Truthfully, this one could've been better than it was but I got kinda stuck. This is more-or-less a bridge chapter and I hate to leave you guys with such blandness, so instead I'll promise you something better next time.

Hopefully it'll be done by the weekend.

XOXOXO

CoffeyJoe

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Jaune Arc Wants to Live a Quiet Life:

Returning to some semblance of his quiet life, Jaune finds himself troubled by a surprise run-in, and the problems it could bring. Despite this tumultuous outcome, he is certain that fate has sided with him and his life will return to normal soon. However, a group of young hunters could dissuade him of that notion, as they near an unpleasant truth.

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"Ruby, we've been walking for hours now!" complained Weiss, throwing her hands into the air. "And we still have no leads, no clues, not even a theory on what happened!"

Ruby hummed at that, unwilling to admit that she had a point. "Well, we still have the police?"

Weiss scoffed. "The police? They wouldn't let us anywhere near Coco or Russel's room, not to mention they don't have any definitive proof either."

"Well, that means they have nothing against Coco right?" Yang asked, peering from behind the heiress's head.

"That's true, but they have enough to cast her in a bad light. If we don't find anything, Coco might be in trouble." Weiss said, scrunching her brow and trying to wrack her brain. "Where did she say their disagreement was? Near the bullhead docks?"

"That right!" Ruby lit up, eyes aglow with enthusiasm. "Surely someone must've seen something, right?"

"Ruby, not to bring you down but the police probably looked over there." Yang sighed, hesitant to crush her sister's enthusiasm.

Ruby wilted slightly, but did not relent. "Well, I mean, what if they decide to talk to huntresses over police? This is a huntress matter, and, if worse comes to worse, we can use my adorable looks!"

"Oh, thank goodness we have a plan then." Weiss muttered sarcastically under her breath.

Blake was noncommittal, having nearly no stake in the whole situation other than this being her team. Even so, she pondered what could've happened to the ragged boy from Team CRDL. While it was a possibility that Coco finally got the little rat back for what he did to Velvet, it just didn't seem like the type of thing Coco was prone to doing, she seemed more like the type to corner you in the hallway and knock your teeth out. Like Yang really.

The hidden faunus supposed that maybe Russel bit off more than he could chew, tangled with the wrong people and lost. As nice as Vale seemed to be it was still a capital city, and that meant there was any number of bad elements especially with Torchwick running around. And, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely to Blake that Russel had stumbled upon something he shouldn't have.

Blake was so caught up in her thinking that she bumped straight into a man exiting a department store. Knocking her back and momentarily forgetting her cat-like reflexes, Blake nearly fell until the man in front of her grabbed her elbow.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Blake apologized, her team stopping to look at her.

"It was no problem, accidents happen." came the youthful voice of the man in front of her.

He was blonde, perhaps around her age and looking even younger without any sort of stubble. He was dressed in a blue suit with a green and white striped dress shirt, his tie was rather interesting in that it seemed to be designed with pictures of cat-like skulls all the way down. He dusted himself off before regarding her for a moment, and when he did she felt it.

Her faunus reflexes kicking back in and warning her of something. Of what, she was unsure of; at first, she believed that they were about to be ambushed but shot that down, here, on the street in broad daylight? Instead, it seemed to be coming from this man, and though it was a mere jolt of the senses it conveyed a feeling of coldness, and of a deep pit of roiling emotions submerged beneath a calm surface. It passed as quickly as it came, and the world returned to normal leaving the black-clad faunus with more questions than answers.

"Ooh! Sir! May we have a moment of your time?" Ruby asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

The man seemed to consider that, checked his watch, and then nodded.

Ruby beamed. "Oh thank you sir! Anyways, my name is Ruby Rose and I am a huntress of Beacon Academy. I've come here to ask if you've seen any suspicious individuals nearby?"

Blake could've sworn she saw the man's expression go slightly wooden, but disregarded it.

"Individuals? Hmm, I do not believe so. May I ask why?" the young man questioned, folding his briefcase beneath his arm.

"Oh, well, you see. My friend, a second year, is being accused of hurting this one guy named Russel who went missing a few days ago, but they don't know what happened to him so they're just blaming her. Anyways, they think he went missing around here, so maybe you saw him? Kinda short, wears a green vest, trashy looking mohawk, really you couldn't miss him in a crowd."

Ruby finished her rant, leaving the young man slightly bemused before he scratched his chin, yet Blake couldn't help but feel a little off about the action. As if it were plastic, almost programmed into an A.I. of some sort.

"Hmm, no. I do not believe I have ever seen such a man before, but perhaps you could ask someone else?" the man checked his watch. "I apologize, but my girlfriend wanted to meet me in the park and it is rude to keep a lady waiting, ciao."

And with that the man walked off, blending in with the crowd as Ruby muttered a curse. Blake watched the man go, becoming a mere blob in the crowd and yet still maintaining a sort of presence amongst the people around him. Blake felt as though she had felt something like this before, something familiar and yet alien to her all the same.

It almost felt like...

"Yo Blake," Yang interrupted, poking her face in front of her partner's. "Stop spacing out, we have more people to interrogate."

"Question!" Ruby reminded vehemently, to which she was promptly ignored.

"Come on, you heard her." Yang giggled, dragging her partner off for what would no doubt be a hellish day.

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The door to the small apartment slammed shut, its occupant slamming his own fist against the wall. Jaune's face turned stormy, a dark look clouding his eyes as the veins in his forehead pulsed, a childhood tell of when he was angry. Those brats, how did they catch wind of him? Of course, it was because he was sloppy, he didn't make sure to clear his surroundings.

But, then, what was he supposed to do? Let that green-haired shit just defile his beloved? On that filthy street no less! The very thought made Jaune shudder with rage and disgust, his clenched fist growing even tighter. He needed to calm down, this wasn't unsalvageable, he could still maintain his quiet life as long as he played his cards right. He hadn't given away a single thing from when he talked to them, and, best of all, he knew their faces and the name of at least one of them.

Ruby Rose.

A name that would no doubt be burned into his head until he quieted the cacophony of problems around him. Taking a deep, near shuddering, breath, Jaune undressed and got ready for his evening. He started by creating a simple meal, shrimp fried rice with egg and soy sauce, before sitting down at the table and going over his notes for the day.

Grigio in accounting had stolen Viola's lunch for the past three days. A sign of greed, or something more? It would be worth remembering if it ever came up, and perhaps he could work an advantage out of it. Some light blackmail to cover one of his shifts, nothing more and nothing worth fretting over.

Orabel, his boss, was a whole nother ballpark. She seemed to be increasingly growing into disarray, her once well-kept tie becoming looser and more disheveled, her stockings growing mismatched in height, even her makeup would occasionally be seen slightly smeared. To the naked eye, perhaps this was just fatigue or maybe some stress taking its toll, but with the big budget meeting coming up Jaune suspected his boss had not been very good.

Embezzling, that could prove useful. If he got the right goods he could use that to his advantage, a step up in the company if he played his cards right, maybe even more if he told the right people. Jaune continued to read over his notes, both mental and physical, of his office workers, noting social patterns and changes and planning on how to adapt to them. He couldn't be caught off guard again, he needed to fit seamlessly into the masses to avoid being found out.

And to think, he was going to have a nice weekend with his girlfriend. But now, now how could he ever sleep? Even with a glass of warm milk and his stretches, he'd be a mess if he didn't fix this. Resolving to wait until tomorrow and deciding to break out a Valium, Jaune prepared to go to sleep and try and forget the tumultuous day he had had.

His sleep was plagued with nightmares, of visions of huntsman bursting into his home, callously burning it down and destroying the quiet suburban utopia he had spent so long to build. Every attempt to stop them was met with failure, nothing would slow the vandals down until Jaune used Killer Queen to destroy them, one by one they were obliterated until he woke up in a fit.

"This, will not do." Jaune muttered crazily to himself, a single, bloodshot eye visible beneath his hand. "I must protect my quiet life, at all costs."

It was the weekend, and while originally he wished to spend time out with his girlfriend he now had more pressing issues to deal with. Getting up, he resolved to find the troublesome pests that had intruded his life and finally rid himself of this plague once and for all.

Before exiting the door, Jaune briefly considered calling his father. He lived close enough and had always been the model dad, always supportive and caring even when the truth about his girlfriends was revealed. In fact, his whole family seemed to believe in him despite his odd quirk, some of them even admitting to getting into their own extracurricular activities.

But he brushed the thought aside, he was a young man now and he needed to handle his own problems. Still, these were huntresses and serious ones at that, perhaps he would wait to see how things would play out. For now, the girls had next to nothing on him so he could go a little while longer and observe them to the best of his abilities.

...

2 hours later...

Finding the brats had been simple, the gang of idiots still paraded themselves down around the site of the incident. Jaune crept behind them, years of honing his stalking skills paying off, and stayed just out of their sights. The small one, Ruby, was definitely the leader, she dragged around her friends with a certain energetic zeal that reminded him of his younger sister.

Regardless, the gaggle of apparent huntresses were eager to find the killer of their so-called acquaintance. Luckily they were making almost no progress, however there was no way of knowing how long that would last. Briefly, Jaune considered simply erasing the four of them one-by-one, picking them off when they least expected it, however he waved that away.

Semblance or not, these women were trained huntresses and he was a mere clerical worker. If he messed up even once, they'd kill him without hesitation, and that was assuming he could even get the jump on one. No, he had to be smart about this, the one in black, Blake maybe, was probably the most sensitive and perceptive one of the bunch.

She'd be a problem in the future, but then again that was assuming this whole situation devolved into violence. Perhaps fate had chosen to side with Jaune Arc and he would be allowed to walk away from this scot free. The girls began to walk away after their short break, Jaune's eyes trailing them the whole way down, he couldn't help but notice the blonde one and the white one had such nice hands.

Crude as it was to say he, well, may have gotten a boner from it. But, it was always business before pleasure and he needed to protect his peaceful way of life from any who would intrude into it.

Perhaps he could ask around, plant some red herrings and even frame someone else for it. From the way things sounded, their second year friend was in dire straits and the only candidate to have murdered that green-haired puke.

Perhaps Jaune would even take the time to go to the library and check out some of those book about aura techniques and semblances, maybe he could create a new skill to use against these four huntresses. He might have already had a name...