Authors Note: Again, nothing to say.

Jaune had become rather fond of Vale, though he still wasn't a fan of the large crowds. Growing up in Ansel always felt so quiet and lonely… okay, it was rarely quiet or lonely. Seven sisters meant things were always loud, heated, and (usually) overly dramatic. The point was that the small settlement rarely had anything going on. Vale just had so much... everything. From the buildings and skyscrapers to the sheer amount of things to do for entertainment, it was overwhelming at times.

Now was not one of those times.

The docks were pointedly not where Jaune had intended to spend his Friday afternoon, and yet, here he was. At the docks. He blamed Yang, and not in the typical 'her puns ruined my life' kind of way, this time, the overly eccentric blonde really was to blame.

Jaune had been alerted via scroll message that he was going to accompany team RWBY to the docks today, he had not been asked or invited, but told. Yang had said to invite team JNPR, and that was what he had done, but he himself was not allowed to say no. A few short months ago that might have caused him to get all bothered and think this was supposed to be something more, hell a few weeks ago he might have thought that, but not anymore. It wasn't Yang's style.

She wanted him to come along so she wouldn't be driven into a boredom induced coma by Weiss. He was meant to be her entertainment for the afternoon, he wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

Almost as soon as the two teams had linked up, and Weiss had said what they would actually be doing, Nora had stolen Ren away to go to a local arcade. Pyrrha had offered to stay with him, the perfect partner that she was, but he had insisted she go and have some fun. She rarely relaxed and Nora was sure to help her do that… okay maybe relax was the wrong word. Whatever you called it, Pyrrha would return exhausted.

So in the end he was just a fifth wheel to four teenage girls. Yang, Ruby and him chatted most of the way to the docks, with the occasional comment from Blake who otherwise stuck to herself. On their way there however, they noticed a storefront that appeared to have been robbed.

That was where the day had really started to go down hill. Weiss and Blake very clearly had different opinions on the matter and it was a topic the other three were very much not willing to broach. Jaune had thought the argument was killed before it could start, death via a blonde monkey faunus with fantastic abs, but like so many things in life, he was wrong.

"Stop calling him that!" Jaune didn't really know blake all that much, but he was fairly certain the tone she took was not a normal one. Yang and Ruby's faces confirmed his suspicion. "Stop calling him a scoundrel, stop calling him a degenerate!"

The random girl Weiss had run into, Penny if he heard her name correctly, seemed to be enjoying the show, as did many passersby. Jaune was just trying to step away and blend into the woodwork slightly to avoid being dragged into the debate.

Weiss scoffed at the idea. "Would you like me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can, or this lamp post as a lamp post?"

The argument got worse from there. Most of the points Jaune didn't really understand and he was more than content to let the two argue it out on their own for a while. The problem was that they kept going the rest of the day. He must have heard the same point made a hundred times.

Things didn't get much better when the rest of team JNPR returned from the arcade to meet up with them.

"I don't understand how you can say that!?" Weiss

Yang offered him an out a few minutes after, when it was clear the two bickering girls had no intention of stopping. Jaune offered an apology to Yang before doing the most heroic and oldest of actions taken by men for centuries, he ran away from the yelling females.

Jaune couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the action felt wrong. Not because of some false sense of pride, his had died and been buried long ago, but because he felt he should have helped deescalate the situation somewhat. Instead he had left Ruby and Yang to deal with the two alone.

He just hoped the two were able to find some common ground and stop the argument. He eventually shook his head at the concern, after all, what was the worst that could happen?

"So she just left?" Jaune picked his shield up to block an incoming punch. "She didn't say anything before running off?"

Beacon was many things, calm was rarely one of them. Between the eccentric and overly dramatic students to the threat of death via the grimm, things were rarely boring. Today it seemed that the overly dramatic would be the focus.

"Nope" Yang accented her answer with a follow up punch to his side that he was able to step away from.

Her attacks, usually fast and devastating, were slow and weak today. Jaune couldn't tell if it was her being tired, distracted, or both. The punches still hurt, a lot, but they lacked the same energy as their other training sessions.

"Shouldn't you guys be, you know, out looking for her?" He regretted it the second it left his mouth, and even more when the fist smashed into his face launching him several feet back and onto his ass. It didn't take him but a moment to get up, knowing full well what would happen if he didn't.

"We were!" Yang's eyes flashed red as she pursued him. Perhaps it was a sign of how angry the statement had made her but her defence was far sloppier than it had been the past few weeks. "All weekend!"

Jaune stepped to the side and dodged her first punch and just barely brought his shield up in time to stop her second one. He stepped to the side again and dodged her knee and watched as she realised what happened.

Jaune brought his sword down over her arm and forced her to pull back slightly. As she attempted to disengage however he brought his leg up in a sweep, taking Yang's legs out from under her.

It was the first time he had actually managed to defeat her. It wasn't nearly as relieving as he thought it would be.

Jaune's breath came out heavy as he sheathed his sword and offered a hand to help her stand, she didn't take it. He couldn't help but notice her own breathing was steady and she seemed to barely be tired from the work out.

"Weiss and Ruby are back in the room waiting to see if she'll come back." Yang draped her arm over her eyes. "I don't even know if Weiss cares… no actually I do, she doesn't care." Yang let out a deep sigh. "There are just to many places she could be."

Jaune moved over a nearby bench and grabbed a bottle of water for each of them. "I could help, if you want. I know the rest of my team would also be willing."

Yang moved her arm and looked at him as he offered her the water. "Sorry, it's too personal a matter to have another team help."

