Blake didn't remember the nightmare.

She woke up on the floor, tangled in sheets and shuddering at the feeling of cold sweat sticking the fabric to her skin. It took a second to figure out where she was—she'd fallen in between her bed and Jaune's, with one of the straps of his knapsack digging into her shoulder.

Sitting up, she looked at what little of the room she could see—the plaster ceiling, cracked here and there, the wooden floorboards and scruffy red carpet. It seemed so alien. She got to her feet, glancing down at Jaune. He was splayed out on his stomach, arms and legs going in all directions, and even from here she could tell that he was drooling a little. Cardin was lying face-up, letting out the occasional grunting snore.

Weiss was awake.

Blake startled so badly she almost fell over again.

"Are you alright?" Weiss asked. "I heard you fall."

"Fine." She grabbed her scroll from the storage cabinet at the foot of her bed and poked her head in the closet to look for a clean uniform.

"It's not even six yet."

Blake shrugged. "I doubt I could get back to sleep. I'll probably spend a couple hours in the library and then go to breakfast."

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "Will you actually go to breakfast, or are you just trying to get me to go back to bed?"

"I'll go," she said defensively. "I can—"

Cardin's snoring hitched.

Weiss rolled her eyes and walked over to the closet for a change of clothes. "You don't have to do that." Blake insisted. "Go back to sleep."

All she got in reply was a dirty look.

The moment they left the dorm, Weiss turned to her and asked, "Why are you up this early?"

"I fell out of bed."

Weiss gave her an unimpressed look.

"What?"

"I don't even know where to start," Weiss said, annoyed. "You do realize that there's only so much you can demand from a body before it shuts down, don't you?"

"It's not like I set an alarm."

"No." Weiss rolled her eyes. "But maybe waking up on the floor at such an ungodly hour is a warning sign."

"Weiss—"

"Or the headaches, those could also be interpreted that way."

"I'm doing the best I can," she snapped.

Weiss looked down. "I know. Just... let's take a break today."

"I can't ignore—"

"Not the whole day," Weiss allowed, though she didn't look happy. "How about... from ten to one?"

"I don't know..."

"Let me put it this way." Weiss looked her dead in the eye. "If father decides to stage an intervention, someone is going to commit a murder." Blake snorted. "I will take that as a yes."

"Fine."

Weiss nodded sharply, then without warning turned on her heel and half-jogged, half-ran in the direction of the library. Blake stared after her for a moment. Maybe she was sleep-deprived and catching herself scribbling down the slogans from Mountain Glenn advertisements during class instead of taking notes, but even she had noticed that her partner had been acting strange. Hell, Jaune had noticed.

In the end, summoning the mental energy to speculate proved to be a bit too much this early in the morning. Blake trudged after her and resolved to ask about it once they were in Vale.

She hadn't realized how exhausted she would be by then. Weiss hopefully didn't know that while she'd gone to bed around midnight, she'd tossed and turned until past one, given up, read through some more old newspapers about Mountain Glenn, and then crawled back under the covers at around two. Add to that another four hours of poring through dense books with tiny print?

"You might have a point," she conceded, as Weiss grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the library—and past a bemused-looking Dove. "The words are starting to get blurry."

Weiss flashed a triumphant smirk over her shoulder. Blake rolled her eyes—that expression had been a constant source of irritation at the beginning of the year. She'd been so sure that they'd never be friends. She definitely wouldn't have even entertained the idea that she might shake hands with Jacques Schnee. Now, here she was—regretting one of those things very much and the other not at all.

It didn't take long for Weiss to let go of her arm, but she kept glancing back to make sure that Blake was following. She wasn't planning on sneaking away—what would even be the point? They'd been banging their heads against a metaphorical wall for over a week now with no results. There was nothing in Mountain Glenn worth blowing up. There was no mention of the White Fang having ties to the place. Maybe it was only a waypoint, and the Dust would be shipped somewhere else afterwards, but they had no way of knowing if that was the case, or where it might be going. Dead end.

Weiss nudged her shoulder. "You're obsessing again."

