Glad everyone liked the omake last chapter – I don't ever really say whether they are canon or not, but some may as well be considered thus. If they're not too wacky. We already know Neo and Jaune are sleeping together, and in a "semi-involved" situation, so it's not too out there to assume they might have a little fun.

Cover Art: Mystery White Flame

Chapter 10

"There's been an emergency call from Team RWBY and CRDL."

They weren't the words Jaune wanted to hear on waking up and finding a kettle in the staff room that hadn't already been claimed by Oobleck. He'd have liked to say the mug fell from his hands and he spun with a gasp, but it was six in the morning and Neo had been in a restless mood. He couldn't pick up the mug, let alone spin. It would have taken too much effort. Instead Jaune sighed, slumped over the counter and mumbled something that might have been a question.

"Ooh," Roman said, leaning over his chair. "Are they dying?"

"No."

"Aww…"

"Though it used the emergency line it was not for aid," Glynda said, adjusting her glasses and ignoring the chain-smoking crook. "It appears that they have found something… anomalous."

"Fifty lien says that's not the words they used," Roman said with a cackle.

Glynda sighed again. "The words were `flipping crazy-ass thing` but I presume they mean something of an anomalous nature given what they've noticed. Miss Rose may have also shouted something about how someone was going to pay even if she had to swim to the Grimmlands and cut off their `bitch-ass` head herself."

That got Jaune's attention. "Ruby said that…?"

"Yes. I was quite surprised myself. An image was included with the call." Glynda held out her scroll. On it was a smooth black obelisk of some kind. He wasn't sure it was an obelisk, but it was a rock, obviously not natural – the glowing red lines gave that away – and it looked to have punctured up out the floor. Yang was stood next to it with a fierce scowl, probably so they could get a height reference.

Roman was also looking over Glynda's shoulder. "Okay, I'll admit, that looks ominous as hell…"

"Quite." Glynda sighed. "Oobleck wants to take a look at the object."

"Sounds like a good idea," Jaune said. "Does he need my permission? He has it."

"He needs an escort. There's no telling what will happen when he starts to tinker with this thing, and we all know he'll start tinkering the moment he sees it. Team RWBY and CRDL are one thing, and Taiyang Xiao-Long is on the scene, but I'd feel safer if there were more muscle there."

"And you're looking at me!?" Jaune asked. "You do remember that I'm a fraud, right?"

"I'm looking at Neo," Glynda admitted with a long sigh. "But she does not do anything unless you ask her to."

"Uh. She doesn't do anything even if I ask her to."

"Sounds about right," Roman snorted. "But you just don't know the secret to getting her to do what you want."

"And you do?" Jaune asked, more interested than he cared to admit. If he could control Neo – well, the man who controlled Neo controlled the world. Or so his sleep-deprived mind decided. He couldn't help but think of all the things he could do with Neo at his beck and call.

He could sleep in his own bed! He could get a solid eight hours! He could have a shower before she used all the hot water!

The world would be his oyster.

Roman, seeing his bliss, came over and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Ah, to be young, whipped and have no idea how to get around it. Let me teach you a little trick, kid. The secret to getting Neo to do whatever you want her to do."

/-/

"I'm going out to Patch," Jaune said, pulling on his armour and throwing his blue coat over the top. He strapped Crocea Mors to one hip, pocketed his scroll and looked behind him.

Neo was sat on the edge of his bed, listening but also feeding a little treat to her pet Nevermore. They didn't need to eat and could go without forever essentially, so he wasn't sure why it was munching away. Or why it still hadn't freaked out and tried to kill them. Either way, the lack of a need for water, food and biological functions like poop and piss ironically made it the best pet ever.

"It's nothing too exciting," he continued. "Some wandering around, Grimm and stuff like that. Nothing you need to get involved with."

Her head perked up. She looked over and cocked her head to one side.

"No, seriously. You can stay here."

Neo's eyes narrowed.

"Just stay," he said, backing up toward the door. "There's absolutely nothing exciting going on and it's just going to be me and a few people doing some stuff. Nothing you'd be interested in, I promise. So stay here okay?"

A slow smile spread across Neo's face but vanished a moment later. She nodded once and made an obvious `staying` motion by crossing her bare legs under her. It was her way of saying she was listening and would do as asked.

Which meant Roman was right on track.

"Good," Jaune said, laughing a little. "I'll see if I can't bring you anything back as a little souvenir. I won't be gone too long – a day or two at most."

Neo crooked a finger towards him and tilted her head to the side, showing her cheek. She pointed at it and wiggled her eyebrows. The meaning was clear, and even if he didn't know what they were and never would – he had a sinking suspicion Neo liked it that way – he knew what she wanted. He moved over and placed his hands on the mattress, then moved in to plant a goodbye kiss on her cheek.

Her head moved at the last moment and he found his lips brushing against hers instead. Neo faux-gasped, reared back and brought a startled hand to her face. The way her eyes danced told him she was taking the piss. Not that it helped his embarrassed blush.

"F-Fine," he stammered. "See you around, Neo."

The girl waved as he left.

Outside the door, Roman waited with a grin. "Hook, line and sinker."

"You really think she'll follow?"

"Kid, you just told her not to come and then acted cagey about it." With a laugh, he pushed open the door to his dorm again. Jaune looked in and rolled his eyes. Neo – and the bird – were nowhere to be seen, despite that they'd been there not thirty seconds ago. "One thing you need to learn about Neo is that she'll never do what you want her to, which is a good way of getting her to do exactly what you want her to."

"Is that how you handle her?"

"Pretty much. Word of advice though, pick your battles. If she realises you've got her all figured out..." Roman shuddered. "Let's just say I was never stupid enough to let that happen. Better to let her win a few times than convince her it's a good time to up the ante."

"Sure." Jaune and Roman walked through the nearly silent halls together chatting lightly. It was still strange for the school to be so absent. A few teams had called in for support and had huntsmen dispatched out to them, while a few more had minor injuries to report. Nothing worse so far, which was probably thanks to Roman and Glynda threatening the student with hell if they did anything stupid or tried some heroic last stand when retreat was an option.

"We've dispatched a few huntsmen," Roman said. "The drunkard-"

"Qrow."

"The drunkard," Roman said, ignoring the correction, "Has gone out to help two teams who have found a slightly bigger nest than expected. They backed off when they found it. I figure we can bump up their grade for that."

"We're grading these?"

"Sure. Goodbitch wanted them to have some academic benefit and I agreed."

Jaune looked at him askance. "Why do I have the feeling it's not that simple?"

"Because it's not, obviously." The crook grinned around his cigar. "We're being paid for the missions and the students get a cut of that. Only fair. What Goodbitch and I decided was that their cut would depend on what grade they get. An A gets 25 per cent, a B gets 20 per cent, a C gets 15 and so on."

"I make you a teacher and you're already stealing from my students…"

"Don't call it stealing. Call it incentivising academic excellence. Anyway, stupid decisions get you marked down and not being a twat gets you marked up." There was more to it than that Jaune assumed, but Roman had a way with words as ever. "Calling for help when you're outnumbered? I figure that deserves rewarding. If they rushed in, I'd have busted them down a grade."

"I can agree with that. You think Team RWBY deserves an A, then?"

"Nah. They've already got a D."

"What? Why?"

"Because kitty-kat."

Jaune sighed. "Roman, you can't mark them down because of a grudge."

"Hell yeah I can!"

Mental note; make sure Glynda marks Team RWBY. Although, Glynda wasn't exactly pleased with Yang's constant flirting with him. Or Blake for inviting Roman to the Schnee gala. Ugh, fine. I'll mark theirs myself.

Jaune and Roman walked out of the main building and onto the bullhead docks outside, where Oobleck was already waiting impatiently by one, chatting to the pilot, a woman who already had a `please help me he's been talking about archaeology for four hours` expression on her face. On seeing them, the pilot gasped in obvious relief and made her excuses to Oobleck before slipping into the cockpit. Jaune pretended not to notice the co-pilot, a remarkably short girl who may or may not have had a small tuft of pink hair poking out from under her helmet.

"Ready to go?" Bart asked as they came near. "I've been eager ever since Glynda showed me the image. Something like that certainly isn't a natural phenomenon."

"I think even the brats figured that one out," Roman snorted. "Anyway, I'll leave you two gentlemen to it. I've got accounts to audit and loopholes to fabricate." More likely he didn't want to be roped into the journey with them.

"We'll be fine with just the three of us," Bart said, letting him know he'd seen and recognised Neo sneaking in. "With any luck, this should be a relatively painless journey."

Oobleck obviously hadn't seen his luck.

/-/

"I hear a Bullhead," Blake said.

"And I see one," Cardin snorted. "Same one we've been able to see for the last five minutes. You can quit with the advanced faunus senses nonsense. Velvet already told me her ears don't actually hear anything more than a human's does."

Yang snorted and Blake glared at the boy. "Was that while you were whispering sweet nothings into her ear or after?"

He spluttered and went red, which earned a cackle from his teammates.

Cardin glared at her.

Blake glared back.

The contest came to a close as the Bullhead swept down and came to an awkward land on the sloped cliff. They were on the top of it, the flat part, and while it was big enough for two Bullheads, the wind was strong enough to make it awkward. Eventually it came to a stop and the doors opened. Blake sagged in relief as the headmaster and Oobleck exited and Torchwick was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Prof," Yang greeted. "Or profs. Nice day for it, huh?"

The headmaster made to respond but noticed the lack of energy in it on Yang's part. His eyes narrowed and Blake sighed, knowing exactly why he was concerned and what was causing it. She came up instead. "Headmaster, Doctor." She nodded to both Jaune and Oobleck. "We're glad you could make it. The… thing has been spitting out Grimm ever since we called."

"Spitting them out, you say? How?" Oobleck shook his head and answered his own question before she could. "No, I'm sure you don't know. How often and in what numbers?"

"It seems to be on the hour every hour. I can show you…" Blake looked past them to Yang. "Can you hold the perimeter with Team CRDL, Yang?"

"Yeah… Yeah, sure thing…" Yang trudged on by.

The headmaster moved closer to Blake and leaned down to whisper, "What's wrong with her?"

"You'll see soon enough," she replied. Louder, she said, "Come on. I'll show you the thing. Mr Xiao-Long and Ruby are with it right now. And… well, they're not in the best of moods. You'll see why," she added.

Blake led them away from the forest line, sparing a brief glance for the short girl in a pilot's uniform who followed with a grin. The teachers didn't seem surprised at her presence so she let it go. It didn't take thirty seconds to reach where Ruby and her father were. They were stood behind the strange object with Mr Xiao-Long trying to move it with his bare hands.

"That's inadvisable!" Doctor Oobleck quickly yelled, running forward. "Highly inadvisable!"

Taiyang reared back and glared their way. "What's inadvisable is this piece of shit desecrating my wife's grave!"

"Oh shit," Jaune muttered.

Blake's thoughts exactly. The strange rock thing had come up from the ground not through Summer Rose's resting place – there were small mercies – but beside it and at an angle, knocking the tombstone precariously to one side. Ruby was on her knees by that trying to fix it and also cleaning the stone of Grimm remains. Blake wasn't sure she'd ever seen Ruby look so angry before.

"Oh my," Oobleck said, removing his glasses. "That's unfortunate."

"They've been like this since we found it," Blake reported. "We were clearing Grimm out in the area because the numbers were up, then Ruby and Yang wanted to swing by their mother's grave. We didn't think anything of it." We being her and Team CRDL. "But when we got here and saw this? Yang and Ruby flipped. We called Taiyang, but that didn't exactly help much."

"And you say it's been making Grimm?" Oobleck asked, leaving Jaune to go up and speak with Taiyang and Ruby. Blake didn't envy him the task of convincing them to move aside.

"Yeah. They don't come out of it, but they just sort of appear." Blake shrugged. "I know it's not the best way of describing it, but some are drawn from the wilderness and others just kind of climb out of its shadow, usually at the base of the thing."

"Every hour, you say?"

"It takes an hour to make a bunch. Grimm seemed to be attracted to it from the surrounding area. Those come at any time."

"I see." Oobleck looked to the headmaster but saw he was busy. "Would you care to be my assistant for the moment, Miss Belladonna?"

"Will it get me out of having to calm down my teammates?"

"I should think so."

"Then I'm all for it. What do you need me to do?"

Oobleck drew out and unlocked his scroll, then held it out for her. "Video and record everything I say and do and be sure to focus on the part of the obelisk I am looking at or touching. Visual and audio records will help me analyse this later."

He cracked his knuckles and walked up to the now named `Obelisk`.

"Now then, my friend, let's have a look at you." He touched it with one hand. "Warm. Mysterious. Yes, you are certainly an interesting specimen. Aren't you? Nothing made naturally. No, no, no. There's something more to you. Something… special."

Oobleck suddenly leaned in, pressing his cheek and ear to its side and touching his hands further over and around it. "What's that?" he whispered. "Secrets? Yes, I bet you hold secrets, you enigmatic little thing. I'm going to strip you bare and expose all those dirty little secrets."

Blake stared with wide eyes. "Um…"

"Miss Belladonna. Do not interrupt me when I am examining the subject!"

"Y-Yes sir, sorry…"

"Now, where were we? Hush, fret not. My attention is all yours now…"

Blake cringed and kept recording.

/-/

Convincing Tai and Ruby to guard the perimeter hadn't been an easy task. They were furious and rightfully so, but after assured promises that they wouldn't be digging the area up, they calmed down a little. Enough to focus on the problem at hand, if not to stop scowling and mumbling angrily to themselves.

"What do you think, Neo? This sounds like something Cinder would do…"

The `pilot` tilted her head to the side and ditched the helmet. She seemed suspicious at his lack of anger and her eyes narrowed on him for a moment, before she shrugged and pointed to the obelisk, then nodded at him. Agreement. She thought Cinder was involved as well.

"If these things are cropping up all over Vale, it might explain the sudden surge in Grimm. I wonder what they are." Rock was the first thing to come to mind but didn't explain much. The bigger question was how they worked, how they had been brought here and whether they could be turned off in some way.

Several howls in the distance caught his ear.

"Team RWBY and CRDL, move to defend," he barked. He gripped Crocea Mors but refrained from drawing it just yet. Summer's grave was on the edge of a cliff – a nice spot with a fabulous view, even if a part of him cynically thought it would wear away eventually and send her resting spot tumbling down below.

Either way, it was defensible. Unless they could fly or climb, most of the Grimm would be coming up the slope, which the combined teams could hold easily. Neo tugged on his sleeve and made an impatient gesture with her head.

"You can fight if you want. I'll be fine."

The girl darted off with a manic grin.

"Any progress?" Jaune asked Bart, slipping past a rather wide-eyed Blake.

"Hm?" Bart looked up. "Oh yes. Or… no, rather. I've been able to figure out that this is both geological in nature and yet created by design, and that it grew not out of the ground, but into it. Do you see the base here, where the rock has cracked? The direction of it tells me the thing dug downward – almost like a tree planning its roots, yet faster."

"How fast?"

"Fast enough that Miss Rose's father did not notice it between his last visit and now, which would be a period of two weeks. This date just so happens to coincide with the increased Grimm presence in the region."

"I think we all figured out this was behind that, Bart. Do you have anything on how to shut it down?"

"It's not really a machine, at least as far as I've been able to tell."

"We could hit it," Blake suggested.

"Miss Belladonna, such a blunt force approach may not be the-"

Crocea Mors slammed into the thing, biting an inch into it and sending shards flying in every direction.

"Or we could smack it with a sword, I suppose," Oobleck said, throwing his arms in the air. "What do I know of history, archaeology and geology? I'm obviously not the highly educated Doctor of Sciences here. Please, go on. Show the rock who's boss."

The red lines along the obelisk pulsed slightly as he wrenched the blade back out. The shiny black rock remained as it was, now with a crack in its side. Pulling back, Jaune swung again, biting into the same area but lower down. Unsecured now on one side, a large slab of material fell to the floor with a thump. The red lines along it faded and died almost immediately.

"There's a chunk to take home with you," he said, pushing it toward Oobleck.

"Appreciated." He knelt. "At the very least, I'll be able to- hm?" He drew back, brows drawing down as the stone plate fizzled and hissed, then began to dissolve before their eyes. It wafted away on the air like black smoke. "Odd," Oobleck mused. "It's normally only Grimm who show such properties. Living Grimm, I might add."

The tired creak of rock grinding against rock was his first warning. Blake's gasp was the second.

Neither filtered through fast enough to react to and the third warning – and confirmation – came as a huge stone fist collided with Jaune's side and sent him skittering down the slope like a bowling ball. He would have gone the whole way but for Yang, who broke his fall by virtue of him crashing into her legs and knocking her over like a skittle.

"Whoah!" Yang fell with a mighty crash. "O-Ow, Prof? Why?"

Tangled on the floor, Jaune groaned, "I think I pissed off the rock thing…"

"The ro-?" Yang looked back. "Oh wow. Uh, how did we not realise that was a Grimm?"

Probably because the mask had been on the inside. Now standing and having drawn itself out the ground, the thing came to an impressive ten or so feet, even hunched as it was with its rock-fists dragging on the floor. The red lines pulsed across it and a viscous black ooze seemed to be dripping from some pores on its legs and seeping into the ground.

"Yah!" Taiyang landed in front of the thing and lashed out at its knee, driving it back and away from Summer's grave. He fought like Yang, yet somehow more ferocious and controlled at the same time. Kicks and blows rained down on it while Yang and Jaune struggled to their feet.

"Got to get in there!" Yang hissed.

"Yang, he'll be fine. Your dad knows how to do this!"

"What? I know, damn it, but if he kills that thing while I'm sat here, he'll be taking the mess out of me for months!" Breaking ranks, Yang ran back to join the fight.

Ruby was already gone as well, now faced with the happy news that she could kill the thing that had knocked over her mother's tombstone. That left him, Neo and Team CRDL to face the oncoming horde of Grimm, who had been drawn to the golem-thing's angry roars. And him without a weapon; Crocea Mors having been knocked out his hands.

The Beowolves rushed in and Jaune ducked and weaved. Say what you would about Neo's training, but he was a master of avoiding sharp, pointy objects. Swaying back from one claw and side-stepping another, Jaune drew out and deployed his shield, ramming it into the face of the first. It tried to snarl and bite him over the top but a quick slam up with the edge caused it to bite off its own tongue. The muscle flopped off his breastplate and fizzled away.

"Ew…"

A mace came down on the Grimm's head and finished it. "Headmaster!" Cardin Winchester managed a smile and a polite nod. "Didn't think we'd have the honour of fighting alongside you today." He glanced down. "Where's your weapon, sir?"

"Oh, you know. Somewhere."

"Ha. I guess these Grimm wouldn't be worth drawing a weapon on to someone like you."

"Sure." Jaune grimaced. "Why not? Speaking of `not worth it`, how about your team show me what they're worth and hold these worthless Grimm off, hm? There's a nice A-Grade in store for you if you do."

Cardin's eyes lit up. Jaune had a suspicion it was over the money more than the grade.

Damn it, Roman.

"An A!? Hell yeah! Leave this to us." Cardin waved him back and stood his ground. "Hey guys, it's a guaranteed A if we take these bastards out ourselves. That's twenty-five per cent of the commission!"

"Will it be enough to buy a new mohawk for Rus?"

"Shut the fuck up, Dove!"

The four had it down. Working together, they formed a wall that rebuffed the disorganised and reckless Grimm. Watching just long enough to be sure of their safety, Jaune nodded and charged back to the golem, calling for Neo as he did. She disengaged and caught up quickly, looking with obvious interest at the huge thing.

It was swinging at Blake currently, with her not doing much to fight back and just dodging – though she was shouting about how she needed to stop recording, only for Oobleck to shout back that this was for science and she couldn't.

Taiyang, Yang and Ruby were doing a good enough job of bringing it down anyway. Each blow from them chipped off more rock, which fell to the floor and dissolved. None of it was critical damage – the thing's form was too tough for that – but it was losing mass and that had to be a good thing.

Do I really want to get involved? They look like they have it handled…

With Neo leaping in, they absolutely did. Jaune hung back and watched as it lashed about. It wasn't fast by any means and had only caught him because he'd been surprised and not paying attention. Apart from its sheer size and resilience, it didn't seem like anything a proper huntsman or huntress couldn't deal with. Maybe even something teams of students could handle.

The black liquid oozing from its legs was a concern, especially when Ruby stepped in it and out, trailing a sticky wad of it on the bottom of her boots. It stretched across the grass like tar, suffocating the plant life before his eyes. Where a larger patch of it had gathered, a black shape seemed to be forming from the ooze.

"Blake! Video over here!"

"I'm kind of busy, sir!" she screamed back. Nevertheless, she broke off from the fight and hurried over, leaving the golem behind as she angled the scroll onto the mass of black rising up. "That's how they've been forming. It's like they're born from the ground."

"From that ooze, more like. It must have seeped underground." It was an Ursa being born. It grew to six feet in total, relatively small for the breed but still dangerous to any typical civilian who might wander on by. Jaune held out his hand. "Lend me your weapon for a second."

"Huh? Oh, sure." Blake offered her hip and he unlatched it. "The button to disconnect the ribbon is on the side and you'll need to-" Blake winced as the sound of fleshy impacts echoed, followed by the newly formed Grimm dissolving. "Or I guess you could just beat it to death with the blunt end…"

"Thanks." He tossed back the bloody weapon.

"Yeah…" Blake looked down on it and grimaced. "No problem…"

The Golem, if they decided to call it that, didn't last much longer. Beset on all sides, it tumbled when Yang blew a hole in one leg, then fell the rest of the way when Ruby sliced what would have been the tendons in a human body on the other side. Even though it lacked muscles, the weight imbalance caused it to topple. Neo then darted on top if it and stabbed down into its eyes and face over and over, hacking away at the thing while Taiyang hammered at its chest. Under the dual assault, it fell and crumpled to rock – then dust.

"Such a shame," Oobleck mused. "We could have learned much from it."

"I think we learned enough," Jaune said, happy to be late to the fight. "Good job, girls. Tai."

"Mostly us," Yang boasted.

Ruby didn't answer and ran back to her mother's grave, which had, thanks to Tai's quick thinking, survived the assault. She began to prop the stone back up and dust around it while CRDL cleared up the Grimm on the main slope. Without the golem to draw or summon more, the numbers were no longer quite so endless.

"Is there a place we can talk?" Jaune asked Tai. "I think we could all use a rest."

Taiyang nodded.

/-/

The Bullhead had ferried them back to Taiyang's cottage, which had a clearing outside large enough to land in. The journey had been awkward enough with Zwei growling at him, but if the dog disliked him then he despised Neo's new pet. Which earned the Nevermore a few good marks in Jaune's books. The cottage was really too small for the two teams, two teachers, Neo, a dog, Nevermore and the pilots from the Bullheads, and they were feeling it, all squashed onto a small number of couches while Yang and Ruby rushed around laying every family photo flat and covering baby pictures.

It only drew more attention to them. Yang and Ruby had been cute kids. A shame they couldn't focus on that.

"It seems obvious to me the source of the Grimm was that Golem thing up there."

"I'll keep an eye on numbers," Taiyang promised. "If they don't go down or increase, I'll be in contact immediately. Meanwhile, Signal will be on guard for any foul play. We'll have the students patrol the area. The older students, anyway."

"The bigger question is how it got there," Oobleck said.

"We asked around and no one reported seeing anything unusual," Ruby said.

"I checked the port records, too," Taiyang added. "They know the four main instigators by face and name. Doesn't mean they didn't sneak onto Patch through some other means, though."

"No. This has been happening all over Vale." Jaune sighed and drank his coffee, kindly offered by Yang. It wasn't Special Coffee, but with the embargo on Beacon, it was the best he could get. "We've got reports from everywhere we sent students to, and I'm pretty sure they'll all have one of these things involved one way or another. There's no way four people could place all those by hand."

"An automated method, perhaps," Oobleck said. "One that can be delivered via Grimm. Likely Nevermore..."

All eyes turned to the bird resting upon Neo's wrist. Why it was out of the cage he didn't know, and why it was happily perched there preening under Neo's affection, he knew even less. It was butting its head against her hand and making a low crooning sound. Given its presence in Vale, the city that was, it was possible this was the very Nevermore that had delivered the cargo to Patch.

"We'll tell the other teams what to look out for and ask them to report if they see anything. In the meanwhile, Taiyang can look after Patch and we'll return to Beacon."

Cardin coughed meaningfully.

"And yes, you'll be getting an A for this assignment."

"Sweet!"

"Yeah!"

"Whooo!" Ruby and Yang exchanged high-fives.

"Should we send the footage gathered to Atlas, do you think?" Oobleck asked.

"It's the first thing I'll be doing once I get back. I'll have a report written up and sent. Any details you can add would be good. I'm going to give Ironwood everything he needs and more. I'll be going above and beyond on this little information-sharing deal."

Oobleck chuckled. "Kill him with kindness?"

"I'm going to suffocate him with it."

/-/

"They've discovered our plan." Cinder's eyes narrowed. "I should have expected it of someone like him."

"You speak his praises any more and I might think you have ulterior motives for wishing to spy on him."

Cinder wisely remained silent, conceding the point. Her presence at all in Salem's chamber was a waste of time in Salem's opinion. If Cinder believed so strongly in his superior intellect, she ought to be busy bettering herself. That she had spent the last few hours with the White Fang – or Adam – held Salem's ire at bay.

"He has no idea about your spy, though."

"Truly? I'd say he's fully aware of the Nevermore in their midst."

"Admittedly," Cinder cringed. "But I meant that he doesn't realise you can see through its eyes."

The little good it did them. What decisions the man made were done outside of the bedroom and away from his mute companion, who obviously gave little away in privacy with her `pet`. As a spy, the only thing the Nevermore confirmed was where he was, and even then only as a rough estimate.

It also saw other things which Salem might normally have preferred not to see.

"He's a fool to let it stay so close."

"Or a genius," Salem countered. "Keep your allies close and your enemies closer."

"In this case it's neither. The flow of information is one way. As long as we're wary of misinformation, only we benefit from this arrangement." Cinder smirked. "And if the Nevermore is ever let free, it might be able to deliver a surprise to their rooms…"

"No. It won't…"

"Ma'am!?"

"It was necessary to make the carrier Nevermore a little more… intelligent than their brethren. They had orders to follow, and the ability to stay away from detection was prized more than speed, size or ferocity. I made them different. Self-aware, at least to a degree. The mind of a small animal at best, but a mind more than most Grimm have. Enough to think. Enough to experience."

The Nevermore pushed forward and butted against Neo's neck.

Salem grimaced.

"Enough to experience enjoyment…"

Cinder looked confused. "I don't understand the problem…"

"Do you know what happens to an animal when it is starved of attention its whole life, then suddenly given it in abundance? When a creature is considered meaningless and then suddenly finds meaning?"

"It becomes loyal to the one giving it," Cinder said immediately. "That's how I kept Emerald in line-" She cut off, eyes widening. "Oh. Ohhh… Oh, that's bad."

"Yes. Yes, it is…"

Give something intellect and it can reason – at least on a limited level.

Neo's tamed herself a Nevermore. Now all it needs is a name. Maybe they should call it Crow?

"Oi. That's my name." Qrow growls.

"Hey man, if you wanted it, you should have spelt it correctly."

There's no omake today I'm afraid that today has been pretty busy. As was yesterday. They'll be back as normal next week. It's just some work shenanigans taking over this one thanks to my new journalist (replacing the one who fled at the prospect of public speaking) needing a little training and looking after. Got to help him out. Should be back to normal next week.

Next Chapter: 16th May

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur