A group of teens converged by running into an alley a good distance away from a semi-burnt club. The red hooded one panted and addressed those in her allied forces, "Are all you JNPR guys alright?"

The leader of JNPR answered back, "Yeah, just barely though. Those twins were a lot tougher than I thought they'd be. If Ren hadn't talked them off we'd be done for." Jaune looked around a bit and a puzzled look came upon his face, "Where's Blake?"

Ruby lowered her head at the question without saying anything back. Yang stepped forward instead and answered seriously with a tint of red to her eyes, "We don't know. She ran away in the middle of our fight."

"She just chickened out like that from catching Torchwick?" Nora asked.

"No that's not…" Ruby came in with defensively.

"She's a faunus." Weiss interrupted, "Torchwick ripped off her bow to reveal her cat ears and when we found out she fled. Honestly good riddance."

Ruby burst out at Weiss, "She's our teammate Weiss! How can you just throw her away like this?!"

"Perhaps because we can do just as well without a lying faunus who never wanted to aid us in the first place!" Weiss retorted. The heiress produced her scroll and put it in front of Ruby's face, "I've documented Torchwick's plans Rose! With this as well as the SDC schedule I have determined exactly when and where he is going to strike next! He won't be nearly as safe from an ambush there as he was in his hideout!"

Jaune interjected, "Weiss the people we fought nearly had us. They're a lot more dangerous than we thought."

"And Blake or whatever her real name is is a lot more useless." Weiss retorted.

"In a straight up fight... yeah…" Yang said displeased.

Ruby turned to her, "Yang? You're on board with Weiss now?"

"The Ice Queen has a point Ruby." Yang said frustratedly, "All Blake did in that fight was give Torchwick a hostage to work with. That and… well... she and I haven't gotten along since we met."

Ruby was at first a bit shocked but toughened herself, "Look, I don't care if you have some sort of problem with her or not. We need her to help us! I'm not going to do anything against Torchwick until we have her back."

Weiss shouted angrily at the red hood, "You would let Torchwick escape for her?! She is nothing to us and we are nothing to her!"

Ruby steeled her gaze at the heiress, "She's something to me."

Weiss scoffed, "Of course someone like you would put stock in the thing that fails her. Well then you can just look for her without me."

The heiress then turned and stomped out of the alley, leaving the rest of them, Yang sighed as Weiss left, "I guess that makes two gone."

"Let's… just split up and start looking for Blake ok…" Ruby said downtrodden.

The others looked around at each other but nodded. Jaune approached Ruby, "Ok Ruby, we'll get back in our pairs from the mission and start combing the area for her."

"Uh… Actually Jaune could you pair up with me this time?" Ruby asked, "I need to talk to you about something."

Pyrrha perked up at this, "Oh, I'm sure you could just talk to him lat..."

Yang noticed Pyrrha's move and busted in, "Sure thing Rubes! I'll just take Pyrrha off his hands for you!"

Jaune went along with the idea, "Yeah, sure Ruby, I'll go with you instead. Alright guys let's split up. Even if we can't find her tonight we should meet back up at the dorms before it gets too late."

"You got it Jaune!" Nora said ecstatically as she saluted him before grabbing Ren and harrying off to wander in search of the cat girl.

Yang grabbed the slightly defeated looking Pyrrha by the shoulder and began escorting her off. The blonde looked back over her shoulder and winked at Ruby, "You two have fun!"

Ruby went a bit red in the face at Yang's obvious ulterior motive in taking Pyrrha away but shook it off. Jaune approached the red hood and patted her on the back before pointing, "Let's try over this way Ruby." Ruby nodded and the two began walking off down the street. Jaune looked over to the short girl walking beside him, "Well?"

"Huh?" Ruby said looking up at Jaune.

"What did you wanna talk to me about?" Jaune asked.

"Oh what, you couldn't tell from everyone on my team deciding to break away from each other? I need help Jaune! I need to know how to keep us from falling apart like this!"

"I don't know Ruby, I just got lucky with my team. I haven't had to try hard to keep them working together they just kinda… do…"

Ruby stopped by a wall and leaned her back against it in defeat, "So basically the same thing you always tell me when I ask for help then."

