"Hello? Who's this? Since this is my working scroll I assume you know me, Mister Blocked Number."

"Hello, Roman."

"Oh."

"I'll need Neo early, just for one job, then you can have her back later."

"What for?"

"Oh Roman, you know I can't tell you that."

"... alright. I'll send her over by tomorrow. That good enough for you?"

"Glad we could come to an agreement. Don't worry about her safety, she won't be doing anything that adversely affects her health. At least if she doesn't mess up."

"Assuring, ma'am. Anything else?"

"Nothing, goodbye Roman."

Chapter 20: Dance Dance

"I spy, a fucking tower."

Jaune glanced over at Thistle, who was also turned out of the LAV turret, "There's a bunch here."

"That's the point."

He sighed, propping his arms upon the cupola of the turret, lazily rechecking the pintle machine gun for the fifth time. Just in front of them was the entrance to the Dance Hall, from which upbeat music played, and the gleeful laughter and conversation came from. They themselves parked in a barely concealed area watching it. It was hardly concealed, though. Anybody who paid a minuscule amount of attention to their surroundings would notice the hulking LAV parked outside.

It was hard to camouflage a LAV in an open courtyard.

"Man," Thistle stretched back his arms, groaning in the process. "I wish we were chosen for patrol duty, and not QRF. At least Vi would be doing something. As much as I enjoy watching fit girls in dresses walk around it does get boring after a bit." his head craned to watch one team of Huntresses walk on the tiled path in front of them. All of them extremely well endowed. "Never fucking mind. Hey ladies!" a wave.

The huntresses glanced over to them, snickering before moving on.

"C'mon," the gunner threw his hands up in the air. "I'm not that bad, am I?"

A snort from the driver's hatch, "You are. I only tolerate you because you're my gunner."

"Whaaat?" Thistle leaned over the edge of the turret, peering down at their driver. "And I only tolerate you because we were assigned to the same crew. Otherwise, I might get Finch to drive this thing, God knows he'd be a better driver. How'd you pass Driver School again? Sheer bullshit and luck I hear?"

A groan and the driver hatch swung fully open, revealing Vi's unhelmeted head, long hair in a braid, and the crew helmet placed just in front of her. "I passed it like everyone else. Now shut up and stop flirting with every Huntress that passes. You're not going to get any of them. They all get beat your ass into last week."

"Have faith, Vi. Plus that's my kink."

"No."

"Watch me," Thistle turned his attention to another team of beautiful Huntresses, draped in flowing dresses that hugged their fit bodies. "Hey ladies! Care for a dance?"

They glanced over, giggling as they waved back. One even called back, "Maybe, you look kind of cute."

"See? You were fucking wrong, Vi."

An exasperated groan from her, along with the pointed glare at the Huntresses. Their eyebrows arched before the giggling resumed as the group of Huntresses walked on past. The same girl called back, "Maybe not. We'll see!"

"Oh c'mon!" Thistle slumped back in the turret. "What did you even do?"

"We're working. You can't go dance."

"Really? That's your excuse?"

Jaune sighed as the two devolved into bickerings, again. Instead, he looked over at Jay, who sat on the back of the LAV, legs hanging off the side, "So, what are your thoughts about your best friend's new friend?"

"I talked to Emerald once," Jay held up one finger to emphasize that point. "She was pretty nervous talking to me. I didn't get any particular bad vibes off her. A bit skittish, but that's not really unexpected. So yeah, I'll just let Finch do what he wants."

"Aren't good friends supposed to look after each other?"

Jay leant back on the turret, machinegun resting in his lap, "Good friends don't let friends do stupid things, but I'm not going to micromanage his love life. Unlike some people with yours."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

His confusion was only intensified by a fit of laughter from Thistle, slapping the rim of his hatch while simultaneously breaking down. Vi did the same, just from her driver's hatch.

"What?"

Thistle patted him on his shoulder, "You're great, Jaune. You'll find out one day what our inside joke is."

Jay snickered from his seat.

Vi had to keep herself from breaking down laughing.

"What is everyone laughing about? Seriously, I never understand," Jaune gave a raised eyebrow, looking around.

"Don't worry about it," said Vi between giggles. "It's something you'll find out later."

