren tried to reason with her, but she completely ignored him.

"I let you have fun with Ruby yesterday," her voice was devoid of emotion. "All because Blake… and Pyrrha told me to."

She stood up slowly, her arms lifting up the heavy weapon with ease. Nearly everyone held their breath, unwilling to antagonize or draw her wrath.

"We're in a public place," Ren continued to reason.

"Now I see how it is…" her head craned upward and she leered evilly out of the corner of her eye. Her pupils were dulled, not catching the light and masked her true terror.

Everything was still for a moment, like the lull before the storm…

"YOU TRAITORS!" she screamed as she swung Magnhild across the table.

Everyone leapt back to avoid a one way trip to the nearest wall. Plates and food clattered and splattered in every direction. Innocent patrons were thrown back from the aftershock of the swing.

"Nora! Calm down!" Pyrrha tried to stop her.

"SABOTEUR!" Not even Pyrrha could placate her anger.

Pyrrha rolled out of the way as the hammer came crashing down, splintering the table and cracking the floor.

"NORA!" Pyrrha cried out in shock and a bit of fear.

"YOU WERE IN LEAGUE WITH BLAKE AND YANG ALL ALONG!"

Like a whirlwind, she indiscriminately destroyed everything around her.

"Stop already!" Weiss shouted.

Unfortunately, this only drew Nora's attention.

"WWWWoOOOOORRRRSSSSSTTTTTTT!" her raspy and distorted voice was more like a derange howl as she rounded upon Weiss.

Weiss, Blake, and Yang immediately realized they were in the most danger. Nora's fury would not be quenched anytime soon.

"Run!" Ruby ordered. In times of desperate need and protection, her alpha instincts awaken to protect her pack!

They rushed passed her and she immediately positioned herself to block Nora from the door. Not that it helped much, Ruby was among the smallest of the group.

"Ruby?!" Weiss shouted back at her from the door.

"I'll try to distract her!" Ruby bravely faced down pure power given form. Perhaps Nora will spare everyone if she went quietly.

Yang took one look at Nora.

…

"Nope!" she popped the 'p' and flung Ruby over her shoulder, grabbing Ruby's giant backpack with her other hand.

"Yang?!"

"She's not gonna listen now!" Yang bodily carried her out, Weiss and Blake closely behind.

"We'll hold her off!" they heard Jaune shout before the door closed behind them. Right after, a large explosion rocked the hotel and they heard him valiantly scream like a little girl.

Thus team RWBY tore through the city as fast as they could, leaving their friends behind to fend off the murderous valkyrie.

For the next fifteen minutes, they ran as if their lives depended on it.

"Oooooh, I hope everyone's okay," Ruby said worriedly, glancing back to the smoke peeking behind several buildings.

"They'll be fine," Weiss huffed. "They're her teammates, if they can't handle her, no one can."

She glanced back to see Ruby still in doubt.

"I'm just going to step in before you say something ridiculous like it is somehow your fault," Weiss sighed, cutting off Ruby's next sentence.

"Isn't it," Ruby muttered glumly.

"Well…. not all of it," Weiss admitted. If anything, Ruby's fault is that she can't clone herself to spend more time with everyone. "The ones at fault here are Blake and Yang."

"Oh gee, thanks for throwing us under the bus, Ms. Worst," Yang glared at her.

"Guh…." Weiss had no comeback. 'Worst' as in 'The One Person Who Gets To Spend The Most Time With Ruby and Gets Preferential Treatment.' Even Weiss was not that oblivious to the attention Ruby, for some reason, lavished on her.

"No use worrying about it now," Blake pointed out. "We need to keep our priorities straight, especially since thanks to Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ren, we're going as a group now."

Ruby slapped her cheeks to rid herself of worry and pump herself up. "Right! Our first official search mission starts now!"

She pumped her fist in the air, shouting "OH!" Everyone else followed to psych themselves up. Weiss was surprised at how easily she was flowing along with everyone. Had this been their first day together, she would have just sighed disdainfully at their antics.

"We should review what we know," Weiss pulled out her scroll to bring up the information. "The missing huntress was working with the local law enforcement, assisting with patrols and other leg work before disappearing."

"No one has seen nor heard from her since," Blake's eyes skimmed over the profile.

