AN: In no way am I connected to Rooster Teeth

Mercury hopped off the aura Grimm before dismissing it. He made a mental note to take an airship or boat the next time he travelled to Menagerie unless he absolutely had to. At least he was sure no one had seen it; that would have resulted in a lot of awkward questions and probably panic.

Well, Blake and Melody didn't panic to be fair. Neither did Ilia so it might not be that bad when the inevitable happens. Then again, do they even know that it is a Grimm?

Emerald came out to meet him once he was in view of the house. "Everything good?"

Mercury had rang last night and given her a rough briefing. "For now."

"Good. Now get started with the treehouse."

He gave her a look. "Seriously?"

She gave him a smile and headed inside, joining Taiyang who had apparently decided to cook a feast for lunch.

She is.

Mercury sighed. He headed to the toolshed.

He was definitely putting the classic paint can trick in it when he was done. Maybe along with a few other things.

What is Raven doing here? Again.

Bird Raven wasn't paying him any attention. She was staring at the house.

Well. There was no way Mercury was ignoring that. He was getting rather sick of seeing her around, especially as she had no interest in actually talking to them. While he was satisfied she wasn't bringing her family around for tea, he had had enough of her not-visits.

Fluffy crept closer.

Raven either didn't notice him (rather likely as he had picked his bush well) or thought nothing of him (likely too).

A little closer…

Fluffy leapt.

Bird Raven never saw him coming.

Fluffy knocked her clear out of the tree and pinned her by her wings. He growled lowly at her; bared his teeth. His fur stood on end, an instinctive act to make him appear bigger and more dangerous.

Raven had been stunned for a moment, but quickly realised her situation. Her first instinct was to try and peck him.

The shoulder? Not the eyes? Obviously not used to fighting in bird form or doing anything in bird form other than spying. Does this qualify as stalking?

"Fluffy?"

Fluffy twitched his tail to show he heard but he didn't move to look at her. He didn't stop growling though he did lower the volume.

Interestingly, Raven didn't seem interested in shifting back to human either.

The two both stayed unnaturally still.

"Fluffy. Off. Now."

Fluffy turned to look back, quietening.

Yang was almost unreadable. Her face was blank. Her body was still. She wasn't looking at Raven, but at him.

Fluffy took two steps back.

The raven immediately flew off.

Yang watched her go. She let out a long breath. She turned back to Fluffy.

"Dad wanted me to fetch you for lunch. We're going to help you with the treehouse after, okay?"

He rolled his fox eyes before checking over his shoulder. Raven had gone completely. He shifted back to Mercury and headed inside. While he walked to the bathroom to wash his hands, he glanced at the door, waiting for Yang to appear.

She did, almost instantly.

Before Mercury could talk to her, she disappeared into the kitchen.

When he joined her, she was as carefree as ever. On the surface at least.

Still, Mercury very much doubted Raven would heed his warning and stay away from their home.

/

Qrow had seen Fluffy pounce on Raven. He was slightly surprised scaring her was all he did.

And Raven had been scared. For a moment anyway.

Qrow followed her and made no attempt to hide himself. He was as fed up with her home visits as Silvertongue apparently was.

Enough was enough. Qrow was out of Patch far more than he was in it. If Raven wanted to talk to him, she would have to do it then.

Not like there's anything left to talk about.

Raven obviously noticed Qrow was following her. She stopped not too far from the shore. Only then did she shift back.

"Pet foxes Qrow? Really?"

Qrow shrugged, relieved that Raven hadn't made the connection. "Yang's fond of him and was already well trained. It's not like we could give him back after the circus went out of business."

"What did she do? Smuggle him out? Tai has apparently gotten into a habit of taking in worthless strays."

Qrow had done enough to redirect that train of thought and in no way was he touching the topic of worthless strays. It was time to get to the point.

"You are not a part of this family anymore Raven. You made that choice and I made mine. You chose your family and it is not here. It's time you stopped dropping by."

It said a lot that he couldn't read her well enough anymore to see if she was hurt by that.

As it was, she just shrugged.

"What's so wrong with catching up with my brother and daughter?"

"The fact you've never met said daughter?" Qrow was done with Raven. Every time he saw her… "Leave Raven and don't come back. If you still want to talk to me, for who cares what reason, then you can do it away from here. You know I don't stay here often."

"You've been staying here far more often recently," Raven noted. "How else am I supposed to catch up?"

"You don't."

…

Qrow sighed. "Why do you do this Raven? You have your tribe; I have them. Why do you keep turning up? Why won't you just leave us alone?"