"It feels pointless," Blake admitted. "We're making no progress."

"That's part of why I think we need a break. We have to pace ourselves—this might take months. There's a difference between going without sleep for a night or two versus several weeks."

"That's the problem. I'm not sleeping because we aren't finding anything. I lie down and I just..." she trailed off, biting her lip and wincing.

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "You didn't go to bed when I did."

"...No."

"Look, I know that sometimes you can't really help it, but please, wake me up next time."

"So that neither of us get any sleep."

"So that I can help."

Blake managed a weak chuckle. "Your idea of helping seems just as self-destructive as my idea of research."

"Hush, you." Weiss tossed her head and marched ahead, though not fast enough to hide a smug grin. Blake shook her head, smiling a little. How did I ever manage to hate her? It had only been a couple months, and she was already having difficulty imagining it.

They threaded their way through crowds, walking without any particular end-goal. Blake dodged around a woman in a suit, briefly caught the eye of a dog-eared faunus with glasses, and then finally pushed through to a clearer part of the sidewalk where Weiss was waiting. "Where are we—"

"Hey!"

She whirled around, her hand going for where the hilt of her sword would have been. Stupid. Shouldn't have left it. But if she hadn't, she might have attracted more trouble—the police didn't tend to react well to armed faunus.

Instead of a menacing attacker, though... "Sun?"

He was standing across the street, jumping up and down, waving both hands above his head and shouting—which one older woman passing within arms-length of him obviously did not appreciate. "You didn't kill each other!" he whooped.

"Let's go before he causes even more of a scene," Weiss suggested.

They crossed the street with Sun still shouting, then finally got close enough for Weiss to glare at him properly.

"Hey," he said, this time at a more normal volume. "What's up?"

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I've been keeping an eye out for you guys," he went on. "I thought it would be cool to talk to you again, see how things are going. But, uh, I never got a number or anything."

Blake saw Weiss bristle. "Was that supposed to be smooth?"

"No?" He blinked. "Oh, yeah, no. Sorry." He held his hands up. "Just wanted to make sure you guys weren't getting into fights with Torchwick, or each other. Honest!" Then he grinned and gestured to the pair of them. "And look! Hanging out! It's almost like you're friends or something!"

They both glanced at each other, as if making sure they weren't about to make a major faux pas. "Yes," Blake said, with a little smile. "It is."

"Awesome!" He flashed a thumbs-up.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Weiss said, "but... what are you doing here? You're not a student at Beacon, but you're obviously in training somewhere."

"Oh, yeah. I'm from Haven. That's normally something that comes up in the first twenty-four hours of knowing each other."

Weiss winced. "Right."

"But... yeah. I'm here for the Festival."

"It's a little early, isn't it?" Blake asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe. I wanted to get the lay of the land first. My team is getting here in about two weeks."

"Well." Weiss lifted her chin. "We look forward to destroying you in the tournament."

"You wish!" He laughed.

They walked in silence for a moment. Then Sun coughed and said, "So, uh... you guys seem even more tired than the last time I saw you, which is kind of impressive. What gives?"

"Homework," Weiss said, completely deadpan.

"...Right." He shrugged, flicking his tail back and forth. "Okay, whatever. Don't tell me."

"Sorry, Sun." Blake flashed an apologetic smile. "We're taking a break at the moment, if that helps."

"That's good." Then Weiss took another step forward, and his gaze dropped to her leg. "Holy crap, what happened there?"

"A falling rock," she lied easily.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, look, if this is another 'homework' thing..."

Weiss glanced at her, raising her eyebrow in a silent question. Blake hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I got it from a chainsaw," her partner said, nonchalant.

Sun stared. Then he put both hands to his face and made a little squeaking noise. "That's wicked—I mean, uh, dangerous! Very dangerous!"

"Thank you, I think."

"Uh, how?" He blinked a few times. "'Cause, last time I checked... weird thing to get attacked with."

Blake grimaced. "We ran into the White Fang again."

"Let it be known that a dark tunnel is not a fun place to fight a faunus as a human."