"So shouldn't we check the police station?" Ruby asked.

The other three looked at her.

"I thought you guys did?" Yang looked at Weiss. "On the first day? Or the second?"

"No," Weiss huffed. "I thought you and Blake went there on the first day."

"We were looking… in other places," Blake discreetly nodded towards Ruby, hinting of their secondary mission. "We thought you and Ruby would head there first since you two seem to deal best with authority figures."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Weiss raised an eyebrow.

"So we haven't been there yet!" Ruby shouted to diffuse the oncoming argument. "Let's go there now," she grinned and took off.

"You're going the wrong way!" Weiss shouted after her.

"Hiya! How are you doing today?" Ruby cheerfully greeted the policeman behind the counter at Mistral's precinct.

He raised an eyebrow slowly, not sure what to make of the child before him. She was far too exuberant and he could already tell that he did not want to get involved with whatever she was here for.

Just as he moved to wave her off, Weiss marched up and held out her scroll, showing her identification and the mission registration. "We are team RWBY assigned to this mission and we would like to ask for your cooperation."

Well, there went his chance to tell them to bugger off.

Blake and Yang stood in the background, watching Weiss in fascination as she conducted her actions as if by second nature. While the officer looked disdainfully at them, he kept his professionalism and read through the scroll.

"Huh… it says here yer supposed ter be here two days ago?" his voice was rough and coarse.

"We wanted to get a feel of the area and survey potential hotspots without any biased data," Weiss smoothly explained. A lie, but he didn't have to know that.

Still wary of them, considering Ruby hadn't ceased her enormous, and slightly unnerving, grin the entire time, he checked over to make sure that they had the right authorization and clearance to view potentially dangerous information.

Not that unusual, hunters often worked in conjunction with the local law enforcement, taking on tasks that fell outside what could be solved with standard issued firearms. Of course, he had never seen total rookies involved with such a case, but then again, hunters were a strange kind of folk. The huntress they had here was strict but fair... whenever it suited her, and then she would become vengeful if pushed too far.

"Hmm…. alright, seems everything checks out," he grunted. Not much else he could do since there was a signed consent form from Beacon's headmaster asking for total cooperation. "Hold on here while I get the files fer ya," he stood and headed down the corridor. As he walked away, they heard him mutter, "…kids…probably goofin' off without someone to watch over 'em… ….mutter mutter mutter .. biased data pah!…"

"Somehow, I don't think he likes us very much," Yang grinned as Weiss and Ruby approached them.

"It doesn't matter if he likes us or not as long as we get what we came for," Weiss huffed, thankful that the talk went smoothly enough. She had a feeling he was so quick to agree was because he just didn't want to deal with them for an extended period of time.

"You were soooo coooooool!" Ruby squealed. While Ruby's perpetually cheerful personality was good for getting people to open up on a friendly relation, she absolutely failed whenever it came to doing anything remotely serious.

"This was only an example, next time, you're doing it as leader," Weiss sniffed. While it came naturally to her because of her upbringing, taking the lead is Ruby's job.

"Nah~ you're already so good at it," Yang laughed.

"It's not funny!" Weiss argued. "Dealing with people in different situations is something a good leader has to know!"

"Right!" Ruby agreed. "That's why I'll watch really closely and learn!"

The officer returned shortly with the files and transferred them to Weiss' scroll and handed her a few other things, mostly belongings from the huntress.

"Keep a lid on it will ya?" he warned them. "The boys have been searching fer weeks and nothing's turned up. Mighty suspicious." Police records were sensitive information and he felt nervous at handing them to what would be considered outsiders, though he did contact the chief for clearance before taking the files out. Well, if the chief thought it was a good idea, who was he to argue?

As they headed off, Ruby waved back to him while Yang and Blake peered over Weiss' shoulder.

Noise ordinance violations. Cats in trees. The occasional speeding ticket. A record of various misdemeanors. If this was what patrol was normally like, Weiss felt bored just reading through them.

"He got that pretty fast," Yang wondered. "I thought they usually take more time."

"Contrary to popular belief, the law enforcement has decent bureaucracy," Weiss stated.

"Really?" Blake voiced her disbelief. Red tape and bureaucracy went hand in hand. It would also explained why nothing ever gets done.

