Night had fallen across the timezone between Vale and Atlas City, and even with the sun having set not even an hour ago, Team JNPR was beyond tired. They had taken down scores of Grimm, terrorists and the likes of which they've fought enough to last a lifetime for the average person, but apparently, all it took them to reach their breaking point was caring for two young children. Jaune and Pyrrha were leaning on each other for support as the team walked into their dorm after having put Thorn and Emre to bed across the hall in RWBY's room, Nora kept her normal skip, albeit the enthusiasm was lacking, while Ren was on the point of passing out .

"Man...one day, and I've already had enough parental experience to last a lifetime.." Jaune sighed as he lounged back onto his bunk, cringing as he heard Thorn crying again, over what he couldn't imagine. He was well fed, just had his diaper changed, and wasn't feverish in the slightest. Whatever the pup was wailing about though was enough to set off Emre as well though. "Ugh...Pyrrha, it's your turn."

"And it's your nephew." she countered, already lying on her bed in a rather uncomfortable looking position, but she seemed too tired to care. With a groan, the team leader took the trip across the hall again to see what was wrong while the rest of his team started to relax and rest.

"How does Velvet do it, taking care of kids like them all day?" Ren pondered aloud.

"Whatever she does, I can't!" Nora whined. "Being a parent's boring and exhausting! I wanna go back to the days before we had them, when I was just a young, free-spirited and whimsical schoolgirl!"

"Nora, they aren't our children." the stoic reminded. "And last I checked, you still are."

"Aww, you always know just what to say..." the ginger girl cooed back before the sound of a vibrating Scroll clattering on their desk grabbed her attention. "Is that your's, Pyrr?"

"Jaune's..." the redheaded warrior goddess mumbled in her half-awake stupor. None of her team had ever seen her this tired. Shrugging, Nora walked over to the desk to answer the call while the Scroll's true owner was busy. "Jaune Arc's Scroll, this is his teammate, Nora, speaking. How may I help you?" she greeted in the same demeanor as a family restaurant waitress.

"Nora? What are you doing with Jaune's phone?" the person on the other half of the line asked.

"And hello to you too, Ruby." Nora smiled through the video chat to the brunette reaper. "Jaune's putting Thorn and Emre back to sleep at the moment. Thanks for leaving us with the most troublesome baby ever by the way." the hammer-wielder sarcastically grumbled.

"Troublesome?" Ruby asked.

"He hasn't stopped crying for more than fifteen minutes!" Nora whined.

"Aww, he probably missed me, sorry." Ruby apologized. "What about Zwei?" Nora said nothing as she pointed to the corgi fast asleep on a pillow at the foot of Ren's bed. "Well, good. You guys might be getting more rest than you bargained for, though. We may be coming home sooner than we planned."

"Oooh, really? You guys got your super secret mission all taken care of already?" Nora asked excitedly.

Ruby sadly looked across the hall from her guest room at the Schnee estate into Weiss' room. The heiress was still packing things on her bed, a bandage over her scarred eye to heal the damage done during her fight earlier with Winter. Even from the distance of a few yards, her keen silver eyes could make out the glimmer of falling tears coming from her eyes. Ruby had never seen Weiss this broken before. "N-not exactly, no..." Ruby replied, dejectedly, prompting a fading smile from the Valkyrie on the other side of the conversation. "Things haven't gone as planned. We couldn't find what we were looking for, and our cover was blown."

"That's no good." Nora sighed empathetically. "How about this: once you get home, and we get rested, I'll cheer you up by making Ren make you girls a special batch of pancakes, just for the four of you?"

Ruby bit her lip. "All four of us?" she thought, her mind focusing on Blake for a moment.

"Oh, well, Marron can have some too. Does she eat pancakes? I should probably ask Jaune beforehand." Nora said in response to Ruby's out-loud thought.

Ruby gave a forced smirk at that response. "Heh, well we'll cross that bridge later. I've got to finish packing, Nora." she said, excusing herself.

"Hmm? Oh, okay! See ya soon, Rubes!" Nora grinned as she said her goodbye and ended the call. Once her feed cut out, Ruby put her Scroll away before picking her knapsack and Crescent Rose off the floor next to her bed and started out to the hall. Looking down towards the stairwell exit, she could see Yang and Marron were all packed and ready, waiting on two separate stools across the hall from each other. The Arc sister was on her Scroll in a video call as well, this one directly with Professor Ozpin.

"What are you saying, Oz?" Marron asked, very annoyed from the look on her face and sound of her voice.

"Marron, I've tried contacting General Ironwood since you last contacted me, but he's not returned any of my calls. He must be busy in his search for Chad Aens along with the rest of the military." Ozpin explained.

"So the short of it is as long as he's in the dark about it, Blake's gonna stay in an internment district?" Marron snapped, Yang perking up to the conversation with a quiet look of worry on her face.

