So... yeah. Been a much longer time since I posted one of these than I promised. Apologies for that, but I do have a good excuse! I've self-published a pair of books and have a third currently in the editing phase, so that's left me a bit distracted. If you want to know more about those, or just talk about Student of Vacuo, here's the invite code for my discord server: VEHqnnVqcg

If you don't have discord, then feel free to PM me with any questions regarding the story or my books.

Regarding this chapter in particular, rather than a single long scene I've put in three shorter ones along with notes saying what they are, where they were going, and why I ended up cutting them. I've got a lot of similar sections, going to try and post one of these chapters every Sunday until I run out of old material to share.

Thanks, Kat

This particular scene was meant as a follow up to chapter 50, further elaborating on the dynamics in team RAVN after they decided to join up with Jaune and Neo. Cut mostly for pacing and for not truly adding anything new.

Lie Ren stared out over the Emerald Forest, watching the leaves rustle in the lights from the city. The shattered moon hung high above... an apt metaphor for how he currently felt.

"Do you think we did the right thing?" He asked softly.

"Protecting Pyrrha?" Ilia asked from where she sat on the cliff side, her ponytail whipping behind her in the stiff breeze. "Obviously."

Ren smiled slightly, "Of course, but I meant in agreeing to help Professor Arc and Miss Neo."

The former terrorist rested her chin on a hand, taking her time with her response. "It's... hard to say. They seem to have good intentions, or at least Jaune does, but I've seen good intentions amount to nothing but misery before."

He hummed softly, folding his hands behind his back as he remembered the morning's conversations.

It had all seemed so fantastical, perhaps even farcical. If not for Pyrrha's obvious distress and the almost haunted expressions that the professors had worn, he wouldn't have even begun to believe most of it. Life, it seemed, was truly stranger than fiction once you began to learn more about what was occurring in the world.

"I'm still not certain about not working with Professor Ozpin." He admitted quietly. "They admit his goals are laudable, though his methods questionable. I would think that at least a tacit alliance would be beneficial."

"Hard to say." Ilia said once more, her head shaking. "Maybe it would be smarter, or maybe General Ironwood would throw them both in jail. Hell, maybe Ozpin would. It's not like we really know him."

That was true. For all that he was an admired authority figure, with a reputation for strength and honor, Professor Ozpin was also a distant figure. The king standing atop the hill, apart from his subjects, ruling and guiding them but not interacting with anyone.

Or at least, not interacting with team RAVN. From what Ruby Rose had told him, their team had encountered him more than once in casual affairs, and rumor had it that the top second year team, CVFY, often received their training missions directly from him. Ren would admit to being concerned over such things, now that the new information was making him step back and consider the interactions as more than merely teachers having favorite students.

Jaune and Neo had obviously picked out his own team as their protege's very early on... and he had spent several hours this afternoon contemplating if this had been their plan all along before dismissing it as needless paranoia. Jaune had been quite obviously distraught and upset over having to tell them at all; he clearly hadn't wanted to involve them today. Further, it had been Ilia and Pyrrha's need for counseling, and Nora's appreciation for their lunch time stories that had driven their early relationship.

A coincidence that had simply coincided with Ozpin's choice of Pyrrha as the next Maiden.

However, the same could not be said of Ozpin's actions... and that also concerned him. Was the headmaster actively looking to recruit entire teams for his shadow war? Did he truly pick them out as young as their first year, and slowly manipulate them into becoming his agents over the course of their schooling?

Abominable... yet... also so very worrying.

"Is their power so great that even a man as reputedly good as Professor Ozpin would go to such lengths to protect them?" He murmured. "Are these maidens and relics so powerful?"

Ilia shook her head slightly. "If I had to guess, I'd say it's really the Relics. I mean, a woman who can do magic without dust is dangerous, sure, but she's still just a person. Unless part of that magic is ignoring basic needs, she's gonna need food, water, sleep... she'd be hard to kill, but still killable."

"Just as the prior maiden was." Ren nodded in agreement. "That lends weight to the notion to Jaune's notes on the Relics."

"Hurricanes... creating anything you want... instant knowledge." Ilia rubbed at her face. "Gods. It's hard to even contemplate."

"Yes." He said simply. "But I think that conversation can wait. For now we need to decide how far we will actually go."

She glanced up at him, a frown on her freckled features. "Didn't we already discuss this?"

"Considering what they're asking us to do, I don't think a second discussion amiss."

"I can see that." Ilia pursed her lips, "But still, shouldn't Nora and Pyrrha be here for this?"

Ren sighed, "I fear that Pyrrha would do anything that Professor Arc asked of her, much as she goes along with whatever you request. And Nora is Nora. I'll speak with both of them regardless, but I am certain we already know their answers."

There was a grimace as she nodded, looking back over the trees. "I think... we should follow their plans, at least until they get Torchwick. By then we should know if they're really the people we befriended, or if it was all just an act. And besides, not like helping hunt down a major criminal is all that illegal."

"Vigilantism is technically illegal."

