Remnant of the Key

by lyokoMARVELanime

Adopted from FandomBard12. Four Keybladers meet four huntresses while on a quest to recover a lost friend. Now, their destinies shall become intertwined as they fight against darkness of both Remnant and beyond. The question is, just what else will come from this meeting between the two?

11. Paint the Town

AN: [hiding nervously behind desk, which is fortified with numerous different defensive measures] Oh boy. He's coming. He's coming for me! Gotta keep him from getting to me! [notices audience] AH! Oh, it's just you guys. Sorry, I can't really talk right now. Someone very dangerous is after me for certain events that happen in this chapter, and I'm pretty sure that by the end of it, some of you might be as well. So, Imma just answer some reviews really quickly and get you guys right into it.

"Anonymaton", like the suggestion for Rejection of Fate's Formchange, may run with it later on. Thanks for that, and you may be surprised to learn that Sora's likely going to learn the secret a lot sooner than you think, but not for reasons you may be expecting.

"keybladelight", don't worry, angsty, angry Sora isn't going to be around for much longer, but he's going to end up getting worse before he gets better. There just some changes that can't be stopped, no matter what the promise someone makes. Look on the bright side, at least he's going all Injustice Superman on us, and no, that's not me jinxing it, because that's not going to happen, I can guarantee that.

Now, "SuperMarioFreak", thank you so much for the praise. You are far too kind, and I'm glad to hear that you've enjoyed my other KH stories thus far.

Ruby: Now as far as favorite Keychains...

AN: AH! [hides in fort]

Ruby: Dude, it's just me and the others. We've gotta be here to answer the rest of his review.

AN: [peeks out to see that it is just Team RWBY, JNPR, Coco, and Velvet] Oh, I knew that.

Ruby: Anyways, mine would have to be...Rumbling Rose, or any of the other ones that Sora got from meetings with Beauty and the Beast. Reason...Do you have to ask?

Weiss: Hmm...I would say Crystal Snow. It has a certain elegance and beauty to it that I find very lovely. Plus I will admit, part of me does really like the story of Frozen.

Blake: There's a shock.

Weiss: Hey!

Blake: Anyways, I think mine's Oblivion. Despite it's dark look and nature, its still a powerful force for good.

Yang: I like Fenrir, mainly because it's one that obviously got its inspiration from Cloud, and he's a tough son of a bitch. Nuff said.

Jaune: Hmm, if I had to choose one, I'd say probably any of the Keyblades you get from Olympus Coliseum/Olympus.

Pyrrha: I feel the same way, Jaune.

Nora: Now there's something that isn't surprising. Obviously, I do like Favorite Deputy because it can turn into a hammer, but I also like all the ones you get from Pooh's storybook and Grand Chef.

Ren: The reason is obviously because they're food-themed. My favorites would be Hidden Dragon, Way to Dawn, and Two Become One. They each have some meaning to a long journey in which many changes occurred that helped the person on that journey grow up a little more, especially in the case of the latter two. Although, in the case of Hidden Dragon, I just like it because it just feels like something that I'd be very familiar with.

Velvet: Oh, there's just so many, I can't really decide.

Coco: I can, and my favorite would have to be Gull Wing, namely because I just really like the Gullwings themselves. They've got some really amazing style.

AN: Okay, is that everyone? Good, I need to move this along.

Sora: Wait! We still haven't answered the other question.

AN: AH! [hides again until he realizes who it is] Oh, uh, sure. Yeah, but fast!

Sora: Okay...Well, anyways, the answer to who would win in a game of laser tag between all of us, would definitely be either me, Roxas, Ren, or Ruby. Roxas does in fact use two laser guns, but I've also got a pretty good amount of experience after all that time I spent using my Double Arrowguns Formchange. Plus, Ruby makes it hard to hit her since she's so fast, and Ren, well I think the reasons speak for themselves, given his usual choice of weapon.

AN: Moving on now! "cbustroyer", I'm glad to see that despite your hang-ups, you do in fact find the story to be good, and I think that you'll be pleased to know that with this chapter at least, I have taken your advice into consideration. I did in fact try to change some of the original dialogue up a little beyond what is necessary, but keep in mind, there are just some things that I can't really change too much and allow it to have the same effect. I've got a bit of a hang-up of my own in that I tend to keep a good deal of the original dialogue in there when necessary so that I can make more of an impact, or really just so I can have the characters provide their own reactions to the things that were said at certain points, but I can see why you'd be annoyed that it does not change very much. Hope you can continue following the story despite any future hang-ups.

"Dragon Rider 66", no need to worry, the newest update is still in October, and I'm hoping to have the next one up while we're still in said month as well, mainly because I don't want to leave you all hanging on how things end in this chapter. You'll see why in a little bit. No, it's not entirely wrong to hope that things may lead to a love triangle between Neptune, Weiss, and Ven, but I wouldn't bet on it too much. As for your more funny idea, I think that might end up being something I could try to do in the possible Chibi-verse story of this one.

"CT7567Rules", you really think that Sora, Sora is likely to find a computer virus, be it Cinder's or anyone else's? As he stated in Kingdom Hearts 3...[plays certain clip from said game]

"I can't computer."

[end clip]

Nuff said there. Regarding your question regarding Gundams, if you don't that we just leave it at Team RWBY for the moment, I would say that Yang would go with any machine that fights in close-combat like her (meaning machines like Gundam Maxter or similar ones), Blake would probably go with something like the Deathscythe or the Blitz Gundam, Weiss...hmm, I'd like to say maybe Gundam Rose since it utilizes at least one weapon that's similar to what she's used to, and Ruby...Well, it's a little harder to pin it down for her, but definitely the Deathscythe because of it's main weapon, or maybe any machine that was in her color.

That's pretty much all I can answer at this time, as anything else would have a strong chance of me giving away serious spoilers, be it for next chapter or in the future of the story. Now, time to move on to the main event. Enjoy, I'll just be hiding over here if you need me.

Ruby: Why are you hiding, anyway?

AN: Can't explain. He might be here any minute.

Qrow: He's already here, actually.

AN: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! [runs away as fast as possible]

Qrow: You're not getting off that easy! [chases after author with sword drawn]

Ruby: Now Uncle Qrow's trying to kill the author?! Why?!

Yang: I get the feeling we're about to find out. If I may be so bold...

lyokoMARVELanime does not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or RWBY franchises, or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

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Chapter 11: Paint the Town

In all honesty, Weiss probably should have seen this coming. Sure, they did not necessarily need four people to make a simple phone call, but given how Ruby had pretty much insisted that she and Sora come with her, she would have expected her team's leader to actually stick around long enough to make the call before running off like that. Still, it was not like she did not understand why Ruby and Sora had gone to chase after Penny. If one of her friends suddenly popped up after being missing for weeks, acting like they did not know her, she would want some answers too. Besides, there was always the chance that Penny could have some information that would help with their investigation, so that made it a little easier for her to deal with any frustrations she had towards the two leaders. Well that, and the fact that she was not left completely on her own for this, as evidenced by the blonde who was currently walking alongside her through the transmit tower's lobby.

"Okay, so once we make that call, what do you think we should do afterwards," Ventus asked as they approached the elevator.

"Maybe go over the files to see if there's anything that stands out. It would help make things go by a little quicker for when we meet up with the others," Weiss shrugged. She had not really thought that much about it either, and thinking back now, it did seem a little silly for them to change their appearances for this when they were not really expecting to do much more than make a phone call.

"Yeah, that does sound good," Ventus nodded. He then seemed to grow a little more nervous as he added, "Maybe we could…I don't know, find a nice quiet place to do that in, like a café or something? Grab a bite to eat while we're looking over the stuff?"