"I have a plan for that, Marron. Remain patient. I have a feeling Miss Belladonna will be out in due time. For now, secure passage back to Vale. We have much to discuss." Ozpin finished. Leaving the conversation on that cryptic note, the call ended, and Marron put away her cellular device with a huff.

"So that's it?" Yang asked. "Ozpin told us to go home without Blake?"

"We're not doing that, Yang." Marron reassured her, also looking over to Ruby to make sure the red-haired reaper understood as well. "We're not leaving Atlas without her, but we can't do anything to do it that would cause as much trouble as we already have after the past 24 hours."

"Half of it isn't shouldn't even be blamed on us!" she snapped, her eyes turning blood orange in color. "Winter started-"

"Winter started nothing, Yang."

The girls turned to find Weiss staring at them, her face downcast and a backpack of belongings dangling from the grasp of her left hand. "I instigated the fight, mouthed off to my father...I deserve to take full responsibility for this mission being a failure, just like me..." she trailed off as tears started to well up in her eyes again, looking down at the floor before two black and red boots now stood in front of the patch of floor she stared at. A firm grip on her shoulders brought her up to face her team leader's determined silver eyes.

"Weiss, none of it's your fault, you hear me? That's the last thing I'd think I'd ever hear from Weiss Schnee!" she exclaimed.

"It's just 'Weiss' now, Ruby." she replied in a monotone voice, loosening herself from her team leader's grasp as she started walking towards the foyer to leave. As she was about to round the corner to the stairwell, she passed her cousin and their flight attendant from the travel over from Vale yesterday: Nickel.

"Weiss, wait a second." Nickel tried to say to stop his distraught cousin, but she continued past him as if he wasn't there.

"I don't think she's in the mood, man." Yang shrugged as the rest of the present team walked up to him.

"Oh, well." Nickel nodded as he reached into his pocket, producing a sheet of paper with an address on it. "I took the liberty of getting you guys some lodging until you can get Blake back or until you return home. Whichever comes first, I guess."

Marron looked it over, before nodding a thanks to the servant of his own family. "I think Weiss would be grateful for this, Nickel, but why are you doing this for us?"

"Just because Weiss had her name taken away doesn't change the fact she's still family, at least to me." the white-haired young man explained. "To me, Uncle Silbern was kinda harsh on her. Me and the rest of the servant staff were explicitly told to stop helping you girls as clients of the family. This is helping you as a friend and a cousin."

"Whichever way you put it, we thank you, Nickel." Ruby nodded as they passed Nickel and walked to the front door. Weiss was already waiting for them, looking into one of the living rooms to the side of the door. Silbern sat in a chair facing away from the foyer, staring into a crackling fireplace as soft jazz music played from the speakers on a nearby shelf. He did not say a word as the Huntresses began to depart, but Weiss did as they began to file out the door.

"Father, I-"

"Leave, girl." he ordered coldly, shutting Weiss up as she slowly walked out the door and followed her remaining team to the front gates.


Harsh light shone through the back door windows of he vehicle from overhead streetlamps as Blake was jostled from the motion of the moving van running over potholes and speedbumps of the cracked pavement leading into the seedier parts of the city. While Atlas' largest settlement was known for having pristine buildings, carefully up-kept streets, and state of the art architecture, this part of the city looked nothing like how the rest was described. It truly reminded her of the small villages she lived in on the border towns between Vale and Vacuo: dilapidated structures and abandoned storefronts lined the worn old streets, lined with cracks and erosion from the lack of care. The looked, and judging from the shaking of the van, felt like they hadn't been paved since the first Vytal festival.

She could feel the van come to a slow as she noticed they had passed through a gate, the area on either side walled off by military grade steel walls. On top of them stood Atlesian military guards armed with high powered sniper rifles as they scanned the area that horrified Blake to see what was on either side of the road past the gates and walls. Through the high, barbed wire covered, chain-link fences on either side of the road were dozens upon dozens of Faunus that looked as though they'd been living in squalor all their lives. There were children in nothing but tattered clothes and frostbitten feet wrapped in rags. Groups huddled around campfires lit on piles of old newspaper and scrap pieces of wood or in trash cans. Everything about it screamed the word "Inhumane" in her head, and not just because the word was written in graffiti on a brick wall on the the inside of the fence.

Taking in the view suddenly became much more bright as the doors opened and the van came to an abrupt stop as two Atlesian soldiers looked into the back with lowered high-powered rifles. "Alright, come on out of there slowly. No funny business, Catgirl." one of them ordered. Complying, as she had no means of fighting back and nowhere to run, she carefully climbed out of the van before being roughly shoved forward towards one of the fences, where a smaller gate was waiting for her. Some of the residents had turned to watch the new arrival being forced into their community of nothing but shacks, abandoned buildings and poverty. "Welcome to Little Menagerie, kid." the guard smirked as she shoved Blake through the wire barrier separating the two sides of the road.