Ilia waved a dismissive hand before stretching her arms out with a groan, "Please. We show up at a police station with Torchwick, or his body, and they'll probably give us a parade on the spot."

He couldn't argue with that, as much as the law abiding part of him wished to. "Very well, I agree. We will work with them until Torchwick is captured, or until we believe they have crossed a moral line. Then we will re-assess."

She nodded, "I'd still like to help them find whoever blew up the Academy after that, but we can always limit that to research if things look bad."

"That will likely be acceptable." Ren said before pausing. This next conversation was going to get rather personal, and he really wasn't sure how well Ilia would take it. His own rules about the team not discussing such matters had helped avoid uncomfortable topics in the past, but it also left him rather uncertain as to Ilia's intentions. "But for now, I think we should focus on Pyrrha. I... hesitate to intrude, but I'm not entirely certain where your relationship with her is going."

Ilia went still, then let out an almost explosive breath and turned her attention back to the forest as her spots began to glow a dull blue. "That makes two of us. Three of us, I guess."

"Did she decide she isn't interested?"

"She didn't decide anything, that's kind of the problem." A hand waved in a tired fashion. "The whole Breach battle kind of ruined the whole see if she doesn't mind dating a woman thing, and we haven't really had a chance to sit down and talk about since then. And even if we did I don't know if she'd be able to give me an honest answer, or if she'd just tell me what I want to hear because she's afraid of losing her partner."

He sighed, well familiar with Pyrrha's positives and negatives. "I understand. Just please, be careful."

A hand waved, "I know, I know. Speaking of relationships, should Pyr and I be looking into another place to sleep?"

It took a quick call to his semblance to keep himself from flushing.

This one was intended to be early in Act 3, showing how Yang was dealing with everything Raven was telling her, and in advance of Weiss taking the maiden's mantle. This one was a much later cut, removed entirely because of my desire to heavily streamline act 3 due mostly to my personal issues. Would have been much longer, going deeper into team RWBY's dynamics.

Yang stared up at the evening sky, her good arm hanging off the side of the dorms as she laid on the roof. Apart from the wind there wasn't much noise, at least until the sound of a door closing and quiet footsteps reached her ears.

She tilted her head just enough to see who was coming, and fought the urge to wave her stump of a right arm in greeting. "Hey Rubes... Crescent Rose fixed already?"

"Mostly." Her sister replied, "Wanna do some stress tests tomorrow, but... Blake told me you were up here again."

"Traitor." Yang muttered with a sigh, returning her gaze to the darkening blue high above. "I'm fine Ruby."

"Um... you're kinda half-hanging off the dorms." Ruby said quietly, not quite shuffling over. "Still thinking about what your mom told you?"

Her remaining fingers twitched. "Of course I am. How could I not be?"

"I was just-"

"I mean," She continued, "It's not like my mother, who ran away and left us, who was never there, was more honest with me than our own dad or even Uncle Qrow. Not like we didn't just find out about magic, and Queens of Grimm, and Maidens... oh, and Weiss of all people wants to be turned into a magical girl or something, and you have had a target on your head since you were freaking born."

"Yang-"

"And no one said anything!" Yang heaved herself up, scowling furiously at nothing in particular, "Never a 'Oh hey! Your baby sis has anti-Grimm powers in her eyes, so people are going to want to, you know, murder her just for being alive.' And don't even get me started on not telling us about why Raven actually left."

"I know!" She almost fell off the building at Ruby's sudden shout, her sister shaking as she visibly forced herself to calm down. When she spoke again her voice was quiet, but still shaky. "I know... Yang. I know."

Yang winced and looked away, wordlessly holding her left arm out. Her sister silently moved over, sitting down beside her and letting her wrap her arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok." Ruby murmured, kicking her feet. "It's just... seems like we've spent the last three weeks apart when we should be together. Some days it's like me and Blake are the only ones on the team."

That drew another wince as she bowed her head. "I... just need some space. All of the news, everything Raven puts me through when she drags me away, and then..." Phantom pain ran through a hand that wasn't there anymore. "...I lost a part of me Ruby. It's... taking me a bit to find myself."

Her sister bit her lip, "Have you tried talking to Jaune about it?"

"Yeah, when I can get an appointment." She shook her head, "Ever since the Breach he's been constantly seeing people... and seems like every night he's out with Neo, or his sisters, or with RAVN."

And there was no way she was going to see any of the civilian or police psychologists that Professor Ozpin had managed to make available to the student body. She was sure they probably had a much better idea of what they were doing than Jaune did, but he was as much a friend as a teacher. It felt... easy to talk to him, even about things like her arm, or her mother.

"What about Nora? Or Meral?" Ruby prodded her gently, as always not giving up.

Yang exhaled, "Who even knows what they're doing anymore. Seems like RAVN is always on their own these days, avoiding everyone but Jaune when they aren't going out at bars. Guess they're that confident Pyrrha will win the tournament. And Meral's always off with her team and CRDL trying to get some more practice in."

