"You guys did a great job out there today," Coco boasted as the ship began its descent to approach the cliffside at Beacon. "I'm glad that you were able to pull it together out there, somehow, and take Quake down. I don't know if you kids understand how much of an accomplishment that is, but I'm sure you will someday."

"Oh we know," Xavier insisted. "He was a pretty big deal in Mistral back in the day, right?"

"I think she meant the first years," Orin noted.

"Oh, right," Xavier chuckled, sitting back. "I knew that."

"Made my night a bit worthwhile all things considered," Coco sighed touching her face where the cut had scabbed over for the time being.

"It looks pretty badass, so I wouldn't worry about it too much," Natalia assured her. Titus nodded in agreement.

"If you guys had let me go in there alone…" Eren began.

"You'd be dead," Yin informed him. "You should probably worry about self-preservation before you worry about impressing your team's leader."

"Whatever,' Eren replied, crossing his arms.

"I'm really not sure how you did it, Neela," Coco stated, rubbing her forehead.

"Reverse psychology," Neela replied. "It was easy when I thought about it." Coco chuckled.

"I should have brought you with me to fight Jett," Coco laughed. The ship touched down and they all poured out, heading back to the dorms with the exception of Neela.

"I am ready for sleep!" Nat declared.

"I'm not," Xavier griped as he leapt on his feet. "I'm so pumped man! Did you see Nat and Team NITE take that guy down?! You guys were great!"

"Well we have class in the morning, so you're going to have to be ready for sleep," Orin reminded him.

"That's fair I guess," Xavier groaned. "Hey, Ilia!" He chased her down.

"What's up?" She asked him.

"You mind if I walk with you back to the dorms?" Xavier requested. She smiled sheepishly and brushed her hair out of her face.

"I'm fine," she dismissed him. "Thank you for the offer though." Yin jogged over.

"Friendzoned already?" Yin questioned.

"I was just being thoughtful, that's all," Xavier insisted.

"Alright, alright," Yin gawfed.

"It's past curfew," Titus reminded them. "Get a move on."

"Yeah yeah," Xavier waved him off.

"You too!" Titus called to Eren who was heading towards the woods.

"Make me!" Eren replied. He turned around and bumped into Coco, the moonlight glinting off of her shades. "Okay, yeah, I'm going."

"Come on, Neela," Emerald told Neela as she looked out across the ocean. Neela glanced back at the school's night watch for a long moment before returning her gaze to the water below.

"Can I have a few minutes?" Neela asked. Coco returned with Eren and sent him on his way before grabbing Emerald by the arm and pulling her close.

"We'll debrief in the morning," she said in Emerald's ear. Emerald nodded to her and approached Neela, taking a seat next to the girl.

"What's on your mind?" Emerald asked her. Neela sat as well and looked across the water.

"Did you know that the ocean is one of the most perfect things in all of Remnant? It's one of the most alive things in this world. Its sounds, its ability to perfectly reflect light. It gives life and when it's angry, it can take life away. The motion can put someone to sleep or wake them into a nightmare. It's not beautiful in itself. No, the perfection of being all things absolutely, yet completely open to interpretation, is what makes it beautiful," Neela told Emerald. She held her breath for a moment before letting it out slowly, trying to find some tranquility in the words.

"What ocean do you find yourself in the middle of?" Emerald inquired. Neela looked at her suddenly.

"What?" Neela asked her.

"Which of those oceans is yours, at this very moment?" Emerald questioned. Neela looked at the waves and the old dock far below that laid at the bottom of the cliff.

"A few weeks ago it was being torn apart by a tempest…" Neela began. "But I think that the sun might be just past the horizon." Emerald laughed to herself.

"I'd like to say the same too," Emerald confessed. "But it's almost too early to tell, isn't it?" Neela looked at her again and nodded with a smirk.

"Did you ever love someone, even though they felt like they messed everything up when they didn't?" Neela pondered.

"Not exactly, but I understand where you're coming from," Emerald assured her.

"I was excited for a few minutes when we defeated Quake, but then I remembered that Eliana's not here to share in the victory with me," Neela explained. "I just… I want her to come back. And I haven't tried calling her again in some time because I'm afraid that she'll say no. Or more accurately… I'm more afraid of how I'll react if she says no. My body hasn't agreed with me once in the last few months, even using my semblance today almost knocked me out. I guess that's my fault though, Raven wasn't supposed to teach me how to evolve my semblance."

"Call her," Emerald told Neela.

"What?" Neela asked as Emerald stood.

"Even though she was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and maybe that's not the best case to make considering what you're dealing with, but I still regret not telling Cinder how I felt about her," Emerald said, helping her stand. "Besides, you and Eliana sound like you have a way more stable dynamic than we did." Neela laughed.