"Okay." Sun held up a finger. "Okay. I figured the mess at the docks was a one-time thing, but... is that just a Tuesday at Beacon?"

Blake opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off when Weiss yelped, "Hey!"

A shutter went off. Blake whirled around and recognized a man she'd noticed earlier standing at the entrance to an alley—tall, dog-eared, wearing round glasses. He was holding up a scroll like he'd just taken a picture.

"What on Remnant is wrong with you?" Weiss snapped. "You don't just photograph people without their—" he turned and ran. They followed, but had already lost him by the time they crossed through the alley and into the next street.

"Why...?" Blake shook her head. "What was that?"

"Um." Sun stared at them. "Did that guy just... that's not cool. It's fine, though! I mean, I think. Neither of you were doing anything embarrassing, so it's just a normal picture."

"He wasn't taking the picture of us, Sun," Weiss said.

"What?"

"The camera was definitely pointing at you. I saw it."

His eyes went wide. "Oh. Oh. Uh..."

"I just don't understand why."

"Hey!" Sun pointed at his bare chest, looking indignant. "Some people appreciate how much work this is!"

Weiss started pacing agitatedly. "I've seen him before."

"What?!" Blake burst out.

"After the café incident. We were wandering around Vale, and I saw his reflection in one of the windows. It looked like he was staring, but by the time I turned around he was gone."

Sun made a time-out sign with his hands. "So... you have a stalker."

"Not a stalker," Blake said, grimacing. "A tail."

"Uh, no. It's definitely me with the tail," he said, face splitting into a cheeky grin.

She rolled her eyes. "A tail—as in someone, probably one of the White Fang, is following us."

"And... took a picture of me?"

"Exactly," Weiss said. "It doesn't make sense."

"I mean, I know everyone wants a piece of this, but getting distracted in the middle of a top-secret mission? For shame."

"Sun." Blake pinched the bridge of her nose. "This is serious."

"I'm dead serious! It's not like there's any other reason to be staring at me when the vigilantes are right next to me!"

"We're not vigilantes," Weiss grumbled.

"Superheroes, investigative journalists, whatever."

Blake scowled. "None of this makes sense. We have to be missing something big."

"No."

She looked up, startled. Weiss was jabbing a finger at her. "Stop it. We're taking a break, remember?"

"But he just—"

"Ah-pup-pup! Break."

"I can do break stuff," Sun said, grinning. "Anyone in the mood for lunch?"

"...Fine," Blake sighed. "But we're talking about this later."

"Obviously." Weiss hesitated, turning a little pink around the ears. "Just, um..."

Blake furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"Do you know anywhere we could go, that... um... you know who wouldn't set foot?"

"Uh, context please?" Sun said, raising his hand. "I have no idea who."

"That's... well, it's..." Weiss put a hand to her face. "My father is visiting. And he hasn't called in days which might be a good sign, or possibly a really bad one. The last thing I want is to bump into him on the street."

Sun seemed a little stunned. "Oh. Wow. So... Jacques Schnee is within fifty miles of me right now?"

"If you're looking for pity," Blake grumbled, "go find someone who didn't shake his hand a week ago."

"Uh..."

"Do you know a place or not?" Weiss folded her arms and tried to look irritated rather than embarrassed. "I can pay. Consider it compensation for having to deal with father the past few days."

Sun was staring at nothing, mouth slightly open. Then he shook his head like a dog. "Nope. Not even going there. You didn't say anything. What's for lunch?"

"I know a few places," Blake told her.

They ended up in another café, this one much smaller, family-owned and nearly deserted at this time of day. It had a poster on the door proudly proclaiming it to be faunus friendly. There was an elderly man with curved tusks sitting in a booth near the door that spat out a mouthful of coffee when they walked in.

"Hi!" Sun said, with a little wave of his tail. "Can we have a table?"

"You're going to eat me out of my allowance, aren't you?" Weiss said, raising an eyebrow.

"You offered to pay!"

