"…then, while she's distracted, I use the net launcher at the same time that you kick the lever, dropping the crate. Even if she dodges one, she can't dodge both. That'll get her for sure!"

Jaune put the finishing touches on the illustration of his plan, entitled "To Catch a (Red) Huntress", and turned to his audience. "So, what do you think? Comments, questions, concerns?"

Zwei panted steadily in the almost-grin of his default face.

"C'mon, I'm dying for feedback here. Give me something!"

"Arf!" barked the dog.

Jaune sighed. "You have a point, I suppose."

He turned back to his drawing. Plans like this came easily to him. It was a rare source of pride. In times when his ego was being buffeted—when he was watching his peers excel at the use of firearms, blades, and bludgeons in ways he couldn't approach—he took solace in the fact that his greatest weapon was his imagination.

That didn't mean he always had the power to pull off his plans on his own. Sometimes he did—he'd made it into Beacon, hadn't he? On the other hand, he sure wouldn't have been able to hammer a Deathstalker's stinger through its own carapace. Sometimes, he needed Ren's calm, or Nora's enthusiasm, or Pyrrha's… everything, really.

He paused as a smile crept over his face. Having someone who believed in him made all the difference. Especially when "someone" was Pyrrha.

It was an odd thought that he didn't know what to do with, but it had the ring of truth.

He was aware, in a distant way, that how he felt about Pyrrha was not the same as how he felt about Ren or Nora. He just had no idea how to cope with that or even what it meant.

Well, he knew one thing it meant. It meant he had to be even more careful with his double life. The last thing he wanted was to put Pyrrha in hot water because of his superheroism. What a shame it was, too. He wanted her to know about this, to be part of this, but the Superhero Rules were very clear about secret identities.

Alas.

"Arf!"

Jaune shook his head. "Sorry, my mind wandered off a bit. Uh…" He looked at the plan again and sighed. "You know, you might be right. I think this one's a bust."

"Arf!"

"Where would we even get that many banana peels, anyway?"

"Arf!"

"That's what I'm thinking." With a tear of regret, Jaune erased the whiteboard. "Guess we're back to square one. Okay, what if we…"

Pyrrha seriously wondered about some of these nuisance laws.

Sometimes, she could look at a law and imagine a story of why it was on the books. Chaining a Beowolf to a fire hydrant was self-evidently absurd, but she could presume that someone had tried that at some point, and someone else had decided it must never happen again. That was a story that made sense.

She had no idea why there was a law against late-night seaweed gathering.

It wasn't as if seaweed was a hot commodity. There was no corporate competition to harvest the stuff. There was no thriving black market in seaweed. It had turned out to be tedious work, too, so much so that Pyrrha couldn't imagine anyone doing it except for the dubious thrill of breaking the law.

She wondered if this was a message from the universe to go into politics to fix all this, or to stay far, far away from politics.

Either way, she had the seaweed, the sun was down making its removal illegal, so all that was left was to patrol the boardwalk along the coast until she caught the attention of…

"Stop right there, evildoer!"

…the HuntsMan.

"Your sense of timing is impeccable," she said. "You always come in just a bit too late to stop me!"

The HuntsMan faced her down along the coastal walkway, a small sack slung over his shoulder. "What vile scheme are you up to now that you need seaweed to accomplish it?!"

"Ha! The seaweed is the point!" she shot back.

The HuntsMan blinked dumbly. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry, but it's illegal to gather seaweed from the beaches after dark," the Red Huntress said with relish.

"You're trying to throw me off the scent," accused the HuntsMan. "That can't possibly be a law. You're trying to bamboozle me!"

"Excuse me?" the Red Huntress replied with something that was almost irritation. "Of course it's a law. I wouldn't be doing this if it were legal, would I?"

"Most supervillains use legitimate business as a cover story," the HuntsMan said.

"Believe me, I wouldn't be out here gathering seaweed if it were legal."

"Ha! Like I can 'believe' the word of a supervillain."

The Red Huntress fumed—and sensed her opening. "Well, good. In that case, you won't stop my perfectly legal seaweed-gathering operation. I'll just go on my merry way with my totally legitimate gains."

"I see what you're up to!" said the HuntsMan, pointing at her directly. "You're pulling a Wacky Waterfowl bit on me! You're trying to get me to think that, because you can't be trusted, if you're saying it's legal, it must be illegal, when even an ordinary person would say it's legal whether it is or not!"