Jaune threw his hands up in the air, groaning loudly, "Fine, keep your secrets." a sigh, but scratching his chin in thought, "Man, wonder what Lav and Finch are doing up in the tower."

"Jaune, you have the section net that only we can hear," Thistle deadpanned. "I'm pretty sure the overwatch position is within radio range of us. Shit, they can literally see us." the gunner pointed to a smaller tower further away, overlooking them. He even waved. "Just go on net and say hi. I'm a hundred percent sure sh- they won't mind."

Ignoring the snickers that came from everyone else, he grabbed the radio strapped to his chest, "Lav, this is Jaune, you there?"

Her voice came over his headset, "Yeah, here. What d'ya calling about?"

"How's it up there in the overwatch position? Must be cozy with the other sharpshooters."

"Aren't you only supposed to use the net for essential comms?"

"Maybe, but this is the section net, and nothing's happening right now."

A pause, before his headset crackled to life again, "Pretty boring. Just scanning the area with my rifle. Finch is sitting on a chair and playing around on what he says isn't scroll games. I'm playing a game with the other sharpshooter of the girl to guy ratio here. So far looking pretty girl heavy, I won't lie."

"Roger that Lav," a chuckle. "We're still doing what was in the plan."

Finch's voice broke into the net, "For the record, I'm not videoing gaming, I'm using my scroll to manage the low flying drones since the TOC is managing the high flying ones. Pretty boring as I said, but gotta stay vigilan- huh?"

The transmission cut off, only to restart a second later to a silky female voice that was not Lavender, "Other sharpshooter here! Stole Finch's radio. For the record, he did start playing sc-"

Yet another pause as the transmission cut out. Thistle shot a bemused look over at him, Jay groaned, and Vi snickered and nearly slammed her head against the LAV.

Finch's voice again on the radio, "Sorry, she stole my radio, then shouted into my headset."

Tentatively reaching up to his PTT button again, he spoke, "Yeah, alright. What else is happening up there while you try to pass the time?"

Lavender's voice this time, "Finch tried to start a card game, which the sniper here shut down."

He assumed she was referring to a fully qualified sniper, as opposed to the sharpshooter that had stolen Finch's radio, "That's nice. Have fun waiting like us. I'm getting off net now. Stay safe, over."

A pause, then Lavender's speaking softly, "You too, out."

Thistle beside him blew out a breath of air, "That was entertaining at least."

"Yeah, and also like..." Jaune ran a hand through his hair. "Last time I put her up in a tower it went pretty bad."

Silence for a moment.

Then Vi spoke up, "It's different now, I guess. If something went wrong and she gets hurt I wouldn't blame anyone. I'm past that now, I think."

Jaune ducked back into the hatch, plopping himself down into his commander's seat and starting to fiddle with some of the electronics inside, "Yeah, I think an entire infantry section supporting them makes them getting attacked pretty hard, along with the multiple sharpshooters in there."

"Guess it does," Vi said under her breath, just loud enough to be heard inside the interior.

Jaune checked the internal command tablet attached to the inside of the turret. It showed a single dot driving around the perimeter of Beacon, another patrolling closer in, and one green dot next to the dance hall. Them. Each was labelled with a callsign. Raider, their platoon callsign. Several more markers were on the map, each denoting an infantry section.

One minute until their hourly radio check with Alabaster.

A sigh as he looked at the symbols displayed by the LAV mounted map screen.

"Captain, this doesn't look like the best defensive posture. The CCT is missing a LAV directly on it. If anyone attacks then we'll have to maneuver our forces from elsewhere."

Alabaster looked across from the map table to stare at him, "Arc, the armour on the LAV definitely wouldn't survive an RPG to the side. Hell, it barely does on the frontal arc. So if we're stationary, that allows the OPFOR to line up a shot. The area around the CCT has too many hiding spots, so we're going to patrol around to keep them guessing."

"What about my vic? We're going to be stationary."

"Well, the area you're in is fairly covered. Any attacker will have to show themselves, and I think that'll be plenty of time for you to react."

Jaune kept staring down at the map, "Roger that."

Alabaster's voice in his headset jolted him back to the present, "All Raider 3 Elements, this is Raider 3 Actual, radio check, over."

"This is 3-2, lima charlie, over."

Jaune reached up to his radio, "This is 3-3, reading you lima charlie, over."

A pause, then Alabaster's voice through his headset, "Raider 3 Elements, 3 Actual, roger. Out."

"Fucking Russ," growled Thistle from above him. "Him and 3-4 managed to sneak out of extra duty."

Jaune stood back up, back into the open air of the turret, "Might I remind you that we wouldn't have been affected even if Russ went instead of Rouge?"

"Eh, still like to bitch."

Jay scratched his chin, "I've only realized now. All our instructor's names aside from Moss started with an R?"

"Yes."

"Yeah dumbass, you only noticed it now?"

"Jay, I thought you were smarter than that," Vi finished.

A groan from the Heavy Weapons Specialist, "I am smarter, but sometimes I'm unobservant."

The crew fell into silence, quietly observing students continue to trail into the dance hall.

Jaune sighed, "Hard to imagine I would've been going to this dance."

"There was one time that I was bodyguarding a crime boss in a party," to the odd looks the rest of the crew gave him, Jay shrugged. "What? You guys already knew I worked for a gang, right?"

"Bitch, you think we remember those details?" Thistle turned back in his hatch.

"Would you forget if I told you that I was a serial killer?"

The redheaded gunner took a swig from his water bottle, "Probably."

Jay grumbled, "Alright, can I finish my story?"

"No," came Thistle's reply.

"Fuck you, I'm continuing on," Jay took a breath. "Anyways, I basically had to shadow him while he snorted coke and talked with other gang bangers. Was uh… enlightening."

"Jay," came Vi's voice. "That barely relates to anything about a school dance. I'm not sure how far you're stretching to find something to connect to your past life, but I think the only thing this shows is that your past was fucked up."

"C'mon, it wasn't that bad!" Jay replied. "Like, we mostly did normal things after work. We did normal people things. We made friends with normal people."

"What about the literal gang shit you did?" smirked Vi.

Jay waved a dismissive hand, "Nothing that illegal. I mean, it might get me in jail, but I work for the good guys now, so it's fine."

Thistle snorted, "You ever kill anyone? I doubt anyone here has."

"Yeah," came his response, as casual as someone would ask the weather. "Came with the job they gave me. Not like I had many other places to go. Don't judge me. If anything, the people I killed had it coming for them."

"Wasn't planning to," Jaune said. "We're going to be killing people anyways. One day or another."

He was going to be killing people.

Not saving them.

Oh how things could've been.

So many possibilities, but this one was the one Jaune was on, and he didn't regret it. At least that was what he was telling himself.

"Hey, Jaune! How're you doing?"

Pulled out of his thoughts, Jaune peeked over the turret to see Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, standing at the bottom of the LAV wearing a thigh slit red dress, hands clasped behind her and looking up.

"Good, just standing guarding here. How are you?"

"Oh, you know," she teetered back and forth on her heels, giving a sickeningly sweet smile. "I was just walking along when I saw you over here, just wanted to say hi."

A snicker from somewhere behind him, but Jaune ignored it, "Oh, that's great. Though you might not want to stay long. Don't want to leave your date waiting or anything. I'm assuming he's already there since I don't see anyone else nearby."

The smile faded a little bit, "Um, yeah..."

"Something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing," she replied quickly. "Just uhm… I wanted to ask you for a dance. It's fine if you can't go, since you're working and everything."

"I assume your date's cool with it?" Jaune raised an eyebrow to the sputtering Pyrrha. "You're right about me working. Can't really leave my LAV without asking Alabaster, and I doubt that's gonna happen."

Thistle and Vi were basically breaking down, bent over from laughter. Jaune sure didn't understand, though Jay spoke up, "I mean, why don't you just ask him for the hell of it? Frame it as doing a recce into the dancehall to take a look at it?"

He scratched his chin, mulling it over in his head, "Mind as well give it a shot. Pyr, you sure your date's okay with this?"

"Y-yeah," she stuttered, red creeping onto her face.

Weird.

He depressed the PTT button, "3 Actual, this is 3-3, message, over."

"3-3, this is 3 Actual, send message, over."

"Roger, permission to enter the dancehall to conduct a recce on the interior, over."

"Say again 3-3?"