Things had changed for more than just their team after the Breach. While RAVN sequestered themselves in the library, or on nights out on the town, MINT and CRDL had decided that their spots in the pecking order just weren't acceptable anymore. Both teams had started spending almost all of their free time training, and quite often were roping FRST and the exchange students into their spars as well.

Nor were they the only ones. Lot of the older students were spending even more free time in the arenas, to the point where it was a rare evening when you didn't see at least one or two teams out training in the gardens simply because all of the main rooms were booked.

She closed her eyes and shook her head tiredly, "How's everyone else doing? Weiss still delaying on the whole thing?"

"It's..." Ruby's voice lowered, "...it's scheduled for next week. Now that Winter's doing better, she's ready."

Well... shit.

"And they're still not sure if it'll work?"

Black hair lightly tickled her cheek as Rubes shook her head. "No... but Weiss says she has to do it, that she's not going to stand by when she can help people. Professor Ozpin says that I can be there, make sure she has a familiar face."

"That's... good." She tried to at least reassure her sister. "She'll get through it all right, Weiss will always be the little Weiss-queen."

Ruby let out a choked sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I hope so."

And here we have a scene of Sable training with team RAVN, intended to run into a phone call with Nicholas Arc. Intended to expand on the family dynamics at play in the Arc family and echo Couer's backstory for them. Cut for pacing and relevance.

Sable Arc had expected a lot of things when she finally had her aura unlocked, was finally allowed to train as a huntress, to pursue her lifelong passion. She'd known it would take extreme levels of hard work, that Coral might have issues with how long it occupied her, that she could easily end up injured or dead.

What she hadn't known was that forcing her brother and his partner into this would also thrust her directly into a not entirely legal conspiracy... and leave a large portion of her training in combat in the hands of both students and criminals.

She blew out a hard breath, keeping her sword up as she and her opponent reset, running through everything she'd learned in the last four weeks. Ilia Amitola; main weapon was a dust whip, she was a decent fencer, and a very dirty brawler, but she was most dangerous at long ranges.

The dull rumble of thunder outside served to signal the start, Sable kicking off of her back foot and sprinting across the cracked stone floor of the old holy ground. Her opponent promptly began moving left, whip snapping out in sharp lashes. She managed to parry two, took the third on her aura with a flicker of dark energy, then cut right to try and intercept.

Amitola slowed as she ran out of room, turning her movement in a stride directly at Sable as her weapon cracked and whirled in rhythm. The first strike came high, and was blocked, but the second two came low, at her legs. Gasping, she barely got her sword down to intercept the first, and got her right ankle hit just as it was about to come down.

She stumbled badly, her sprint turning into an awkward twirling motion, but she kept her feet and came on with a shout and an overhead slash.

Metal rang as the whip was condensed into something like a rapier, the smaller woman parrying her attack with a twirl of her own before slashing at her side. Sable hissed, aura not doing much to mitigate the pain, and pressed into a three slash-punch combination that Nikos had been trying to drill into her.

She really should have known better than to try it against Nikos' own freaking partner, because it went poorly from the get-go.

Her initial thrust was blocked, then her follow-up high cut was ducked. That left her open for a knee to ram into her thigh, and her reflexive downward-slash to force the girl away simply saw her step into her so they were literally chest to chest before a hard skull was rammed right into her chin. Sable was still staggering from that when Amitola snapped an arm up behind her, grabbing hold of the roots of her hair and yanking her head back.

"I yield..." Sable hissed as she felt the cold touch of the girl's weapon on her exposed throat. "...again."

The girl chuckled, the pair of them disentangling themselves from one another. "Don't sound so upset, it's only been a few weeks. You're definitely making a lot of progress."

"Agreed." Pyrrha Nikos smiled brightly from one of the few old stone pews still sort-of intact. "You've taken every hit on your aura for four days in a row now, I think you just about have that down."

Sable sighed, absently sheathing her old weapon. She knew it was the most important lesson to learn, after all, all the fancy sword play in the world wouldn't do you any good if you couldn't properly align your aura to block a bullet, but it hadn't exactly been fun.

It wasn't fun, but things are more relaxed now that you've got the most critical part down.

"What did I do wrong?" She asked.

Nikos hummed, "You were too aggressive for your current skillset. Charging Ilia is often the right move, but it isn't as though she doesn't know she's more vulnerable up close. She was ready for it."

Sable grimaced, "And I wasn't good enough to beat her... so I should be more cautious?"

"Yup." Amitola nodded, stretching out with a pleased little groan. "You're big for a girl, strong, and even if you're aura isn't at Jaune's level you've still got more than most people. Against someone like me, obviously smaller and probably weaker than you, play the stamina game."

"You might," Nikos said in addition, "Have to be willing to take a few hits to lure someone close, or bait them into a position where you'll have the advantage."

She nodded seriously, jotting that down amidst the rest of her mental notes. "Thank you both for helping me with this, I really appreciate it."

The Champion smiled, "It's no trouble at all."

Next week expect a lot of Raven Branwen. Had a lot of alternate scenes with her or potential chapters that ended up getting cut, but I think some are rather good.

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat