Wanted to get something out sooner rather than later cause of my absence the other week. Hope you enjoy!

Jaune didn't know much about drinking. He'd have said he knew nothing, but his unconscious drinking the day before made that notion untrue. Eyeing the full bar in front of him, with various strangely shaped and colored bottles, he was unsure what to ask for. While he wasn't one to drink in the first place, he figured some so-called liquid courage would help his nerves. He didn't know who Hei was, but if he fed dirty cops info he probably wasn't the kind of guy to take lightly. At least that all seemed like a logical excuse, really he just wanted to get the taste of puke out of his mouth.

"Old Fashion." He said, finally answering the bartender that had been waiting on him. What that drink was, he had no idea, but it was the only cocktail name he knew. Hopefully, it wasn't something weird or overly-boozy.

"Good choice, Sir. Mr. Hei will be out in a moment to see you." The bartender assured as he hastily left to make his drink.

"Glad Hei decided to see me." Jaune mumbled to himself. When he'd finished puking and pulled himself together he'd taken a few more minutes to gather the courage to face the bouncer at the entrance. It really had been a struggle to figure out what he was gonna say. Who he was to Hei was a mystery. Could he walk in? Did he have to wait in the line that had formed from clubbers looking to start the party early? Erring on the side of caution he'd decided to get in like a regular person off the street, so he'd killed a couple of minutes waiting in line.

That had led to the bouncer, a man twice his size, apologizing profusely for having him wait when he finally got to the door. Before Jaune could even get out a word, the man assured him Hei would be with him as soon as possible. Taken to the bar he'd been offered a complimentary drink while he waited.

As his drink was put in front of him he continued to wonder why the hell he was being treated like this. Somehow he was on these people's good side. What exactly he could have done to ingratiate himself in the few hours he'd been out was concerning. If their association with corrupt cops was anything to go by he probably did more than dazzle them with his people skills.

I really hope I didn't promise anything to them.

That'd just be his luck. He was absolutely screwed, thanks to his deal with Dan. If he was indebted to somebody even sketchier he probably should start looking into faking his death. He'd know after his meeting he supposed. As for Dan, he could only do as he was told. While he'd prefer to procrastinate until the last minute on it, the real bounty hunter he was apparently impersonating was likely on this case too. If he valued his freedom he'd need to hit the house right after this meeting.

Looking into the manila envelope while he waited, he found a folded piece of paper and a picture inside. Taking them out, he absent-mindedly took a sip of his drink. The burn that came with it gave him pause. He noted the flavor and found it tolerable to take another sip. So this is booze, he contemplated. It wasn't bad. Why anyone drank it for flavor, he still couldn't understand. It wasn't like it beat out juice in terms of taste. People must drink it for effect, he decided.

Briefly, he considered putting it down and getting water or juice instead. Looking back to the picture it showed a well-dressed man with a pencil mustache and slicked-back hair. He certainly looked like a lawyer in the way he dressed, and judging by the fact that the picture looked like it was taken for an ID he assumed that it'd been lifted from some kind of database. Remembering that he was supposed to attack the man his hands became clammy as his anxiety rose. Going back to his drink he sipped more, the idea of trading it gone from his mind.

I'm drinking, smoking, and fighting for money. Looks like I'll be breaking the law by the end of the day, too. At this rate, I'll sacrificing babies to grimm as I shoot up hard-core drugs by the end of the week.

Nothing he could really do, he supposed. Taking another sip, he scolded himself for that thought. If he was gonna survive this he needed to stop just going with stuff. Jaune wasn't dumb enough to not see the slippery slope he was currently free- falling down. If he pulled this off by some miracle, it would just mean more dangerous work. Success tonight would be temporary survival at police would never let him leave this city now.

Looking at the paper that was in the letter he scanned it for anything he could use to get out of this. Instead, it just gave a singular address. Shaking his head in frustration, he knew he was screwed.

"I'm fucked." Ignoring the fear and loathing creeping into his mind he settled for fighting it back with the burn of his drink as he threw the rest back.

Before he could debate the merits of another drink he noticed someone glaring at him from the corner of his eye. Turning his head he was met with mismated eyes staring back at him. They were attached to a short attractive woman with multi-colored hair and a mean disposition sitting a few stools away. Unsure of what to do he waved. She seemed more sure of her course of action as she flipped him off.

Ok, fuck me, apparently.

At this point Jaune was confused. What had he done to piss off some random woman in a bar? Was this just some kind of bar ritual? He wasn't exactly well versed in these kinds of things. Maybe he had stolen her seat or something. Sliding over a stool he waited for her to take her apparent seat. Nothing. She just continued to glare at him.

He wondered if she hadn't understood his gesture. Patting his former seat he waved her over to explain his actions. She explained herself with a deepened glare and making a fist and beating it into her other hand.

