Hey, I uploaded on time. Enjoy. I tried doing some 3rd person omniscient stuff, so eh. Let's see how well this goes.

"The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service."

-Sun Tzu, Art of War

Chapter 19: Hurry Up And Wait

"So Jaune was right there, this was like, five minutes into basic. We were receiving our equipment and stuff and he was being asked to take off his armour so it could be stored and all."

Jaune groaned from his seat on top of the LAV turret, already knowing which story Thistle was talking about.

RWBY and PNR sat around the LAV, some paying attention to Thistle's story, and some quietly chatting with other crew members.

"So this dumbass nervously takes off his armour, and what does everyone see?"

"A pumpkin Pete hoodie?" Nora said. After a confused look from Thistle, she continued. "What? I lived with him for a month. The team saw it. I think it's cool!"

Thistle spluttered, stifling the rest of his laughter with a hand, "Well, we all saw what we saw. A fucking bunny rabbit shirt. Alright, picture this. In a room with a whole bunch of bigass dudes, Jaune just pulls off his knock-off knight armour to have a bunny shirt. I heard from the Instructors after that they were laughing their asses off about it all the time."

"They did?" Jaune cocked his head.

"Yeah, they were."

Pyrrha smiled slightly, "But you still made it past and more."

"The latter part is more from coincidence than skill," a frown came to his face.

His partner's mouth made an O, "Sorry."

"Nah it's fine," he gestured nonchalantly with a hand, as if waving away her concern. Lavender shot a look at Pyrrha, which Jaune didn't quite understand why. The two had been doing it for a while, and he couldn't understand why.

"Shit, I wonder what would happen if I took you drinking," Thistle mused, looking at Nora.

Ren's eyes bulged momentarily, before a rare tone of panic overtook his voice, "Please don't, her drinking coffee is already chaos enough. I dread what would happen if she touched alcohol."

Thistle glanced between Nora's crazed look and Ren's pleading face.

Finally, he looked up at Jaune.

Jaune shrugged.

"Uh," Thistle pursed his lips. "Are you… being serious?"

Ren stared him dead in the eyes, "Dead serious."

Thistle clapped his hands together, sharply drawing in a breath, "Shit, now I just kind of want to know how you'd be at a party. Shit man, that'd be fucking crazy. Jaune, I know you said none of the students can hold parties, but what about us, eh?"

Ren nearly folded in half trying to smash his face into his knees. Nora looked like a giddy puppy high on drugs, despite probably not having a trace of it in her blood.

"Uh," Jaune scratched the top of his head. "I don't think the CO would be very happy with us drinking on the job. Neither would our employers, especially if you intend on getting their students drunk."

A pause while Thistle scratched his chin, "Maybe. But I sure as hell intend to hit the bar one day."

"You like to party?" Yang called from her spot. "Wanna take me out drinking one day? I bet I could hold my liquor better than you."

"Pft, like you could."

"Try me," a dangerous glint in Yang's eyes.

Thistle guffawed, taking a sip of water, "Alright. I will. This weekend?"

"Now Nora," Thistle turned back to the bubbly orange-haired girl. "Wanna come drink with us?"

He and Nora fell into quiet- well, actually fairly loud conversation, Ren listening in from the side, interjecting with warnings occasionally.

Lavender sat beside Jaune on the hull of the LAV, chatting casually with Pyrrha. Though both had a strained expression on their faces, which Jaune didn't quite understand, but didn't pursue.

Ruby and Finch sat beside each other, animatedly chatting about… Jaune heard something about components, weapons, and drones. The rest fell on deaf ears as he tuned out the techspeak. Ruby turned around one of Finch's creations in her hands, wide-eyed and amazed. Likewise, Finch looked Crescent Rose up and down while Ruby pointed out things and Finch did the same with his drones. Yang shot casual glances over, lilac eyes watching Finch intently. They never did flash red, Jaune made sure to pay attention, but she looked over often.

He prayed Finch wouldn't piss off Yang, or he might actually get into a fight with her, which Jaune knew he wouldn't win unless there was major bullshit in play.

"My God," Vi groaned from on top of a crate. "You know how frustrating little sisters can be?"

Yang groaned alongside her, "Oh yeah! I've had to take care of Ruby forever, she kept getting in trouble with her weapons, accidentally breaking things, trying to steal weapons parts, all that."

The redheaded Reaper stuck out a tongue, "Pfffft, you trashed a bar. It seems like the other way around most of the time."

"Same with you, Vi," Lavender grinned, flicking a paper ball at her head. "I remember a time when you sort of caused a fight, hm?"

Yang and Vi looked at each other. Simultaneously they said, "Yeah, they don't understand,"

Lavender and Ruby groaned at the same time.

"So what does Striker Group do?" Weiss looked up at Jaune with a questioning look. "I haven't gotten a chance to ask you personally, so I'm asking now."

It certainly felt strange to be talking casually to someone he once crushed on. It felt even stranger to have her willingly talking to him. He always looked on with awe, never working up the real courage to talk to her. Now she was finally willingly talking to him.

Out came the generic response, "Whatever our employer hires us for. Sometimes Grimm clearance, sometimes guarding a village, sometimes protecting a place or person like this," a wave around him. "My unit isn't usually supposed to be static defence, because we're built for long-range reconnaissance. We don't have enough guys to properly defend a place, so we brought in a platoon from 2nd Batt."

"2nd Batt?" Weiss asked.

"Uh, we're separated into two Battalions for the Vale detachment. One meant for internal work, and one for outside of the Kingdom, though we can occasionally cross over, like this," Jaune's eyes flicked around, finding Alabaster waving at him a short distance away, beckoning towards him. "Jay can explain more. I gotta take care of something real quick."

Jay shot up to him, eyes wide with betrayal. Weiss immediately turned to him, launching into a barrage of questions, which he confusedly answered one by one. Everyone in the group snickered at Jay's surprise at Weiss' barrage of questions.

Jaune meanwhile, slid off the turret, saying goodbye to everyone else there before jogging over to the Captain, who made his way to just beside the LAV.

"Sir," he didn't bother saluting. "What are you here for?"

A glance at his section, "Just doing a prebrief one to one about everything. We're running a fifty-fifty shift. You and me will-"

"You and I," he blurted out.

A look, "Shut the fuck up and let me finish, please."

Panic welled up inside him, "Sorry, sir. Habit."

"Well break that habit before I break you in the next training session," sighing. "Anyways, You and me will be on the dayshift, both our crews. From 0800 to 2000. So make sure to tell your crew about this later, even if we'll be brief later. The infantry platoon and TOC will be doing the same. The CO will be doing dayshift with us, and we were having trouble scraping together enough guys for a full HQ complement, so the Infantry Platoon Leader will take over in the night."

Alabaster whipped out his scroll, bringing out the 3D map he'd shown him before, "Basically, we're going to be running a LAV patrolling and one back at the CCT. I won't get into any more specifics now, and we'll save those for when we're in a secure room."

"Sooo..." Jaune scanned around. Nobody eavesdropping from his cursory glance. "Why are you telling me this here then?"

"Shit, if people use this information to attack at a shift change, then they'd be sorely fucking mistaken because at that time we have everyone there. The Infantry PL isn't a fucking slouch either. He's been in staff positions before, so he knows what he's doing. Anything sensitive is going to be handled in a secure room. I'm just here because I needed an excuse to come out to you guys."

"For what..?"

A shrug, "I spend time with all my sections. I should know them all as a Platoon Commander. I already made my rounds with 1 Section, so now we're onto yours."

"Well," he scratched the back of his neck. "We're hanging out with some of my Beacon friends too, so feel free to join us."

"I think I will. Been a while since I've talked to young Huntsmen."

They were starting to walk around the corner when a voice called out behind him, "Hey, Arc! Why don't we go fight right now and settle this?"

Are you serious, Cardin?

He turned around to face team CDRL in its entirety, all in their school uniforms. Cardin stood in the front, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"What do you want, Cardin?"

"Us to settle this in a ring. Nothing but our fists," Cardin called back.

Alabaster stepped forward, clearing his throat, "I already gave you a chance mate, you fucking failed. Fair is fair, so fuck off."

"Jaune, you have free time, right?" Cardin asked. "I'll fight then. After the dance."

The Captain shook his head, "I need him combat effective. I only allowed the first spar because I wanted to see how he did against a Huntsman in Training. They aren't giving us a whole lot of free time either, so you can fuck off because we're almost always working."

Still, Cardin stood his ground, "So I can fight him in his free time? He'll have enough time to recover after."

Alabaster scratched his chin, "Shit, if you can find a time that Jaune is actually not working or on reserve, Jaune agrees, and there's a two hour buffer after, then go ahead. Jaune?"

"Uh," he jolted from his place. Really? As easy as that? He thought Alabaster would've resisted a bit more. Jay wouldn't be too happy… but how else was Jaune going to get Cardin to finally stop pestering him?

"Cardin," came a voice from where everyone was gathered. Jay. He got to his feet, walking over to his brother. "C'mon man, you don't have to do this. You already fought him. We know the result"

Cardin's expression softened, "Jay, you can't stop this. I'm just going to say that now."

"C'mon," Jay's eyes flicked from Jaune to Cardin. "Are you willing to at least talk about this with me?"

Cardin paused, "After. So Jaune, are you up for a fight in your free time?"

Glancing to Alabaster, his expression was unreadable. Jay was pleading with his eyes, and Cardin was expectant. What was he supposed to do? "I… guess?"

"Good enough," and with that, Cardin walked away.

Jay shot him a look, which Jaune responded with a nod. The Heavy Weapons Expert ran off after his brother, shouting to catch his attention.

"So..." Jaune began. "Am I actually going to fight him?"

Alabaster laughed, "Doubt it. You're going to be worked hard while we're here. The shifts themselves are fucking wack. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off. With six hours on reserve on a normal day in your twelve-hour shift. So you're not going to have a lot of free time to spar him. If you want to spar with him then, go ahead. Just make sure to end it quickly. I doubt that kid's gonna stop unless you fight him, or we arrest him." a sigh. "Then there's Glynda..."

"Hm?"

"Nothing you really need to know. Just that she probably won't be all that happy he's going to fight you another time." a glance behind him towards the group sitting by the LAV. "Doubt Yang's going to get a fight with you. If it would even be that. I've watched her fight already, and no offence, but she's far beyond your level."

He followed his gaze to Yang, who sat on a crate talking to the rest of his crew, "No need to apologize, like you even need to since you're an officer. She'd wipe the floor with me any day, easy."

"Are you forgetting we're in a PMC? The commander decides how formal they want to be, and I decide that I want to be mostly informal with my guys," Alabaster stretched back his arms, letting out a breath of relief. "Now that's dealt with, can we go do the thing I came here to initially do? Check in with my guys."

Jaune led the way, turning on his heels and starting to walk, "Yeah, they're over here."

"You should get to know your Contractors as well as possible, which isn't a problem now, but a problem later, when you have a whole lot more people under your command. Gives you a second thought when you're leading them into certain death," a haunted look came over him, but only for a second. "But that's besides the point. Lead on, Jaune."

Jaune wanted to push more, but Alabaster's stony face made it clear he wouldn't pry anything from him. So Jaune contented himself with hanging out with his crew, and friends, and filed away that particular phrase for later. In any case, Jaune led the way over to his crew, arriving to boisterous laughter erupting mere seconds after the previous confrontation. A small smile came onto his face. Maybe just for a moment, everything was fine…

Alright, maybe not everything but most things.

But, most things were right, and Jaune was happy with that.

/ - /

"Want to do twenty-one questions?"

Finch looked over at Emerald, and cocked his head, "Huh?"

"Twenty-one questions," she repeated, flipping a pencil in his hand. "I ask you a question, and then you ask me a question. A good way to know each other."

"Uh, sure."

"You start."

He glanced up at Emerald. They both sat on a bench overlooking Beacon's track. They'd texted, and Finch had sent a hopeful text if they could hang out, which she reacted to with a yes, much to his relief. So now the both of them sat together, talking, "So… what are your team like?"

She tapped a hand on the bench, "One, she's my team leader. We're… close childhood friends. She basically saved my life and found me. I was... on the streets and a really bad spot. Pretty simply she saved my life. Saved me from a life on the streets."

"Oh," Finch spoke softly. "Sorry."

A flash of annoyance on her face, which made Finch cringe, "Don't, I don't need your pity."

At Finch's reaction, her expression turned soft, "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you."

Silence between the two for a moment, before Finch spoke again, "What about your other teammates?"

"The other is an absolute nuisance," a scowl. "He absolutely is the most annoying, idiotic, menace on Remnant. Ugh, whenever Cinder asks him to do anything, he always never does it seriously. Always more concerned with something else than doing it. It's like he thinks everything is a game. It's so infuriating! Doesn't help he always rubs everything in my face."

"Oh uh…" Finch fiddled with his fingers. "He doesn't sound like uh… that great of a person."

Emerald leant back on the bench, rolling her eyes, "Oh trust me, he isn't. Always snarky, always doing the thing that he knows annoys me. Absolute nuisance. Unlike you. You're kinda cool, with your drones and all. Merc just has kicks and shit."

Red crept onto his face as he turned away slightly, "Oh, thanks. Um, what about your fourth teammate?"

"She's not here yet," her eyes flicked up. "Got caught up with a family emergency. She's pretty quiet. All I know is that she's a friend with Cinder. I'm not personally that close with her, but it's friendly at the very least." she straightened her back looking over to him, "Alright, my turn. I'm interested in your drones. I didn't get that much time to ask about them earlier. You have them on you, right?"

It was a strange topic to get to know someone by getting to know about drones, but Finch didn't bother to notice. With a perk of interest, Finch dug out something from the backpack on the ground beside him. "Yeah, anything you want to know about in general? I can't get in specifics but if you promise not to tell anyone..." a wink.

Emerald nodded vigorously, "Yeah. How do you fly one of them? It looks like it'd be pretty fun, kind of like a video game."

Laughter, "A bit, but not quite. Gimme a sec here..."

One of Finch's hands emerged from the bag holding up a folded up airplane type drone, the other a ruggedized scroll. He set the drone down on the bench beside Emerald, flicking open the scroll open with a sharp movement, "The only drone I got here is the basic reconnaissance one. Though it's functionally the same to most of them."

"Which ones?"

Finch tilted his head, scratching his neck, "Suicide drone, electronic warfare, reconnaissance. Why do you ask?"

The response came immediately, "Just curious."

"Oh, well," shrug. "To fly, you gotta unfold the drone. Here, lemme show you. Press this right here."

Emerald did, and the wings snapped out, and the tail unfolded, "Cool." came her plain and level voice, the tinge of barely noticeable amazement on it.

"Oh, thanks," another blush. Finch got up from his seat, picking up the drone, "So then, you gotta throw it in the air. It's pretty easy but you have to make sure to use enough force. Here, I'll even let you do the honours but I'll teach you how to do it first."

Emerald got up, and Finch launched into a quick explanation and demonstration before shoving the drone into her hands and giving her a thumbs up. A nervous grin told Finch that he needed to go over it again. He walked her through it, touching and adjusting her posture with many blushes and many stutters. Finally, Emerald reared back the drone and threw it into the air. It flew true, ascending rapidly to the skies.

"Alright, take a look at this," Finch leaned over to show her the scroll, a plethora of controls on it. "You can essentially order it to go anywhere on a map. It can loiter and do a whole bunch of things automatically. It works better if you already put in a map for it to reference, like it already has, but I made it smart enough to map its current surroundings."

"I know someone else who'd probably love to take a look at this. He's condescending as shit though, so talking to him isn't a great idea," Emerald kept her eyes locked onto the screen, eyes raptly watching his every movement. "He's the type to call your ideas terrible then steal them the next second."

He swiped a few times, bringing up a view of the camera from the drone, "I'll take your word for it. Wanna learn to pilot this thing? C'mon, it's easy. Plus it's fun too."

So they went ahead, Finch excitedly pointing out various features, how to do one thing, and how to do the other. Eventually, he let her even pilot it herself, guiding her step by step. Even when she asked if this was allowed, Finch winked and told her for all intents and purposes, he was allowed to fly his drones around as he liked. So she flew the drones, careful to pay attention to every word. Finch interpreted her rapt attention as her interest in him. It wasn't, but it still worked well enough for Emerald.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this," Emerald said, fiddling with the electronic controls.

Finch peered over at the screen, "Yeah, you're pretty good at this."

"Are you just saying that because you don't want to offend me?"

Redness crept onto his face, "N-no. You really are good for just having been taught how to fly these."

"How many of these do you have? I can't imagine these are cheap to make," a cursory tone, casual and pleasant. It was clear that as Finch sidled closer and closer to her, his mind wasn't set on detecting deceit. Emerald saw this well enough. There wasn't a hint of suspicion in his eyes. That or he was one of Striker Group's intel plants, which wouldn't be good for her, but she was too deep at this point to break off.

Finch glanced up to the sky, hand coming up to scratch his chin, "It doesn't actually cost that much. So that means we usually have a whole bunch ready to go. I think we have like, a hundred in the armoury here. I should probably inventory them later, just to be sure of how many we have."

"Oh that's cool," at the furrow of Finch's brows, probably trying to decipher what she said, Emerald said the next words quickly. "Hey, I told you about my team, how's yours? I know it isn't in order but uh, you can ask me two questions next."

"My section? Yeah, where to start..." a pause where Emerald looked over with intent eyes. Finch focused out to the fields below while in thought. A few figures ran, indistinguishable from the distance they were. Some more stood in the grass fields, some lightly sparring with each other, others seemingly going through solitary fights against the air. Huntsmen training, Finch presumed.

Finch ran through his section one by one, describing them to her in the same way she described her teammates to him. Short descriptions, what they did, what he thought. Emerald nodded along, pushing and prodding for tidbits of information, to no avail. Until...

"Then we come to Jaune, my section leader and vehicle commander. He used to be a student here at Beacon, until he was kicked out."

"For what?"

Finch shuffled in his seat, pursed lips and all, "I'm not that comfortable sharing that stuff with other people. I don't know if he wants me blurting it around," at her disappointment, he said, "but I'm pretty sure if you ask around you can find out."

"Oh, that's fine," she gave a weak smile. Despite her efforts, her disappointment bled through enough that even Finch could see it with his rose-tinted glasses. "I remember you saying something about him meeting Ozpin for something, and that you think it's related to why you're here. Seems kind of spooky."

A playful smile came to her face. She leant forward and tugged at her collar, seemingly accidentally pulling her undershirt down as well, giving FInch a hint of her cleavage, "Almost something out of a spy movie, wouldn't you say?"

"U-uh, um…" his stuttering came as his face flushed red. His eyes darted around, looking anywhere but her chest, but they twitched down, sneaking obvious looks. Emerald played along, pulling it down further and further, almost making it look natural. "It's really nothing. I was kind of wrong, turns out you can't trust the rumour mill, eh? Also, speaking of Beacon, are you going to the dance?"

His words were spoken fast and relieved, an audible whew coming out of him, "I can't go, because I'm working just about every day of the week. But uh… if I could, I mean..."

"Are you changing the topic?" she let go of her shirt, arching her back as she yawned and stretched her arms up.

Panicked eyes, rapid tapping on his knee, and finally, "Maybe."

Emerald sighed, rubbing her forehead, thoughts unknown to Finch, "Alright, you can keep your secrets, but don't expect me to drop this. I'm curious now."

"It's not really something I can talk about."

"Oh."

Finch scratched the back of his head, "So, even if I can't go to the dance. Uh..."

"Spit it out," she reached over a hand to drape over the back of the bench, dangerously close to draping over Finch's shoulder, which might've killed the poor kid. "I appreciate people who are straightforward."

"If I asked you, would you go to the dance with me?" his face was full of fear, his fist clenched by his side.

"Yes," she grinned. "You're well… a cool person."

"Oh thanks," came the sigh of relief. Finch rubbed his face with both hands, peeking at her with one eye. "I thought you'd say no and I'd have my hopes crushed."

I would've said no if my orders didn't tell me otherwise, Emerald silently thought, but didn't say, "You don't have to worry about that. Anyways, if I can't go with you, I'd go alone or with my partner, however annoying he is."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Finch said, sitting back up straight. "I'd go with you if, you know… work didn't get in the way. I'm on the shift that's on during the dance. I'm also pretty sure we're on full shift manning for the dance. Easy to infiltrate places with all the attention elsewhere, y'know. Just some precautions."

A voice from down the concrete path the bench was on interrupted their conversation, "Hey Finch! Shit, this was where you were this entire time."

It was Jaune, Finch summarized from the voice, and confirmed with a look. His annoyance was quickly clamped down, Jaune had to have come here for a reason, "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Shit," Jaune swore, massaging his forehead. "Where have you've been? I've been blowing up your scroll for forever. We gotta go brief on the security plan. Some extra security protocols for the next few days. It's in like, twenty minutes."

Jaune's attention finally fell on Emerald, "Who's she?"

"Emerald, a… friend," came his choked out response. "I was just hanging out with her for a bit. Must've put my scroll on silent..."

Finch fished out the scroll from his bag, and lo and behold, there were at least ten notifications from Jaune, "Oh, sorry."

Jaune's eye's flicked between Emerald and Finch, "Well, doesn't matter, because we need to get going now, or Moss will kick both our asses for being late."

Emerald broke in then, confusion audible, "But you said you have twenty minutes. You don't need to go this early, do you?"

"Pack your stuff," Jaune said, before turning to Emerald. "We have to be fifteen minutes early because if we're late, then we're fucked. They don't like us being too early either, so they make sure to jack us up if we're too early, or late."

"That seems..." Emerald paused, seemingly searching for what to say, "extreme?"

Jaune shrugged, "It is what it is. Finch, you good?"

"Yeah," Finch gave him a thumbs up, slinging a backpack over his shoulder. "I still have a UAV up in the air. So am I going to just get it now or..?"

"Send it over to us while we walk. Grab it out of the air," Jaune reached forward, yanking Finch onto the concrete pathway. "C'mon, let's go."

"Uh, seeya Emerald!" Finch called back, jogging to catch up with Jaune who was already walking. "Later?"

Emerald gave a nod, "Later!"

Soon, both Finch and Jaune were alone on the path, walking fast down it in an attempt to not get chewed out by any grumpy SNCOs or officers.

"Who was that?" Jaune glanced over at Finch.

"Just a friend," a gentle smack on Jaune's shoulder. "I'm sure Thistle told you about her."

"He didn't."

Finch blinked twice, "Really?"

"Yep. Didn't say a word about Emerald. How'd you meet her?"

