"Thank you for taking me here, Sun. And thanks for letting me stay over, Tukson." Blake stated as she sat on a patio with Sun and another man who seemed much older, he had black hair and hazel eyes and no visible faunus trait.

"It's the least I could do for Ghira's daughter." he smiled while pouring her a cup of tea.

"So..." Blake looked down at her tea and back to Sun whom was holding up his tea cup with his tail. "I guess the least I could do is just tell you about myself, since I don't have much to offer now..."

"My father is Ghira Belladonna... The original founder of the White Fang." she began.

"Wait, you mean he's the leader of those psychopaths?!" Sun asked, almost choking on his tea now.

"No..." Blake shook her head. "He founded the group to be a voice for our people. In the ashes of war, that was what the White Fang was meant to be. I was at the front of every rally."

"And he's a damn good man." Tukson nodded as he took a seat at the table.

"He founded the White Fang to peacefully lead our people towards equality with humanity and a better relationship all around for everyone." Blake explained.

"Well? What happened? Why'd they all turn psycho?" Sun asked.

Blake groaned yet again when Sun made that statement, but continued. "My father eventually stepped down as he was slowly losing support from his methods not having much success... Many people argued it had to do with how not all humans were reasonable and others would just attack us on sight during peaceful marches. That was when Sienna Khan stepped up to become the current high leader."

"Sienna's methods were more violent... Brutal, terroristic in nature. We would raid and burn stores that refused to serve us, fight back against the people who would attack us and lure Grimm to places where those who thrived off faunus labor lived. The worst part about this was, it was working. People were beginning to treat us as equals... But not out of respect... Out of fear."

Blake finished her tea as she then nodded to Tukson. "Thank you."

"Any time, Blake." Tukson nodded.

"I hope you don't mind me staying here for now." Blake looked down.

"It's alright with me. I hope you don't mind helping me run my shop though."

"Shop?" Sun asked.

"Tukson's Book trade! Home to every book under the sun!" he chuckled a little.

"You know that phrase isn't true." Blake rolled her eyes.

"Well it's just a catch phrase." Tukson argued as Blake poured herself another cup of tea.

After reporting the incident to the school, Professor Ozpin gave a time frame to Ruby, Weiss and Yang before he'd look into replacing Blake with another student if they didn't find her within the week. After 2 days of searching around on Beacon's campus, the three set off into Vale.

"Blake!" Ruby called out.

"Blake?!" Yang added while Weiss remained silent.

"Weiss, c'mon you agreed to come out with us, so help us!" Ruby glared at her partner.

"Do I really have to though? You heard her, didn't you? A terrorist... Right under our noses." Weiss scoffed.

"You can't be serious, Weiss." Yang glared.

"Hey, maybe this new teammate won't be a known criminal!" Weiss argued before Ruby, finally fed up with Weiss's attitude, spoke out in a louder tone

"Get over yourself, Weiss! We need to find her and hear her side of the story before passing judgement." Ruby argued.

"..." Weiss stood there in silence, looking down regretfully as she then followed behind the two right before Penny approached from around the corner.

"Hey Ruby!" Penny greeted her with a smile.

"Oh, hey Penny..." Ruby looked down.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Oh well, Weiss, Yang and I are looking for Blak-" Ruby turned around and found Yang and Weiss to be missing, and groaned at the fact that they ditched her with Penny.

"Is this friend missing?" Penny asked Ruby with concern in her tone.

"You could say that." she sighed. "She got real mad at Weiss and then she ran off when she said something and revealed she was a faunus to us."

"Ah, yes the faunus girl." Penny noted.

"You sound certain of knowing that she's a faunus." Ruby stated.

"Well it was obvious with the cat ears being visible and all." Penny pointed to her bow.

"She was wearing that bow all the time... Even when she slept..." Ruby crossed her arms. "Come to think of it, she did like tuna a lot..."

The two kept walking down the street now.

Yang let out a sigh upon exiting another shop. "Still no sign of her."

Weiss on the other hand was observing the setting up for the festival on the street. "I certainly look forward to when the festival has started."

Yang walked over and saw a few welcoming banners being hung up. "All the planning and careful thought that goes into each of these events!" Weiss exclaimed.

"Ugh... You're so boring." Yang rolled her eyes. "And you're still not helping me find Blake!"

"Why do you care about her so much?" Weiss asked. "We could always ask the police you know."

"She's my partner... And I just... I don't want to believe she's a bad person. When i first talked to her, I just had this air about her... That she's a good hearted person."

"People can be deceitful all the time, Yang. Besides that, the innocent never run, Yang." Weiss shook her head. "Look, I'll up the search... I just... Need time to think of what I say to her. I need that time."