"… Fine, some places have decent bureaucracy," Weiss admitted with a frown. Her frown turned upwards into a smirk, "Others have more problems than a math book."

Blake and Yang froze.

"H-hold up! Did you just make a joke?!" Yang asked incredulously.

"W-what? Am I not allowed to?" Weiss blushed slightly.

"No… well, you're just… you're never the funny one!" Yang exclaimed, drawing several glances from passersby.

"I am too! At least I'm trying," Weiss huffed.

"Makes sense," Blake muttered. When they looked at her for further explanation, she smirked, "Because it wasn't even all that good."

"Tsk!" Weiss clicked her scroll shut and stormed off, hearing the tell-tale sound of Blake and Yang giving each other high-fives.

"I think you're funny!" Ruby called out helpfully to her quickly retreating form, earning sniggers from the other two.

"Shush it!" To whom was undetermined.

After a tediously long and awkward ride for Weiss being bugged by Ruby who kept assuring her of her humor, the bumblebee duo being annoying by still making fun of her at her expense, and the cab being cramped, mostly from Ruby's backpack, and smelly, she greeted their destination and fresh air with huge relief. Mostly for the fresh air.

"Are you sure this was where she lived?" Yang glanced around unsure.

It wasn't a large and opulent penthouse, nor was it a run down, gritty, and befitting a film-noir apartment with chipping paint. Instead, it was a flat. Plain and simple, so much so that it would be remarkably unremarkable in any other situation. Beige walls with metal railings on the open air corridors, uniformly green painted doors lined the halls with stairwells at their ends.

"It's a place to live, what were you expecting?" Weiss asked.

"I'd just thought it'd be… I don't know, more… fitting? Like with a flashing neon sign outside the window or something." Like something out of a gritty detective story.

"We're not in a movie, Yang," Weiss sighed. "She's just a normal person, with a normal job, living in a normal home. Just currently missing."

"Sounded so nice just before the last part," Blake shook her head and looked at the various door numbers. "I think I found it," she pointed to a door on the third floor.

Instead of taking the stairs like normal people, Ruby, Yang, and Blake looked at each other nodded.

"What the-?!" Weiss looked over to see them flipping and climbing to reach the door first. Blake used her clones as stepping stones to quickly boost herself from floor to floor. Yang jumped onto the railings and hoisted herself up the same way, even without a boost. She wanted to use her gauntlets, but leaving craters and scorch marks in the ground would have been too big an issue.

Despite this, Ruby had a clear head start and used her speed to clear the stairs; she took the longest route because otherwise it would have been too unfair a game. By the end, Ruby still won with a margin, followed closely by Blake, and Yang finished last.

"Not quite last," Yang grinned, unwilling to admit defeat. She looked down on the ground where Weiss just stared at them with an open jaw.

"Going to stand there all day Slow Queen?" Yang laughed at her own joke.

That snapped out Weiss out of her stupor. She glared and marched up to the wall. A flash of light, a whoosh, and Weiss was suddenly vaulting over the railing using a propulsion glyph.

"The shortest path is always a straight line," she said coolly to their shocked faces. She might not have won the actual race, but her speed in clearing that was nearly as fast as Ruby, definitely faster than Blake and Yang.

"Back to business," Ruby knocked on the door.

"No one's going to answer, remember?" Yang pointed out.

"So what now? We break in and enter?" Blake asked.

"Do we have permission for this?" Yang looked to Weiss, knowing she was more versed with boring details like the law.

"We should," Weiss began slowly. "I mean, we're working on the case and it's not like we can show someone a warrant-"

"Works for me!" Yang activated her gauntlets.

"No breaking down doors!" Weiss screeched loudly right next to Yang's ears.

"YOW!" Yang covered her ears as her eardrums threatened to rupture. "What was that for?!"

"Only way to stop you," Weiss answered and produced a key. "We got this from the precinct."

Quietly opening the door, Weiss stepped into a neat room, though a fine, thin layer of dust was starting to form from disuse. A bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen-living room. A small, some may even argue cozy, home.

"Helloooo," Ruby greeted as she walked through, just in case someone was already there.

"Really Ruby?" Weiss asked her. What if there was someone already there? Someone who wasn't supposed to be. Someone technically like them.