"Requesting permission to enter the dancehall to conduct a recce on the interior to evaluate the security situation inside, over."

A long pause, "Permission granted. Actually do a recce though. Keep track and read everyone you see, don't get distracted by your friends. I can see you right now, over."

"Thanks, Actual. 3-3 out."

Jaune looked up at Thistle.

Thistle looked back at him.

"How the fuck did that work?" Thistle guffawed. "And is he watching us through the drones?"

Glancing up at the night sky, he gave a little wave, despite not seeing a thing. He knew there was a drone up there somewhere, watching him, "Well, I'm not complaining about it. He just gave me a free ticket to enjoy the night."

"Wasn't he talking how we always needed to be on our toes and be ready?" Jay raised an eyebrow. "Now he's letting you separate from the LAV when we're literally the QRF."

"Weird," admitted Jaune. "But I'm still going in there. I'll at least make it worth the time by seeing if I can catch a terrorist."

Light chuckles as Jaune pulled himself out of the LAV turret, sliding off and landing in a crouch next to Pyrrha. Vi was laughing like a madman, exactly why Jaune couldn't pin down. Probably from the fact he actually got approval to go in, despite it going against common logic.

It was weird, but he wasn't going to not take the opportunity.

"Alright Pyr, why don't you lead the way?" Jaune gestured to the hall entrance, then to himself. "I'm not exactly dressed for a dance, but nothing I can really do about that."

They both started walking, Pyrrha leading with a smile, "No that's fine. Really is."

Lavender's voice suddenly spoke in his ear, coming from his headset, "Jaune, this is Lav, what are you doing out of the LAV?"

"Hold up one minute," he said to Pyrrha, before reaching his hand up to his radio. "Lav, Jaune. You can hear the platoon net, right?"

"Affirmative, I did, but I saw your little exchange with Pyrrha beforehand. You're not going in there for a recce," her voice was a little louder than the usual calm and collected tone she spoke with, and a bit more strung out.

He sighed, "I am, Lav. I'm just also going to be talking to my old team for a bit too. I'm pretty sure Alabaster knows about it too, given his heavy suggestion at the end of the radio message. It's all good and approved, okay?"

Lavender sighed through the radio, "Ugh, fine. Just… promise you'll hang out with me later."

What?

"Uh… affirmative. I'll do that, Arc's promise."

"Thanks, Lav out."

He could've sworn he heard his section laughing, but when he looked back they were silent.

Pyrrha glanced curiously at him, "What was that about?"

He started to walk again, "Just one of my section mates asking about what I was doing."

"I thought your section was over there?"

"I have some specialists in my section, so they're detached to do their own thing."

"Ah."

They made it a few more metres before Jaune noticed a curious lack of someone waiting for Pyrrha at the double doors, "Hey, where's your date? I want to meet the lucky guy that's going out with you."

They stepped into the dancehall together, Jaune still searching for Pyrrha's supposed date. Students filled the dance floor, dressed in suits, dresses, and whatnot. All sorts of party decorations lined the walls, and dinner tables dotted the room. Off the bat, his eye was already drawn to the members of RWBY and PNR, all of them mingling around having a good time. Maybe not Ruby, but she was probably off being socially awkward.

"Um, about that..." her smile turned into a frown. "I… really don't have one."

Jaune stopped in his tracks, taking a serious look at his former partner, "What? I thought you said you did?"

"I… I may have panicked a bit," a nervous smile. "I um… was going to ask you to dance, and you accepted!"

"Wait..." thoughts tumbled in his head. "How do you not have a date with someone else? You're Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, the girl on Pumpkin Pete! I'm just… me. You can definitely aim higher, Pyr."

She pursed her lips, "It's… not that simple."

"How?"

Pyrrha sighed, pulling the both of them to the side, "You know how when you first met me, you didn't know my name? That's why Ii- became your partner because you'd treat me no different than anyone else. It's because I'm famous I have no other date, Jaune. They all think I too good for them, that I'm out of their league." her voice became quiet, "It's because of you that I now have friendships that will last a lifetime. Do you understand now?"

Oh.

Oh!

"So..." he rubbed his forehead. "Basically everyone thinks you're too good and shit?"

Pyrrha twitched at the swear, but carried on, "Yes, Jaune."

"Huh," he scratched his chin, much to the confusion of Pyrrha. "That doesn't matter now. I'm here and your dance, partner, whatever for the amount of time I can stretch from this. C'mon, let's spend the time we have together well."

She nearly choked, blinking rapidly, "That was… quick?"

Jaune laughed, pulling Pyrrha along out of the corner and onto the dance floor, "In Striker Group, they teach you to be to the point. Saves time. Shall we go?"

A giggle, "We shall."

As they sidled along the outside wall, Jaune laid eyes on a familiar Red Reaper, adorning a dress and stumbling around in heels. In one hand she held a glass of punch, the other on a chair as she tried to steady herself. In front of her was the punch bowl, which was always where the socially awkward hid.

Made sense.

"Hey Ruby!" he greeted cheerfully, both hands resting on his rifle.

"Damn heels…" she muttered, before snapping up to look at him. "Hey Jaune, hey Pyrrha! What are you guys doing here? I thought Jaune was working or something."

"I am, but I was given permission to go inside to look around."

Ruby kept switching from looking at him, and a little behind him, presumably at Pyrrha, before she said, "That's… weird. Weren't you sitting outside on guard? How are you supposed to command them when you're not with them."

A dismissive wave, "I trust them enough that they can operate on their own. I can always just call them on the radio if they or I need something. So it's basically fine."

"Alright, but that's still weird," Ruby cocked her head. "How did you even get permission for it?"

"Dunno," he said. "But I did. So it is what it is."

All of a sudden, Ruby plopped down on the chair, kicking her heels up as he groaned unceremoniously, "Ugh, I don't want to be here. The heels, the dress, the people. Ugh, why did Yang force me to go… I like weapons better."

Jaune grabbed a cup, filling it with punch and handing it to Pyrrha, while grabbing his own as well, "Ha, expected you to say that. I suppose that's why you're over here at the punchbowl."

"Yep."

"To the socially awkward then," he raised his cup of punch. "And Pyrrha."

Ruby hid her laughter, "And Pyrrha."

She gave a smile, "And me."

They all took a sip. Ruby sighed, rubbing her forehead, "Hey, if your section is out there, is Finch out there?"

"He's off uh… detached doing other stuff. So no, you won't be able to sneak out and talk to him," he gave a smile. So maybe she was interested in Finch if she was asking about him.

Frowning, Ruby bent down, resting her head in her hands, "Aw… that's too bad. If he was, then at least I could go talk to someone..."

Laughter, "Yeah, sorry Ruby. You'll have to talk to other people. I guess now Pyrrha and I'll go talk to the others, seeya later."

Ruby gave a wave, "Seeya."

Both of them left the punch table, and started making their way away from the punch table, and across the dance floor.

"So," Jaune turned to Pyrrha, who walked beside him. "You say that being famous sucks?"

A blush, "Yes. Do you know how hard it is to go out in the streets and not be harassed by fans? It's not as bad here as it is in Mistral, but did you notice how I always tried to make myself look different when we went out to Vale?"

Thinking back, he did, "Oh, so that's what that was for."

"You never noticed?" They arrived at the other side of the dancefloor, Pyrrha sipping at her punch. "I thought you did."

"Hey, I didn't know who you were until you blatantly told me! Wait, that isn't a good thing..."

"You did recognize me from Pumpkin Pete," the smile she wore was wide and happy. Not the fake one she sometimes put on. "And I think that was a good thing. Otherwise, we might not have been partners."

"I mean, I probably would've died," another sip at his punch. "I didn't even have an Aura, so if you didn't throw the spear I would've died on impact."

"Lucky I chose to throw Miló at you then."

"Real lucky," more and more people moved around them, crowding the sidelines as a few threw glances at Jaune drabbed in full kit. He paid no heed, just focussing his former partner for the meantime.

They stood in silence for a moment, sipping at their punch and skirting eye contact. Every time they made eye contact, she opened her mouth as if she was about to ask something, but she didn't. Jaune did notice any of this of course. He wasn't entirely deaf and blind. He still couldn't discern exactly why she acted this way.

Somethings just never change, it seemed.

So they stood there in silence. Jaune glanced around, at the very least doing the thing he was supposedly there for. Nothing out of the ordinary caught his eye. He continued doing this, waiting for Pyrrha to finally say the thing she was going to say, at least until Jaune spotted a familiar mint haired Huntress.

"Emerald!" Jaune called out, walked forward to the surprised girl. "How're you enjoying the dance?"

A brief look of surprise on her face, which was immediately replaced by a calmer expression, "Hey Jaune, I'm enjoying it well, where's Finch? I'd think he'd be with you if you're in here."

Asking for Finch. Maybe she really is interested in him.

Jaune came up close, Pyrrha just behind. "He's detached from my section, for now, so no, you can't go find him. The only reason I'm in here is that I got permission to go in and do a recce on the inside," a chuckle, "maybe even catch a terrorist or something."

"Really?" Emerald asked, a smile crawling onto her face, not quite reaching her widening eyes. "Now that's something."

"Anyways, this is Pyrrha," Jaune turned back to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha, this is Emerald."

"Nice to meet you," the champion reached forward to shake her hand.

Emerald took it, "Nice to meet you too. You're the uh… Champion right?"

The smile on Pyrrha's face faded only a little, "Yeah, that's me."

"Cool to meet you in person."

"I'm sure it is," Pyrrha came away with a slightly more strained smile.

Wow, she really dislikes people recognizing her.

"So Emerald," Jaune said, taking a casual sip of his punch. "You like Finch right?"

"Huh?" Emerald blinked a few times, blushing heavily. "Um- uh… huh?"

"It's a simple question. Do you like Finch? Are you leading him on or not? Because if you can't tell, he's pretty interested in you."

Emerald spluttered, "Oh, um… yes? Maybe? Uh… you don't just ask someone that!"

"I just did," he sipped his punch. A giggle from behind him, Pyrrha. "Answer the question please."

Striker Group taught him to be direct with things.

He liked being direct with things. Made things less complicated, plus it has so far proved to be an invaluable tool in his fight against his social awkwardness. Scared to ask something? Just be direct! So far it worked, but maybe because he only interacted with military personnel...

It was a moment before she replied, taking a breath in, and a breath out, "Yes, yes I do. I'm not leading him on, I do like him. I'm just starting out as friends right now, isn't that normal? I want to know if we really get along, right? I mean, if he was allowed to come to the dance, I would've asked him for a dance. That enough for you?"

"Yeah, yeah it is," his eyes swept the dance floor back and forth again. Habit. He picked out her silver-haired teammate—he'd done some research, not to mention Finch talking all about them—but not the raven-haired one. "Where's your team? You can't have come alone, and I only see the silver-haired one."

"Oh!" Emerald turned around quickly, head bobbing and weaving as she looked through the crowd. "Over there, black hair and black dress. The other is having a family emergency. How do you even know about them?"

"Yeah, Finch wouldn't stop talking about it," Jaune craned his neck and did indeed see a raven-haired beauty in a black dress sauntering in the crowd. "Plus Striker Group has access to the student database." at their shocked expressions, he added, "What? We're responsible for security around here now, so it makes sense."

"That's… still a bit creepy," Emerald said, lips drawn thin.

"Perhaps," Pyrrha spoke up, "Where is she? I don't see her."

The next moment, he lost sight of Emerald's teammate.

"Oh, I think I see her," Pyrrha said, turning back to Emerald. "Black hair black dress right?"

"Yeah," Emerald glanced around. "So um, it's been nice talking to you. Tell Finch I said hi, alright?"

He smiled, "I will, see you around, Emerald."

"You too," and then, Emerald Sustrai melted into the crowded dance floor.

That left the two of them standing around, nervously glancing at each other, waiting to see what the other would do first.

Pyrrha spoke first, bouncing back and forth on her heels, "So Jaune, I've been meaning to ask you..."

"Hm?"

"Woul-"

"Hello Mr. Arc!" came Ozpin's voice.

Jaune turned and saw Ozpin approaching, coffee mug in hand and cane in the other. Pyrrha's expression flashed from hopeful to annoyed in the span of a second.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

"You are, thank you very much," Pyrrha curtly responded. "Could you..?"

Ozpin looked between the two, before chuckling, "I can. Go ahead Miss Nikos. Don't let me interrupt you again. I can always talk to Mister Arc after."