The atmosphere in this café was so different from the one Jacques had chosen that Blake had trouble processing it. Their server was a green-haired girl with a spotted tail that had squeaked and dropped a plate when she first saw them. But, as time passed, she seemed to warm to them. She chatted easily with Sun every time she brought food out, and even managed a few nervous smiles in Weiss' direction.

Despite all that, Weiss still seemed tense and preoccupied. Blake nudged her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" She winced. "It's just... seeing how people react to me is a bit unsettling."

"Is this about the waitress?" Blake's brow furrowed. "She was probably just surprised."

"I know." Weiss sighed. "It's still frustrating, realizing that she's terrified of me when I've never spoken to her before. Even with people that have never met him, I still feel like I'm... cleaning up his mess, mending bridges he's burned. And I always knew that was what I was going to be doing, especially once I inherit the company, but it's... unexpectedly nerve-wracking."

"Oh."

Weiss gave her an odd look. "What?"

Blake shrugged, glancing down at your food. "I haven't really thought about that. You inheriting everything, I mean."

"What, you forgot?" Weiss' expression was somewhere between incredulous and amused. "How is that even possible?"

"I didn't forget. It just... isn't the first thing that comes to mind."

A rare, unguarded smile dawned on Weiss' face. She let it stay for a moment, then turned abruptly back to her plate and polished off the last of her meal faster than she normally would have deemed polite.

It was almost like wandering around in a big house and realizing, all of a sudden, that she'd doubled back without noticing. She recognized the wallpaper, the strange clarity of her senses, the old tapestry on the wall and the way little motions began to leap out at her—a lock of hair brushing over the shoulder of Weiss' jacket, her hand sliding her coffee a few inches to the left. She'd been here before.

Swallowing hard, Blake groped for something solid and found her mug of cooling tea. Dread curled in her stomach, making the sandwich she'd eaten sit uneasily.

"Uh..." Sun leaned back in his chair and chuckled nervously. "...Check?"

He left them with a napkin, on which he'd scribbled a scroll id number inside a hastily drawn glass case. Beneath it, the words 'BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY' were printed in bold capitol letters.

Blake watched him go, wanting in equal parts to grab him and make him stay so that she and Weiss weren't alone together, and to run off in the opposite direction and never look back. In the end she did neither, choosing instead to drift absentmindedly back the way they'd come. Then, when they were passing the spot where they'd had the photographic incident, Weiss stopped dead.

"Blake! I think I see him."

"What?"

"The man who took the photo!"

"Don't look," Blake hissed, tensing up and forcing herself to keep her eyes on her partner. "Where was he?"

"Same place as before, the entrance to the alley."

"Okay." She took a deep breath, bracing herself. "Keep talking. Act natural."

"When has that phrase ever preceded a sound decision?"

Blake laughed, then used that as an excuse to lean on Weiss' shoulder. She heard a sharp intake of breath and had to work hard to ignore the proximity. Her hair fell around her face as she leaned forward, hiding her from view. When she peered through it down the alley she couldn't see him at first, but the tips of his boots were just barely visible behind a dumpster.

"He's there," she whispered as she straightened up.

Weiss had gone completely rigid. "What was that?"

Blake turned her head away, pretending to be fascinated by a nearby lamppost. "I needed an excuse to lean over."

"That's—I don't—we could just move over there." She pointed towards a small shop across the street from the alleyway. "The sun is behind him, it's ideal for a reflection."

They wandered over on the pretense of wanting some—Blake got a better look at the sign and suppressed a groan. Of course it had to be a pet store. In the window, she could just make out a few mangy-looking dogs staring up at her. The interior of the shop was dim, so she mostly saw her own reflection beside Weiss' and, over their shoulders, the man in the alley. From this angle most of his body was visible. He was on his scroll, talking animatedly. Every now and then he'd glance their way, but Weiss was surprisingly good at pretending to fawn over the animals and he didn't seem to notice they were watching him.

After a minute, he pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket, scribbled something down, and stowed it away a bit haphazardly. He started to move further into the alley, only for the page to fall out and flutter to the ground. Weiss inhaled sharply.

"Don't go for it yet," Blake advised. "Wait a second."

"What if he realizes he dropped it?"

"If he sees us take it, they'll know we know. Maybe they'll even change things up so that the information is useless."

They waited several long, painstaking minutes before Blake crept up to the entrance of the alley and peeked inside. It was empty, but for the fallen scrap of paper. She picked it up with shaking hands and read, '3 am Sat 329 Woodacre.'

"Oh my god." Weiss stared at it. "Did that just...?"

Blake let out a shaky laugh, momentarily forgetting her anxiety. "We have a lead!"

"I am not putting that in my mouth."

Yang shot Russel a look. "Did you have to phrase it like that?

"How long have we been partners? Of course I did!"

Nora rolled her eyes. Russel could be such a wuss sometimes. "It's just like a smoothie!"

That was a blatant lie. She'd tasted Ren's shakes before and knew full-well that they were nothing like smoothies. But he'd given Sky one, and Sky had come to Russel with it, and now almost all of BRYN—Dove was being a square in the library—were sitting at a picnic table near the courtyard, trying to get one of them to drink it. Keyword trying.

"I doubt this is going to work," Sky said, eyeing the thick green slime with intense skepticism. "There's no way someone invented the formula for unlocking a semblance and no one else noticed."

"But you'll always wonder!" Yang protested. "Twenty years from now, all you'll be able to think about is whether or not your life would have been different if you just took the plunge!"

Sky glared at her. He didn't normally do that—she seemed to scare him for some reason—but apparently the shake was a bridge too far. "You drink it then."

"I already know mine, it wouldn't do anything!"

"Wait." Russel held up his hands. "Hold everything." His eyes gleamed. "What do you bet me I won't do it?" Sky turned his head and stared.

Yang put a hand to her chin. "How about... forty lien?"

Sky buried his face in his hands. Nora just cheered—she'd been wanting to see this happen to someone else ever since her first encounter with the green goo.

"Hmm." Russel lifted the glass to his lips, tilted his head back. The shake slid forward like a green tide, creeping up the glass towards his tongue. It was a fraction of a fraction of an inch away—"No deal." He put it back down.

Nora folded her arms and gave him a dirty look. "You suck, you know that?" He bent forward in a mock bow.

"Guys," Sky said, looking annoyed. "This isn't actually helping."

"Point." Russel clapped his hands together. "What should we do, then?"

"Um..."

They all exchanged looks. "Well..." Nora ventured. "Maybe if you climbed a tree?"

"Right. So we've got nothing." Russel sighed. "It would be really helpful if there was, like, a step-by-step guide we could use."

"Everyone's different," Yang said, shrugging helplessly. "I had to be angry, and a little bit protective. Nora... needed to be up a tree."

"I was also having a great time," Nora added. "Like... I was looking around and everything seemed really tiny." (The terrors of the world had shrank to pinpoints and the sky had opened up overhead, huge and menacing and growling like a Grimm, and for just a second she'd felt like she could take anything it threw at her. Then it turned out lightning liked tall things.)

Sky frowned thoughtfully. "It's based on emotional states?"

"Maybe?" Yang shrugged. "No one really knows. Point is, the situation is always different. It's... not an easy thing to force."

Russel propped his chin in his hand. "I wonder what mine will be."

"It'd be cool if you could absorb fire," Nora said. "Then I could give Yang a boost and then she could give you a boost."

"Eh." He made a so-so gesture with his hand. "I don't think that fits."

"Huh?"

"Well... you and Yang have similar semblances, right? Both absorb something—electricity or damage—and turn it into a strength. It feels like that might be... symbolic, or something."

Sky's eyes went wide. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense."

"Symbolic of what?" Nora asked, curious."

"You're both the type to pop right back up after you get knocked down." Russel said. "Take the crap life gives you and hit back with it."

Yang and Nora both stared at him.

"What?"

"That's... weirdly poetic of you," Yang said. Nora nodded agreement. "And pretty spot-on."

"I can be insightful if I want!" Russel said defensively. "I bet you I get super-thinking, some serious film noir detective type shit. Like, I'll look around and see a ring on a coffee table and know how long ago the woman living in that house killed her husband."

"That sounds more like Sky," Nora decided. He blushed right down to his collarbone.

Russel stuck his tongue out at her. She was about to retaliate—maybe by trying to pour some of the shake onto it—when she noticed Dove running towards them.

"We have a lead," he declared, as soon as he was within earshot. Nora thought he'd missed a prime opportunity for slamming his hands down on their picnic table like in the movies.

"Wait, huh?" Sky did a double-take. "We do?"

Dove cocked his head to the side. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... what are you doing here?"

"We're trying to do semblance things," Russel said. "Now finish your sentence!"

Nora nodded eagerly—to her left, Yang was doing the same.

"Well." Dove coughed. "It's not exactly our lead. I've been keeping tabs on the terminal search histories—"

"I have bleach, if you want," Russel offered.

"...That won't be necessary. Anyway, I've been looking for anything to do with our anonymous research associate who beat us to all the best books. And this search wasn't obviously them, but it seemed strange so I looked into it."

"Strange how?" Sky asked. He'd perked up since Dove had started talking—Nora didn't get how anyone could be that excited by the most boring part of being secret vigilantes, but he was.

"It's a random street out in the middle of Vale." Dove pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on the desk. "Someone looked up a map."

"And?" Yang frowned at it. "I'm guessing there's more to it than that."

"It's in one of those neighborhoods we marked as having a high proportion of faunus residents, really low population in general, and—" he tapped a building near the middle of the map. "This place? It's a defunct construction site. Would have been a community outreach center, but there was a strike and the developer went under. I remember marking it in green, in case the White Fang have an appreciation for dark irony."

"So... you stole someone's lead," Russel summed up.

"...Yes."

"Sweet!"

"How do we know they're really onto something?" Yang asked.

Dove shrugged. "We don't, but the least we could do is look."

Sky stood up, grinning. "I'll go tell Raspberry."

Nora leapt up from her seat and onto the table. "Finally!" she groaned. "We're doing something more fun than walking around Vale!"

"Don't use the word fun, Nora," Dove sighed. "It scares me."

She just grinned—she could see him trying to hide a smile, because he was secretly the worst ever at keeping a straight face. She should know—she was friends with the best, too.

329 Woodacre was an enormous brick of a building that was about halfway finished. It had all four walls, and a few weather-beaten signs declaring it an up-and-coming community center, but everything was bare cinderblock and there were scraps of metal littering the lot. They'd obviously been planning a second floor, because its skeletal outline was still visible. Around it was a mostly-empty lot that had been transformed into a maze by the bits and pieces of construction equipment and heaps of rotted two-by-fours and even whole pre-built segments of wall lying everywhere. Cranes hung with gigantic steel beams stood like sentinels, creaking ominously when the wind blew. Ruby thought it would make a great set for a horror movie.

"Well," Russel said cheerfully. "I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty sure there's been at least one murder here."

"Not helping," Dove told him.

Ruby craned her neck to try and see through one of the windows, but they were all boarded up. "Should we look around?" she wondered.

"Yes!" Nora rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

"No," Dove said, at almost exactly the same time.

Ruby glanced around, then stared for a moment at the broken-down construction site. On the one hand, Russel did have a point about the murder thing. On the other, if they left now they'd have nothing. "Vote?"

It ended up being five to two—with Sky and Dove against, and everyone else for. Even if she only counted the rest of BRYN as one vote (which would be unfair, but was still sometimes a useful test), going in still won. Pyrrha voiced what she had thought, that if they left now they would be stuck combing Vale the old fashioned way. Ren pointed out that this was exactly what they had been planning to do, only sooner. "Okay," Ruby said, nodding. "Let's do this."

They entered cautiously through the back door, and found themselves in a small, dingy-looking room. Maybe it was going to be an office—there was a hole in one wall about the size of an outlet, and someone had put a crate in one corner that might have eventually been replaced with a desk. All the walls were unpainted plaster, and the room smelled like dust. It was dim, with the only light coming from the door they'd just entered through. On the opposite wall there was a plain wooden door, left ajar.

Russel drew one of his daggers and fiddled with the handle. It began to glow cherry red, and sent eerie shadows dancing along the walls.

"You stole that Dust, didn't you," Dove said, sounding resigned.

"Call it a finder's fee." Russel shrugged and pushed through the doorway. They all followed in single file.

The next room was a massive open space, mostly square, with an extra space off to the side. There was a door there leading to the outside lot, as well as a pair of double doors at the far end. Half the ceiling was around fifteen feet high, and the other half hadn't been built yet. Through the gaping hole they could see a wide open sky, clouds drifting overhead. The walls underneath were covered in brown stains where years of rain had damaged them. Ruby could see that there were smaller rooms to the left and right of this main one, closed off by slap-dash walls. Some had doors, others yawned wide and dark. Her hand went to Crescent Rose, curling around the cool metal.

They began to move in a circle. Shadows hung thick in this part of the room, where the daylight didn't quite reach. Sky tripped over a stack of boxes, sending them clattering to the ground. Scraps of wood, sheets of plaster, metal cans full of nails, and power tools of all kinds went scattering across the floor, making a sound like a box of cymbals being tossed down a mountainside.

Ruby froze. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she waited. Sky was hyperventilating, and she had to prod him in the arm to calm him down enough that they could listen properly. Somewhere far away, water was dripping in a steady, slow rhythm. Her eyes flicked from doorway to doorway, waiting for someone to emerge from the shadows or for one of the doors to slam open. None did.

Eventually they could breathe again. Ren helped Sky shove all the construction equipment back in the boxes, and Pyrrha gathered up the nails with her semblance and floated them back into their cans. The search resumed. They checked every shadow, moving more crates out of the way and then stacking them back up. Every side-room was explored—most held more boxes, some were empty, and one had over a dozen rusty pipes sticking out of the concrete floor. There wasn't another soul in the building.

When they finally exited the last side-room, after opening up the last box and confirming that no, there wasn't any Dust, ammunition, or guns inside, just a bunch of paint rollers, they all stood in the center of the large room. Dove let out a little laugh.

"What do you know. We really did just scout around."

Yang sighed. "I want to say that was boring, but I think it would have been less tense if someone had attacked us."

Russel nodded agreement. "I feel like I just watched a movie about a serial killer and a family locked in a creepy old mansion... but the plot twist was that the murderer's been dead forty years and the reason they kept hearing noises in the middle of the night was that they had mice."

"I'd watch that," Dove decided, "But that's beside the point. We should get out of here before someone does try to kill us."

It was only once they were safely back on the streets of Vale that they spoke again. "I guess the lead is a bust," Nora said, kicking at a pebble as she walked.

"Not necessarily." Sky blushed when everyone looked at him. "Um, well, it's obviously not a usual base of operations. But if the other person looking for the White Fang thought it was important, they probably had a reason. Maybe it's a meeting place?"

Dove nodded slowly. "That would make sense. It would explain why there was nothing inside, and it's massively unlikely that anyone would notice a few shady individuals meeting there in the dead of night."

"Or in the middle of the day," Ren added. "We shouldn't assume the meeting would be at night."

Pyrrha frowned. "We don't have any idea what time that might be. Or if we're right about it being a meeting."

"Stakeouts?" Ren suggested. Everyone else winced, cringed, or groaned. Nora pulled the kind of face Ruby normally associated with a person trying Brussels sprouts for the first time.

"It won't be that bad," Dove said with a sigh. "We can work in partner pairs so we'll be less bored. Besides, we'll only be doing an hour or so here and there, since we can't cover the place twenty-four-seven anyway."

Ruby slumped. Fighting Roman Torchwick, his lackeys, and now terrorists? Sure. Almost dying on a regular basis? She could do without that part, but it had turned out fine. Sitting still? Really not one of her strong points.