/START AUDIO LOG/

"So [REDACTED], why did you even defect in the first place?"

"It's a long story."

"Well we have a lot of time sitting here on our asses, tell us. Might as well justify why the hell you're over here with us, and not over there making fucking bank. Me? I was a fucking kid they picked up. Now I'm here."

"Hmph."

"You gonna tell or not? We're waiting."

"Fine."

/END OF AUDIO LOG/

LT [REDACTED] to Sabyr Brigade Member known as "Ivers". Information obtained with the use of Agent [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] is presumed dead after Task Force Command lost contact. Sabyr Brigade counterintel is assumed to have found and eliminated Agent [REDACTED]. Further infiltration attempts have been halted until further notice.

This is classified TOP SECRET.

Chapter Ten: Fallout, Part 2

"Are you kidding me?" yelled Jay, throwing his controller down on the ground with a sharp flick of his hands. "You are complete bullshit!"

Finch laughed from beside him, shaking the couch beneath from just the noise alone, "That's just because you're absolutely garbage at fighting games. You can lift a thousand pounds in real life but can't do anything in a game."

Thistle snorted from his seat from the side. A Scroll projection filled the space in front of them, the two friends sat lazily on a couch facing it, each holding their own controller. Thistle flicked a paperball at Jay's head, quickly turning back to his laptop. He was doing some sort of online course about other types of weapons than their own, which was fairly interesting. Sitting just off to the side of the couch, he glanced up every so often to see Jay being beaten into a pulp in his fighting game.

"Get good Jay, or even old man Razz will beat you," said Thistle, tapping something on his keyboard. Apparently one of his civilian wanted to play games with him during work hours, Thistle never really knew what that guy even did during the day, and he never bothered to find out.

Jay bent down from his couch to pick up the controller he threw, "Good thing he isn't here, otherwise he would've kicked your ass."

"Well he's not here, so I can talk as much shit as I want," Thistle threw his legs up on top of the coffee table in front of him, flipping Jay off in the process. "So eat massive shit."

Jay turned around to face him, tossing an arm over the back pillow of the couch, "You're only saying that because you're bad at this bad too. I still managed to beat you in a match."

Thistle peered up from his laptop, raising an eyebrow, "Might want to focus on your match, Finch is taking you out as we speak." Jay cursed, twisting back to try and salvage the already lost match. The screen practically shook as the giant words of "PLAYER 1 WINS!" flashed on the screen. Or it literally shook when Jay slammed his fists down on the coffee table Thistle's feet were perched on. His yell of rage only threw Finch into a fit of laughter.

"Keep your eyes on the prize, eh?" Thistle smirked, checking off a few boxes on his laptop. He ducked down to avoid the object flying towards his head, thrown by the irate Jay. Finch leaned back, patting Jay on the back with a grin stretched across his face, and Jay just rolled his eyes, sitting back on the couch.

"You'll beat me one day Jay, just make sure not to take your eyes off the screen, ever," Finch said, elbowing the massive Contractor in the side. He set down his controller, leaving the screen on the final readout of stats. "Rematch or not?"

"I think I've had enough time being beaten into a pulp," said Jay, placing his controller down on the table. "What are you up to Thistle? You've just been sitting on that laptop for the entire game."

Thistle shut his laptop and looked at Jay, "Familiarization on the different types of weapons there are. It's a bit more complicated with all the stuff that Huntsmen have, but hey, it still is pretty cool." he got up from his chair, setting down his laptop where he sat, "And now that you've been thoroughly beaten by Finch, I think I'll come in and try my hand at the game. Move."

Thistle slid himself in between the two, snatching up the controller from the table, "Alright, it's time to show you guys that I'm not complete garbage."

"We'll see," was all that Finch had to say before booting up another match. Jay sat beside him with a knowing smirk. Did he really have that little confidence in him? Thistle, the gaming king? Sure, he'd wasted so much time playing games as a kid that if he had dedicated that time towards something else, maybe would have achieved something. There still was no way that anyone could beat him in th-

Finch promptly thrashed him in all rounds.

Mouth hung open, eyes blank with surprise. The character mockingly doing his victory dance on the holographic display. The blinking words, "PLAYER 1 WON" flashed on the screen. Thistle was absolutely dumbfounded at his loss.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked, looking at Finch.

Throwing up his legs, a slight smile was all that showed, "Just you sucking at games. You're not as good as you think."

"You suck," Thistle lifted himself off the couch, giving Finch a light slap while doing so. He pulled the haughty Jay back into his spot, nearly knocking the guy's head into Finch's. Plopping back into his chair, he reopened his laptop and navigated back to the list of online courses there were. "I'm going to go be a lonely asshole and do shit on my laptop. Playing games is no fun when you get thrashed."

Finch snorted, getting up from the couch to go move to the game console, "Speaking of lonely assholes, have you noticed how Jaune's been kind of avoiding us? He's been taking just about every guard shift he can, and finding random excuses to be elsewhere when we invite him to do stuff. Why do you think he's doing all this?"

"Yeah, think you're right," Thistle frowned, looking up from his laptop. "Jaune has been doing all this stuff. Been acting all like he's edgy and shit for the last few days. Then again, I have a feeling if Vi just started giving me the cold shoulder all of a sudden I'd feel pretty confused and wondering why. Doesn't explain why he's avoiding us though." he started to look back down at his laptop when something caught his eye.

Jay pursed his lips, starting to tap his knee while looking around the room randomly. There was no one else in the large common room but them, everyone else was getting hammered at the bar that day. Thistle raised an eyebrow at him, closing his laptop yet again, "Got anything to say, Jay? Look like you're a bit nervous there."

"Oh, it's nothing. Was just thinking about something," Jay still shuffled around like he was being interrogated by a spook who was having a nice, friendly chat with him.

A sigh, "Dude, I think we've known each other long enough to know when someone is clearly hiding something. I may not be an Intel dude, but your body language looks like you either are avoiding answering, or you have something up your ass constantly and need to shit at the same time."