"Brother-"

"Don't. Call me that. You know what? I don't care." He did. "Get out and don't come back. Next time, I'll let that fox or any of the others eat you. And if you or your family come anywhere near mine again, I will personally hunt you down myself."

Qrow wasn't backing down.

For once, Raven was the first to turn their back. She vanished into her portal.

Hopefully she wouldn't be back.

Both Tai and Qrow had made it clear they would get violent if they caught her here again.

Qrow knew he would. He honestly wasn't sure about Tai. That would probably depend on a lot of the circumstances.

At least we know from experience that we would notice when she opens a portal to one of us.

As he walked back to the house, Qrow went over the conversation again. Raven was one of the few people who would consider turning into an animal possible and Mercury's eyes barely changed when he shapeshifted. A normal fox would not have knocked a raven randomly out of a tree.

There was nothing in Raven's tone that suggested she thought it was anything other than a fox.

Mercury had also been less than complimentary about Ozpin when the two met.

It shouldn't cross her mind.

It shouldn't matter. Neither Mercury nor Raven wanted anything to do with the other.

However, Mercury was stubbornly sticking to his long trip alone across Anima. Somehow, Qrow couldn't shake the idea the two would meet and that day would be a disaster.

Right now though, it was Yang he was worried about.

Lunch was a casual and playful affair. The only talk was of the treehouse the four were going to build outside. The whole thing was quite technical; from the tree chosen to the necessities of waterproofing and temperature maintence.

Qrow could also see he wasn't the only one keeping an eye on Yang. Tai appeared just as worried to those who knew what to look for.

Yang was a little stiff, but otherwise showed no other sign of distress.

But she'd been like that for a few days so it could be anything.

And the day after tomorrow, she and the girls were heading back to Beacon while Mercury left for Haven.

Maybe Raven isn't as big of an issue for her as she is for us.

Hopefully.

Qrow never saw a raven around Patch again.

"Mercury. Thank you for coming."

Mercury shrugged. "Given what you paid me last time for a rather simple job, no brainer." This was going to be different though. He hadn't seen Ozpin look this depressed since the pair had gone through the missing person list for Mercury to confirm the fates of.

Would have been quicker just to say they're all dead but he wanted 'closure for the families'…Masochistic idiot.

Ozpin opened a book as Mercury sat down. He placed it in front of him. Talaria pounced off his shoulder to have a better look. She then began to snarl.

Mercury blinked. "What is that?"

"An Apathy."

Mercury picked it up. This was no textbook; he had read all the textbooks Beacon had on Grimm. It wasn't even one of the tales of Grimm. "There was no mention of Apathy anywhere in the Beacon syllabus."

Talaria stopped growling, but her teeth were still showing.

"There used to be. Since it was removed, there has been no change in the number of people dying due to them."

Humanoid Grimm. That was certainly different.

Apathy…The most unknown of Grimm save for those in the sea and have rather unique behaviours.

"'Drain the will to live'..."

"What little evidence there is of these Grimm is that they have very established territories and almost strict routes not too dissimilar to migration. Their known routes are blocked off as best we can but we don't know enough about them to know if they change routes if there are no humans for a number of years."

Hence the awkward trade routes one of the people in Atlas was complaining about. All other Grimm Mercury knew about could be fought with skill and numbers. These sound like things best suited for Ironwood's robots, provided there wasn't anyone in them.

"General Ironwood has spent the last two days compiling this map with the most updated information we have."

Mercury glanced up.

Ironwood's in on this too huh…

"That…is a very bizarre map." He was around 99% sure, but he grabbed the mapbook out of his bag anyway. "Yeah, there's nothing near civilisation. Recently anyway." He frowned. "What are those numbers?" They were on some sites and not others.

"Apathy numbers, if known."

Apathy had an interesting size range. Some packs (or maybe hordes) were only twenty large while two were over one hundred. Geographically, they were all over the place but there were no current villages or cities.

"So what do you want from me? According to this, these things are nigh on unkillable."

"That is up for debate. There are very, very few that have tried and lived to tell the tale." He let out a long breath. "What myself and General Ironwood would like you to do is confirm or update our information. Many gaves their lives to ensure these hordes were as contained as could be and if there is a horde that is 'missing', we need to know and alert active Huntsmen in that area."

Of which there aren't many.

"So. How do they hunt exactly?"

"They very rarely attack head on. It might be coincidence but the accounts we have state they attack only if the victim is already aware of them. Otherwise, they seem content to wait until the victim dies in their sleep of despair or something similar. Look for them in the shadows; they are not the type to come to you."

"And these aren't in the syllabus because…?"

"They were but when the graduated students came across the Apathy in the field, they were too uncaring to try to remember the symptoms. However, they are similar to depression and a more detailed mental health course was added when Apathy were removed."

"It didn't help."

"No. However, it has helped with other problems so there was some success."

Mercury rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He checked the map again. "I suppose these aren't too out of my way." That was one incentive and the money was an even bigger one. "When was the last time this was checked?"

"Only the once for the initial data. No person can go anywhere near an Apathy." Ozpin looked him in the eye. "You are unique in that regard."

Mercury had the feeling he was going to be getting a lot of these types of jobs. That does mean he also has no competition for it.

Will to live…That shouldn't affect Talaria. Her idea of life and death is very different to a human's so she should be fine. I'll keep an eye on her and leave her somewhere safe if I need to. She obviously doesn't like even the look of these things.

"Sure."

Maybe he could kill them.

But given the locations and the fact that no person can go near without a very serious risk of dying, then if I am immune like Ozpin and Ironwood seem to believe, they might be nice boltholes if I ever need them.

Talaria twisted her head to look at him. She hissed.

Mercury tilted his own head a little. She normally didn't respond like that to a picture. It was normally scents.

Maybe I'll be leaving her outside the Apathy invested villages.

"Mercury."

Mercury's gaze went back to Ozpin. His face appeared blank, but he could tell. The man was worried.

"Are you sure about this?"

Mercury had been asked this a lot. "Ozpin, I know what I'm doing and I'll be careful." He gave him the calm smile. He waved at Talaria. "Besides, I'll have her with me."

"So you will. Good luck."

Mercury raised an eyebrow.

Ozpin just smiled.

"Sure, I'll take that too. It gets boring making my own."

"And make sure to keep in touch."

"Like Tai and Felix would let me get away with that."

/

"Blake, for the last time, I haven't touched your little library. You saw me arrive after you."

"Emerald, you have been asking to borrow that book for three weeks."

"And I accepted your decision."

"Then where do you think it went?"

"Nora's book fort during their pillow fight yesterday."

Yang stepped around Jaune as he entered BRN's dorm to sort the two out. She entered her own as Ruby started hanging up her clothes with Melody's help.

"-just worried."

Ruby tilted her head. "Melody, remember our first Vytal Festival? There's almost certainly something more going on here."

Melody sighed. "I know that. But he's not telling me. That worries me even more."

Yang sensed trouble here. "Something wrong?"

Ruby frowned a little. "Nyall's been distant for a while; not long after she left him in the holidays."

Ah.

Yang turned her attention to Melody, who was glaring at a dress. "Well, did you do anything?"

"I don't think so. But…Even when I was there, he was acting odd." She began frowning herself. "Now you mention it, his behaviour is a lot like Ares' during that Festival. What was the real story there?"

Ruby and Yang looked at each other. Even if this was Melody, they didn't want to tell.

"He had…a lot of external pressures," Ruby replied. "I'm…I don't really want to talk about it. But if it is something that important, then we can ask Mercury to look into it when he gets to Haven? I mean, it turned out that he wasn't really trying to avoid us exactly but..." Ruby froze.

"We really don't want to talk about it," Yang finished. "I know it won't be the same things, but maybe Nyall is less attentive to you because his mind is so stressed with something else."

Melody removed Ruby's new ball dress from the suitcase and gave it to her. "Maybe. But I don't want Mercury spying on him or anything like that." She took a deep breath. "What happened at the Vytal Festival back then?"

Yang and Ruby exchanged a look. Then Yang sighed.

"Melody…let's just say that Mercury's past isn't exactly clean." Understatement of the millennium. "He had a criminal for a parent so of course he was exposed to the wrong things and…well, let's just say that there were a lot of red flags for security to be interested in him. He wanted to keep us away from that until it was sorted."

Melody gave her a very unimpressed look. "Uh huh."

Ruby winced. "Melody-"

Melody waved a hand. "Ruby, I trust Mercury. He's one of my best friends, just like the others and you. He's not like…However, if you think I don't know that explanation is one of the most edited things ever, then I'm not as much of an idiot as you thought."

Ruby deflated a little.

Yang considered. "Melody, what if Nyall's a secret keeper? Like us. He might have just received more than he bargained for when trying to help someone."

Yang was checking up on Tuddar today. He had been making a lot of progress but he still needed a placebo injection once a month. It was far down from what he started with and he was getting comfortable enough with Yang to talk about the reasons why he ended up on drugs in the first place. She was proud of him.

I'll call the others as well; see how they're faring.

"Maybe. I only met one of his teammates. Maybe it was something there. I'm sure he'll tell me when he's ready."

"Right."

"Or, at the very least, he respects me enough to tell me he's not interested anymore."

"I'm sure he still feels the same way about you." Blake had entered the room. She gently rubbed Melody's back. "Some things just take time to sort out. Just make sure you know why you're losing your temper with him."

Melody made a non-committed noise. "Saturn told me the hand to hand club starts again tomorrow if you're interested."

Ruby smiled happily with a little hop. "Sounds like more fun. Back later." She dashed out of the room.

Yang chuckled and checked Ruby's case to make sure it was now empty. "You sure you're okay Melody?"

"I'm fine. And I'm going to follow Ruby's example and check on some people."

If that was how everyone was going to spend the next few hours, then Yang should too. It would let her catch up with more than the ones she was planning to see.

Maybe she would give Nyall a call at some point, without telling Melody. Or mentioning the main reason she was calling. With the Haven headmaster almost certainly working for Salem, Yang was a little worried for those students.

And more than she would admit for Mercury to his face.

It hadn't been that long since everyone had been clingy when they greeted him, but Mercury couldn't really complain either time. Last time they hadn't seen him for almost five months and knew he was the first kidnap victim. This time he was leaving for a solo journey (save Talaria) across Remnant and BRN wouldn't see him until the Vytal Festival. JWMP weren't even sure they were going to this year's, so it might be even longer for them.

Mercury may understand it and he would accept it. That didn't mean he had to like it.

Although I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an attack.

Actually…

"Okay Nora. Get off."

With a happy grin, Nora bounced off back to Ren's side. Apparently, she had run on ahead; even ahead of Yang, Ruby and Emerald. Those three hung back as the others said their goodbyes. They were trying to smile, but it didn't quite meet their eyes.

Ren's hug was less suffocating, but just as firm. "Happy travels and be careful."

"Of course." Mercury gave him a pat on the back before Ren stepped back.

This is going to be all hugs, isn't it.

Melody was a bit in-between the two. She did let go of him quicker. "Look after yourself. I'll keep an eye on your videos."

Of course she would bring that up. He let out a chuckle. "Well, Jagoda is certain it should be fine. We'll see tonight if that's still true."

"We'll blame you completely if it is not," Weiss commented, stepping forward. She held out her hand, which Mercury grasped and shook. "I wish you luck."

"Don't become an insomniac Princess." There wasn't the same bite there had been two years ago. In fact, Mercury was satisfied with the no bite at all. "Thanks and same to you."

Blake offered another handshake. Her hand was shaking a little when he took it, but he would have had trouble seeing it. "Thank you and enjoy your journey. I'll see you at the end of the year."

"I expect a good performance then too." The main thing he regretted about that night was that he didn't get to see Blake and Ruby's spar live. The replay had been very impressive.

"We won't disappoint."

Mercury smiled at the next two. "Invicible Girl and Vomit Boy."

Jaune gave him a mock growl. "Watch it barbarian." Then he gave Mercury a hug. Over his shoulder, Pyrrha was giving him a wide, genuinely happy smile.

Mercury gave him a pat on the back as well. "I can rely on you two to look after these miscreants." It was a statement, not a question.

"Of course," Pyrrha promised. It was all he could ask. When Jaune stepped back, Pyrrha hugged him also. She let go swiftly and all of them put some distance from him and the remaining three.

They didn't take turns. It was the group hug that he had now become so familiar with. The touch that had gotten through his defences to be classed as a comfort.

He didn't read their aura exactly, but he could certainly sense it. He knew all those emotions now. To his relief, among the drift, there wasn't any anger or dread. His aura now felt warm to them.

There weren't any words, verbal or otherwise.

On his way out, Mercury saw quite a few faces in the windows and by the doors. Had most of Beacon seen him off?

I hardly know these people. Why are they giving me this respect?

A question for years in the future, if he lived that long.

He had taken an airship to get on the right continent; he had no interest in swimming or hitching a ride on the Grimm aura dragon.

I should probably give that thing a name. The girls aren't going to stop until I do. Same with the fox. I am not having another 'Fluffy', 'Merkitty' or 'Coppera'.

Mercury stepped off onto a dock, but there wasn't much in terms of buildings that he could see from the sky. The large array of boats suggested this was primarily a fishing village. Maybe they received some money for allowing ships to land here.

Besides him, there were three other passengers: two men and a woman. They all knew where they were going and quickly disappeared.

Talaria climbed out of his hood. Her head turned and she chittered happily.

"You are not eating any of their fish."

A quiet whine mixed with an annoyed growl.

After a moment, Mercury headed onto the main road. This should take him through the village and on the path to his next stop: Winding Willow Way. He was going to be very disappointed if it didn't live up to its name.