"From what I've heard I'm confident that's true," Neela chuckled.

"Just go for it and tell her that you want her to come back," Emerald instructed the girl. "It'll eat away at you more if you don't."

"I think I will try to call her," Neela agreed. "Thanks."

"No sweat," Emerald waved her off. "Anytime you want to have a girl talk with a non-parental figure, I'm here." Neela laughed again.

"Sure," Neela replied. "And maybe you should get back up on the horse too, huh?" Emerald shoved her back towards the dorms.

"Yeah, we'll see."

Coco paced Glynda's office floor as she waited for her and Emerald to arrive, doing everything that she could possibly think of in order to keep her eyes open as the full weight of her fatigue had finally set in. She hadn't had any sleep that night, collecting as much of her thoughts about the event as her unstable mind would let her, pouring over the details she knew so far about NITE's interactions with Stardust as well as Emerald's. She wasn't going to wait around and be behind the curve any longer, she was going to make moves and stop the Neo-Salem's, or the Children of Salem as Nora told her they wanted to be called going ahead, in their tracks. The door opened, Coco nearly jumped out of her skin before realizing it was Neela and Nora, though she didn't recall asking the two of them to be there.

"You alright, Coco?" Neela asked her. "You look like you could use some sleep."

"I'm fine," Coco insisted as she drank some more of her coffee, nearly finishing it off in a large swig. "Couldn't sleep last night, had to make sure that I had everything straight in my head."

"You're doing a great job, Coco. Whatever Jett said, you can't let it get to you," Nora informed her. Coco nodded and rubbed her eyes.

"I know," Coco said with a thankful smile before it was wiped away. "But if there's more that I can do to stop these fanatics, I have to try." The door opened again, Coco turned to see Orin enter and close it behind him. "I know I didn't invite you for sure, what's going on?"

"Mine and Neela's appearances in this meeting were made on Glynda's insistence," Orin told her. She stared at him for a long moment.

"She requested us," Neela repeated. Coco nodded.

"Yeah. That makes more sense," Coco agreed.

"Is she okay?" Orin inquired.

"She just needs some sleep," Neela assured him as she took a seat with both him and Nora.

"I guess we can begin since Glynda and Emerald are taking longer than I expected," Coco announced as she sat and slumped in her chair, laying her head on the table. She groaned, sitting up and pointing across the table at Nora.

"Me?" Nora asked.

"Yeah, go, let me know what all happened, anything that you think is important that you didn't tell me in small talk," Coco mumbled.

"We learned something about Paris, but it should probably wait until the students aren't here. More of a thing that the council probably needs to hear and decide on. Oh, but we found out that Paris is still hell-bent on killing Bái, so I guess there's that," Nora told them all.

"What is it about Bài that this guy despises so much?" Neela questioned.

"Maybe he knew her before she ended up coming here to Beacon?" Orin suggested.

"Even so, why would anyone have a reason to hate Bái?" Neela asked.

"Maybe for the same reason that our classmates pick on her?" Orin proposed. "Her powers work in a slightly different way than the rest of ours and that scares him." Coco looked at Nora with concern who mouthed 'later' to her.

"What about the two team leads?" Coco asked looking at the kids. Orin cleared his throat and sat up so that Neela would know he intended to speak first.

"Team NITE did a great job overall," Orin noted. "That being said, if I were the staff and, or, Neela, I would reprimand Eren with some kind of punishment. In addition to insubordination, he potentially placed all of us in more danger than was required, as well as almost causing us to fail our primary mission objective of allowing Emerald to find out the location in which Blood is hiding." Coco nodded slowly and looked into her empty thermos.

"I got enough of that to understand what you meant," she replied yawning. "Anything of note about Stardust themselves?" Orin gave a single nod.

"Of course," he continued. "Astra and Asteria both have identical fighting styles, however, Astra leads with her left foot and Asteria leads with her right, which is a bit curious for identical twins if you ask me, but I suppose that is what it is. Sirius's weapon appeared to be made out of a Grimm's spine, so I'm kind of wondering if we're wrong in his file that his Semblance is listed as Clairvoyance. Unless it is correct and someone else has a semblance that can preserve Grimm body parts… but I digress. Lastly, now that Orion doesn't have that gauntlet of his to use with his semblance, he has to think harder about how to use his ability, at least for the time being, and has a slight tell right before he's about to use it." Coco and Neela stared at him and blinked a few times, and Coco opened her mouth, trying to think of how to proceed.

"You noted all of those little details while fighting them?" Neela asked him.

"With a semblance like mine, I could just read their minds to find out that info, but it would be more of a distraction for me than anything. I let combat happen naturally and use my telepathy more usefully while observing the enemy and looking for anything that might give me even the slightest advantage," Orin told her.