The low tapping drone stopped as Jay placed a hand over his knee. It trembled ever so slightly before finally stopping as Jay leaned back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling, "Fine, you're right. I'm avoiding the question." covering his face with his hands, he continued talking, "Jaune's been avoiding us and stuff. I just can't help but feel that's my fault, not anyone else's."

Finch cocked his head from the front of the room, "What makes you think tha- oh yeah. I remember now." Thistle grimaced, remembering the outbursts everyone had stepping off those Bullheads a few days ago. Their nerves frayed and frazzled from the fighting, it wasn't exactly the best time to start yelling at each other.

"I just feel like Vi brought up some valid points," said Jay, his hand making meaningless gestures as he stared up at the ceiling. "Jaune's inexperienced, and all that stuff. I just feel like such shit from saying that. I've been in training with him, I've seen what he can do, but I've always heard that training is always different from combat."

Jay rubbed his face, letting out a huge sigh, "It's just that, shit, Jaune's avoiding me and stuff now. I'm pretty sure it's because of what I said. Now our section is fractured, our 2iC is off trying to reconcile what must feel like everyone turning on him again, and Razz is too damn busy to fix any of it!"

Thistle rubbed his barely visible stubble thoughtfully, seemingly in deep thought. While in reality he sure as hell was scrambling for something to say. A glance over at Finch, who just shrugged at him. Asshole, leaving this to him, "Everyone gets what you're saying by Jaune is inexperienced, everyone here is."

A pause, did he know what to say next? No way in hell. "2iC is kind of like a beta leadership position. A place to learn. Jaune is learning, just like everyone else. Hell, in Atlas, they give command of entire platoons to green officers who had just come out of training, what's to say that we can't do the same to minor leadership positions?"

"I mean-" Jay looked at the ground, foot again starting to tap on the floor.

"At least Jaune proved himself not a complete idiot," interrupted Thistle, leaning closer to Jay. "He's still an idiot, but not a complete idiot. Do you remember the batshit insane plans he put together?"

"Yeah," grunted Jay, crossing his arms. "Remember that quite a lot."

"Well, he's practically a tactical genius, besides sending Lav up in the tower. But you know what? Everyone's entitled to one mistake every once in a while, but only if they get off their asses to fix it," Thistle leaned back in his chair. He sure was pulling shit out of his ass, but oh he was pulling it off so well. Jay's face looked like it was about to crumble, "And I'm sure as shit Jaune will get off his ass and start improving. We just have to get him out of this moody ass shit and back into leaderman Jaune we know."

"Leaderman?" Finch asked from the other side of the room..

"Fuck off Finch, we're having a moment," Finch promptly dodged a paperball thrown by Thistle. "Jaune's an idiot. He's a goofy fucker, even though he isn't so much a goofy fuck now. He used to be a goofy fuck in training, with his rabbit hoodie." a snicker from Finch. "Well, he's a goofy fuck who needs help every once in a while to kick his ass into gear. Guess what? Now is the time he needs a kick in the ass. So don't blame yourself just because Jaune decided it was the best idea to push himself into a depressive coma."

Jay stared down at the table, his mind working unseen from Thistle, sure he had done something to Jay. He could only pray his massive amount of bullshit advice hadn't actually gone through any real thought.

"Alright," Jay finally said, looking up at Thistle. "Fine, I'll give Jaune another chance. This whole damn platoon is inexperienced anyways, not like Jaune is the only one in that boat."

Thistle reached over to pat Jay's wrist, "Great, now we just have to make Jaune see you've changed your mind about him."

"Sit him down and force him to talk to me?" Jay said.

"Ah, I was thinking of something more subtle but hey, that works too."

"Ahem," piped up Finch from the side. "If I might say, Jaune is still avoiding us, which I assume might change if we assault him fast enough, but what about Vi? She still hates his guts and avoids him and just about everyone else except you. I assume you already tried convincing her." Thistle nodded in response, "So how are we going to fix that mess? Don't think you can exactly convince Vi that Jaune didn't put Lav in danger that easily."

"You're right," massaging his nose, Thistle smashed his head against the mental brick wall that the new problem that appeared. What had dad always said? If two people are fighting, either let them fight it out or make them work together on the problem. What the hell was Vi angry at? Jaune putting Lavender in danger. Can't exactly make them work together on that, but what if it was something else? Shit, what if he just forced them to talk through heavy application of booze? She always thought he was the lightweight, but she was always too drunk to tell, "When will Lavender be released from the hospital when she wakes up?"

Finch shrugged, "Doc said likely she'll get released a few days or so after she wakes up, just to make sure everything is okay and stuff."

"Great, so even if she just woke up, we'll have a few days to plan this," said Thistle, already waving away the questioning looks the two of them shot his way. "What if we put together a little welcoming party for Lavender, and get Jaune and Vi drunk, and force them to talk? It'll be perfect because Vi loses all judgement when she gets drunk and will make weird calls. So then we push them to make up with subtle suggestions to them as they get progressively more drunk. Good?"

Jay rubbed his face, groaning, "That is simultaneously the stupidest and smartest thing I've ever heard." he looked straight at Thistle, "But I'm in. Gotta make it up to him somehow."

"Don't blame yourself dude," said Thistle. "Remember Jaune's still a fucking idiot at times."

"Aren't we all," chuckled Jay.

Finch whistled from the floor, "Damn, you're kind of good at this scheming shit. Are you like Jaune but with elaborate social skills?"

A smile crept on his face, "Just trying to be a good friend here. We're all reeling from this shit man. Gotta bring everyone back together somehow."

Thistle snorted, looking up at the ceiling as a sudden moment of self reflection struck him, "Jeez, from a hyperactive party-goer from the start of training to the guy who somehow has to keep everyone together. I feel like I'm about ten years older already."

The door burst open behind them. Thistle spun around in his chair to see Vi rushing past to the stairway. Her cheeks were red and strewn with tears, and the sniffing could be heard over the patter of her shoes as she walked past the trio.

"Yo Vi!" he called out, making her pause. "What's up?"

Vi sniffed again, wiping away something from her face with her hand, "Nothing, nothing. Lavender just woke up if you guys want to visit her."

Vi quickly ran up the stairs, the only sound the soft weeping from her as she slammed her door from above.

"Shit," said Thistle under his breath, standing up slowly. "Hey guys, I'm going to go check up on Vi, see what's up with her today."

"Go," was all that Jay said, motioning for him to go upstairs. "Don't need more than one friend being lonely and depressed. You probably have the best chance of talking to her."

Setting his laptop on the side, Thistle started walking towards the staircase. Vi had been acting distant for the last few days, but nothing like crying. Was it something to do with Lavender? She did just say she had woken up. If it had, then shit, he'd really have his work cut out for him. Her sister was something that Vi always held close, which he gleaned from the many times he found himself talking to her. Suddenly, the same entrance Vi had just entered through flung open again and in stepped Jaune, his brows drawing together.

"You guys know why Vi was walking so fast? She kind of sprinted past me without even talking to me," Jaune said, softly closing the door behind him. He gave him a sort of quizzical look that was mildly concerned. "Then again, she hasn't really been talking to me recently, but it did seem kind of odd."

"I really don't know either, but I'm heading up to see," Thistle replied, stopping just before the stairwell. "She said that Lavender just woke up, so you can go visit her if you want."

"Oh really?" said Jaune, stiffening up. His eyes darted around the room quickly. "I'll go after I finish what I'm doing, gonna go call the family and stuff. I'll be in our room if you need me."

Jaune beat a hasty retreat off to the other side of the room, closing the door behind him in less time than it took for Thistle to blink. He shook his head at his friend's shrinking form through the windowed door. Jaune really had something going on that needed some kind of help. The party would hopefully do something to help him. Stepping up the stairs, Thistle started walking towards the door which he knew Vi was behind. A soft sobbing from within.

So Thistle raised his hand to knock, and tentatively rapped on the door.

/ - /

Jaune laid back on his bed, staring at his scroll's contact list.

He didn't wince like he would've done when he scrolled past his old team's contacts. What was done was done, it wasn't like he was going to get back into Beacon anyways. Instead, he stopped on his dad's name, Nicholas Arc. He held his finger over the "Call" button, not quite clicking it.

Did he want to call his dad? The easy answer was yes, family was everything. His dad had always given him advice, however bad it was. Or was it because he didn't understand it? Nah, it must have been his dad. Still, his advice was sure better than him trying to figure out things by himself, not like it had worked all too well. He didn't want to have to tell his parents about his mission though. Who knew what his mom would do if she found out about his near-death experience.

Even still, he decided that dealing with his irate mother was better than dealing with an irate section mate who just wouldn't let go of a grudge. He laughed at himself a bit. It wasn't every day that he thought that.

"Hello? Jaune, are you there?" Nicholas' face popped up on his screen, the background their kitchen, just like Jaune had always remembered.

"Hey dad," he replied, waving at the scroll. "How are you doing?".

"Good," Nicholas moved to grab his scroll, setting down the knife he held in one hand. "I'm going to go get your sisters right now so they can say hi."

"No!" he yelled out suddenly, instinctively holding his hand out, as if it would do something to stop Nicholas through the screen. Nicholas frowned at the camera, stopping what he was doing. "Uh, I just wanted to ask you advice for something."

Nicholas paused, before pulling something along the ground, bringing the rough scraping sound of a chair, "Can't just get a moment to talk to my son can I?"

He blanched, swinging his legs down from his bed to sit normally, "I didn't mean it like that. I promise I'll try to find some time to talk to you later though."

"It's fine," Nicholas waved his hand through the air, smiling a bit. "So what seems to be this problem of yours?"

"It's- it's a long story," Jaune laid back on his bed, letting his scroll casually lay by his side, still pointing at him. "We just went on our first contract. It was basically us going into a village to see what happened to it. We got there and everyone was dead, it was horrible." Jaune clenched his fists, and out of the corner out of his eye he could see his dad lean further into the camera, "But that's beside the point. You remember Lavender right?"

"I remember."

He snorted sardonically, "I sent her somewhere that got her hurt. We both barely made it out, because some bandits decided that they wanted to raid a town and just so happened to have military training." Jaune massaged his nose, looking back up at the ceiling, "Now her sister, Vi, is angry at me, and I can't make it up to her. She just avoids me anytime I come near." a huge breath exhaled.

"God, son," Nicholas rubbed his face, peeking his eyes through the slits between his fingers. "You fought actual humans?"

"Ah," his mouth felt dry all of a sudden. Raising a finger up, he opened his mouth again to speak. Maybe he should have withheld a few details. "Can we just leave that until later?"

Nicholas glared at him through the scroll, "I'll hold you to that young man. I thought you would be mostly just doing Grimm clearing operations, not fighting bandits. Oh, I knew that would happen eventually, but all I got from you was that you were essentially the Atlas military for hire."

"Later?"

"Fine," Nicholas propped his head upon his fist, looking meaningfully at somewhere else in the room. "You got yourself into a bit of a pickle there, Jaune. But I'll try my best. Buckle in for a story, because I think I once found myself in your place." rubbing his head, Nicholas stared straight into the scroll's camera, the little display in Jaune's hand definitely not doing any justice to Nicholas' absolute death stare.

"One day, I was on a mission with my Team. A Search and Destroy mission you see. Well, we were out there, and we had split up to try and track down the Grimm horde better. Stupid decision back then, but the Professor wasn't there because we had just come to the point where they were in the Bullheads just in case something went wrong," Nicholas pulled a cup of coffee into view, taking a sip from the mug. "Needless to say, my partner and I were attacked by some Grimm. I messed up in a bad way and my partner nearly died. One of my other teammates got really angry at me later, saying I wasn't enough and all that."

"Sounds familiar," almost like the exact same situation he was stuck in.

Nicholas raised his cup of coffee towards the camera, "It is, because it almost exactly follows your own story. Anyways, after that, my teammate would always try to avoid me. Not exactly the best way to go about things, but we were eighteen-something-year-olds, not exactly the height of maturity. Tried all sorts of things, apologizing, flowers even, hell, even just offered to do her schoolwork. Eventually, just let her knock me around in the sparring ring for a couple of months in the interest of training me. Honestly was pretty sure she just wanted an excuse to fight, just was that sort of person."

Jaune raised a singular eyebrow, "So I should just challenge Vi to a duel of honour and sword fight her?"

His dad guffawed from the other side of the screen, "I'm still wondering where that snark came from. No Jaune. That only worked because it turned out she really wanted to try and improve me, and that involved her beating the crap out of me." the coffee cup was set down gently on the table, "Most people aren't angry at you for no reason. Find the problem, and work on it together. If you can't do that, find a common problem that you guys can work on together. Nothing unites anyone better than a common problem or enemy."

"Sound advice," snorted Jaune. "I'm not sure how that's going to help with Vi."

"Never said I was going to give you good advice," grunted Nicholas, sipping at his mug. "Be straightforward with her and don't dance around the problem. Knowing you, you already have that down. It sounds like Vi isn't all that confident in you, am I right?" Jaune nodded from his end. "Great, you already have something you can work on there. Work on being a better leader."

"That's it?"

"I'm not exactly a fountain of advice Jaune, no matter what you think. Work on your weaknesses, get better, and show her. That's all I have."

"Hmph," his finger hovered over the end call button. "Thanks, dad."

"Hold up there young man," Nicholas scrambled over to grab his scroll from whatever was holding it up. "You still haven't explained the whole bandit thing."

Jaune scratched the back of his head, laughing nervously, "Sort of flips between the two. We do anti-Grimm operations sometimes then we fight bandits on the other hand. It's not that much different than Huntsmen, they just deal with worse threats than us, and alone."

"Jaune..." came his threatening voice.

"I swear we don't usually do stuff like this. Our unit is more fit for anti-Grimm operations anyways, we won't be doing so much of this human on human stuff for a while I think. Probably will just be sent for a simple Grimm clearing operation next," said Jaune. But deep down he knew that Lady Luck would just toss a whole army of bandits their way next time just because of what he said.

Nicholas rubbed his face again in what must've become a recurring pattern, "Tell me everything about what you've been doing and I might just not tell your mother about it."

Really? That was easy. It sure was better than facing his mother's wrath, "Well, when we got our or-"

"What was that about me not knowing about something?" his scroll speaker blared. Nicholas panickedly looked to his left, spotting something out of view. Face drained of blood, Jaune now knew he was practically marked for death by his mom.

"Nothing honey!" Nicholas quickly hid his scroll, giving Jaune a nice view of the floor.

"Oh what do you have here~"

Jaune slammed his finger down on the end call button, the display fading to black. Nicholas would not even last ten seconds of interrogation by Juniper, so Jaune wisely switched his scroll to do-not-disturb and chucked it across the room, just in case his mother somehow crawled through his scroll just to get to him.

Sighing, he laid back down on the bed, staring at his ceiling. He'd go visit Lavender in a bit, he just needed to figure out what to say so she wouldn't start yelling at him. The last thing he needed was her mad at him for being a dumbass, no matter how small the chance.

So he laid there, lost in thought.

/ - /

Three Days Later

Jay had certainly warmed up to him all of a sudden, where, Jaune sure didn't know. They had practically started dragging him into their little hangout sessions. He didn't complain, Alabaster had given him another perspective on that in their little talk.

So getting the message from Thistle that Lavender was being released from the hospital that day came with little fanfare. What did come with a little surprise was that it had apparently been decided that Jaune was unanimously picked to go grab Lavender from the hospital. Asking about Vi, Thistle said that he didn't need to worry about her, she was busy with other stuff that needed doing. Jaune believed him wholly because he was his best friend. Sure Jay and Finch looked just a tad suspicious, but a mixup with names ended up with him being put on mandatory sentry duty just after. As such, Jaune didn't have time to ask.

So it was a bit of a surprise when he walked into the hospital waiting room to see Vi sitting there too.

"What are you doing here?" Vi glowered at him, standing up from her seat. "It better not be because of what I think it is."

"Heh," he scratched the back of his head, giving a nervous smile at her. The only times Vi had talked to him over the week was to give a piece of her mind about whatever he was doing. "Here to escort Lavender back to the barracks."

"The fuck?" she said under her breath, looking away. Meeting his gaze again, she took a step forward towards him. "Did Thistle not tell you that I was doing it?"

His eyes flickered to the receptionist's desk. The receptionist sitting there was keeping one eye on them and one eye on her work. She gave him a pointed look, don't escalate this or you'll both get in shit.

"Nope, Thistle said you'd be busy doing other things," he said, shuffling towards her a tiny bit. He'd heard somewhere that putting yourself closer to an angry person would somehow calm them down. It was probably wrong, but his Aura sure helped assuage his fears of getting hurt, if not the fear of pain.

"Well, get out," she huffed, turning away from him but keeping her eyes fixed on his. Even still, her eyes wavered, before snapping to look at a wall. "You're the one who got her in here. You have no right to walking her out of here. I'm her sister, so I'll be doing it." nevertheless, her voice sounded unsure of herself as she said it.

Jaune glanced around the room, there was no one else there except the receptionist, "Vi, I know you haven't been talking to me recently but what's going on? I know that you're angry at me, but you've sort of been just sad for the last few days. We can also just go take her back together you know, since we're both here already."

"What?" she stared at him incredulously. "You think I'm depressed?"

"Uh," his mouth hung open for a second. "Maybe?"

"Idiot, I swear," she murmured, looking down at the floor. "That's not why, and it's besides the point. Out."

"Why?"

"Can you just go now?"

The argument surely would have gone on for hours, had the door behind Vi not burst open to reveal Lavender walking into the room, a doctor walking behind her. She looked between the two of them standing there, blinking once.

"Am I interrupting something? I can always just walk in again and do my grand entrance again," Lavender said, glancing at the two of them. The doctor behind her snorted, before going to the receptionist.

"No, no, no," Vi said quickly, eyeing Jaune for a second, later, she seemed to say, before moving towards Lavender. "It's fine. How do you feel?"

Lavender rolled her eyes, even pulling back a little when Vi hit her with a bear hug. Curiously, she was a bit slow to return the hug, "I'm fine sis. I'm not exactly a glass vase here. Hey Jaune!" she perked up at seeing him. "What are you doing here with Vi?"

Jaune shuffled awkwardly in his spot, debating internally whether to speak in the middle of the sisterly reunion, "I was here to escort you back, but apparently there was a little bit of a mixup," he gestured to Vi, who had released Lavender from her bearhug, "and we're both here now."

"Ahem," coughed the doctor, "If I may, I need someone's signature on this." he tapped a finger on his scroll.

Jaune shrugged, and walked over to the doctor. Quickly scribbling his name in something that vaguely resembled his signature, he thanked the man and turned back to see the two sisters already waiting outside. He pushed through the door quickly, joining the sisters at the front. The sky above them was already darkening, and the cool air washed against him. Was it already this late? Time flies, he guessed. The base was still bustling with activity, if a bit calmer. He quickly put on his beret, lest he be caught without it on by an old Chief Warrant Officer with a stickler for military discipline.

"Shall we go now?" said Lavender, bouncing up and down on her heels excitedly. She inhaled deeply, breathing in whatever fresh air there was. "Feels pretty nice after being cooped up for so long."

"Wouldn't have been cooped up for so long if this idiot didn't make a mistake," Vi grumbled, looking away from them.

"Vi, we all know how that argument will go," Lavender glared at her sister with an intensity Jaune had seen only a few times. Even he withered under it, yet he wasn't the target of it. Needless to say, Vi practically crumpled.

"If I'll just cause problems, I could always just go on ahead," he said, edging away from the two slowly. "It's fine really, Vi's here and stuff, sh-"

"No!" Lavender said hastily, reaching out a hand to grab him and drag him back towards her. "You're not going anywhere, now that you're here. Anyways, let's go." skipping forward with the exuberance of a rabbit, the two of them were left standing there, alone.

Jaune and Vi looked at each other. Vi cocked her head, opening her mouth to say something, before Jaune just shrugged again, running forward to catch up to Lavender.

"So, how do you feel?" Vi asked after running after them. "You look awfully energetic right now."

"Yep," Lavender replied, starting to walk normally again. "I'm basically fully recovered now. Doc told me to not be worried if I'm a bit weak when I get discharged"

Vi just grunted, but didn't say anything.

"So does that mean you'll just have to spend almost all of your time exercising?" Jaune said. Lavender was already not the fittest person around. But after essentially a week of doing nothing but sitting around? Well, it wasn't that drastic, but it would have some effect.

"Eh, it's not that bad," she waved a hand through the air. "Just some runs and I'll be back to normal."

"Sis, you were already not that fit to begin with. You can barely keep up with us on runs and your upper body strength isn't that great anyway," said Vi, looking at her with a strained smile. "I'm going to have to make you exercise more later."

Lavender rolled her eyes, "Fine, but only if you can find me later."

Jaune stood to the side of the bickering sisters, deliberating whether it was worth trying to jump into the conversation. A truck rolled past them noisily, drowning out their sounds of conversation. Turning around on the corner, they finally arrived at their destination. The barracks housed their platoon in a single building. A room to every two Contractors, some senior NCOs lived outside the base, and in Vale instead, driving to the base every morning. He supposed it might be easier for the 2nd Battalion to live in their own houses, as they focused more on the internal security side of things, with a base directly inside Vale.

"We're here girls," Jaune motioned towards the door, stepping aside to let them in. A low thumping came from inside, but Jaune didn't really really pay attention. "Ladies first."

"Shouldn't that be you first Jaune?" sniped Vi from behind. Lavender giggled, slapping up her hand to cover her mouth a second later. She mouthed sorry at him when he looked behind.

Jaune rolled his eyes, "Funny."

Pulling open the door, he stepped in to see the entire platoon inside, joking, drinking, talking. A speaker was blasting rap music in the corner, and most importantly, someone was throwing themselves at a stack of cups. Why? He sure as hell didn't know. Quickly moving in to let the two girls behind him come in, they were just as surprised as him. Was there some sort of party nobody told him about? Probably.

Thistle appeared out of the crowd, waving at them to come over. They looked among themselves and shrugged. Maybe he would tell them what was going on.

"Hey, guys!" Thistle yelled over the loud music. "Sorry about not telling you about this. It was just sort of supposed to be something just for our section, but guess it turned into a big thing in the end. Now it's a mini celebration thing for our first mission."

"What?" Jaune yelled. A celebration?

"Like I said, a mini ce-"

"No, I heard that. But why?"

Vi walked up from behind him, "Yeah, why?"

"Captain decided morale was pretty low in the platoon. Took my idea and ran with it, and now we're having a party going on in here. Celebrating our first mission together as a unit. That's your reason," Thistle reached out and patted both of them on the back. "Now go get some fucking drinks in you."

Thistle backed away from the three, melting into the throng of Contractors moving around in the space. The three of them looked among themselves. Vi looked absolutely shocked, while Lavender went from curious to elated in a span of less than half a second. It became evident as to why when she immediately dashed to grab a random bottle of beer from a table.

Lavender quickly opened it and took a swig, "Damn, this is good."

"Lav, you've drunk about once before, how do you already crave that shit?" Jaune asked, walking up to her.

Meanwhile, Vi rushed up to her sister, "Lav, why are you drinking right now?"

Jaune raised an eyebrow, "Haven't you let her drink before?"

"That was different," Vi shot back, staring at Jaune. "She just came out of the hospital, so I'm saying no alcohol tonight!"

"No way sis," Lavender took a swig out of her bottle, as to say stop me. "You ain't ruining this for me."

Jaune watched in mild interest, his mind mostly focussed on why this happened in the first place. Thistle said that it was going to originally be for their section at first, then it became their entire platoon. What was Thistle going to do with just their section? Their morale wasn't all too lo- oh yeah. Vi and him. Was he going to be trying to repair his and Vi's relationship? Thistle really was a scheming asshole. How did he even intend on going about doing it? Maybe he did this for another reason. In any case, Jaune just shook his head, instead listening to Lavender fight off Vi's protests. At least that was what he was going to do when a hand patted him on his back.