Talaria snarled a little. Mercury glanced around, but couldn't see what had aggrevated her. She was lying on his shoulder, staring at a certain house. A window was open, but the curtains were pulled in every window.

In fact, every house was the same.

Interesting.

Mercury didn't investigate. He could think of quite a few reasons why everyone was shutting themselves away from the world. The social posters plastered around the place were all old and had been exposed to at least one poor weather day. The dates were all from months ago.

Note to self: check the obituaries for the next stops along the route.

He had already checked: there were no missions for around this area.

It only took an hour at a good pace to leave the village behind entirely. Rather than a gradual decrease of houses, the final ones were just in a line before they stopped.

There were no barriers and their population was small, so there would be few Huntsmen. Given how easy it would be to smuggle people out, this village had probably been hit bad.

And yet, no Grimm. I can't see bandits attacking here; there's nothing for them. Same with serial killers really and I doubt they breed them intentionally. A community like this would notice abuse.

None of this was Mercury's problem.

Winding Willow Way was about a two day walk from here. There was a traveller's stop that had been overrun by Grimm years ago due to a bandit attack. He may stop there for the night; he didn't fancy camping in the rain if he didn't have to.

This isn't a well travelled path. I'm not likely to run into anyone here.

A search around with his aura/Grimm vision showed he was alone as far as he could see. That surprised him slightly; he more than half expected Qrow to follow him.

"Okay Talaria. Why did you go to Beacon's alpha last night?"

Last night, Qrow had seen Talaria leaving home. She had responded with 'Not Nest. Nest Alpha.' That translated into Beacon's Alpha: Ozpin.

When Mercury had non-verbally asked, Ozpin didn't open the conversation. That interested Mercury, but he didn't press at the time. He wasn't even sure Ozpin really understood what Talaria meant when she communicated. Understanding Atlesian Code was one thing (especially her version). Realising what she wanted was another entirely.

{Beacon Alpha has power. Need it.}

Well, that's no help.

Mercury didn't reply immediately. 'Power' had a wide range of meaning for people. He had never heard Talaria use it.

"Did he give you power?"

{Yes.}

Okay. When he stopped for the night, Mercury was calling Ozpin. If the man had given Talaria magic, Mercury needed to know what. Why did he not mention this earlier? He had acknowledged something was up with Talaria and he did mention things that were relevant, even if it was just a reassurance that the Relic of Knowledge would not activate by accident.

Then again, given the track record, Ozpin might not know what the result actually is. I highly doubt he intended to make the Maidens the only ones who could open vault doors and why would he put such rules on the Maiden inheritance itself?

"What power?"

Talaria made a higher pitch growl. She either didn't know or didn't know how to tell him.

Seriously Ozpin. How did she communicate that to you? And why would you even agree?

The only thing Mercury could think of was that Ozpin was just as worried about Mercury's safety as Tai and Felix were. Even if that were the case, giving magic to Talaria with apparently no idea what was going to happen was just asking for trouble. Ozpin wasn't normally that much of an idiot.

"Why do you need power?"

Talaria chitted that laugh. {Mother Fledging. Pack.}

Great. Was starting to evolve aura not enough for you? I'm having enough trouble keeping you safe as it is. Maybe I should have left you at home.

Still don't regret it.

Time to experiment again. It would be best if Mercury figured out exactly what this magic would do. The last thing he needed was Talaria breathing fire in the middle of the next village. He was quite sure they still lived in wooden huts.

Now. Where to start?

The small chip clipped onto the scroll effortlessly. A poke and there was a red light. Another poke and there was no light.

"Okay." Yang walked over and check Jagoda's larger screen. She poked the light back on. One quarter of the large screen connected to her screen. "So far so good."

"You've got a very strong signal. Mercury's is the only risk and it should work…"

Yang checked the time. They had planned to start up at eight so he still had a few minutes. It took that amount of time to set up Ruby's and Emerald's as apparently one of the recording chips wasn't working right.

All four screens were on.

"Yes!" Ruby punched the air. She skimmed through her scroll and quickly booted up the game. "Can you hear us, Merc?"

"Loud and clear."

Same for him. He could have been in the room with them; there was none of that normal static.

There was a snap in the background.

"Hang on…" Jagoda did something on the keys. "Okay, I've just removed his background and I should probably do the same to yours."

"Okay." Yang put on the headset complete with mic and plugged it into her scroll. "This is going to be fun."

"And a real good job Jagoda," Emerald stated. "I can see someone even from Atlas employing you."

Jagoda did smile. "Maybe. Let's get the show on the road."

AN: This is going to be following Mercury and a few others for a while as that is where the main action is. While Beacon has the normal high school drama, much of it is not related to the plot