"You two can talk shop later," Coco interrupted. "Neela, do you have anything of use that you'd like to add to all of that drabble?"

"I beg your pardon?" Orin replied.

"All I can say for certain are the two obvious observations that I made that I'm sure that you noticed by now," Neela answered. "Quake was on Dread, which means they're getting the stuff from somewhere and a little more readily available than last year since we never saw Stardust or any of Salem's Children use it before. The second thing would be that even without the Dread, Stardust was much stronger than any other time that we've faced off against them. I thought I heard someone say something about a gift from Salem?"

"Emerald and I discussed that last night, and it is a bit unnerving," Coco admitted. "Whatever Abigor did to

them or gave them, it seems like it worked. We've got to get ahead of the curve and stop them before this goes any further."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Glynda asked as she opened the door, entering the room in front of Blake and Emerald.

"Oh," Coco said. "Blake's here too. Anybody else showing up that I didn't specifically ask for?"

"Calm down, Coco. This is still my academy after all," Glynda reminded her. Coco nodded slowly.

"Right. Sorry. I'm a bit sleep-deprived," Coco admitted.

"Sounds more like paranoia," Glynda deduced. Coco frowned. "Neela and Orin are dismissed, I would hate for them to be late to their first class."

"But I've hardly finished giving my detailed observations," Orin interjected standing.

"I'm sure that Neela would be just as glad to hear them as Coco would have been," Glynda insisted motioning for Blake to open the door for them. Orin headed out first, grumbling, with Neela behind him, smiling at her mom.

"Have a good day," Blake whispered.

"Thanks!" Neela replied, letting her mother shut the door behind her.

"So how do we fix this?" Glynda asked. Coco groaned and sat up straight, trying her best to stay awake.

"Which part of it?" Coco inquired.

"Start where you wish, I'm sure that you've thought about fixing all of it, but is "all of it" in our capacity?" Glynda questioned.

"We'll see," Coco yawned as she stood. "Okay, so, first and foremost, I think we can all give ourselves quite the pat on the back for catching Quake and the majority of the Stardust Gang. We might not have nabbed Mercury again, but I'm under the impression that having the majority of them in jail is going to almost slow their activities to a halt. Next, I think we need to try and look into this whole "Salem giving away power" bull and try and find out what exactly that means, though I'm not entirely sure where to start with that or who with. I would normally have Amitola look into it, but I need her here at the school for night watch just as much as I need Emerald."

"Perhaps it would be best to start with Blood? And have you considered that the council might be able to offer you some help when you inform them later today?" Glynda suggested as she took a sip from her own mug of coffee. Coco paced the large table that had been set up in the middle of Glynda's office.

"Probably, if I had the slightest idea where this woman was," Coco noted. "Mercury can be dumb at times, but with him knowing full and well that we were coming, there's no way that he would have given us the actual location of her base."

"How did he know?" Blake interjected.

"Apparently he has his own illusionist who wasn't terribly fooled by me sneaking in," Emerald admitted.

"Do we know much about her?" Glynda pondered aloud.

"She fights with a meteor hammer, her illusions don't work like mine, and she has a creepy affinity for calling Mercury 'Master' and before you ask, not in a professional kind of way," Emerald offered. They all stared at her for a long moment.

"How did her illusions work?" Blake asked, restarting the conversation.

"Mine work with simply placing something into the environment that you're already in, or altering appearances, you know," Emerald explained. "Hers left me immobile and created an entirely new reality within my mind that I was convinced was real." Coco nodded.

"Sounds like a great time," Coco replied. Emerald shook her head.

"Not really," Emerald digressed.

"So with the Dread, she could potentially move while using her semblance," Blake pointed out.

"I think she already could without it, but it was hard to differentiate between reality and illusion," Emerald said.

"Do we know anything more about the Dread?" Nora interjected.

"Only thing we're pretty sure of at this point is that it's being mass-produced and marketed somehow," Coco offered. "We destroyed an entire truckload of the stuff during our fight with Jett, but not a single lead. Truck was unmarked. Didn't have a GPS and if it did, Yang made sure that it didn't when she was finished with it. Bit of a dead end with that."

"Maybe not," Blake said as she removed something from her clipboard and tossed it across the table to Coco. Coco snatched it up and looked it over.

"What is it?" Coco questioned.

"Raven was just as afraid of her enemies as they were of her," Blake explained. "Yang and I finally got around to going through her stuff the other day and it looks like she kept pretty detailed tabs on every one that might have had it out for her. Looks like after she and Neela took down those goons who were trying to sell Dread in the back room of the Crow Bar she was worried that the Dread manufacturers might come after her. She has one listing and it's a woman located in a town near an old abandoned lumber mill from back in the day."