"Huh?" Jaune spun around, to be face to face with Granite, their platoon LAV mechanic. "Hey dude, what are you doing over here?"

Granite raised up his bottle, "Drinking and getting drunker. Here, have some." Granite shoved an unopened bottle into his hands. "Heard about the crazy shit you did, wanted to come and see the guy that did it."

Eyebrows furrowed. The loud bassy music reverberated in the ground beneath him, a loud crash came from a corner of the room, but Jaune ignored it. People had apparently heard about his fight, which was interesting, "What did you hear?"

The mechanic sipped from his bottle, "Heard that you climbed a belltower, fought off like ten Huntsmen, heard you hurt him a bit, then made it back while carrying your friend back to the platoon while you had a bunch of Sabyr dudes on your ass. Sounded pretty badass, is it true?"

Jaune scratched the back of his head, "Sounds about right, except for the part where I fought a bunch of Sabyr Brigade guys and the ten Huntsmen. I played dead and let them pass. And there was only once Huntsman."

"Still pretty cool though, I'll see you around then, cheers," Granite lifted up his bottle towards him, as to clink bottles with him.

"Uh, cheers," Jaune clumsily clinked his bottle with Granite, taking a sip from the bottle right after. Granite turned to leave, leaving Jaune standing there with no idea of what to do.

Find his section? Well, that was a start. Scanning the room, it took a good few tries to pick them out among the crowd. They sat around in a few couches surrounding a coffee table. So he started walking towards the group when he accidentally bumped into someone. What was with him and bumping into people today? It was then that he realized that he had bumped into Moss.

"Oh, hello Warrant!" he yelped out suddenly. Moss held a similar bottle of beer in one hand and had a fascinated smile on his face. "I was just heading to my section, so if I will.."

Moss caught his shoulder, crap. The huge man looked him deep in the eyes, "Aren't you seventeen Arc? I think the drinking age is nineteen in Vale. This ain't Vacuo where seven-year-olds drink you know."

"Uh," Jaune slowly moved his bottle behind his back, as if it would do anything to help him. His mouth hung halfway open, mind scrambling for a response. Luckily, he didn't have to as Moss' cruel smile morphed into a huge grin, and the Warrant started laughing, a loud belly laugh. This sure was not anything he had heard from Moss before. "Warrant?"

"God damn Arc!" Moss started to recover from his laughing fit. "Should have seen yourself. Fucking priceless. Now, I didn't see shit in your hands, I'm suffering a case of chronic beer blindness tonight. Go along Arc, hangout with your section." Moss pushed him off to his section, melting back into a crowd of Contractors.

He shrugged to himself, not like it wasn't anything Moss had pulled before. Specifically the last day of training where he essentially encouraged them to underage drink that drink.

Quickly walking over to his section, he took his seat next to Thistle.

"Yo," was all Thistle had to say.

"Hey," Jaune said, sitting down.

Thistle sipped at his bottle casually, most definitely still sober, and if the cluster of bottles on the table was anything to go by, had drunk a lot. Thistle was definitely not a lightweight like Vi had said. If anything, she was the one, already drunk on the other couch, batting Lavender in the head randomly while taking swigs of her beer.

"You know beer makes people's judgement shit," Thistle quietly said.

Jaune laid back on the couch, "Yeah?"

"Vi's drinking and she also happens to be angry at you right now."

"So what?" Jaune raised an eyebrow.

Thistle rubbed his face, "Should have known better than to try to subtly push you around. What I'm trying to say here Jaune, if my hints were utter shit, is that Vi's judgement is even worse than Hawkins in the corner, even on her fifth beer," Thistle pointed to the corner, which had a Contractor throw himself at a stack of cups, hitting his head in the wall. "And this is the perfect opportunity to try and solve your problem with her."

Jaune just stared at Thistle, who gulped down the last of his beer, "Have you ever tried to solve a problem between you and another person that didn't take a few hours to fix?"

"Fuck no Jaune," Thistle slammed down his bottle on the table. "You think I'm actually smart or something? Shit, I'm going on this by the seat of my pants. Just like everything else in my life."

Jaune glanced over at Vi, who waved like a tree in gusty wind in his seat. Lavender was snickering next to her, pulling out a scroll to take a picture of the drunken Vi.

The music suddenly stopped, along with it the weird drumming sensation in his eardrums. The room grew quiet as a man stepped up on a small podium. It was Alabaster.

"Hello everyone!" Alabaster called out, speaking into a microphone. "I'll keep this as short as possible. Today is a day of celebration for ourselves. Everyone here knows what happened on the mission already, and I'll say this. I'm proud of this platoon, and how we acted when we came under fire. You started off as mainly a whole bunch of fresh recruits straight from training," Alabaster raised his glass, which everyone did in return, their roar shaking the room. "But now you've just had your first fight. I've seen many units like yours, fresh off the training track, and not one has performed as well as yours. Congrats."

Whoops and hollers from throughout the room. The heavy aroma of beer filled his nostrils. It clung around him like it decided that he was its new home. Jaune drank when everyone else drank, downing the last of the bitter drink. Grabbing another bottle from nearby, he popped that one open.

"Now, we did have a few guys that had awards for that Contract, and I'll call them up right now. For the Contractor Medal of Merit-" Jaune tuned out. Sure, he did fight Tyrian, but there must've been braver guys during that miss- "Contractor Jaune Arc. Corporal B-"

Jaune stood up in disbelief. No way. But he had, hadn't he? Jaune set down his beer, giving Thistle the same incredulous look he gave Jaune. Turning back gave him mostly the same, Vi even more surprised than himself.

So Jaune stumbled up onto the elevated platform, taking his place among the few other Contractors that had won an award. Each of them looked dishevelled and mostly drunk. Before long Alabaster had come to him, reaching out a hand and pumping his arm up and down viciously, before slamming in a medal into his chest.

"Here you go Arc," Alabaster patted him on the shoulder. "Your medal for doing crazy shit on Contract and saving a life. Major wanted to do a whole ceremony thing. He's a real stickler for military ceremonies like that, but I managed to convince him that my guys would prefer to not be in the spotlight, if that's okay with you."

Jaune had to restrain himself from sighing in relief. He apparently failed, as Alabaster caught a bit of it, giving him a wink and nod. "Thanks, sir."

"Anytime Arc, now go back down."

He awkwardly about-turned, starting to shuffle back over to his section again. Plopping himself down yet again, he left his beer on the table. That was enough beer for him tonight. He didn't particularly feel the need to drink his brains out yet. Thumbing his new medal pinned to his chest, it certainly didn't feel all that deserved.

Lavender leaned over the table, immediately grabbing his medal, "Oo, shiny!" she giggled, falling back onto her couch.

Thistle stood up, dusting himself off, "Yep, think she's about done for tonight. Congrats on that medal, by the way, Jaune." he looked over at Jay and Finch, the latter asleep by Jay's side. "He looks just about the same way Jay, how 'bout we bring both these two up to their rooms."

"No, no, no," Vi stood up unsteadily, falling back down on the couch immediately. "I canz dooz it."

"Vi, you're in no way shape or form ready right now," Thistle gently pushed her back down. "I'll get you when I drop your sister off."

Vi sat down disappointedly, instead, deciding to drunkenly stare as Jaune's new medal. Thistle mouthed Solve your problem at him, before grabbing Jay by the arm and pulling the both of them up the stairs. Then, it was just him and Vi.

"Uh, hey?" he asked. "You look pretty drunk right now. How many beers was that?"

"Heh, five," she giggled into her hand.

"So you're a lightweight, a real lightweight," it was funny almost. Vi got so drunk that she didn't even realize she was drunk anymore, just that everyone else was drunk while she was sober. This ended up with her calling just about anyone a lightweight. They all played along with it, if only to mess with her.

"Noooozzzz," she slurred, falling on the couch. "Fuck youz, I can drink morez!"

"Alright, let's see," forcing an already drunk Vi to drink even more was pretty much torture. Or was it heaven? But he sure had to try and fix whatever had broken between them, even if Thistle's methods were… questionable.

"Let'z go!"

In truth, Jaune didn't remember much. Maybe downing so many beers that he nearly passed out induced intense short term memory loss. Vi pretty much passed out near the end. But Jaune did remember the one conversation he had with her. With it, he pretty much considered his attempt a success.

"You know Jaune," she had started. "Maybe yourz not too badz anywayz."

"Hm?" he let his bottle come away from his mouth.

"Maybez I'll letz you havez another chance," she burped, giggling at the noise she made. "It'z still not over though. Itz definitely not over yet. I'm justz giving youz another chance!" her eyes somehow hardened, even under so much liquor. She stared at him, her hard and focused eyes a sharp contrast to the rest of her relaxed body.

"Ha, thanks."

"Fuck youz."

"Welcome."

Maybe this night had achieved what Thistle had intended after all, in a fashion. Vi hadn't exactly apologized, but at least it was better than her giving him the cold shoulder. Or maybe this was her being drunk. But something about her eyes told him she was still just lucid enough to make decisions.

Jaune forgot whatever happened the rest of the night.

/ - /

Thistle stood over the two passed out section mates. He had watched the two go at it for at least an hour, and they never noticed him. Maybe it was the beer. No, it was most definitely the beer.

Listening in to the drunken conversation, he finally picked out the exact lines he wanted to hear. Vi had finally decided to give Jaune another chance. Mission success.

Who said he wasn't smart?

Him?

Oh well, maybe if he said he wasn't smart, he became smart!

Thistle lifted Jaune upon his shoulder, motioning for Jay to lift up Vi. Fuck, why couldn't he have let Jay, the guy that literally lugs around a rocket launch, pick up the heavier guy? No, because he was Jaune's old fireteam partner or something.

"And I'm smart..." he muttered to himself, hauling the heavy ass blonde asshole up the stairs.

Still, mission success.

/ - /

Cedric pushed the door open with his shoulder, his hands occupied with holding the two steaming cups of coffee. He stepped in, finding his partner looking through her scope, and a damp, dark, room, the only light coming in through the window on the other side of the room.

The warehouse they resided in was one of many in the industrial district. Most of them were owned by people whose profit margins were their highest priority. So when they had approached the owner of the disused warehouse with a vast sum of lien, and the promise of actions sanctioned by the Council, it was a gone deal right there. Cedric supposed that was what made the industrial district a prime hiding place for their quarry.

"Finally got my coffee?" Iris turned away from her scope, giving him a sly smirk. "Give it."

Closing the door behind him, Cedric rolled his eyes. A small room at the top of the warehouse offered perfect line of sight on their target, a White Fang warehouse, "Yes ma'am."

Walking over to the table where they had all their surveillance gear laid out, he pulled out his chair, taking a seat next to Iris. He placed their coffees on the table, also grabbing his own spotting scope from the table.

"You know, when I was offered the job," Iris sipped at her coffee, nudging Cedric in the side. "I was all like, Oh this is going to be awesome! But I sure didn't expect to be sitting around in a chair all day watching what comes in and out of a warehouse. Almost makes me miss the days where they threw us straight into the fire, with grabbing suckers off the streets."

"And they never ever found out who kidnapped those suckers," he replied, bringing his scope up to his eye. The opposing warehouse was similarly nondescript, dark and grey just like ever. The only real difference was Faunus dressed in a worker uniform standing outside it. Not suspicious in itself, what had really drawn their attention were the signals intercepts they had received.

Iris leaned back to stretch in her chair, "And if you didn't have that bullshit semblance of yours, everyone would know that it was your unmistakable ass that grabbed them."

"No Iris, I would've worn a mask then."