The Red Huntress blinked. "Uh…"

"Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter," said the HuntsMan, and he hefted the sack from his shoulder. "You've already done more than enough evil for me to fight you, whether this maneuver of yours is wrong or not. You're going down, Red Huntress!"

"I'm sorry if I disagree," said the Red Huntress, getting back on track. "But I've broken another law while you were wasting time talking to me."

That took the HuntsMan aback. "You did? How? Do you have accomplices? Henchmen? Henchwenches?"

"I have time," she said triumphantly. "It is now after ten in the evening, which means my footwear now violates the law."

The HuntsMan gasped dramatically. "Slippers?!"

"Comfortable ones, too," the Red Huntress gloated, and she wiggled her toes inside them to drive the point home. "It's against the law to wear them after ten in the evening, but I'll break this law any time!"

"Not anymore you won't! Have at you!"

With that, the HuntsMan upended the sack he carried. Out of it spilled dozens of marbles, which skittered across the boardwalk between the HuntsMan and the Red Huntress.

Her eyes followed them as they rolled, before looking back up to the HuntsMan. "Seriously?"

"You can move things with your mind, like Joan Slate," the HuntsMan said with pride. "But this many things is too hard for you, especially when they're so small. And you're wearing the wrong footwear for it!" he added, pointing at her slippers. "Behold how evil sows the seeds of its own defeat!"

The Red Huntress was speechless. Baffled.

She couldn't even begin to process how the HuntsMan could be so very right and so incredibly wrong at the same time.

She could not, in fact, move the marbles. They were in her way and her semblance was useless to protect her. Yet the HuntsMan had completely misanalysed why she couldn't move the marbles.

Frustrated and defiant, the Red Huntress tossed her head and began to shuffle her feet. The small motions, scraping along the ground, kept her from having to step on the marbles; they were brushed aside as she moved.

"Ingenious," said the HuntsMan as she approached the edge of the marble field. "I should have known what a wily creature you were. But as long as you're shuffling, you have limited mobility, which will let me do… this!"

And he swung at her.

He actually threw a punch.

The Red Huntress was so surprised she almost didn't dodge. Reflexes kicked in and of course she dodged, but the shock of the moment was severe.

She leapt free of the marbles before the HuntsMan could swing again and dropped her bundle of seaweed. Okay, she'd planned for something like this, maybe she could make the most of it…

The HuntsMan charged her and came in strong, leading with his fist. The Red Huntress caught it in her own hand and held it firm.

Her other hand slipped to her pocket and thumbed her scroll. It started playing music.

"Let's dance, HuntsMan," she said.

He tried to pull free of her, but she stepped with him, keeping close. He tried again; she moved with him.

She could almost hear Yang drilling the words into her, just like she'd drilled any combat maneuver. Repeated and repeated, until reciting them was as automatic as aiming down her sights. Physical touch. Quality time. Receiving gifts. Words of affirmation. Acts of service.

This, the Red Huntress thought proudly, should qualify as Touch and Time.

"Let go!" the HuntsMan insisted, yanking hard.

"Oh, but I have you exactly where I want you," the Red Huntress replied, her grip firm. "Like I said, let's dance."

She stepped forward, trying to lead, and he responded with a step back—and then pulled his hand in, yanking her close in the bargain. In a moment, his other hand was on her side. "I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into," he said daringly. "You're on my turf, now."

Before the Red Huntress could really understand what was happening, she was being whirled and twirled, and only barely keeping it together.

She was a pro at footwork, maintaining balance, and reading another person's motions—all areas of immense native talent, finely honed by years of competition. There was something different with dancing, though, something far more than it being cooperative rather than competitive. She'd seen the shape of it before, at the Beacon dance, when Jaune rocked his dress so hard many of the girls in attendance were left burning.

Combat was about focus, about bringing your everything—your attention, training, will, skill, strength—to the point of a bullet or the edge of a blade. Emotions weren't a bad thing, exactly, as long as they could be harnessed. Pyrrha entered a battle-calm when she got serious, one where each movement had purpose, and whatever emotions didn't serve that purpose were pushed aside.

Dance was the opposite. Dance, she was discovering, brought the emotions up. It released them, and they were all the more intense for it.