Blake landed hard in a puddle of slush as she looked back to watch the gate door close and the two guards walked away. She seethed as she dusted herself off, the fact that she was out at night with nothing to keep her warm from the naturally cold weather of Atlas as a shiver ran down her spine from a passing gust of wind.

"Hey, come on over. You look cold." one of the Faunus around the fire offered as he waived her over.

Taking the opportunity, Blake walked over to join the group of five others huddled around it for warmth. All of them were varying ages from a couple years older than her to senior citizens, one of which, an older woman with bear ears, coming to her side to drape a worn old blanket over her shoulders. "Oh...No, I couldn't." she refused, noticing the ragged clothes the elder woman wore that barely looked warm at all.

"Oh, don't worry about me, dearie." she smiled back.

"Yeah, Mama Bear here's been taking care of the new arrivals since she got here twenty years ago." another Faunus said, this one a middle-aged man with deer antlers.

"You've been in here for that long?" Blake asked in shock.

"Yes, but we've learned to make the best of it." Mama Bear sighed.

"How is this the best of it?" Blake asked, gesturing to the scenery around them. "You're living in squalor, wearing nothing but rags in below-freezing temperatures as if it's completely okay with you!"

"Well, what're we supposed to do, kid?" Another man asked, dog ears sticking out of his cap as he sat on a crate across from her. "This place is walled in with surveillance inside and out. If we tried to revolt and get out ourselves..." He paused to gesture to the stump that was his right foot. "...We wouldn't get that far."

Blake kept her facade of determination as she shrugged the blanket off. "Let me show you I'm the exception to that." she glared as she darted off, ignoring the calls from the locals for her to wait. She dashed through grids of makeshift shelters and abandoned buildings deemed unsafe to set foot into, trying to find a weak spot in the walls that towered over the buildings around her. Taking a right at an area she thought could work to her escape, she almost walked into two Atlesian soldiers standing in front of a young mouse Faunus boy.

"What do you want from me?" he cried. "I haven't done anything wrong! I was just looking for my mom!"

"Well, for starters, you scuffed my boot." One of the soldiers sneered. "And second, your mom's in jail for trying to break out just to get a job that's impossible for a rodent like her to get"

"N-no! You're lying!" the kid yelled.

"Dropped her off myself this morning." the other said. "So, I guess we can take you on down to join her."

"W-wait!" The kid pleaded as he backed away from the oncoming soldiers, only for them to stop as an ice-covered 2x4 was chucked at the back of the head of the first guard. They both turned to see Blake standing, unmoving as they advanced on her.

"Now that, right there, is a bad kitty." the guard she hit glared.

"And you're harassing a defenseless child!" Blake retorted.

"Well, then, allow us to explain why." the second guard shrugged, as the two lifted their guns. Blake was ready to stand her ground and fight back if it wasn't for the firm grip on her shoulder that pulled her behind the hand's owner: a cloaked man with some sort of massive sword on his back.

"Please, gentlemen. Pardon her; she's new and doesn't understand how things work around here." the cloaked man spoke in a raspy voice. Blake could almost smell the bourbon on his breath as he spoke.

"She attacked an officer of the Atlesian Military." the first guard growled. "It's gonna take more than begging to get us to forget the contusion she just gave me."

"I'll give you each fifty Lien." he shrugged.

"Deal." they both said as the cloaked figure gave them a wad of bills before they walked off.

"Don't let it happen again, Hairball-breath." the second guard sneered as Blake seethed as they walked off.

"They weren't serious, right?" the kid asked, getting Blake and her savior's attention. "My mom isn't actually in jail, right?"

The cloaked man smirked as he stepped forward and tussled the child's hair. "She'll be back, bucko. Trust me. How about you head back home and she'll be back before you know it." With a slight smile on his face and a nod the kid ran off, but not before announcing a grateful thank-you to the two of them.

"You didn't have to do that, you know." Blake spoke up.

"Well, someone had to keep you from getting in more trouble, kid." he huffed.

"I can take care of myself, thank you very much." Blake retorted, lying through her teeth. She was acting mainly out of fear of being alone and locked up abroad. The man in front of her could see right through it though, and she knew it.

"Even Huntresses need help at one time or another." he shrugged.

Blake raised her eyebrows slightly. "How did you know?" she asked.

He didn't answer at first, instead moving to pull down his hood, revealing a man at least in his forties with soot-colored hair, red eyes, and stubble across his jawline. "Because I believe you're the teammate of my nieces." he grinned. "Name's Qrow."


And that's another chapter down!

So, this has been halfway finished for quite a while, but since I hit some writer's block and went back to college, I haven't had the time to keep up with both my work load for both school and this series, so I've taken a short break to get situated with my new availability to work on this. Gotta say though, I'm glad I got this one done, and hope you enjoyed it. Leave a follow or comment because I read all of my comments, though I may not reply to all of them, and I'll see you lads and lasses next time.