"Well you got all the time in Remnant. About a little under a week." Yang rolled her eyes as she walked into the next shop.

Back by the airship docks Team JNPR and Alix had just gotten off their shuttle and were walking into the city.

"Why are we out here again?" Nora asked with a hint of boredom in her tone.

"We're looking for Blake." Jaune affirmed. "After all, Ruby, Weiss and Yang can't cover all of Vale themselves. I figure since they're looking near where they went yesterday, we can look by the other areas of the city."

"Excellent plan Jaune." Pyrrha compliment.

"And I agreed to tag along because I figured you might need an extra hand in the case things get shady around here... Rumor has it, we might be dealing with the White Fang..." Alix explained.

"Well, all the more reason it's a good thing we brought our weapons with us." Ren nodded as they started down the street before a girl approached the group.

"Hey, excuse me." came the voice of Cinder Fall as the four members of Team JNPR and Alix all turned towards her. "You're from Beacon aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, we are..." Jaune seemed a little defensive before Pyrrha put a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, you're from Haven!" Pyrrha approached Cinder.

"Pyrrha Nikos! The Invincible girl herself! Who would have thought I'd run into you here!" Cinder bowed her head.

"No need to be so formal with me." Pyrrha assured.

"Oh, my apologies!" she straightened her posture a little bit. "It's surprising that a star athlete as bright as yourself didn't decide to go to Haven."

"Well, I wanted a little bit of foreign experience." Pyrrha admitted. "Besides that, I had less friends at Sanctum than I've made here already."

"Oh I bet. So what're you doing out here in Vale? Are you here to meet with anyone?" she asked almost completely disregarding everyone else here as it was clear she was more than enamored with Pyrrha.

"Oh no." she shook her head. "We're looking for someone." Pyrrha explained.

"Say no more." Cinder took her scroll out and started dialing for the authorities, but Pyrrha stopped her.

"No, this is something a little more personal. A member from one of our friends's teams has gone missing. We're looking for a black haired girl, with yellow eyes wearing a bow. Her name's Blake Belladonna."

"Blake?" Cinder asked. "I met her the other day along with the rest of her team. I can help you look." Cinder nodded.

"Are you sure you'll be of much help?" Alix asked. "You're not really from around here like most of us are."

"No..." Cinder shook her head. "But I figure if we spread out more we might have a better chance at finding her together."

"That... Might work." Ren noted, looking back towards Jaune.

"Well it couldn't hurt to try." Pyrrha affirmed.

"Alright then!" Jaune nodded as Cinder proceeded to trade contact information with everyone. "We'll split into groups of 2." Jaune looked to everyone who nodded in agreement.

"I'll go with Pyrrha." Cinder insisted, leading the star athlete out, with Pyrrha looking to Jaune a bit nervously.

"I'll handle Nora." Ren stated, knowing Nora would likely stop at every food stand along the way if he didn't come with her.

Jaune wanted to argue but saw it pointless. "C'mon Alix." he shrugged as the two blondes started down the street walking past a book store named 'Tukson's Book Trade.'

Inside the shop Blake, wearing a closed white Trenchcoat, and a hat over her head was stacking some books with the help of Sun who had just closed his shirt and wrapped his tail around his body in a not-so-subtle disguise.

"I wish I knew what to do..." Blake admitted.

"Well... I think you should go back to your friends and be honest." Sun suggested.

"How can I?! After what I did back there." she looked down. "I wouldn't be able to disprove Weiss's point-"

"That's it!" Sun snapped his fingers. "Why don't we go on a stake out?! I heard by the docks that there's supposed to be a huge shipment of dust that the SDC sent out in response to all the robberies as of late."

"And you think that the thief would go for a shipment that big, likely guarded by Atlesian robots?" Blake put the last book on the shelf in front of her.

"Well, do you got bright ideas?" Sun asked.

Blake let out a sigh. "I suppose I don't."

Tukson, having overheard this conversation decided to interject. "Blake, as you know... I help to run the underground railroad of White Fang deserters in Vale. I recently had a couple of runaways who told me they left after a recent meeting regarding an operation happening tonight."

"Tonight?" Blake asked, a hint of worry in her tone.

"Yes." Tukson led her and Sun to his back room where he started sifting through files, taking a paper out of a folder. "I keep accounts of why each member left because I intend to publish them in a book one day..." he explained. "Hopefully it'll make our people realize the error of Sienna's leadership, I've already got about 200 or so pages of-" he looked to the paper realizing he had to get back on topic. "The operation seemed to detail a large scale theft of dust." he handed the paper to Blake which she read over and stood up.

"Sun, we're going to the docks." she ordered. "We're staking them out because I refuse to believe this is true." she started towards the door.