Weiss could not help but gain a faint tinge of pink at that suggestion, but she was not able to give an answer, as they had already stepped into the elevator, and were now having to listen to the automated voice playing over the speaker. "Hello. Welcome to the CCT. How may I help you?"

Weiss quickly cast off her flustered state and replied to the computer's question. "We'd like to go to the communications room please."

"Absolutely. Could you please place your Scrolls on the terminal to verify your identities?" In response, both Weiss and Ventus pulled out their Scrolls and held them up to the terminal, silently allowing the devices to be scanned. "Perfect! Thank you Miss Schnee and Mister Kunsanagi."

Neither of the two said anything back as the elevator started moving to its destination, but Ventus was tempted to repeat his earlier question to Weiss. That is, until he saw Weiss trying to plaster a fake smile onto her face, and apparently not quite getting the result she wanted, judging by the grimaces that usually followed afterwards. "Weiss, what're you doing," Ventus asked.

"Uh…I'm practicing my smiling," Weiss replied, though her answer sounded more like a question in both of their ears.

Ventus did not want to get on the heiress's bad side, but he felt that he just could not lie about what he saw. "Yeah, I'd hate to break this to you, Weiss, but I saw more convincing fake smiles from Jaune back when Cardin was messing with him."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, I'm just saying," Ventus reassured her. "Why do you even need to practice that, anyway?"

"Because we don't want the receptionist to think that something is wrong, for one. If she does, she's likely to patch me through to my father, and that's the last thing I need right now," Weiss informed him.

Ventus was curious as to why Weiss would not want to talk to her father. Given what she had told him about her family, he thought that Weiss would leap at any chance to talk with her parents. Then again, there was also the chance that one or both of her parents held some responsibility for the recent turn of her family company's reputation, or that Weiss just held some little bit of animosity towards them for what happened when she was little. Either way though, he was going to respect her wishes and not question her on this matter. That did not mean he would not help her avoid talking to her father however he could though.

"Well, you're not going to convince anyone looking like some cheap, plastic doll. Maybe you should try thinking of something funny, or just anything that makes you happy. That might help a little bit," Ventus informed Weiss.

"Somehow, I'm not so sure of that," Weiss informed Ventus. The next thing she knew, Ventus was suddenly poking at her ribcage. "Hey! What're doing?"

"Trying to make you laugh," Ventus shrugged like it was the most natural thing the world before he continued his efforts to tickle Weiss. Sure, she was trying to bat his hand away, but Ventus was too quick for that strategy to work well for very long. "Hey, laughter is the best medicine, and people always have a much more natural smile when they're laughing."

"Oh please," Weiss grumbled in response with a roll of her eyes, but that did not stop Ven from trying to tickle her. "Cut it out! Ven, this isn't funny!"

"Then how come you're already starting to smile," Ventus teasingly questioned.

"I-I'm not! I-I'm n-not…s-smiling, you…You…Hehe…Hehehehe….AHAHAHAHA!" Weiss could not keep it in any longer. Ventus had gotten past all of her defenses, and now, she was laughing up a storm as his fingers danced along her ribcage. "S-stop! Ven! Th-that tickles! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"There we go! Now that looks much better, wouldn't you say," Ventus happily asked. His grin then turned a little more mischievous as he then added, "Who would've thought our resident Snow Princess was ticklish, though. Makes me wonder where else is a weak spot for you."

"Ventus, I-I swear, d-don't you even," Weiss tried to threaten between her chuckles, but it was not even coming out as half-hearted with all the laughing she was doing. That and hearing him call her Snow Princess did make her gain another odd, tingly feeling in her stomach.

Ven's tickle attack did not let up from Weiss until the elevator finally dinged to signal their arrival at the communications room, and he immediately pulled away so that no one would get suspicious or shoot them with any odd looks. Weiss on the other hand, needed to catch her breath, so she was sure that she was going to be getting some of those looks. Despite that, she still gave Ventus a thankful smile before they exited the elevator and made their way over to the reception desk, where a holographic image of a woman suddenly appeared once they had gotten close enough.

"Welcome to the Beacon Cross-Continental Transmit Center. How may I help you," the AI asked with a pleasant smile once the pair had reached the desk.

"We need to make a call to Schnee Company World Headquarters in Atlas," Weiss informed the AI receptionist.

"Absolutely," the hologram replied as it appeared to work on a keyboard for a few seconds. "If you could head over to Terminal 3, I'll patch you through."

"Thank you," Ventus nodded in reply, and with that, he and Weiss turned to head for the specified terminal, passing several students who were on call with a variety of individuals as they went.

Reaching the terminal, Weiss felt her smile falter a little bit, but thankfully it did not disappear completely. The last thing she needed was to have a repeat of Ven's tickle attack from the elevator, and right now, just thinking of it seemed liable to give her a brief round of giggles, as evidenced by how a brief one slipped past her lips just now. Thankfully, she managed to silence it just before the line to her family's company headquarters opened up and was answered by the receptionist.

"Thank you for calling the Atlas…Oh! Miss Schnee," the receptionist gasped in pleasant surprise upon seeing Weiss was on the other end. "Good afternoon! Would you like me to patch you through to your father? I think your sister, Winter might be here as well."

"No thank you," Weiss politely declined. "I was actually wondering if you could find some files for me. I've compiled a short list."

With that said, she then plugged her Scroll into the terminal, transmitting the data on said list to the receptionist on the other end of the call, and making said woman turn a little concerned. "I see…If you don't mind, what may I ask is this for?"

"School project," Weiss easily played off.

It did not seem like the secretary was completely convinced though. "Um, there are some rather sensitive documents on this list, ma'am."

"Well, Weiss is quite the overachiever, and she didn't want to leave anything out on this," Ventus said in an attempt to help reinforce Weiss's story. If he had been paying better attention though, he probably would have noticed Weiss trying to discreetly signal for him to keep quiet.

When the receptionist saw Ventus appear, her smile quickly returned, but this time with a rather suspicious feeling accompanying it. "Oh! And who is this handsome young man?"

"I'm Ventus, one of Weiss's classmates and friends from here at Beacon. We were assigned as partners for the project," Ventus explained.

"I see," the receptionist nodded, her tone indicating that she was forming a rather interesting thought. She then looked back to Weiss and asked, "Tell me, ma'am, is he your boyfriend?"

"WHAT," Ventus and Weiss both gasped, drawing the attention of a few people in the room.

While Ventus just nervously laughed it off while waving to everyone else, Weiss attempted to regain her composure and said, "U-um, back on topic, those documents I requested? I'll be sure to treat them with the utmost care, and I can safely say the same for my PARTNER."

"Right…Very well," the receptionist nodded, her smile not faltering at all, even as Weiss's Scroll rang with the sound of data being received. "The data is being transferred to your Scroll now."

"Wonderful. That will be all then," Weiss thanked, happy that it seemed like she was going to get through this call without anymore unexpected surprises. Too bad for her she ended up thinking that a little too soon.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to patch you through to your father before you go? I'm sure he would like to hear that you've made some friends at Beacon, and found a very handsome young man who clearly cares for you at that?"

"YES! Yes, I'm sure! Goodbye now," Weiss immediately insisted, her face turning red again at what the woman on the other end of the call was implying, and before anymore could be said, Weiss quickly slammed the control to hang up, letting the screen go blank right after.

Ventus could not help but chuckle a little bit at how flustered Weiss was at the end of that call, but his mood changed just as quickly when he saw another frown appear on Weiss's face. On one hand, he figured that she was a little sad that she had passed up a chance to talk with her sister, given that Weiss had admitted to not getting to see all that much of Winter since she joined the Atlesian army, but then again, the receptionist had mentioned Weiss's father a lot more than her sister, so it was probably not that. The only way he was really going to know for sure though was to ask about it.

"Hey Weiss, I know you said that things had been rough in your family since you were little, but is there…something going on between you and your father," Ventus finally asked.

"Well…There may be a chance that…my father was not too happy that I had decided to attend Beacon Academy," Weiss hesitantly admitted. "Or more accurately, he was not too fond of my decision to become a huntress, so I may or may not have…come here without his approval or full knowledge."

"You…basically snuck out of the house…to follow your dream," Ventus summarized as best as he could.

"Not quite how I would put it, but that is rather accurate," Weiss nodded, waiting for whatever judgment would come next. When he did not say anything, Weiss found she could not help but continue speaking. "My father's done a lot of bad things with my grandfather's company since he took over; I'm not blind to that, and I think the only way I can set things right is by becoming a huntress. After all, my grandfather was a huntsman when he started the company, so it only makes sense that I might be able to set things right by taking a similar path to his."

Hearing Weiss talk about her grandfather like that made Ventus smile a little bit, even it was upsetting to hear that the company took a nose-dive because of her father. Still, it was nice to know a little more about the reason why Weiss had chosen her path in life, and Ven was even more intrigued by the fact that Weiss had pushed forward with her choice despite her father's disapproval. It actually reminded him of something that he had to mention to Weiss.

"You know, you're not the only one who's done something like that," Ventus informed Weiss, much to her surprise and curiosity. "You remember what we told you about my first journey? The one that involved our first time battling Vanitas and the Unversed?" When Weiss nodded in confirmation, Ventus then added, "I actually wasn't supposed to go on that journey. Aqua, Terra, and Master Eraqus had wanted me to stay home, thinking that I wasn't ready and it was safer if I didn't try to leave."

"Really," Weiss gasped. She did not remember Ven and the others mentioning that when they were telling her and the others their story.

"Yeah, but Vanitas…he had said something that got me pretty worried about Terra, and I just couldn't bring myself to ignore it," Ventus revealed. "Sometimes, you can't really worry about what others say or think; if you feel like you can or have to do something then it's better to just act on that instinct. Better to act and regret the choice then to just sit back and regret not making it, you know?"

Weiss let that roll around in her head for a minute, and inevitably smiled to Ventus, showing that she felt exactly the same way when she made her decision to come to Beacon. It only became all the more apparent when she said, "Thank you, Ven. It feels good to know that someone else feels the same way as I do." Just because she was grateful though, did not mean she was going to let other things slide. "I'm still going to get you back for that tickle attack later on."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Ventus scoffed in good humor.

"Oh, I don't think I'll need very much luck, given you apparently have a very serious weakness for such tactics as well," Weiss grinned knowingly.

Seeing that smile gave Ventus a very bad feeling, and there was only one conclusion that made sense in his mind as to the reason behind her smile. "What did Aqua tell you," he asked, dreading the answer even before it came.

"Oh, she may or may not have mentioned a certain sparring match you had with Terra, where your defeat came about due to your friend accidentally stumbling upon one of your more ticklish spots," Weiss admitted, her smile still holding.

Ventus knew exactly what she was talking about after hearing that, and immediately let out an agonized moan, drawing a fresh bout of laughter from heiress. When he heard Weiss laughing again, Ven could not bring himself to be too upset. Sure, he was still very embarrassed, but hearing her laugh and seeing her smile seemed to have a very calming effect on Ventus, and it was at that point he finally had to admit that maybe Aqua had a point in all those times she had teased him about the resident Ice Princess. The idea certainly was growing more and more appealing to him the more he thought about it.

---

Even after moving a little more into the city, Penny still seemed really nervous about talking with her friends, but thankfully, a reassuring grin from both Ruby and Sora after they showed up at the café they agreed to meet at did the trick with helping to ease her nerves at least a little more. Sure, their sudden appearance had startled her at first, but being around Ruby and Sora again did make Penny really happy. Regardless of that, Penny insisted that they keep moving around as they talked, and she was very thankful for the two not questioning that. She just wished she had better news in regards to what they were looking into right now.

"I do wish I could help you guys, but I don't know anything about those men or the creatures they were working with," Penny informed them.

"I kinda figured it would be a long-shot that you did know something," Sora shrugged like it was no big deal. "Besides, it's probably better if you steered clear of them any ways."

"He's right. Those creatures may not have been too tough, but they were some of the weaker variety of others like them," Ruby added on, remembering what Sora and the others had told her about the various forms of Nobodies. "More importantly though, what happened to you that night? One minute we were all together, and the next you had just disappeared. Were you kidnapped?"

"Oh no! Nothing like that," Penny hurriedly insisted. "It's just…As I've already mentioned to Sora, I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but…"

"You got caught up in all the excitement and couldn't help but do everything possible to see all that Vale had to offer, right," Sora guessed. When Penny looked at him in question, silently confirming his theory, Sora explained, "Trust me, I know that feeling all too well. In fact, I still get it whenever I go somewhere that I haven't been to for the first time. I'm sure your dad couldn't have been too upset if that was the case though, could he?"

Penny smiled upon hearing that, glad to hear that Sora understood her excitement, but still felt the need to say something in her father's defense. "Oh no. He wasn't very upset, he just…My father loves me very much, but he worries a lot."

"Believe me, I know that feeling," Ruby remarked with a roll of her eyes, thinking of her own father and how much he worries about her and Yang. "But, why not let us know you were okay?"

"I…was asked…not to talk to you two," Penny slowly admitted. "Or Weiss…or Blake…or Yang…or Roxas…or anybody really."

"Jeez! That's a little harsh. Your dad was that upset," Sora asked, not knowing that Ruby was of the exact same mind as him.

"No, it wasn't my father who asked me," Penny started to explain, only to stop short when they all heard someone talking over a loudspeaker from somewhere around the corner.

Looking to the source, the three were all greeted to the sight of a platform in the center plaza, where it looked like someone from Atlas was presenting something to the general public, and it was pretty easy to figure out what that thing was just from looking, at least for Ruby. "Hey, looks like General Ironwood is announcing some new Atlas tech," Ruby cheered. "Maybe it's an upgrade for the Atlesian Knights."

"For the what," Sora asked.

"You know, those robots security guards. Haven't you seen some of them around before," Ruby asked.

"Oh yeah. I think I did see some once or twice at some of the docks that the Schnee Company uses," Sora recalled, now feeling a little curious about what was being presented, not noticing anymore than Ruby how Penny seemed to become a little anxious at the sight of the presentation.

"The AK130 has been a standard security model of Remnant for several years, and they have done a fine job, wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't you agree," the hologram of Ironwood asked the gathering audience while the robots in question gave a quick, synchronized bow, making Sora think that it was not just a recording of the general. Either that or the general was really good at timing his pauses just enough to allow for his audience's reactions, given that he had only stopped just long enough for the crowd of gathered people to clap for the robots behind him before speaking again. "But, the kingdom of Atlas is a kingdom of innovation, and fine…Well, that's just not good enough, so why stop there? Presenting, the Atlesian Knight…200!"

At that last declaration, the two sets of pods that were resting behind the robots all opened up to show everyone a much more impressive squad or robots, each of which could easily be mistaken for people in fancy armor where it not for their perfect synchronized movements as they moved to stand atop the backs of the less impressive robots, and the obvious signs of mechanical joints on their bodies. The sight of the robots definitely seemed appealing to the audience, given how loudly they clapped upon seeing them, even as they continued listening to Ironwood's pitch.

"Smarter, sleeker, and admittedly, a little less scary-looking," the Ironwood hologram stated while the robots made several poses from flexing their muscles to shooting some finger guns to the audience, and even waving at some points. "These models will become active later this year, but they won't be alone. As much as the Atlesian army prefers to support the idea of removing men from the dangers of the battlefield, we are willing to admit that there will always be a need for a more human touch as well. After all, no simple drone can ever truly hope to show the same compassion or mercy as a human being."

"Uh, Ruby…Sora…I think we should…" Penny started to say, hoping that she could persuade the two into leaving this. Too bad for her, Ruby loved all things that were related to weapons, and this definitely had her hooked, given how her eyes had widened a little as she moved to get closer for a slightly better look.

"Just hang on a minute, Penny. I kinda want to see where this leads," Sora insisted, his tone reassuring her that they would not be here for much longer.

"So, our kingdom's greatest minds, in cooperation with the Schnee Dust Company are proud to introduce…The Atlesian Paladin!"

In an instant, Ironwood's hologram was replaced with one that showed the three-dimensional image of a massive mech battle suit, and it was most definitely armed to the teeth from what everyone could see. Not that it made the crowd any less impressed with what they were seeing right now, including Ruby and Sora. Though in the case of the latter, it also gave him a sense of familiarity.

"Wow! That kind of reminds me of some of the mech suits I could pilot…uh, when I visited another place a while back," Sora recalled, thinking of his adventures on the world of Toy Box, but unable to say it out loud since Penny was right there, and they were out in public.

Ruby barely noticed what Sora had said, and she was not much better in hearing Penny's next attempt at getting them to leave. "Ruby, Sora, maybe we should go somewhere else," the odd girl requested.

This time, Sora picked up on her mild distress, but before he could ask her what was wrong, something seemed to have caught her attention, and prompted Penny to turn around and take off at a very brisk run. Her sudden departure also helped snap Ruby out of any daydreams she was having about piloting an Atlesian Paladin, because she quickly spun around and called out, "Hey Penny! Where are you going now? Come back!"

"I don't think that she's really too fond of that idea, given how those guards seem to be running over here," Sora informed Ruby, having turned to locate the reason behind Penny's flight from the area.

Turning to where Sora was indicating, Ruby had no trouble spotting the guards that were running in their direction, and quickly figured out that Sora's suspicions were likely true, so she had no problem in turning to chase after her friend while thinking of ways that she could slow down or lose their pursuers. Sora was doing the same thing, but unfortunately, most of his ideas involved summoning out his Keyblade so he could perform some variety of magic, and there were too many people around for him to effectively use some of those tricks without blowing his secret. Luckily for them, it seemed that Penny's escape route led through a few back alleys with very few people, so Sora eventually had a little more freedom to work with in that regard. At least he thought he did, until Ruby saw him summon out Kingdom Key in preparation to fire off an ice spell that would freeze the guards' feet to the ground.

"No, wait! We don't know why they're chasing us, and I'd rather we not get into trouble or even arrested for assaulting Atlesian officers," Ruby cautioned as she grasped the arm Sora was aiming Kingdom Key with.

"Well do you have a better idea," Sora questioned as they began to round another bend.

As they came around said corner, Ruby spotted a weak, wooden structure that was holding up several large crates, and glancing back to see that the two officers had been held up by traffic, Ruby knew she would be able to implement it. "Get ready to make a quick rush," Ruby told Sora as she drew Crescent Rose.

Sora did not have time to ask what she meant by that, as the girl had already fired a shot from her scythe so that she could blast forward. As she went, the blade of her scythe easily cut through the supports holding the crates, creating a wall between her and the officers, but since Sora was not entirely sure what she had been planning, he ended up stuck on the wrong side of the wall. That was not going to stop Sora though, as thanks to a little wind magic and Flowmotion, he was easily propelled over the barricade and quickly bounced off the wall so that he could catch up with the girls.

Ruby breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Sora had not been left behind by her actions, but she knew that it would not be long for those guys to find a way around her barricade, and there was only one way she could think of to ensure that they lost them. Jumping up to and then running along the adjacent wall, Ruby quickly blasted over to Penny with her Semblance, and then wrapped her arms around the girl as she appeared next to her, ready to rebound off the wall next to Penny the minute she had reappeared.

"Hang on," Ruby shouted, and then with a concentrated effort, she blasted off again as fast her Semblance could take her.

"Hey! Wait for me," Sora shouted after them, still being carried along by his Flowmotion magic, and he easily repeated Ruby's actions of bouncing off the walls to catch up, even if his wall jumping did include more rebounds off of the walls than Ruby's had.

The only problem with Ruby's idea was that she was not used to carrying other people while using her Semblance, and it ended up tiring her out a lot quicker than she was expecting. As a result, she ended up dropping down to the ground just as she and Penny were reaching the end of the alleyway, with Penny slipping from her grasp on the first impact against the asphalt. As if they did not have enough problems, Ruby's stop had ended up sending her tumbling into the middle of a busy street, while Sora, who had not been expecting it any more than she was, ended up overshooting where Ruby was and too far away from where Ruby had landed. Because of that, Sora could barely even think of trying to correct his path before Ruby heard a loud truck horn blaring at her from behind.

Ruby had instantly turned into a regular deer-in-headlights when she realized where she was, and had only just managed to get to her feet before she saw the truck barreling towards her. Even then, she saw that Sora was too far away to reach her in time before she was hit, despite his best efforts to do so, but thankfully, Sora was not the only one to see the danger approaching her. Penny had been able to get to Ruby fast enough to shove her out of the way, but instead of moving along with her, Penny just remained where she was with her arms up like she was planning to stop the truck. Right when Ruby and Sora were about to scream for Penny to get out of the way, the truck came to a hard stop after slamming right into said girl, and much to their surprise, Penny looked perfectly fine.

"Whoa…" Sora gasped, just as wide-eyed as Ruby was at the sight of Penny actually stopping a truck like that.

"Penny…What just…" Ruby barely managed to mutter. Sure, she was too far away for Penny to really hear her, but that did not seem to register for Ruby due to the shock of what she had just witnessed.

Penny did not seem like she was taking either Ruby or Sora's reactions too well, because after making sure the driver was okay, she quickly clenched her hands shut, and ran off again, obviously upset by the terrified looks that her two friends were giving her at the moment. "Wait! Penny, come back," Ruby called out as she chased after Penny again, the crowd that was gathering around the scene of the crash blocking their previous pursuers even further than they already had been.

"Penny," Sora shouted after her as he joined in on Ruby's chase. When they finally found her again, Penny seemed to be frantic, like she was desperately trying to find some way to hide from anyone and anything. Too bad for her that would not have made a difference in the case of Ruby or Sora. "Penny, please don't run from us," Sora pleaded as he and Ruby finally caught up.

"We just want to know what's going on," Ruby insisted. "Why are you running from those guys? How did you do that just now?!"

"I-I can't. Everything's fine," Penny insisted, only to suddenly hiccup a second later. She then folded her arms so that the two could not see her hands, and rapidly added, "I don't want to talk about it!" Once again, Penny hiccupped after speaking, and Sora was starting to get a sneaking suspicion about the reason why that was happening.

"Penny, calm down. It's just me and Sora. If you could just tell us what's wrong we might be able to help you," Ruby tried to reassure her to no avail.

"No, no, no, you wouldn't understand," Penny argued, making the other two think that she was likely to start crying at any second now with how frantic she seemed to be.

"You can't know that if you don't give us a chance to try. You can trust us, Penny. After all, we're your friends," Sora promised.

That seemed to give Penny a little more encouragement, but she still needed total reassurance from them both. "You mean that? You really mean it when you say that you're my friends? You promise?"

"Of course. We promise," Ruby confidently replied, feeling like she was ready for anything Penny could tell them.

It turned out that Ruby was not quite as ready as she thought, because Penny's answer left her very surprised, even after seeing how any cuts that Penny's hands had suffered revealed metallic joints beneath her skin. "Ruby…Sora…I'm not a real girl," Penny stated.

"…Oh," was all Ruby could say right then. She had not expected that at all.

Sora on the other hand was a slightly different story. "Huh. That's…actually kind of cool," he admitted out loud, surprising Penny a little. Not that she had much time to think on it before Sora asked his next question. "But why would you think that you're not real?"

Penny was a little happy to see that Sora was so accepting of this, so she felt a little more comfortable talking about this. "Most girls are born, but I was made," Penny explained. "I'm the world's first synthetic person capable of generating an aura. But even with fake skin and nice clothes, it's hard to really hide or run from the fact that I'm still a machine and not a living being."

"Of course you are," Ruby suddenly said, grasping Penny's hands as if to better affirm that for her. "You really think because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts changes any of that? Or that it makes you any less real than me and Sora?"

"Yeah, Penny. You're not like those robots we saw back at the presentation. You've got something that they don't: a heart, a soul, and a conscience," Sora added with a friendly smile.

"I don't, um…" Penny stuttered, taken off-guard by how sure the two sounded. "How do you know any of that?"

"Because if there's one thing I've learned in all the time that I've spent on all of the journeys that I've had, it's how to know for certain that someone has a heart," Sora revealed, already going into one of his usual speeches about the subject. "They're not just something you can program or put into a person. Hearts are things that grow inside of us, give us strength, and help us learn to feel. You can smile, laugh, care for others, get scared, even cry, and you have to have a heart at the very least to do any of those things. Besides, last I checked, aura is the manifestation of your soul, so by that logic, you can't generate an aura without a soul."

"Well then, what about that last one? A conscience," Penny asked, pointing out that Sora had only explained his reasons for believing two of those things he listed her having.

"That should be easy to figure out," Ruby answered for him. "You chose to help us in the past when our friends were missing, and when you saw me and Sora get attacked, you chose to stay help us fight those guys at the docks when you had every reason to run away."

"Well why wouldn't I? I mean, don't friends help each other whenever they're able to," Penny asked.

"Of course, and that right there is proof that you have a conscience," Ruby insisted.

Penny did not really understand what was going on right now. She had been so sure that Ruby and Sora would have been afraid or at least a lot more startled if they ever learned her secret, and yet, they did not seem to be having any problems with it at all. It did not make any sense to her, and she said so as well. "You're both taking this extraordinarily well."

"Hey, it's just like Sora said; you're not like those things we saw back there, because you've definitely got a heart, a soul, and a conscience. I can feel it just as much as he can," Ruby reaffirmed for her.

"Besides, you really think you're the first friend I've made that was actually a robot or something," Sora asked. "If I ever get the chance, I should introduce you to Baymax at some point, a robot that was built to be a healthcare companion and yet is willing to fight to keep people safe. Heck, one of my friends is a computer program named Tron, and he's just as human as anyone else I've ever met."

Penny was not entirely sure what to make of Sora's claims, but right now, none of that mattered to her. She was just too happy with the underlying message that the two were giving her, and it certainly showed in how she lit up like a Christmas tree and pulled the two in for a tight hug. "Oh Ruby! Sora! You two are the best friends anyone could have," Penny happily cheered, not entirely aware that she might have been suffocating her best friends with her hug.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Sora choked out. "But, do you think you could lighten up on your grip? I can't breathe!"

"I think I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower," Ruby muffled out, having just as much trouble breathing as Sora, but still being completely honest in what she said. Penny was so innocent that it made her look like Yang.

"Oh, he's very sweet," Penny praised as she released the two. "My father's the one that built me! I'm sure you would just love him."

"Boy does that sound familiar," Sora remarked to himself, thinking of his old friends Pinocchio and Geppetto when he heard that.

"That's impressive, especially if he built you all by himself," Ruby told Penny.

"Well, almost all by himself. He had some help from Mister Ironwood," Penny clarified.

"The general," Ruby gasped in surprise.

"That probably would explain why you're so good in a fight, and why you have weapons at all," Sora said. Of course, knowing that also made him think back to the people they were just running from, and he just had to ask about the conclusion he came to after thinking of that. "Wait, is that why those soldiers were chasing you just now?"

"They like to protect me too," Penny admitted.

"Don't you think you could've mentioned that a little sooner? Like before I considered trying to shoot ice at them," Sora questioned.

"Well, they tend to be a little more protective than my father at times," Penny shrugged. "If it were up to them, I probably wouldn't ever get to go outside."

"Still sounds silly to me," Ruby scoffed. "What, do they think you can't protect yourself?"

"They're not sure if I'm ready yet," Penny admitted. "One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the tournament."

Sora certainly liked Penny's reason for coming to the festival. After all, it was not too different from the original reason why he wanted to travel to other worlds, and after competing in the tournaments at Olympus Coliseum, he knew just how perfect a fighting tournament could be for helping someone test their strength. Ruby was no different in that line of thought, but there was something about what Penny said that made her a little confused.

"Uh Penny, what do you mean 'save the world'? What could you need to save the world from when we're in a time of peace," Ruby asked.

"Mister Ironwood doesn't seem to think so, given some of the things he's said," Penny revealed, much to Sora and Ruby's confusion. Just before they could further question her on the matter though, they all heard someone approaching, and they had a pretty good guess as to who it was. Penny was especially concerned now as she turned to Ruby and Sora, and said, "You two have to hide!"

"Wait, what," was all that Sora could ask before Penny suddenly hefted both him and Ruby up over her shoulder so that she could carry them both into a hiding spot. "Hey! Penny, put us down! This isn't funny!"

"What're you doing, Penny?! You don't have to go with them! We can help you," Ruby frantically insisted, but her pleas did nothing to save her and Sora from being thrown into the garbage dumpster that Penny chose to hide them in. "Ewwwww! Penny!"

"It's okay, you guys, they're not bad people," Penny reassured the two with a smile of her own. "I just don't want to get you two into trouble. Just promise me you won't tell anyone about my secret. Okay?"

Seeing how serious Penny was, Ruby and Sora could not help but smile back, glad to hear that Penny was not going to get into too much trouble for that scene back there and more than willing to show her that she could trust them. "I promise," Ruby nodded.

"Yeah, me too," Sora confirmed. "After all, we're friends, right Penny?"

"Right," Penny nodded in thanks, and with that, she let the two duck down so she could close the lid, hiding them from view.

The two then listened as Penny spoke with the soldiers, smiling a little at some points more than others, but ultimately could not help but raise the lid just enough so that they could peek out and see what was happening. You could not imagine just how relieved they were to see Penny following the officers willingly, and without being so much as cuffed, and despite the fact they were upset by the "scratches" that Penny got on her hands, they did not seem too upset with her either, so that served as all the more reassurance that Ruby and Sora needed to know that Penny would be okay.

When the three were finally out of sight, Sora thought back to how Penny had hiccupped every time she lied, and then remarked, "You know, it's a good thing Jiminy's not here. He'd probably insist on going with her so that he could chew her out for fibbing, even if it was for a good reason."

Ruby snickered a little at that, until she heard a rat screeching somewhere beneath her feet and jumped back out of fright, forgetting that Sora was behind her when she did. "Ew, ew, ew! Get it away! Get it away," Ruby pleaded.

"OW! Ruby, careful! You're crushing me," Sora protested from underneath the girl while doing everything he could to keep his hands from ending up somewhere that they should not be, a rather difficult feat given their small range of space at the moment.

Unfortunately for Sora, his attempts all proved futile, and Ruby was too quick to notice something was off for him to try and correct the mistake. "Uh, S-Sora, is-is that your hand on my butt," Ruby asked, her face bright red in embarrassment.

Sora instantly froze where he was, while his voice ended up caught in his throat for a moment, at least until he finally choked out, "I swear this was not intentional."

---

In another part of town, Yang's bike had just come to a screeching halt in the shady part of Vale, and right outside a very familiar location. It was actually rather impressive to her that the place was able to open up again so soon after the way she had been forced to demolish it, but she was not here for any of the fun that this club could offer; she was here on business. Sure, that was her reason for being here last time, but that was of a more personal nature, and this was likely to be more fruitful too.

"Come on. My friend's right in here," Yang told her two passengers as she shook her head to free up her mane of hair after getting her helmet off.

"Okay, before we go in, I've gotta ask: is this guy an actual friend, or should we expect people to point to weapons at us…again," Lea questioned. It was not entirely playful either, because just about half of the clubs that Yang had taken him to on their previous dates had led to that very scenario. Apparently, Yang had trashed quite a few clubs/bars while in pursuit of what had led her to this particular club. That, or because some idiot had damaged her hair in some form or fashion.

"Oh, loosen up, Lea. Besides, it's not like these guys would actually be able to do anything to us if they tried," Yang brushed off.

"That's not an answer to my question," Lea pointed out just before he noticed that Neptune was still sitting on the back of Yang's bike with a dazed expression on his face, no doubt from the shock of Yang's driving. "Hey Blue-Boy, light a fire under it before I have to do it for you, and it won't be in the metaphorical sense."

Hearing that was certainly encouragement enough for Neptune to shake off his dazed state and follow after them. "So, how exactly are we doing this? Like a good-cop, bad-cop thing," He asked.

"Mmm, I think at this point it would be more like good-cop, bad-cop, rookie-cop," Lea corrected. He then looked Neptune over a second time before then amended, "Actually, that doesn't feel as intimidating. Let's make that bad-cop, worse-cop, rookie-cop."

"Hey," Neptune almost wined, mainly because Lea had pointed to him each time he had said rookie-cop.

"Just calling it like it is, bud," Lea waved off. His humor ended up vanishing though when he saw how the bouncer took one look at Yang and then rushed to lock the door while shouting for someone to barricade the entrance to the club proper. "Yep. We're gonna have weapons pointed at us in a minute."

"Like I said, lighten up," Yang remarked, and the next thing either boy knew, she had kicked the front entrance open. Even though the next door was so big, and obviously reinforced, Yang and her friends could still somehow hear the guys all frantically shouting on the other side, but the blonde did not pay it too much mind. She was too busy readying one of her gauntlets to fire, and when it did, the door ended up being blasted open, allowing her to make an explosive entrance while strutting into the room. "Guess who's back," Yang called out to the room at large, grinning a little more at hearing one of her favorite songs playing over the speakers.

Apparently these people remembered her quite well, because literally every thug in the room was quick to draw their guns and not only pointed them at her, but practically shoved them in her face, out of fear if nothing else. This did not bother Yang at all; it just made her a little happier knowing that these guys were scared of her to this point. In fact, her smile only fell when the music started cutting out and skipping rapidly, making her glare at the DJ in the music booth until the man in question finally just brought the music to a total stop.

When Lea stepped forward so that he could be seen by all, he glanced at all the guns pointed at them and found that he could only say one thing. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, Hot-Stuff. You really know how to show a guy a good time."

"Yeah, any chance you could define 'good time' for me? Maybe while she's telling me her definition of 'friend,'" Neptune requested, clearly much more uneasy about all the guns than the other two were.

"Stop, stop! Nobody be stupid and shoot," someone ordered, and stepping forward was the man in charge of the club himself, decked out in the same attire he wore when Yang had blasted him out of a window not too long ago, and looking none the worse for wear. Clearing his throat after making it to the front he looked to Yang and said, "Blondie! You're back again. Why?" His fear became a bit more apparent as he rapidly asked, "Please tell me that the reason won't get my business destroyed again."

"Only if your little boys here don't try and start another fight with me, Junior," Yang easily replied, not making any promises one way or the other. "Besides, you still owe me a drink, as a start."

"And beyond that…" Junior prompted as Yang marched forward.

"I may need to pick your head about a few other things I'm…concerned with," Yang admitted, having to pause as she carefully chose her words near the end. She then glanced back at Lea and added, "Oh, by the way, you should know that if we don't get any answers, my redheaded friend over there is likely to get mad a lot sooner than me, and his temper can be quite fiery."

"Emphasis on the 'fire,'" Lea growled in intimidation as he snapped his fingers to conjure up a small blaze.

Junior quickly got the idea, and gulped with a nod to show he understood before waving for the three to follow him to the bar, sending his men a glare to say that he wanted the mess cleaned up, and like that, the three were left alone. "So…what is it you want," Junior asked once he was behind the bar again.

"Anything you've got on Roman Torchwick," Yang stated, getting straight to the point.

"Is that all? You can watch the news for anything on that guy," Junior scoffed as he picked up a glass to polish.

"Not if we want to know about things like regular meeting places or possible hideouts," Yang clarified. "Besides, I know that you hired out some of your thugs to him not that long ago, and I'm guessing that it wasn't the first or last time either, something I'm sure that the police would love to hear about."

Hearing that, Junior set down the glass he was polishing with a heavy sigh, not willing to take a chance on the possibility that the girl might be bluffing, and said, "Sorry Blondie, can't help you."

A minute later he had to back away in order to keep his beard from getting singed by Lea as he suddenly lit a flame in his direction. "Oh I'm sorry. Did you want to rephrase that," the redhead questioned.

"H-Hey, calm down, you crazy pyro," Junior pleaded, only for the flame Lea was holding to grow a little in size. "Uh, I mean Crazy Pyro, sir! What I meant was that I can't help you because I don't know."

Yang placed a hand on Lea's shoulder, signaling him to back off, and once Lea had, she said, "I can't say for certain if I'll be able to control him for long, so you might want to explain fast as to how you couldn't know about that."

"Because I haven't talked to him since the night you first came in here," Junior quickly answered. "He paid upfront, I lent him my men, and none of them ever came back."

'Pretty sure I have a good idea why,' Yang thought to herself, knowing that some of those men were likely the ones that Ruby had beat up on the night that she met Ozpin and got her early acceptance into Beacon.

They were all startled out of their thoughts when Neptune suddenly cut in and asked, "So where did they go?"

Everyone just looked at the blue-haired boy like he was an idiot, and if you were to ask Junior, it was with good reason. "What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back," the club owner repeated, shutting Neptune down in an instant. He then looked back to Yang and asked, "Who is this guy?"

Neptune let out a yelp as the spot he was resting his hand on suddenly became way too hot, no doubt because of Lea, as said redhead glare at Junior and said, "I wouldn't worry about him if I were you. Just worry about me and what may happen if we don't get what we're looking for, especially if your place doesn't have an insurance policy that covers…fire damage."

Junior looked worriedly between Lea and Yang until the blonde ultimately shrugged and said, "Hey, you heard the man. Might as well try and give us something."

"Look, I already told you everything that I know! Torchwick hired my boys and I guess he wasn't happy with them," Junior insisted. He then turned to glare at some of the guys that were cleaning up the mess Yang's entrance had made and shouted, "Which is something I can relate to!"

"Yang, I'm starting to lose my patience. I need to burn something. Right now," Lea growled, scaring Junior a little more.

Yang had to admit, she was impressed with Lea's acting skills because he was even making her think for a second that he was an uncontrollable pyromaniac. She quickly focused back on Junior though, and said, "You might want to think of something you can give us, or really anything."

Junior scrambled around in his mind for something that could hopefully satisfy these crazy teens, until he finally struck what he could only assume was gold. "Look, Torchwick had been hiring my guys for a lot of robberies even before that night you first came in, but there was actually one time that he did come back in, and it was only to say that he wasn't going to be doing business with me anymore," Junior quickly admitted.

"Why," Yang asked.

"Said he found someone better, and the next thing I know, these weird, silver…things suddenly started flying around the room, some of them with swords, knives, scythes, crossbows, or some kind of weird hammers. When I asked him about them, he just said they were the better option and left, after letting some of them tear my guys apart," Junior revealed.

Looking over to Lea, Yang saw the redhead give her a silent nod in response to her silent question, and that was all the reason she needed to look back at Junior and say, "Thanks. You've been a bigger help than you know. C'mon boys."

Neptune immediately followed after Yang, Lea stayed where he was for a few seconds, staring Junior down before he finally smirked and said, "If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only who has trouble finding good help. It seems like it's becoming harder and harder to find good thugs these days. That's part of the reason why I ultimately jumped ship from the side that dabbles in icky jobs." He then turned back to his menacing act as he added, "But that doesn't mean I won't indulge in it again when necessary, especially if I find out there was anything you didn't think to tell us about it. Got it memorized?"

Junior could only nod with a very meek sound, and that was the final cue needed to take his leave and catch up with other two. "So…did we get everything we need," Neptune asked once they were all out of earshot.

"Well, we got everything we can," Yang stated, obviously disappointed that it was so little, until she recalled one piece of information that could possibly help a little bit. "So, any chance you recognize the Nobodies he mentioned."

"You don't even need to ask," Lea admitted. "Obviously you already know about the ones that use crossbows, or something similar to said weapon, would be the Snipers, and since Dusks are even easier to identify if they use weapons, I can already tell you what the others most likely are. The two easiest ones to name would be the scythe and knife users; those would be Reapers and Ninjas, respectively, the Dusks that were most directly connected with my old buddies Marluxia and Larxene. Never did like either of those two very much. The ones with the hammers are most definitely Berserkers, Isa's old underlings from his time as Saïx. We're gonna have to be really careful if we run into any of those guys, because they're not just big; they're really tough, and their attacks hurt. A lot. Trust me on that."

"And what about the ones with the swords," Neptune asked.

"Yeah…those are the ones I'm actually a little concerned about, but not for the reason you're probably thinking of," Lea admitted. "My best guess, which is most likely the correct one, would be that they're Samurais, and there's a chance that may be more or less of a problem for us in the future."

"Why's that," Yang asked.

"Well…Those were the Dusks that answered most directly to the original Organization's Number XIII," Lea answered as carefully as he could. Just because Roxas and Xion had revealed their past to Blake, who had eventually convinced the two to tell the rest of Team RWBY at the very least, did not mean that he was able to talk about it with just anyone now, so Lea was hoping that Yang would catch on to what he meant.

Thankfully, Yang did catch his hidden message, judging by the faint nod she gave in return, while it went sailing over Neptune's head. "Who's this Number XIII guy? Was he any good, or dangerous," he asked.

"Oh yeah, he's probably one of the toughest members, and he was especially dangerous if you pissed him off. He beat me and Sora's best friend, Riku when he fought against us. We're actually pretty lucky that he jumped ship before Sora started his hunt for the first Organization, and was on our side during the Second Keyblade War," Lea told the blue-haired kid.

"Well, either way, at least this didn't end up being a complete waste of time," Yang remarked, helping Lea to divert Neptune from the topic before the redhead said anything that would allow Neptune to connect the dots between Roxas and Number XIII. "I just hope the others are having better luck than we are."

Both boys had to agree with that sentiment. It was not like any of the others were in any danger of being attacked at any second, right?

---

Somewhere across town from where Yang's team was, Blake was checking over the various signs that they needed to locate in order to find the location for the White Fang's latest faction meeting. The three slash marks on a wall were just one clue, but in order to be absolutely sure, she had to look over at where the entrance most likely was, and sure enough, there were a few Faunus being allowed into a random, otherwise unused warehouse. "This is it," Blake informed her three teammates.

"You sure," Sun asked.

Roxas and Xion both then turned to the guy, silently asking the same question that Blake's glare was, but only the former actually put it into words. "Did you seriously just ask her that, or did you just suddenly forget who you're talking to," Roxas asked.

"Okay, okay. You've made your point," Sun conceded while raising his hands in surrender. "So, we doing this or what?"

"Give me a second to slip into something a little more animalistic," Xion requested with a slightly joking smile.

The girl's joke may have gotten a small grin from Sun, but Blake just shot her a blank stare while Roxas rolled his eyes while waving his hand in the "so-so" gesture. "That wasn't bad, Xion, but you may want to keep working on your humor. And just to be clear, that means don't take lessons from Yang or Axel."

"Hey, they're better teachers than you," Xion teased, her joking smile not faltering in the slightest as her body began to glow, signaling that she was about to change into a Faunus form of her own.

When the light from Xion's transformation faded, Blake checked to make sure no one had noticed, and breathed a sigh of relief seeing that they were in the clear as she turned to take in Xion's Faunus form. The change was not as noticeable as Roxas's, but Xion did now have a new set of cat ears atop her head that Blake quickly recognized as being most similar to those of a panther. Further inspection allowed her to confirm that Xion had turned into a panther Faunus when she found that her fingers were now tipped with panther claws, but to be honest, she was still a little stuck on the more noticeable change Xion had taken on.

"I know you once said that my ears were cute, Xion, but on you, those panther ears of yours are just adorable," Blake complimented as she started to undo her bow, letting her own animal trait be visible. It would have made them a lot more noticeable if she were trying to hide her kitty ears at this rally.

"Aw, thanks," Xion cooed in reply, only to jump a bit when she suddenly felt someone petting her new ears. She already had a good idea who the culprit was. "Roxas! What're you doing?"

"Sorry, but I just…I wanted to see how they felt," Roxas sheepishly apologized, still petting his girlfriend's cat-like ears.

"Well give me a little more warning…next…Oooh, that actually feels really good," Xion sighed happily after a few minutes, encouraging Roxas to keep going when she did. His petting ended up coming to a complete halt when a very interesting sound escaped from Xion's throat, startling them both.

"Did…Did you just purr," Roxas asked, his surprise very apparent.

"Well, panthers are still cats, and as a panther Faunus, that technically makes her part cat," Blake shrugged like it was completely natural. When the two Keybearers looked at her in bewilderment, Blake went on to explain, "Younger Faunus tend to be more prone to the natural instincts of the animals who's traits they posses. It does tend to fade a little or become more manageable as they grow older, but since you two just turned yourselves into Faunus, I guess it's only natural that you're not as accustomed to your animal sides as Sun and I are to ours."

"Huh. You learn something new every day," Roxas muttered. "We're not going to have to worry about suddenly breaking into a run the minute we see a mouse or something, are we?"

That did get a brief giggle out of Blake before she said, "I think you'd probably know the answer to that better than me, but I don't think so, otherwise, you might have run off well before we got here, seeing as you've been transformed since we left." She then turned serious again and said, "Alright, let's get in there."

The other three all nodded in response and headed inside, each of them picking up a less stylized version of the masks that they had seen many White Fang members wearing after being allowed in. As they followed the rest of the crowd at a safe enough distance to not be overheard by anyone, Sun looked down at the mask in his hand again, his curiosity getting on this specific matter the better of him. "Hey Blake, there's something I don't really get," Sun said, earning him the attention of the cat girl. "If the members of the White Fang all believe what they're doing is right, why would they hide what they are, or even bother with these masks at all?"

"The masks aren't meant to hide who we are; they're a symbol," Blake revealed a little darkly. "Humanity wanted to make monsters out of us, so we chose to don the faces of monsters."