"Missed the point, big guy," Iris slapped him on the back. "We've been watching this place for days, what are we even waiting for now? I say we just drop you into the building and let you go to work, Mr. I'm-a-Singleton-Operator-Man. Hell, I think SOG is on standby right now. Less time we wait, the less time these assholes have of escaping."

"I overhead the SIGINT guys talking about some intercepts," SIGINT stood for Signals Intelligence, or calls and texts they've plucked from the air, and took a look at the contents. "Apparently they received a coded message from elsewhere to here. Some sort of big package is going to arrive for the recruiting event in a few days. They don't know what it is, but when it arrives, we're going to roll them all up at once."

Iris shuffled beside him. He still had his eye in the scope so he couldn't see her, "Oh how the roles have changed. I used to be the Intel Officer handing you intelligence so you could go do your thing with the enemy. Now you're giving my intel I haven't heard yet? Looks like the Major has been holding out on me, or us."

"Yeah, and you would be interrogating whoever I brought back," Cedric involuntarily shivered. He had watched a few of those interrogations, and he always left with a strange feeling. She never tortured them, never even touched the prisoners, but she always came out with new information. Probably why the higher ups had fast tracked her to source handling and interrogation for their little task force. Just like they had fast tracked him along the wet works track for his Semblance. "I had just heard about it from the SIGINT guys, so don't worry. He'll probably come in and tell us soon."

"Well, let me perform one of my many specialties. Among them being sitting on my ass and watching people do things for a day," a chair scraped across the concrete ground, and Iris stood up and something popped. "Yeah, that felt good. I'm finding myself really wishing I was in the field again, doing a foot follow of some bumfuck criminal for some reason."

"That's my job too you know," Cedric grunted. "I'm the specific one meant to do stuff like that."

"Yeah well," a chair scraped across the floor again. "You're the one that kills people. I'm the one that pins them down for you."

"Tracker and Killer duo," a groan. "I've heard enough about that from my instructors."

Something caught his eye in the scope. A few men walked out a door, all Faunus, each carrying large bags of, well, something. Cedric couldn't really tell at all.

"We got movement," was all he said before refocusing on the event below.

"What? Oh shit!" a shuffling noise from beside him as Iris scrambled to get back on scope.

The trio of Faunus greeted the one that was waiting outside the whole time. Slapping each other's backs, they quicked tossed their bags into the back of a pickup truck, before entering the truck, laughing and joking. Car starting up, the four started driving away into the night.

"Write this down in the log," said Iris, elbowing him in the side while keeping her eye in the scope. She slid over the notebook and pencil that she had beside her. Cedric moved the scope aside, and picked up the pencil with a sigh.

The door opened behind them. He twisted back to see who had entered, it was their Task Force Commander, Major Ray.

"Hey guys, you got anything new?" the Major stepped in.

"Truck left with a couple of bags," Cedric immediately responded. "Nothing else much from that."

"Alright," Ray tapped his knee idly. "SIGINT intercepted some stuff about something big happening in a few days. SOG is standing by to raid the place. So keep a good watch on this place. The Special Operation boys want to know absolutely everything that comes in and out of that place before they go in, got it?"

"Crystal sir," Iris gave a thumbs up to him.

"Wonderful. I'm going to go check with the other surveillance teams now," the Major shut the door behind him when he left.

The two of them immediately went back to their scopes, pressing their eyes against the tripod mounted magnification devices. A thought came to Cedric's head, so he bent down to grab a case that laid at his feet.

"Hey, you still got our old section's contact info?" asked Iris, seemingly out of nowhere, still looking through her scope.

He unclipped the case, opening it and taking out the contents, "Yeah, why?"

"Oh you know," Iris shrugged from her seat. "Figured it'd be nice to meet back up with them. Y'know, get out and meet them in Vale, hang out a bit. You haven't exactly talked to many people outside of them."

Cedric snorted, "I still talk to Jaune a bit you know. It's not like I'm a complete loner."

"You are."

"Fine," Cedric hefted up the sniper rifle he had assembled onto the table. Breathing out, he shouldered it comfortably. "I'll ask him if he wants to meet up with everyone else and spend some time hanging out. That good?"

Iris hummed pleasantly. Was it just him, or had she gotten closer to him? Eh, it didn't matter either way. Cedric could tell she was definitely trying to push him towards actually talking to people. He hadn't really made any real friends at his new unit. Sure, working relationships, that sort of thing. Maybe a few he would consider a friend, but not many. He couldn't blame Iris for what she was trying to do.

Still, it would be nice to hang out with Jaune and the rest of his friends after the surveillance mission was done.

Holy Jesus Christ. That was a long chapter.

Cedric and Iris are reintroduced, and with them watching a White Fang warehouse, that's used for recruiting, and has something big happening soon. To be honest, the stuff between Vi and Jaune was probably the hardest for me to write. That sort of stuff comes with the longer you're in the world, interacting with people. I happen to still be in highschool, so give a guess at that.

Wonder what could happen next chapter.

IMPORTANT: I've kept up a chapter per week up to this point. I'm proud that I've managed this pace, but it's sort of been taking up a whole bunch of my time. Time that should be dedicated for other things. So with this, I've decided that updates will be every two weeks so I'll have a week between chapters to rest and do what I want with my free time. Sorry, but I'm not Coeur, and can't keep up this pace. Well I could, but I want to do other things in my free time than write all the time. I could theoretically shorten chapters, but this chapter was definitely not meant to be close to 10k words, but here it is.

Though I may continue with weekly updates if you peer pressure me enough lmao.

Besides that, there's not much else to say. Giving me another week will likely increase chapter quality too, as this chapter was finished literally the day before the deadline that I put on myself.

Jalapeno, ja-la-pen-no. Same difference.

I got a guest review, which I would've replied in DMs, but guest, but here we go. Jaune is not a Captain yet, despite the name of the story. Why you ask? Because I'm aiming real far into the future. Also Vi did not attack Jaune, if there was any confusion there.

That should be it for the AN. Remember to review, because I'm like the Fanfiction version of that clickbait Youtuber who tells everyone to smash that like button and hit the bell or else he'll lose all his money.

Okay, for real now, seeya.

Tophat out.