Pyrrha turned to him again, slightly mortified from just telling off the Headmaster, "Jaune, would you like to dance?"

He might've been shocked if not the only reason for him being there was that Pyrrha asked him for a dance in the first place. Instead, a grin came to his face as he took her hand.

"Yes, shall we go?"

A giggle, "We shall."

And so they went, off to tear up the dance floor together, both with huge smiles on their faces.

Maybe nothing bad would finally happen tonight, and he'd have a nice, relaxing day.

/ - /

Ruby sighed, stepping out into the fresh air.

Away from the loud music, people, and just… everything!

It was all just so much, not to mention her damn heels! How did Weiss fight in them? They were like clown stilts. It took her hours to even walk in them without falling down. The stupid dress Yang made her wear was just so… ugh!

So she stopped outside, taking in a breath of the cool night air.

She remembered seeing Jaune's vehicle on the way in, but she was too busy then to say hi. Where was it again? Even if Finch wasn't there, the others were pretty nice. Maybe she'd talk to Lavender, her rifle was cool. Glancing around, she didn't see any imposing, turreted vehicle. Just a few people standing around dressed in the same stuff Jaune wore.

Huh, must've come out of the wrong entrance.

So she started to walk around the hall, hoping to find the LAV while slipping into her thoughts. Finch was nice. They shared a common interest—weapons—and he loved building them. Not only that, he had all these cool drones! What if they worked together and mounted Crescent Rose on a drone? A sniper drone! She'd have to talk to Finch about that later. Maybe they could make a sniper that shot drones? Oh the possibilities.

She rounded the corner, finally spotting the LAV and sighing in relief. Maybe she'd spend a few minutes talking to them, then return to the dance before anyone noticed. If Yang noticed, she knew she'd never hear the end of it.

A flash of movement at the edge of her vision caught her attention. Huh?

Swinging her head to find it, she squinted to make out the vague shape of a black figure in the distance, hopping and flipping across the roof of some buildings.

Who's that? was the first thought that went through her head. The figure flipped and jumped off the building, out of sight from Ruby.

As she started moving to follow the figure, there was a brief thought of whether she should alert someone. Maybe the Striker Group guards that patrolled around, maybe Jaune, or maybe even Ozpin who was back in the dance hall.

She thought back to the last time they acted without thinking about the consequences and remembered the Paladin Incident.

Her eyes found the LAV she'd been trying to find. She'd run up using her semblance, tell them about the weird person jumping and running on the roofs, and they'd deal with it.

See? She was responsible!

And drank milk!

But just as she was about to activate her semblance, something happened that stopped her.

She saw the fireball first. The blast of light, flaring in the distance. The fiery mushroom cloud grew tall, far taller than the buildings that hid it. Had she been a civilian, it might've taken her off her feet, but she was a Huntress, and she stood her ground.

The soundwave came next, sweeping past her harmlessly as she brought up her Aura. The thunderclap of the explosion punctured the silence, rattling her Aura protected eardrums. Then the debris, little bits of rock, dirt, and what else rained on top of her, thrown up by the massive fireball.

Her mouth gaped in awe at it, the images in front of her filtering through her head. It finally came to her. There was an attack. An attack on Beacon.

Then, more explosions came.

Hey.

Yeah welcome for the cliffhanger.

If this was summer, I might've tried for a 10k chapter, but not while school is a thing, sorry.

Also I realized (With the help of my Discord) that Jay is currently just there. Maybe in the future he'll actually do something, but not within the next few chapters for obvious reason.

Here's my chapterly Discord plug. We got one last Le First slot, which definitely will have benefits I promise you. I swear. Link is also on my profile. Join me and nine other retarded degenerates in degeneracy. We read bad fanfictions on Friday now btw.

discord gg/8gbF2TJ (Link in Profile)

Nothing much else to say.

Next chapter things will happen.

On a sidenote, go search LasTheTerrorist911 on Wattpad. He's a member in the Discord and he's got some absolute masterpieces on that account. By masterpiece I mean hilariously bad stuff. Go bully him.

Anyways, join the Discord, make fun of bronies, and uh…

I'm thinking of making a three shot where everyone dies.

TopHat out.