"Blake. Listen, I know it sounds hard to believe-" Tukson tried to reason as Blake took the trenchcoat off, revealing her normal outfit and threw her hat onto the ground, putting her bow back on.

"No! There's no way that report could be true. I'm going to prove it. To myself that it isn't." She started out the door with Sun shrugging his shoulders as Tukson couldn't get another word in.

"Be safe..." he looked down sadly.

That night Blake and Sun were waiting on a nearby roof, overlooking the docks as the Schnee Dust cargo ship arrived. "There it is..." Sun pointed to it as he then knelt down next to Blake. "Snack?" he offered her an apple.

"Do you always steal without second thought?" Blake asked him.

"Weren't you in a cult or something?" Sun retorted, only getting a very grumpy stare back from Blake who then turned her attention to the docks.

Atlesian robots were guarding the shipments of the dust.

"Well there's no way the White Fang would make such an open move on such a heavily guarded ship-" before Sun could even respond the two robots went down in sparks as a sharp object stabbed through the both of them. As it would turn out a White Fang member completely camouflaged in black had taken out the two Atlesian Knights guarding the first crate before the sounds of commotion and metal breaking was heard on the freighter as Blake now sat up, upon the arrival of a bullhead. "I... didn't want to believe it'd be them but..."

Two faunus wearing robes stepped out of the bullhead. One with a set of fox ears and another with a fox tail. "It's true..." she looked down.

"Who are those two weirdos?" Sun asked noticing several members stepping off of the freighter to meet by the bullhead.

"Corsec and Fennec... They're influential members from the Menagerie chapter of the White Fang. I have no idea what they're doing here-" Blake stopped herself when two more figures emerged from the Bullhead. It appeared to be Roman Torchwick and Neo.

She stood up. "This isn't right. The White Fang wouldn't work with a human. Especially not one like that." she jumped off the roof.

"Wait, where are you going?!" Sun asked.

"I'm going to confront them." Blake stated, taking out her scroll as she ran to confront the White Fang.

"Well come on now you animals! Get a move on!" Roman grunted in annoyance with Neo almost mimicking this emotion mockingly, but arguably more threateningly while she stood behind him.

"Why did we agree to this, brother?" Fennec asked.

"Because, High Leader Khan would have our heads if we didn't keep tabs on our Vale commander's actions, especially not in such a... Crucial time... Not to mention, when humans are involved like this..." his eyes narrowed in Roman's direction.

Roman met his glare with the same amount of animosity.

"Is this the rope you need?" asked the cloaked faunus girl before her skin turned to it's natural tan, handing Roman the rope.

"No you animal, this isn't a leash!" Roman grunted before suddenly a blade was pressed to his neck and he dropped the rope. "Oh for- What is it now?!"

Blake had approached and put her blade to his neck before taking her bow off. "Brother's of the White Fang! Why are you aiding this lowly human?!" she asked.

"Sister Blake?!" Fennec and Corsec surprised to see her.

"Blake..." the girl's skin turned red as she glared at her from behind the mask she wore. "You abandoned us!" she pointed her weapon at Blake followed by everyone else around them as Blake kept her hold on Roman with Neo glaring in Blake's direction as well.

"Tell me?! Why are you working with a human?!" she again asked.

"Sister Blake, this operation is crucial for the White Fang's success in Vale as seen by our Vale commander." Corsec explained.

"The White Fang and I have decided to work on a joint business venture together." Roman explained.

"Tell me what it is, or I'm going to put an end to this operation of yours." Blake threatened.

"Oh I wouldn't exactly call this a 'little operation'" Roman smirked as several more bullheads arrived, each with White Fang soldiers. All of them started to leap out, wielding swords and guns. A large man with a chainsaw jumped out of the airship and put the chainsaw over his shoulder.

"Come back with us sister Blake. Adam will still forgive you." he insisted as Blake felt herself falter for a moment, loosening her hold on Roman.

Roman smirked at this chance, with his cane still behind his back, he shoved forward, escaping Blake's grasp and fired a shot at her feet, the shot exploding upon impact and launching Blake into the air.

Commentary: Things are only just kicking off here. So this is very different from the original events of "The Stray" what with the White Fang members being present being ones from a few volumes ahead. Which apparently Corsec and Fennec were to appear in Volume 1 originally. Here their appearance is more of a cameo than anything, along with that mysterious camouflaged girl that totally isn't anyone that'll be important later during Volumes 4/5. We also have the Lieutenant here because of course he'd be there for such a big heist. Backpedaling a little bit we do have our search parties formed as well. With Ruby and Penny, Weiss and Yang, Ren and Nora, Jaune and Alix, then of course Pyrrha and Cinder. This finale's going to be bigger scale than what we got in the original so look forward to that!