Jaune leaned against the same wall, "Yeah, I guess so. Sorry about that."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about Jaune. You're a great leader, but you're so naturally talented at it that you don't even know how you do it. I just wish I was like that. Like you."

"You know, I wish I was more like you too Ruby."

Ruby snorted dismissively, "Yeah right."

"It's true!" Jaune said, perking up. The farm boy turned his wall lean to his side to look at Ruby, "You've got your aura techniques and your semblance down. You earned your way into the academy two years before everyone else. Meanwhile I didn't really earn my way in at all."

Ruby turned to her own side to come face to face with Jaune, "Maybe you didn't earn it before but you definitely have now, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten made a leader."

Jaune smirked, "You know Ruby, maybe if you listened to what you tell me all the time instead of what I tell you all the time you'd be a lot more confident about the leadership thing."

Ruby smirked back, "So what? You think I should just ego boost myself?"

"Well if you won't do it I certainly can," Jaune stood straight and performed an exaggerated bow before Ruby, "after all you are one of the most skilled and courageous ladies there is." Jaune stood up from his bow, "Prettiest too."

Ruby quickly and playfully slugged Jaune, "Shut up with the fake compliments would you?"

Jaune grinned, "Nothing fake about them Ruby."

Ruby's cheeks went a bit red and she began walking away, "C-come on. Let's keep looking."

"Yeah, we have wasted too much time here I guess." Jaune followed beside Ruby again.

Ruby didn't look back at Jaune but nervously rubbed behind her head, "The situation right now is different and all but ordinarily I don't mind wasting time with you. 'Cause you're… The first friend I've ever had…"

Jaune went similarly awkward, "Actually Ruby that's the same thing you are to me."

The two dorks kept strolling down the street without being able to continue their conversation past their heart to heart.

Yang and Pyrrha strolled along side by side and the blonde who had her hands coolly behind her head aimed her eyes at the defunct looking Pyrrha, "What's wrong with you right now Princess? You look like you're down in the dumps. Is it 'cause the Mistrali has to look for a faunus? I know yall shipped all yours to Menagerie."

Pyrrha waved her hands defensively, "That's not it at all!" she then broke out of the defense and faced Yang with a bit of strength mustered, "I think you know that it was partly what you did that has me like this. After all Weiss already figured that part of me out without me telling her so I'll bet that you did too."

Yang sighed, "Yeah, look Pyrrha it ain't like I have a grudge against you or anything, I'm just trying to look out for what my sister wants."

"And you really think she wants the same thing I do?"

"She might not realize it herself but yeah, I think Ruby has it bad for Jaune."

"I suppose I have to believe you. You seem good at looking for that sort of thing since you figured me out in no time."

"Yup." Yang popped, "I can see through anybody when it comes to this."

Pyrrha stopped and turned towards Yang, "In that case can you see which of us Jaune would pick?"

"Probably whichever one of you got to him first honestly. That boy can get hypnotized just by looking at girls but he's too dumb to realize when they're looking at him."

"So if I confess before Ruby does then he'd choose me?"

"What? No! That's not! Pyrrha I swear if you mess with my little sister's feelings…"

"I'm sorry Yang but it isn't her feelings I care about, or even my own. I care about Jaune's."

"Well Jaune can be happy with Ruby, so congratulations Princess you don't need to do anything but wait for her to realize for herself."

"And while we wait for that for who knows how long Jaune stays alone. I want to spare him as much of that loneliness as possible Yang. I want him to know what he's worth."

Yang crossed her arms and unwillingly conceded, "Fine Pyrrha, if you want the goofball to be happy that bad go for it. After all, all's fair." Yang then pointed a finger at Pyrrha, "But don't think I'm ever rooting for you over Ruby."

"Then I guess I just have to accept that."

Yang rolled her eyes and extended her hand, "And don't think just 'cause I'm rooting for my sister with Jaune that I can't be friends with you."

Pyrrha went wide eyed, "Do you really mean that?"

"Obviously!" Yang answered, "After all I've got a soft spot for all you goofballs. Now shake my damn hand so we can seal the deal already!"

Pyrrha grasped Yang's hand with both of her's and sung out, "You won't regret it!"

"Never have never will Princess. Now come on. We got a stray cat to find."

"Here Blake! Come here girl!" Nora patted her thighs and whistled as she and Ren walked along.

Ren sighed, "Faunus don't come just because you call them like that Nora."

"Well I don't know how else we can find her!"

"Honestly I'm not too sure either. If she was unknown to us all this time then I doubt anyone else here knows her and can tell us where she is."

"You really think we can't even ask if they've seen her?"

"Knowing her skills I doubt any of them have."

"Ugh…" Nora groaned as she kicked a can down the street, "So we're just going to wander around and hope we run into her huh?"

"So it would seem."

Nora grabbed Ren and shook him, "Dammit Ren use your huntsman powers! Sense her aura with your super aura sense or something!"

"I can't sense it if she's suppressing it, which she probably is." Ren explained while being shook.

Nora sighed, "Yeah I know… This sucks Ren! It's never been so hard for us to find people before! First we end up having to fight through an army of thugs just to figure out where the Torchwick gang is and now we're combing through every street in vale to find the girl who can hide from anything!"

"To be fair we haven't gone after anyone this skilled before."

"I thought it would be just like the rebels and bandits when we started this, not some guys who are good enough to go up against huntsmen."

"Those with high prices on their heads are often dangerous to those who hunt them."

Nora stopped and faced Ren, "Should we keep doing this?"

Ren thoughtfully touched his chin, "On the one hand we don't need to bounty hunt to survive now that we've earned a spot in the academy, but on the other hand, our team leader is involved in this. Jaune led us out of death in the jaws of grimm soon after we first met. I believe we owe it to him to help him take on this task."

Nora perked up, "Yeah you're right Ren, besides if we ran away they'd search for us just like our dog faunus friend and haul us back anyway!"

"I believe Weiss said that she was a cat faunus."

Nora inhaled astoundedly, "So that's why my whistles didn't work!" Nora grabbed Ren by the collar again, "Ren! We need to go buy some catnip!"

A black cat strayed through a variety of alleys slowly and stealthily. Her ears lay flattened to her head in an effort to make them less visible. When having made it to a well hidden spot the girl leaned against a wall and slid down into a sitting position. She neither moved nor made noise, merely stared blankly at the wall across from her.

The clacking of heels sounded down the alley Blake had come down and she went tense, looking down that way. Out of that same route stepped a white clad heiress, "Blake. It seems I've found you."

The cat ninja drew her blade and pounced at the ice queen, her slash parried by the wide eyed white heiress' quickly drawn rapier. More slashes were merely parried without being countered until a white glyph forced the black cat backwards. The kunoichi stumbled back from the force and growled at the white mage, "How did you find me?!"

The beast thrust forward and was narrowly deflected into another combination of aggressive slashes, "I tracked your scroll. I thought you might merely have dropped it in this alley as a diversion but I suppose you must not have remembered that I was in charge of location tracking during the infiltration."

Blake went wide eyed at her own mistake for a second before narrowing her eyes again and releasing more thrusts and slices, "And so you decided to come take me down alone?!"

"I'm not here to fight with you!" The heiress cried as she parried, "I'm here to take you back to the team!"

"As though I'd go back to them now that they know!" Blake yelled as she struck, " As though I'd ever trust a human! As though I'd ever trust a Schnee!" Weiss cast a black glyph on Blake but it was the cat girl's clone caught in it rather than the true one who sliced a line down diagonally from left to right, "That won't work on me anymore!"

Weiss' eyes went wide and she leapt back out of the strike before using a heel glyph to re engage, this time more aggressively with her own thrusts. "I don't want a faunus back either," the ice queen retorted, "but without you the rest will abandon me as well! Even I cannot fight these criminals alone! I am forced to reenlist you."

Blake diverted each thrust away from herself and began attempting to counter them, her own counters being reverse countered themselves and so forth, "I have no reason to return to you humans! Now that I'm known you'll do nothing but use me and toss me aside!"