Blushing, "She sat down with me and started talking. Seemed really interested too."

"You think she likes you?" came the blunt response.

"Uh, yeah..."

Jaune laughed, patting him on the shoulder, "Well, good luck then. I hope she does like you and you're not misinterpreting the signals like I've done."

"Oh you've done that… you just don't know," muttered Finch under her breath.

Jaune turned his head curiously, "What?"

"Nevermind," Finch glanced up. They turned on the path, bringing them in sight of a fenced-off area. A school building stood within, while distant figures milled about within. A plethora of tents and prefabricated buildings also sat nicely in an organized manner. It was the area given to them by Ozpin for housing and storage of equipment. "Looks like we're here. That was fast."

Jaune led the way to the gate, "We were walking pretty fast."

Just outside the gate, next to one of the school buildings just outside their allotted area, Alabaster stood talking to another person. Finch squinted, black hair, amber eyes, Haven uniform, and generous curves. Both stood still, Alabaster looking around rapidly, hands on his hips, while the woman wore a smug smile, arms crossed.

"Who do you think Alabaster is talking to?" Finch leaned over to Jaune.

His section leader turned his head to follow his gaze, "No idea. I don't know why he'd be talking to a student, but I doubt he'll appreciate us interrupting, so I'll ask him later and tell you after."

Finch looked away, satisfied with the response. A glance down at his watch, "We still have seventeen minutes. Couldn't have you let me talk to her a bit more?"

"Maybe, but I would rather not have such a small time gap."

"It's all relative. Two minutes of walking? Short," Finch tapped his forehead with two fingers. "Two minutes of talking to a pre- nice girl? Short also… yeah I don't know where I was going with that."

They both laughed, Jaune casually swatting at Finch's arm before they came to the gate. Two armed Contractors waved them through the wire gate after a look at the ID armband on their arms. LAVs were parked in a line against the main building, along with various assorted support vehicles. A prefabricated building was in one corner of the fenced-off area. It was their TOC, or where all of the command and control decisions were made. More Contractors patrolled around the edge of the fenced-off area, while even more walked in between the buildings, holding clipboards, rifles, boxes, and more.

"Was wondering when you guys would get here," Thistle walked towards them on the path, waving a hand. "Where was Finch?"

Before Finch could say anything, Jaune spoke, "Hanging out with Emerald."

A cheeky smile on Thistle's face, "Oh really?"

"U-uh, um-" spluttered Finch.

Thistle glanced down at his watch, "Well, we better get in the briefing room before the Major yells at us for being fourteen minutes early instead of fifteen. Dude has a stick up his ass. Stickler for the rules and all. C'mon."

So Jaune and Finch hurriedly followed, disappearing into the school building given to them and verbally jabbing each other all the while. They'd go through the briefing for the extended security measures, and leave together, chatting about the Beacon Dance.

In the distance, a raven-haired woman watched with interest, having already achieved what she was here for. Striker Group was an obstacle, but like with every foe, it was one that could be surmounted with proper planning.

And proper planning she'd do.

This chapter has absolutely no significance at all. It'll set up nothing at all in the future. Chekov's gun does not exist and never will. Only hurrying up and waiting here. Nothing important here to set things up.

Here's my chapterly plug for my Discord. We have a grand total of 4 + me people! The first ten people to join get a special role that has absolutely no significance other than clout in my non existent server.

discord gg/8gbF2TJ (Link also on profile if you want to copy paste).

So, here's my first chapter while in school. It's a bit short but I hope it's enough for you all. I'll try to update again in two weeks, because if you can't tell, the next chapter will kick off the big boi events.

Nothing much else to say. Join my Discord, leave a review to inflate my ego, and uh…

Suddenly realize that you've volunteered to help write/edit something like three stories at this point.

Also Red is sus as fuck. Vote him out.

Red was not An Imposter.

Hail Clang.

Tophat out.