All of which is to say what could have been said more directly and succinctly—that Pyrrha was crushing on Jaune all over again—except that direct and succinct would give the impression that Pyrrha knew or understood what she was feeling, which she absolutely did not.

Instead, she found herself whisked along, caught up in the moment, in the glint of his eyes, in the self-assured smile of someone on comfortable ground, on the hair-raising sensation of letting him lead her.

Jaune could dance, by golly, and for Pyrrha that conjured new and wonderful things into being. She could float away on those feelings.

The song on her scroll ended.

He stopped moving. She stopped with him. She was breathing far harder than that small bit of exertion warranted. She blinked a few times, trying to understand what had just happened, and what might happen next.

She couldn't wait. She smiled giddily.

He grinned.

He pushed her.

Caught completely off her guard, she took a stumbling step backwards—directly onto several marbles, which skittered out from under her flailing foot.

Jaune had done what no tournament fighter had done in four years of trying: put Pyrrha Nikos flat on her back.

"Yes!" he crowed with a triumphant fist-pump. "You are defeated, Red Huntress! Your reign of terror is at an end!"

Oh, right. She wasn't Pyrrha Nikos, and he wasn't the Jaune Arc. They were the Red Huntress and the HuntsMan.

Rats!

"You really think so?" she said, reaching casually out to the side with one arm.

"I know so," said the HuntsMan. "I don't know what you thought you'd accomplish by dancing with me, but if you were trying to blunt my ardor for justice, if you were trying to entice me away from my lust for righteousness…"

The Red Huntress blushed.

"…er… you know what I mean… it didn't work! I'm still laser-focused on taking you down!"

"It'll take a lot more than focus," the Red Huntress said as her hand found its mark.

She flung the bundle of seaweed at the HuntsMan's face.

He made a sharp cry of surprise as he stumbled backwards, but the Red Huntress wasn't paying attention. The moment he was distracted, she was in full flight.

From everything.

The HuntsMan sighed. The difference between heroes and villains was always stark, but never more than in this respect: villains could simply run off when their villainy was done; heroes had to clean up after themselves.

Which was why he had to linger behind to individually pick up the marbles.

"Arf!"

The HuntsMan didn't look up from his task. "You know, Wonder Zwei, you and I might have to have words, soon, about where my faithful sidekick disappears to when the action starts."

"Arf!"

"How many times am I going to find myself face-to-face with the Red Huntress, with you nowhere to be seen?"

"Arf!"

"Ha ha. Very funny."

Clink, clink went the marbles. "You know," ruminated the HuntsMan, "the Red Huntress was good at hand-to-hand and has long hair. You don't think it's Yang Xiao…"

"Arf!"

"Yeah, I didn't think so," said the HuntsMan hastily. "Just had to rule it out." He took a break to reach out, grab some of the seaweed, and pop it in his mouth.

"Mrr?"

"Sure, it's chewy," said the HuntsMan. "A little salty. Still, it's not half-bad. Want some?"

Zwei backed slowly away from the seaweed.

"Your loss. More for me." The HuntsMan chewed thoughtfully as he continued to clean up the marbles. "I bet Ren could make a killer smoothie out of this. Oh, even better, I bet it would make great compost!"

"Mrr?"

"It's not just a board game. Back home, they called me the Compost King!"

"Arf!"

"Yes, as a compliment."

Roman Torchwick was in the apartment that served as his temporary office. A plate taped to the light fixture acted as a dimmer, lending an appropriately menacing ambience. He was manipulating a small-scale model of something that looked suspiciously like a tractor.

"They laughed at me when I chose a cane as my weapon until I blew them up with it," Roman said, eyes gleaming. "And they laughed at me when I announced the creation of Death Tractor Ten. Well, who's laughing now? Ha ha ha!"

He frowned to himself, put the model down, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and started editing his speech.

He was halfway through when the apartment door banged open. The HuntsMan appeared, framed in the open door, and as he dramatically pointed at Roman—

"Welcome back, Neo," Roman said without looking.

The HuntsMan pouted, then the image shattered, and a sulky Neopolitan was revealed. She raised a sign that read, "How did you know it was me?"

"I always know when it's you," he said with a smile (and still without looking). "The specifics are usually a trade secret. But, in this case, if you were the HuntsMan, you'd be loudly declaiming my evil nature, promising me the retribution of justice, and avowing the protection of the innocent from any more of my depredations."

Neo blinked.

"Good luck fitting all that on a sign," Roman snarked.

Neo rolled her eyes and strolled inside, shutting the door behind her.

"Since you're back," Roman said, crossing out a word with more than necessary vigor, "I take it you got what I asked for?"

Neo held up a sign that said, "Three bundles of seaweed delivered to the usual warehouse."

"Perfect! You're the best, as always."

"What do we need seaweed for?" Neo signed.

"It's all part of the plan," Roman said, before frowning and holding up his paper so she could see it. "By the by, do you think 'ha ha ha' is enough here, or should I get ambitious and go for the 'mua-ha-ha'? I think I'm leaning towards 'mua-ha-ha', I think the occasion calls for it."

Neo made a gagging motion.

"Sheesh, everyone's a critic."

Ruby was grinning like a fiend. "So I said…"

"Please not another katana joke," Blake interrupted, trying in vain to cover all four of her ears.

"…now that's a wakizashi!"

Blake sighed. "You listened to me, and yet I still didn't get what I wanted."

"Welcome to my life," said Weiss.

Yang's smile was blinding. "You'll just have to make like an Ursa and bear it!"

"I'll get the door," said Weiss over the round of groans Yang induced, and she brought her scroll to her team's dorm door to let them in.

"Oh, hey, Jaune," said Ruby before her team entered her dorm.

"Hi, girls," said Jaune, who was heading with forced nonchalance down the hallway back to his dorm. Even to Ruby's eyes he looked nervous.

"What keeps you out this late?" Ruby asked.

"Oh… I was in… the library!" he said, nodding vigorously. "Catching up on some reading!"

"That's funny," said Weiss in unamused tones. "That's where we were. We're coming back now because we were the last ones there when they closed for the night."

"Oh!" said Jaune with rapid blinks. "We must have just missed each other!"

"Riiiight," said Weiss. "You left before us but got here after us while coming from a different direction. Makes complete sense."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," said Ruby in confusion.

Weiss face-palmed at certain people's inability to sarcasm.

"But it's time to turn in before classes tomorrow," said Jaune, scrambling to recover. "See you then!"

"Oh, hey, Pyrrha!" said Yang.

Both Jaune and Pyrrha froze in their tracks with identical this-couldn't-get-worse expressions. Pyrrha had just rounded the corner of their hall; Jaune hadn't escaped into his dorm room yet; RWBY was between them, looking at each with expressions of great interest.

"Where are you coming back from?" asked Blake.

"Oh," said Pyrrha unsteadily. She reached into a bag she was carrying for what was clearly a book. Jaune, in alarm, started shaking his head, trying to wave her off… to no avail. "The library," Pyrrha said with no guile at all.

Jaune winced.

"Jaune already tried that one," said Blake. "What's your second guess?"

Pyrrha's eyes became almost comically wide. All the blood drained from her face. Pyrrha Nikos—unflappable four-time tournament winner—was cracking under pressure.

"Uh… books?" she squeaked.

Jaune saw how Pyrrha was breaking under the stress of coming up with a new lie in real-time. She wasn't made for it. She was way too nice.

What kind of teammate would he be—what kind of man—if he didn't ride to the rescue?

"It's my fault," he blurted out.

As one, Team RWBY looked to him, so only he saw Pyrrha's expression of shocked gratitude. He couldn't just enjoy the sight, though, not with the pressure on him. There was no time to invent a story, so he fell back to the only weapon he had left: the truth.

A truth, anyway.

"Pyrrha was kind enough to offer me extra training," he said, to the collective astonishment of RWBY. "It was obvious I needed it, and it has helped a lot. We usually do it on the roof. It's nice and private up there, so I don't make a fool of myself in front of the whole school."

"More than you already do," Weiss said.

"Exactly—hey!"

"So you and her coming back from opposite directions," said Yang, "was your big strategy to try and keep it under wraps?"

"Not all of my plans work how I want them to," said Jaune.

"That's an understatement," scoffed Weiss.

"Well, don't worry!" said Ruby boldly. "We won't tell anyone your little secret! Not even if they ask nicely!"

"We really appreciate it," gushed Pyrrha, who had used the distraction to get to her dorm room. "See you in class tomorrow!"

"Bye," said Ruby as her own team retired.

The moment the door was closed, Yang whirled on her team. "Ten lien says they're making out."