"It is for the good of other faunus that you should!" Weiss answered as she exchanged her strikes with the cat, "I know where Torchwick's next strike will be and your people will be caught in it!"

Blake disengaged from Weiss but stayed in her guard stance with her eyes locked on her opponent just as the ice queen did, "Where… Where is this happening!?"

Weiss relaxed a bit from her combat stance to enter her highborn one, "The SDC's main warehouse on the docks. We employ many of you faunus there. Unless you want Roman Torchwick and his violent thugs to shoot your people to shreds as they rob my family I think you have no choice but to come back to the team."

Blake stood her ground silently as she continued staring down the ice queen who broke not from her own, slightly more relaxed guard. After a tense pause where neither said anything Blake released her breath and sheathed her ninjato, "Fine. I'll do this with you."

Weiss sheathed her own sword, "Good. Let's head back to the rest of them then." Weiss turned and began walking off but she quickly turned again, "Oh and before I forget," the ice queen rummaged in one of her belt's pouches for a bit before pulling out a band of black velvet and presenting it to the feline, "I found a store selling these along the way. I knew you'd wish to be hidden again."

Blake glanced at Weiss then at the ribbon. The beast snatched it from the heiress' hand and began tying it into the bow that hid her ears without a word. The heiress spun again and clacked off in her heels with the stray cat following close behind her with glaring eyes.

In Beacon there reconvened a group of six students at the appointed time in a dorm room, none of which had found their stray cat. Ruby looked downcast at those she hadn't searched with and sighed, "I guess you guys didn't find Blake either then."

The other pairs shook their heads and Ren answered, "We didn't find even a hint of her. She's skilled at hiding."

Yang slammed her fist down on the desk she sat at, "Dammit! Blake ran away with her sneakiness and Weiss didn't come back here after she bailed on helping find her! How are we supposed to keep going without the Ninja Girl or the plans the Ice Queen found?"

Jaune exhaled gruffly, "We'll just have to look for both of them now I guess…"

Suddenly the door to the room slammed open, "You don't need to look for anyone."

The teams looked over to see Weiss standing in the doorway with Blake behind her. Ruby went extremely surprised, "Weiss!? You found Blake!? And you convinced her to come back!?"

Yang cocked an eyebrow, "I thought you said you weren't going to help us find her?"

"No," Weiss dragged out, "I said I was going to have my assigned partner Rose look for Blake without me, which I did merely because I found the red hooded girl annoying."

Yang scoffed, "Wow Ice Queen. I'm surprised a bitch like you managed to convince Blake back without getting another scar."

Weiss narrowed her eyes at Yang, "We did… clash blades a bit, but I was able to parry her off quite effectively!"

Ruby stormed up to the rich girl who flinched a bit, but the red hood merely extended her hand, "Thank you for finding her and coming back to us Weiss."

Weiss was stunned by the rose's sincerity a bit again but she quickly went serious and briefly took the hand to give it a single shake, "Yes, well, as much as I would like to I can't defend my family business without you and you refuse to do it without her. I had no choice but to bring her back so there is really quite little need to thank me."

"Well thanks anyway Ice Queen." Ruby said with a gentle smile before facing Blake who went a bit wide eyed, "Now Blake, I'm glad you came back but why did you run from us?"

Blake averted her gaze from the red hood, "You found out that I was a faunus. My whole goal here has been to avoid being found out and avoid the strife that comes with it."

"Only one of us on our team that'd give you any of that would be the Ice Queen and it looks like she's made a deal against it with you." Yang looked over at JNPR, "Any of yall got beef with the beastmen?"

Jaune shrugged, "Never met one on the farm so I have no idea how they are for myself. All I've heard is stories, some good some bad."

The jade dragon chimed in, "In vacuo there's no faunus against humans. It's always just survival of the fittest."

"I never dealt with any faunus in Mistral either but that is mostly due to them not being there at all…" Pyrrha said but then looked at Blake in her awkward defense, "Oh but I'd never try to treat you badly after all you've done for us!"

Ruby stepped closer to Blake, "And that goes double for me. Since the first day I got here you have looked out for me Blake."