"Assuming that this is up to date, this will come in quite handy," Coco chuckled shaking her head. "Just when we thought that Raven Branwen was finally done. Too bad we can't thank her for something for a change."

"I'm guessing that about sums everything up?" Emerald questioned.

"For the most part," Coco agreed. "Nora." She pointed at the woman. "I'm going to send you with Team CBLT to check out this lead on the Dread." Nora stood slowly.

"I'm flattered and all, but wouldn't it be better to send NITE?" Nora asked.

"If not for that Eren kid, yes," Glynda added. "But he's been more of a hassle than anything and we really can't afford to watch him constantly while out in the field. I still have faith that Team NITE will break him in, but it's yet to be seen."

"No word of Elli coming back?" Coco inquired.

"I've had Arslan speak with her a few times, but it sounds like Eliana has adjusted well and is getting on just fine," Glynda answered. Coco bit her lip. If only we could say the same about Neela. "Cobalt is serious enough when he needs to be and his teammates will keep him in check. Go out there and see what you can find out and if it gets to be too dangerous, leave the kids at the hotel or wherever you manage to stay."

"Can do!" Nora shouted with a salute as she headed for the door.

"Was that all that you needed from her?" Blake pondered out loud.

"Yes," Coco laughed nodding. With that Nora was gone, and Coco sat down again, looking a little less out of it.

"Anything else for us?" Glynda asked.

"I did have one more thing that I wanted to ask you," Coco told her. "Seeing as resources are thin at the school here which gives me very little to work with when Ruby throws things at me from her council meetings, I was wondering if you'd be alright with me borrowing a teacher or two from the other academies if they were able to spare any."

"I don't see why that would be an issue," Glynda replied.

"Great!" Coco exclaimed finding her feet again but noting that her balance was off. Emerald also stood and helped her from falling over, heading to the door with her. "Thanks for hearing me out. If you're interested in being there, I'll be calling the council at around ten or so."

"I'm good," Glynda waved her out.

"You doing okay?" Emerald asked heading down the hall with Coco.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Coco assured her. "Really just lost out on sleep last night, that's all. I know I can tell myself that I just had to figure everything out before my body would let me get some shut-eye, but Glynda's right. It's paranoia. I just… the way that Jett kept telling me that we'd always be one step behind followed by the fact that we couldn't get ahead last night. What if we stay one step behind until it's too late?"

"I'm sure you've got this," Emerald offered. "As long as we take advantage of that book from Raven and I can keep collecting intel, at some point we'll be able to cut them off." Coco chuckled and nodded her head.

"Yeah, I hope so," Coco noted.

"Hey…" Emerald said stopping as Coco continued on. The occupied woman looked back at her night watch guard, heading back to her to ask if something was wrong.

"You okay?" Coco inquired. Emerald avoided eye contact and looked away.

"Yeah…" Emerald managed. She laughed and shook her head. "Trying to take my own advice and it's more difficult than I thought it would be."

"What's that?" Coco questioned.

"I was… I… Hm…" Emerald stammered. She looked around, noting a Neo at a cubicle and using her semblance so that she couldn't hear them. "I was wondering if you could help me get a date!" Emerald more or less blurted it and Coco's eyes lit up as she took Emerald's hands.

"Who did you have in mind?!" Coco exclaimed.

"No one specifically," Emerald admitted. "But I thought that maybe now would be a good time to try and give dating a try." Coco giggled excitedly and bounced up and down.

"Yes! Everyone in the group is already married, so I haven't gotten to play matchmaker in such a long time!" Coco exhaled. "So what are we looking for then? Tall? Short? Lean? Thoughtful? Meathead? I've got enough single friends that we could definitely find a fit for you."

"Well, I was thinking female at the very least," Emerald laughed.

"That's a good start!" Coco declared. They went on their way down the hall, laughing as Coco's mind started working.

"Hey, Neo," May asked as she rounded the row of cubicles heading towards Glynda's office. "Who was that with Coco?" Neo rolled her eyes and pointed at her mouth before May handed her scroll over. Neo tapped away before handing it back to her.

Emerald. She's the new night watch. May nodded and smirked before opening Glynda's door.

May seems to be interested in Emerald, mayhaps? Next week, Chapter 18: Skyrim?

A big thank you to AG_Nonsuch, Helihi, Cadhla182, Carlomontie, Nliast, Y8ay8a, Sa-Dui, Diyaru4500, Demize00Zero, TheCipherNine, SketchHungry, Ookaminoki, Lightning-in-my-Hand, and Dishwasher1910. The artwork can be found at Deviantart, you can search Silent-Celica and under my favorites tab, I have a collection for NITE.

Until next week, stay classy!