That's not good, he accurately reasoned. It really seemed like she was just looking for any reason to attack him at this point. That wasn't exactly a scene he wanted to make at the moment. Maybe charades weren't the way to go, he decided.

"Bartender." He called. "Give the woman over there whatever people typically order for strangers." A movie or two that he'd seen involved something similar, so this seemed reasonable. Looking back it seemed the woman hadn't heard him if her continued hatred was anything to go by.

"Yes sir." the bartender acknowledged before making a shot.

From his seat, Jaune watched as the bartender served the small shot he'd ordered to the woman. The bartender said some words and pointed at him causing the woman to look confused. That was better than the murderous glare he figured, so he shot a wink her way. Confidence was everything when dealing with women, or so his dad had said. He wasn't trying to hit on her at all but he figured it couldn't hurt.

She continued to look confused at him, then at the bartender, before she pulled out her scroll and typed in something. Jaune watched as anger and confusion turned to something he couldn't exactly place. A moment of frantic scrolling later, with what almost sounded like lewd moans coming from her scroll, she looked back at him. Any trouble he'd had identifying her expression was now completly gone. It was the look of unbridled horror; the woman's eyes big as saucers, jaw slack, and skin pale. He turned around to look behind him just in case she was looking at someone else like they were evil incarnate. Nothing fit the bill, however.

What did I do?! Holy hell what could I have done? I'm kinda freaking out right now. Is my fly down again?

It wouldn't have been the first time, his anxious brain supplied. He was a forgetful guy and it'd lead to more than one embarrassing incident in high school. The fact that he was wearing his totally manly pink boxers both times was just his bad luck. Before his brain could assess why this might not be the case his hand shot to his zipped.

The good news was that his zipper wasn't down at all. The bad news was that the woman had fallen off her stool and was now crawling backwards away from him as if he was some kind of grimm intent on eating her. He was too surprised and confused to do anything as she finally found her footing and got up before turning tail and sprinting out of the bar.

"What the hell?" he wondered completely lost. Furiously he looked around for some kind of explanation. "Uh, Bartender?" he finally asked.

"Yes?" the seemingly less confused man answered.

"What drink did I get her?" It was the only thing he'd really done. Had it been gross?

"A Blowjob."

His head hit the bar top. At that moment he knew he fucked up.

Well, at least she's not glaring at you anymore.

Thank you dumb brain, he internally moaned. The perfuse apology that was required for that kind of offense probably didn't exist. Seriously, how the hell would he even begin to apologize for accidentally propositioning a woman for oral sex. His life of blunders and fuck ups definitely gave him a big library of apologies for all manner of social faux pas, but this was too much. Mentally he made a note to seriously figure out how to fake his death.

From his office, Hei watched the security monitor as his last out literally ran out on him. If someone asked if he'd been hiding in the hopes that Neo would kill his apparent new employee, he'd have punched them in the face. That would have been the facts though, and facts were his business.

The fact was that "Billy Badass" was a scary man. He's spent all night calling every favor he had trying to find out who this man was. If he thought the information he would find would help his elevated blood pressure, he was dead wrong though.

The man was named officially Jaune Arc; a recent 18-year-old Beacon dropout. His contacts in the hospital had provided that much. A bribe to the company that handled Beacon's record had produced a transcript that was marked as fraudulent. The internal record went on to paint a picture of a complete idiot who had never won a fight in his life. Reaching out to his contact in the PD he got a bounty hunter profile that had been active for less than a month with one notable arrest of a cop killer on it.

That was just paperwork though. He'd needed more. So he'd struck a deal with an LT on the force last night. In exchange for more information on a big drug bust a rival was handling, which he'd been slowly feeding the PD anyways, he got the testimonies from every officer to talk to the man. That ended up being three officers; Officer Dan, Lana, and Joe. It immediately became clear to Hei that Joe had confused the man with a different Beacon drop-out. Dan and Lana's testimony, on the other hand, painted a picture of a ruthless man, more in line with what Hei knew to be true.

In its total, the information laid out the story of a desperate young man who had lied his way into Beacon, failed miserably, then tried to make it as a bounty hunter. Hei knew where all his family lived and that the man didn't have more than a few thousand in his bank account. He could have the family kidnapped by the end of the week and wash his hands of this if he'd wished.

He could have if he was a complete amateur. A novice would trust the info he had and move swiftly. Hei was no novice; he was the best at this. He knew he'd be killed the second he moved against this man. Jaune Arc was actually dead. The family had reported that he ran off with the family sword with delusions of grandeur and no aura to his name. The man that was in his bar definitely had the look and sword and was doing a good job pretending to be an idiot on paper. The forged entrance letter tipped him off to the deception however. Beacon was supposed to be the most secure and exclusive school in the land. He'd bet his club that a master forger would have been required. It was unlikely a random country bumpkin would have access to such a good forgery. On top of that, the real Jaune had no aura and Hei had seen the man's aura with his own eyes. His performance in Beacon was obviously faked, two dead gangs proved that. The discovery of his forgery was also suspicious, it'd been anonymously reported. Obviously, he'd outed himself; a man of that caliber wouldn't be detected otherwise.

Reading between the lines, like the good information master he was, he knew the real story. This Jaune boy didn't simplify get amazingly lucky or more competent. Instead, this new Jaune had killed him on his way to Beacon and taken his place for his own ends. He'd pretended to be the least dangerous student at Beacon to operate with less scrutiny for some mission unknown to Hei. The new Jaune most have completed it, then left in a manner that left a clean narrative that warranted no second look. From there he'd done some odd jobs and had an apartment on the bad side of town. For what reason, he had no idea. Probably gearing up for another job if he had to guess.

Then Jaune disappeared for two weeks. No place of residence or records of purchases on his account during the period. Terrifyingly though, when he had asked his men if anyone had seen this man one had said a homeless man matching his description had been in an alley next to his club for a while. Stalking Hei, no doubt.

The man had been a ghost to him. Spying on his organization and doing gods knew what in those weeks. He was the best-connected man in the city, and he hadn't known until Jaune had wanted him to. The thought alone kept a bottle near his lips more frequently than it should have been.

After that, the ghost had become visible two days ago. The specter had struck in a train station by taking down the most hated man to Vale PD. In one stroke he'd ingratiated himself to the police and started his take over of a new identity. It couldn't have been an accident that a corrupt cop like Dan had been there to collect the bounty. Leading the police on that he was the Beacon drop-out bounty hunter was just as calculated a move. Obviously, he was aiming to take the mantle for some reason.

This all lead to his next major visible move on the scene. He'd drawn out the two major gangs that had moved onto Hei's turf after the embarrassing incident with the blonde huntress in training. They were the biggest threat to his organization in the short term, and he'd spent a month trying to get them to leave the buildings they had set up in to no avail. The man had handily drawn them out and killed them all in a day. Then he'd just sat down in his bar and asked for a job and place.

It was a message to him. I killed your enemies in an instant and I can do the same to you. He heard it loud and clear, but if this Jaune thought he'd bow to him and just go along with it he was dead wrong. Hei had brought his best men to kill Jaune today. He even had the basement set up to dismember him and a truck ready to take his remains outside the wall. Then Jaune had sent him another message.

The job the police had set up with the info he'd traded. Jaune had manipulated the police to get put on as the point-man for the op. The bastard had only been awake for four hours. During that time he'd found out about his attempts to find out who he was, appoint himself as a key member of the police's illegal black ops team, and position the Beacon bounty hunter to end up at the raid to no doubt be killed and his identity usurped. In four fucking hours.

Try all you want, I'm running laps around your schemes. That was the new message.

Now with one of his men tapped to kill Jaune with a bad cough all of a sudden, he wasn't sure that he hadn't been poisoned. Hei was left with no choice but to admit defeat. He had leveraged everything he had only to come up with the bread crumbs this monster wanted him to find. Maybe he had expected Hei to kidnap the Arc family and execute them only for that to play into his plans. Perhaps the hunter head of the family was on the man's shit list.

The fourth drink of the hour started on down his lips and sent him to the edge of intoxication. What could he do though? His hands shook at the very thought of this man anywhere near his operation. It'd only be a matter of time before Jaune was called Hei, if he wished. The more he struggled against this black mass though, the tighter it gripped. For god's sake, he even knew the blonde that had nearly ruined him.

Only the chaotic force of Neo had seemed enough to save him. Not exactly his greatest plan, considering the fact that he'd almost taken her on the floor of his club. However, Neo had taken a picture of the man off his security monitors and had been stabbing it nonstop the last day. It seemed as if there was no love lost there. He may have been a mastermind and information extraordinaire, but he'd never claim to understand the agent of chaos that was Neo. Nobody really could, save maybe Roman.

Jaune's ability to send her packing with a look killed that plan as swiftly as his others. He was probably just as insane as her anyways. Even more reason to continue to drink, he supposed with an air of defeat.

"Sir?" one of his men asked in regards to the situation. He'd told them to stall Arc until Neo handled him.

"Send him in." He couldn't hide from the Butcher of Beacon any longer.

Look for threats long enough and you'll find them, real or otherwise. Hoping this has a nice PI/Noir story feel with some humor breaking up the more serious undertones. Also, shout out to the people who got the Wolf Among Us reference. I'm hiding references to other Noir/PI media throughout this. Thanks to everybody for reading this story, I hope you find it enjoyable. I always love feedback, positive or negative, everything helps to make this story better. I'm especially interested in how you see Jaune characterized, and how you think this story is going to go in terms of plot.