Blake averted her eyes from the younger girl, "I… I don't trust humans, and I don't like them acting as though they trust me. I shouldn't have let you get so close to me just because I helped you on instinct."

Ruby's eyes went hard and she grabbed Blake to force her to look the red hood in the eye, "There are no faunus on Patch either Blake and you weren't a faunus when I met you, but even if you were I'd still have seen you as a friend." Ruby then slid her grip from the shoulders down the arms and took the cat by her paws, "I trust you whether you like it or not."

Yang sighed, "If my little sis wants to give you her trust I'll do the same for now, but remember that I've been looking out for her for a lot longer so I won't be so forgiving next time you pull something like this."

Nora clapped her hands together, "Great! So now everyone is on board with the cat-ninja-lady!" Nora then began rubbing her hands greedily, "Now let's find out what the bad guy's plan is from the Ice Queen, come up with a plan to beat it, and collect that sweet bounty!"

Weiss stepped forward, "Their plan is actually precisely what convinced the faunus to return to the fold, since the next place they will hit employs many of her kind."

"We know their next job?" Jaune perked up and asked.

"The time and place yes," Weiss answered, "but as for their method I've drawn a blank as to how they plan to haul all the dust stores out of the largest SDC warehouse in Vale three days from now without it taking so long they get caught."

Yang stood up, "I bet they can hack their way in to open the loading bay doors. After that they'd just need to load their trucks and leave."

Weiss shook her head, "Those loading bays can't handle enough trucks simultaneously to make the operation go quickly enough even if they fully shut off the police alert system. Someone would likely call in to the police individually and they'd respond before that. They must know and have some way around that though."

"Whatever their way around the police is they don't have a way around us." Jaune said, "With Weiss we can access the warehouse ourselves to lie in wait for them. As soon as they spring their heist we can spring our trap."

Ruby nodded, "I agree. This is clearly their biggest and riskiest plan yet. If we can put even a little hitch in it it might be enough to finally take them down." Ruby extended her hand with the palm facing downwards, "Is everyone in?"

Jaune was the first to place his hand on Ruby's, "You'll always have my sword."

Pyrrha's hand followed quickly onto Jaune's, "And my spear!"

Nora grabbed Ren by his hand and slapped both his and hers down on top of the others, "And me and Ren's big hammer and guns!"

Yang slapped her palm down, "Always ready to crack a few skulls with you guys!"

Everyone looked over at Blake and Weiss. Weiss rolled her eyes, "Ugh. Must I?" Everyone just kept staring, "Fine." Weiss slapped her hand on the pile and looked back to Blake, "Come on Miss Faunus, let's get this over with."

Blake approached cautiously and lay her hand gently atop the others. Ruby cheered, "Aw yeah! We finally got the band back together! Time to hit Roman Torchwick where it hurts!"

Everyone raised their hands to cheer Ruby's words with a shout of "Oorah!"

Jaune stretched and yawned then came back to his pose, "Yeah, but before that I'm going to bed. Clubbing, fighting, and searching all night has really worn me out."

"Same," Nora moaned, "Come on Ren let's brush your hair."

Ren sighed and followed behind Nora and Jaune as they exited the room, Pyrrha left last and sang as she slowly shut the door, "Good night team RWBY!"

"'Night princess, don't let the bed bugs bite." Yang said back.

Weiss looked around a bit, "Well I suppose we should go to bed as well."

"Yeah…" Ruby said.

"Yes." Blake agreed. The team doffed their outfits and donned their pyjamas, climbing into the bunk beds after all the additional preparations were carried out. Blake pulled the ribbon from the top of her head and looked at it, "Don't need to sleep with this on anymore I guess." She put it in the drawer of the nightstand and reached for the switch to turn the lamp off but before she did she paused and looked over at the heiress, "Weiss."

The white haired girl looked over to Blake surprised, "What?"

"I need to correct you."

Weiss rolled her eyes, "About your kind?"

"No, about my surname."

"Huh?"

"I'm not Miss Faunus. I'm Miss Belladonna." And with that Blake flipped the light off and the room went just as black as her.