Taking it in stride, Ruby stood before them and pointed to Blake and Yang. "We'll split up and see if anything is out of place. Anything that could give us a clue, like shifted dust or a secret door!"

"There aren't going to be any secret doors!" Weiss complained. "We're not in some book!"

"Right, three rooms, so help me search the bedroom, Ruby," Yang waved her over, already making her way towards the room.

"Hold up, Ruby should help me the living room and kitchen since it's bigger and is a two person job," Weiss countered. "Besides, her Faunus senses and my meticulousness are necessary for a larger room."

"Oh no, we're not getting into this again," Blake sighed. "Just split the time she spends with you guys," she walked off towards the bathroom since the other two were already unofficially claimed.

Ruby looked at Blake walking off, hoping that she could help as Weiss and Yang glared at each other.

No! She was the leader, so she needs to start acting like one!

"I-I'll do my best to help both of you!" she shouted to get their attention.

Yang sighed. "Well, help out Weiss first, she does have a larger amount of ground to cover," she admitted. Her grin returned though, "But I'll be expecting you later."

"Right!" Ruby saluted.

Weiss shook her head, muttering, "Honestly."

Unfortunately, Ruby and Weiss weren't able to find much. Everything was so spick and span, even the creases on the carpet from the furniture were in order.

Ruby had tried sniffing around literally to see if she could pick up anything. All she got was a nose full of dust from behind the TV and a sneezing fit. She also tried pulling on every book in a small bookshelf in hopes of activating a secret panel or door. As her finger strayed across an interesting title, she nearly paused to read it before Weiss slapped her hand and reminded her to stay focus.

Eventually, Weiss told her to go help Yang.

"There probably isn't much here. I'll look over it a little longer, so see if Yang needs any help."

"Hey, come here!" they heard Yang call out from the bedroom before Ruby could reply.

They rushed into the bedroom, a small sparse room with only a bed, a desk, a night stand, and a closet. Yang had opened the desk drawer and a few case files were littered on the desk.

"Case files?" Weiss asked as she looked through them. They matched the case reports she received on her scroll, mostly about patrols and incident resolutions. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"This," Yang flattened out a map of the city.

Red marker circles and lines connected different points on the map, indicating where certain incidents took place.

"Not just any incidents though, just one type," Yang pointed out. "Noise."

"So what? People were being noisy," Weiss shrugged. "You three would be prime suspects."

"I take offense to that," Blake noted.

"Can we get back on topic?" Yang asked. "Anyways, she wrote a little more about her reports here," she said as she opened up a case file and started reading.

"Strange noise reported at the new mall construction site. Searched. No sources found."

"Growling in subway station. Attributed to stray dog. No sources found."

"Whirring and clanging noises in the library basement. Janitor didn't know what caused them."

A pattern was growing and not just in a lack of sources. As each case was mapped to the city, Weiss and Blake saw it starting to form a circle around the perimeter nearing the edge of the city.

"But what does it mean?" Weiss closed her eyes in contemplation. She couldn't understand the significance of this information, though patterns were rarely unimportant.

Why is it around the city? What were the sounds then if no one could find out where they were coming from?

"Duh," Yang sighed as if it was obvious. "We got several leads to go on. We should check them out."

"Not so fast," Blake stopped her. "There's a better idea," she pointed to an empty spot on the map.

"Uh Blake? Not for nothing, but there's nothing there," Yang said. No red marks. No lines. No notes. There shouldn't be any reason for them to go there.

"Following the pattern, this would be the next logical spot where the next incident would be," Blake explained. Following the marked areas would be a selection bias in favoring what was visible, but not noticing what isn't there. If the areas were marked with notes, then they can assume that the huntress already visited those areas to take said notes and found nothing. Thus, if they retraced her steps there, it would only be a waste of time.

Instead, they should focus on where she didn't have notes because either she never got there, or once there she never returned. Since the pattern so far looked to be closely aligned with city's perimeter, predicting the next areas should be easy enough. There was still a lot of ground to cover, but judging from the distances between each reported incident, the next location should be...