Yang leaned back down onto the floor as if to end the conversation there, Jaune decided to respect her opinion and began to move away. He stopped just before he stepped out of the door. "If you change your mind, just ask. You've helped me a lot... I'd like to return the favour."

It hadn't taken long for his offer to be taken up on. Yang had sent him a message asking if team JNPR would be willing to help them find Blake, Jaune had asked the rest of his team, all of whom were happy to help.

Ren and Pyrrha had stayed back at the school incase Blake went back there while Jaune and Nora met up with the rest of team RWBY in the city.

"Weiss, you're not helping." Ruby was currently the one leading the way.

"You know who might be able to help? The police." Jaune could feel the anger at that remark, not just from Ruby but Yang as well. "What? It was just an idea."

"Yeah a bad one." Ruby mumbled under her breath and continued down the street.

"We could always just break the policeman's legs if they tried anything!" Nora's comment went ignored, thankfully.

Weiss' comment did bring some concern to the forefront, and that was the reason why Blake had run. Yang had been… vague… on the details. Weiss' comment hinted at this being larger than he had expected, but he buried any question he had and trusted Yang's judgment on the matter.

"Weiss, I think we should hear her side of the story before we jump to any conclusions." surprisingly it was Yang who became the voice of reason, and was promptly shot down in traditional Beacon fashion.

"I think, when we hear it, you'll all realise I was right." Weiss was unwilling to listen to reason.

"And I think Weiss' hair looks wonderful today." Jaune felt his heart jump into his throat at the additional voice, apparently so to did everyone else.

"Ah!" The group turned to see the orange haired girl from Friday standing not three feet behind them. How none of them had noticed Jaune didn't know. What made even less sense was that Nora was actually standing behind the girl and had not seen fit to warn them.

"Penny! Where did you come from!?" the conversation that followed was mostly a recap of what Jaune had already known, except for one detail.

"Blake's a faunus?" Thankfully Jaune didn't seem to be the only one who was confused.

"Affirmative." Penny bobbed her head while the rest just stood in silence. It was Nora who spoke first.

"That. is. Adorable!" Nora proceeded to gush over the fact mostly to herself while the rest continued to work it out in silence.

"She does like tuna a lot." Ruby whispered to no one in particular.

Penny waited a moment to let them process before speaking again, drawing everyone but Nora back to the conversation. "So, where is she?"

"We don't know, we haven't seen her since Friday."

"That's terrible, friend Ruby!" Jaune was starting to wonder if there were a few screws loose in the girls head. "Don't worry, I won't rest until we find your teammate!"

Ruby seemed completely unprepared to deal with the situation. "That's really nice of you and all but we're okay, right guys?" She looked to her side for her loyal teammates in the hope they would have better advice.

Jaune wasn't sure when Weiss and Yang had left, but they had done so flawlessly. In truth he should have done the same, but made the mistake of being a kind person. Ruby looked to him and Nora for help, Jaune made the mistake of letting Nora speak first.

"We would looove the help!" Jaune and Ruby both let out a sigh as Nora began a conversation with the new girl.

Yep, should have run off with Yang.

The rest of the evening was long and turned up very little results. Nora and Penny had separated off to go search a few of the store fronts Jaune felt slightly guilty about offloading Penny onto his teammate but Nora seemed to be more than friendly with her… in fact, Jaune was starting feel a tiny bit sorry for Penny, Nora was great and all but she could be a handful at times.

Jaune focused on his task about the same time the explosion rang out.

"Oh, no." Jaune couldn't help but agree with his team RWBY counterpart, he knew Blake would be at the blast

Jaune sent a message to Nora's scroll to let them know where they were heading and to meet them there. Jaune and Ruby arrived just in time to watch Blake and another faunus get beaten back and separated by their opponent. It looked like they had been fighting for a little bit, judging by the numerous downed terrorists.

Jaune knew the story behind the person they were fighting. Roman Torchwick was a well known name, even to him… ok, he only knew of him because Ruby had told them the story about her fighting him in a store, but still, he knew what the criminal looked like. Thankfully he hadn't noticed them yet and they might still have the element of su-

"Hey!" Jaune slapped a hand to his face in disappointment. The crook looked up to them and and turned his attention away from the downed faunus.

She couldn't have fired a sniper shot or something to take advantage of the surprise… just had to go with a dramatic entrance?

"Hello Red. Isn't it past your bedtime?" Ruby looked back to him for a moment to say something and the crook took advantage of it.

Jaune had already drawn his sword and was in the process of turning his sheath into a shield as they approached, thankfully he was still looking at the criminal and was able to start moving before the shot was taken. He pushed Ruby aside and absorbed the shot on his shield. It exploded against the metal and sent a lance of pain through his arms but did no actual damage.

He wasn't quite so lucky when the follow up shot came. The crook had adjusted his aim to compensate for the shield and landed a round directly at Jaune's feet. He wasn't sure when it happened but he went from standing on the building, to flying through the air for a moment, to falling rather quickly towards the ground.

It was at that moment a thought popped into Jaunes head.

I still need to perfect a landing strategy.

The quickly approaching pavement didn't seem to be willing to wait for him to do so.

Authors Notes: don't hate me for the cliffhanger, it had to be done!

I want to ask you all a question, one that will alter a few things in the story. There will be no Arkos this ship, if you haven't guessed yet, and that means Pyrrha will be alone. This is unacceptable! SHE DESERVES BETTER! And so I ask you, the audience. Would you like me to throw in a ship with Pyrrha either as a part of this story or a story of its own? Let me know your thoughts in the reviews.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Sincerely SE