Chapter 2: Stress

The Hunt

Pyrrha and Gwen set out shortly after they had finished their coffee, the first stop was the Argus Limited to ask around for Jaune. They arrived at the train terminal and asked around but nobody knew anything, though they had been told that the huntsman in charge of security might know more since he had been working the longest.

They went to find him, Dudley didn't appear to be all that strong to the two girls but he had been protecting the train for months and was still alive so he must not be totally useless. The girls approached him, he was offering extra protection to some people and seemed to be rather full of himself.

"Excuse me, my name is Pyrrha and this is my friend Gwen. We need your help with something." He turned to look at the rather attractive women and grinned.

"Don't worry beautiful, ill give you all the help you need." He winked at them and Gwen felt the urge to stab him but held herself back.

"We want to talk to you about a man named Jaune Arc." As soon as the words left Pyrrha's mouth the man's cocky attitude changed, his face fell to one of sadness and he looked away from them refusing to look them in the eyes.

"That woman sent you didn't she, his sister." His voice was barely above a whisper.

"That's right." Gwen said.

"Poor girl, she's asked me a few times but i just blew her off. I didn't have the heart to tell her what happened." This got both girls full attention, he took a breath and told them the story.

"I hated Jaune at first you know, he was such a goody goody. But after some time he grew on me you know, he was just so happy to help people all the time. We were attacked by a horde of grimm on our way back to Argus and during the battle he got taken by one of those damm things. Never heard from him again, please just tell his sister that he died a hero. If he hadn't pushed me out of the way i'd be dead."

Gwen took this in and thought that there was a chance he was alive and she knew Pyrrha was thinking the same. After all, both of them had been picked up by a nevermore before and lived to tell the tale.

"Could you show us where he was taken during the trip, we might not find anything but we are going to try." Dudley gave them a small but fake smile and agreed to help them, he didn't think they would find so much as a body part but if there was a chance why not go for it.

The Hand Off

Elios stood there with a cigarette in his mouth, lightly puffing on it. He had been waiting for an hour or so and was getting annoyed, he didn't want to wait anymore he wanted his money. He wasn't waiting much longer before his contact arrived, Adam Taurus.

"Finely, you know how long i've been waiting for you." It wasn't phrased as a question and Adam didn't look like he was going to answer.

"I don't care, be careful how you speak to me human. Hand it over." Elios made the universal gesture for money and Adam grunted and threw a bag of money at his feet. Elios gave a smirk and opened the window behind him and grabbed the small chest off the ledge, he then tossed it to the intimidating fawnus.

Once Adam was gone Elios let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, he really didn't like that man, he was way too scary. He stuffed the bag of money in his pocket and headed for the roof, all he needed to do now was get out of Vale before that Cinder women could track him down again. She scared him even more than Adam, he wasn't sure why she asked him to steal the shipping details of the new Paladins, maybe they wanted to start a war?

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of a door opening, he could hear two sets of footsteps. One of them was light and fast paced, likely a small female and the other was heavy and slower and also uneven, almost like the person was stumbling and tripping. These thoughts passed through his head in the span of a second, years of breaking into high security locations made him very good at thinking on the fly.

He stopped his journey to the roof and decided to hide and spy on the newcomers , hoping it wasn't Cinder. He jumped through the opened window and hung on the sill, he then climbed downwards closer to the sound, he stopped at the window with the hole in it and looked through it hoping to get a glance at the newcomers. He didn't recognise the two new people but they did look like hunters which was not good at all, he decided to get out of there why he had the chance. He climbed down the building and took off at a fast run, he intended to steal an airship and go to ground.

The Crime Scene

Weiss and Winter Shnee arrived at the site of the massacre to investigate, the local authorities were more than willing to hand off the gruesome crime to the two highly trained huntresses. They had reviewed footage from the area and witnessed a strange individual passing through the area but couldn't identify them.

Further study showed that this was done by a single person and the wounds were consistent to one weapon. With some hesitation the police recommended they talk to an information broker, though illegal the police let him continue to do his work so long as he helps with official business.

That is how the sisters found themselves in the large nightclub surrounded by dozens of people dancing and partying. They went to the bar and asked for junior, he was an average looking man with red sunglasses.

"Let me guess, you want something from me." He said it with a cocky smirk and downed his glass of whisky.

"We were told you could help us, we need information on the person who killed the white fang members in the warehouse not too long ago." He sighed before he answered.

"A woman came in just before the massacre and wanted info on the white fang. We don't have cameras for obvious reasons but she was young, early twenties long black hair and clothes. Two swords and covered in scars, she's hard to miss."