"Ha!" shot back Weiss. "Ten thousand says they're not."

Yang scowled. They both knew Yang didn't have ten thousand lien to her name, so she couldn't take the bet even if she wanted to.

"They're both terrible liars," Weiss added. "I think the rooftop-training story is the real deal."

"Leave it to you to know false appearances when you see them," Blake said.

"Leave it to you to pay a compliment framed like an insult," Weiss fumed.

Blake didn't answer with words. She just took her bow off.

"That's my point," said Weiss. "Lying is a useful life skill. One that certain people," she said with unsubtle gestures in Ruby's direction, "could do to learn."

"Pfft, I hope I never end up in a position where I have to lie," Ruby said.

"Hope is not a strategy," scoffed Weiss.

"Well, neither is lying!"

Blake sighed. All this bickering was cutting into her book time.

"Thanks," said Pyrrha.

"Any time," said Jaune.

"I mean, really," said Pyrrha, as if she hadn't been clear the first time, "I'm very glad you were able to come through for me, there."

Jaune noticed a hint of something beneath the words. He had a notion that this was more than a generic thank-you.

He didn't know what to do with that, so he tried to make it go away. "That's what partners are for, y'know?"

Pyrrha's smile turned sickly. Jaune knew he'd guessed wrong.

"N-not that you're just any old partner," he said hastily.

The brightness returned. "Oh?"

"Yeah. You're… well, you're my partner." Lame, lame. "And my friend. That means a lot to me."

Pyrrha's face scrunched up, like it didn't know what expression it was supposed to be making. Jaune would have laughed if it weren't so awkward and sincere.

"Friends," she finally managed, and a smile appeared that was probably not forced. "It means a lot to me, too."

Why was Jaune's mouth suddenly so dry? He was still looking at Pyrrha, and she was still looking at him. In that moment of confusion, with his brain not knowing the next step to take, it shut down a bit, and without it in the way a breathtaking truth hit him.

Pyrrha was beautiful.

Like, duh, of course she was beautiful, he thought angrily to himself. She was Pyrrha Nikos. She was (and he hated to use this word, because it was overused as a generic intensifier when that wasn't what it meant, but in this case it applied) objectively beautiful.

She would have hated that description, though, because of how impersonal it was.

No, in this moment, she was subjectively beautiful—beautiful to Jaune. He didn't think he'd ever seen her like that. And while her trembling uncertainty and genuine earnestness might have detracted from the beauty that others saw, they did no such thing for him.

He tried to swallow. It took eighty muscles and sixteen months.

Had Pyrrha been standing this close before? Because, all of a sudden, she seemed right on top of him, like there could be nothing else in his vision. Just a perfectly sincere, sincerely perfect face very, very close to his.

"So…" she said, and Jaune was intensely interested in the motion of her mouth as she said it, in the change in her eyes, in the…

…in the motions he saw in his peripheral vision that were oh come on!

"Nora! What are you doing?!" he spluttered, pointing a finger at her and causing Pyrrha to jump back.

"Well, I figured you'd want visual evidence of your first kiss," said Nora shamelessly, jiggling the scroll in her hand that had its "recording" light clearly lit.

"We were not about to kiss!" Jaune yelled, taking a step towards Nora (which took Pyrrha's reaction out of his sight). "This is not a recordable moment!"

"Ugh," said Nora, rolling her eyes and putting her scroll away. "Spoilsport."

Jaune's face was hotter than he'd ever remembered it feeling. "Well, maybe, but this spoilsport is team leader, and as team leader, I'm ordering this to be bedtime!"

"Thank you," came Ren's muffled voice from underneath his pillow.

"No problem, fearless leader!" said Nora, and as bright as her voice was it was impossible to tell if she was mocking him. She flopped back on her bed, but conspicuously kept her scroll close at hand.

Behind him, he heard the door opening. "Pyrrha, where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm going to take a shower," she said without turning. "A cold shower. Very, very cold…"

The door clicked shut.

Sometimes a hero must hide in the shadows, even as his symbol lights up the night. Why is the Red Huntress ordering pizza? Will the HuntsMan divine her true purpose at last? Will Zwei do anything besides be cute? And in a story about fighting crime, isn't it about time we got the Junior Detectives involved? Find out next time in THVTRH:NON Episode Six: PANIC!