"That's… an old warehouse facility," Weiss said slowly as she looked at the map. "Foreboding. What if that was the last place she looked?" She might have claimed this wasn't like movies or books, but when it came down to it and things were playing out like a cliche plot, Weiss worried for her friends' safety.

"Well she was alone. We've got four of us," Yang stated with confidence.

"The eight of us," Blake reminded her. She smiled, Yang's confidence influencing her as well and knowing that they would have back up if need in team JNPR.

"What about these?" Ruby asked and read aloud the remaining cases that weren't marked on the map.

"Wild drunken party. Got a headache. Arrested all on sight. Neighbor revving engines. Kept me up. Arrested on sight. Teenagers carrying around boom-boxes. Who even uses those these days? Arrested on sight."

"Pretty sure those are outliers," Blake pointed out. "Or this huntress is really petty."

"Come on, let's head back and tell the others. If we're going there, I want someone else to know just in case," Yang started moving towards the door. She carefully rolled up the map to keep it safe.

"Let's hope they got Nora under control," Weiss sighed, hoping for the best.

Extra:

As it turned out, Nora was under control. Silently reflecting on all the trouble she had caused.

As reparations for disturbing the peace and destruction of property, she was moderately fined. To be fair, she apologized, paid for what she could and agreed to work the remaining amount off for the hotel. A total of only a few days since all that was really broken was a table and some plates.

"So yeah, sorry about my tantrum guys," she apologized to team RWBY. "I'm on dish duty tonight, so I can't meet with you," she muttered dejectedly.

"I'll take notes and inform her later," Ren responded, always on the lookout for his partner and friend.

"Okay, we'll see you later then Nora," Yang offered her a smile, showing that she didn't take Nora's explosion towards her to heart. She understood how unfair it was to Nora since she was looking forward to playing with Ruby.

"Thanks," Nora said as she shuffled off to work

"…"

"I know that look," Weiss headed off what Ruby was going to say.

"… You guys don't need me at the meeting right?" Ruby asked quietly anyways.

"You're our leader," Weiss pointed out.

"But I was there when we found out today's information," Ruby argued. "I'm not really needed to say what you guys already know, right?"

"Go," Blake said firmly. "I think she needs you more than us."

Ruby looked up hopefully at everyone else. Everyone else nodded back with a smile.

Her eyes caught Weiss and Weiss knew.

With one word, one firm 'No" and Ruby would give it up.

She sighed. "Go on then."

Ruby's grin returned full force and she fled down the hall to catch up with Nora.

"Ruby?!" Nora squealed in surprised as Ruby hugged her from behind.

"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to go with you," Ruby smiled at her. "And I know this isn't what you had in mind, but can I help?"

Nora looked at her strangely for a moment before her face lit up.

"Sure!"

Thus Ruby spent the day helping Nora clean the halls and pack away sheets. The staff looked at them strangely, only knowing the superficial details on what happened, but Ruby assured them she only wanted to help and spend time with her friend.

In the evening, while cleaning dishes, Ruby had fun popping bubbles as they floated up from the sink. Nora laughed and smeared some across Ruby's nose, causing the little wolf to sneeze and sending more bubbles everywhere. It took twice as long to finish the dishes, but Nora enjoyed every moment of it watching Ruby's antics.

Nora stretched as her shift finally ended. The day went surprisingly well, if unexpected. True she would rather have spent the day feeding Ruby junk food, but just spending time with Ruby was really fun.

She looked over to the girl in question, sitting asleep in a chair.

"Hey~ I'm the one who was working all day," she complained in jest.

Careful not to wake Ruby, she lifted the girl onto her back, letting Ruby's arms encircle her neck. Nora enjoyed piggyback rides; Ren was usually the piggy.

Feeling Ruby's warmth on her back, Nora thought back to the day's events. She regretted blowing up at everyone. It also ended up blowing out her wallet. But this?

Totally worth it.

No Karmic Houdini for you Nora. I kind of wanted to show that Nora, for all her fun and games and wild loudness and tantrums, she genuinely just wants to spend some time with Ruby, even if it's just doing chores.

So we're getting close to Valentine's Day, and you know what that means. Pop over to my tumblr to see a cute one-shot. It's called "Let's Ship Ruby" and the link can be found on my profile page.

As always, please let me know what you think so I can keep getting better.

See you next time.