"But that just seems like you're giving them what they want," Roxas argued.

"He's right. Letting yourselves be made into monsters can only lead you into justifying their fears of you," Xion agreed.

"And that's without the fact that these are Grimm masks. That alone seems kind of dark," Sun added in.

"The guy who started it wasn't really a brilliant ray of sunshine, and as far as I know, he never really thought that way. All he cared about was making humanity fear him," Blake stated before she placed her mask on and made her way in, hiding a bit of the sorrow that had started creeping into her eyes at the memories she had of said individual from view.

"Always sunshine and rainbows with you, isn't it," Sun muttered as he followed after Blake, but not feeling any less uncomfortable after he put on his mask.

Roxas and Xion did not say anything more on the matter though, instead opting to don their masks as well while trying to ignore the familiar, dreadful feeling they got after doing so. It felt just a little too much like they were putting on their old Organization XIII coats again in their minds, but they did their best to stamp out that feeling for the sake of the mission like they did with most of their other concerns. Sadly, there was one concern that they were unable to completely silence, but it was one that they felt was at least a little justifiable.

"Are you sure no one's going to recognize you, Blake," Roxas whispered as they got closer to the main gathering. "I mean, you did say you'd been part of the White Fang for a long time before you left, so there could be a chance of that happening, right?"

"I wouldn't say that I was much of an important figure in the group, or at least, not on the same level as certain members or the previous or current leader, and besides, the White Fang is made up of hundreds of Faunus, in several factions all across Remnant. I doubt anyone's going to really be able to recognize one cat Faunus out of several others that easily, especially if they can't see my face," Blake reassured him.

"If you say so," Roxas nodded, not entirely buying it, but still willing to take Blake at her word on the matter.

Nothing else was said between the four friends as they finally came to a stop within the ranks of the other new recruits, just to the right of the regular White Fang members, and before a small stage that had a huge curtain covering most of it with the terrorist group's emblem emblazoned on the front. "Thank you all for coming out tonight," the White Fang member currently on stage began, seeing that everyone had arrived. "For those of you who are joining us for the first time, allow me to introduce a very special comrade of ours. I can assure you, he is the key to obtaining what we have fought so long for."

It was at that very moment that Roman Torchwick himself appeared on stage, not looking the least bit concerned with all the booing, jeering, and angry outbursts that had followed his arrival. If anything, it seemed like he was actually reveling in it as he practically danced across the stage. "Thank you, thank you! Please, hold your applause," Roman shouted in an attempt to be heard over everyone.

"What is this?! Some kind of joke," someone in the crowd demanded.

"Why's a human here," another one protested.

"I'm glad you asked, dearie," Roman smirked in reply, signaling for quiet. Surprisingly, he seemed to get it, and he then proceeded on with his pitch. "Now I'll be the first to admit, humans are the WORST! Case in point," he remarked, waving to himself at that last remark. "So I understand why you would love to see us all locked away, or better yet, killed, but before the claws come out, I would like to mention the fact that you and I ALL have a common enemy."

"What's he going on about," Xion quietly questioned, honestly perplexed as to just who could be considered an enemy to both the White Fang and Torchwick, besides anyone who fought on the right side of the law.

Torchwick ended up providing Xion her answer, and it left the four a little worried. "Our greatest threats are the ones in control, the people pulling the strings, ALL the dirty rotten humans that run our kingdoms. The government. The military! Hell, even the schools are all to blame for your lot in life, and they're all pests that need to be dealt with! Fortunately, I'm the best exterminator around." He had to pause here for a moment so that he could quickly add on, "No offense to any rodents in the room."

"Pretty sure it's a little too late for that," Roxas muttered under his breath, not liking how the crowd seemed to have been steadily won over by that whole speech. What he liked even less though was how the crowd got even more excited as Roman unveiled what was behind the curtain, but that may have been more of a dislike of what it likely meant for him and all the rest of his friends too when he saw the item in question.

When Roman snapped his fingers, the curtain dropped to reveal a massive mech suit that was armed to the teeth, and that would have reminded Roxas a little more of the robot toys that Sora had told him and the others he could pilot on Toy Box had it not been for the thing's dark, intimidating colors, and the White Fang emblem that had been painted on either shoulder. Seeing this huge death machine, Sun could not help but nervously say, "Uh, that's a big robot."

"How in the world did he get that," Blake asked, just as worried about it as her friends clearly were, but also a bit angry at how Torchwick just kept appearing to have access to resources he should not have.

"As some of you may have heard, this right here is the Atlesian Paladin, Atlas's newest line of defense against all the scary things in the world," Roman proudly revealed. "And thanks to my employers, we've managed to snag a few before they, uh, hit the shelves."

"You had to ask, Blake," Roxas grumbled.

"Here's hoping we won't end up having to fight that thing," Xion prayed, not knowing that she had more than likely just jinxed them by saying that.

"Now, many of your brothers have already moved down to our new operation in the south east. If you'd rather stay within the city, that's fine, but if you're truly ready to fight for what you believe in…This is the arsenal I can provide you," Roman finally concluded, and from the sound of the cheers, it seemed like all of these Faunus were more than ready to sign up for the operation he had mentioned.

None of that mattered at this point, as hearing that Roman had set up shop in the south east was the final piece of information that the four undercover heroes needed to feel that they had heard enough. "Anyone else feel that it's time to leave," Roxas asked.

"Definitely," Blake confirmed while Sun and Xion both just gave silent nods.

Too bad for them, it was actually at that moment that the new recruits were asked to step forward, and since they were right in the middle of that crowd, Blake, Sun, Roxas, and Xion had no choice but to be pulled along with the flow or risk being caught. They did their best to not get pulled all the way up, but there was only so much they could do before they found themselves at the stage and from there, it was only a matter of time before Roman noticed and recognized them. Even with their Faunus disguises, Roxas and Xion were sure that the criminal was likely to figure out who they were, which meant that they needed to think of a way out of this mess fast.

"If anyone's got a plan on how to get out of here, now would be a good time for it," Sun frantically requested.

"Calm down. If you panic, you're just going to give us away sooner," Roxas hushed.

"Not helping, dude!"

"Quiet! I'm thinking," Blake insisted as she surveyed the entire room.

Xion on the other hand kept her eyes on the stage for any moment that would indicate that Roman would likely notice them, making a few notes in her head about the small girl with pink and brown hair next to him. Oddly enough, it was actually that very girl who looked in their direction first, and something about the way her eyes seemed to fixate on her and Roxas sent a few shivers up Xion's spine. Shivers that she had not been able to suppress before Torchwick looked in their direction again, making Xion think that she may have to take some blame later on for getting them noticed.

"Uh Blake, you might want to think a little faster. Torchwick's seen us," Xion whispered to her fellow ravenette.

Hearing Xion's warning actually gave Blake an idea at last on how they could get out of this situation, and after another quick scan of the room, she managed to locate a junction box on the wall. Still, she had to be sure of a few things before she made her move, and looked to her two friends who were not actual Faunus. "Roxas, Xion, you remember that lesson we had in Oobleck's class last semester," she asked.

"Huh? Lesson," Roxas asked.

"I'm not a student, remember? I wasn't even in Vale for most of your previous semester," Xion reminded her.

Blake mentally smacked herself for forgetting that about Xion for a second, but pressed on with her questioning. "You know, the one about the advantage the Faunus had in the Battle of Fort Castle," Blake prompted.

"Oh right! I get it," Roxas grinned, catching on to Blake's idea, and the most likely question she was going to ask them after that reminder. "And yeah, I've got it, and I think it's a safe bet that Xion does too. These forms are a lot more than a simple cosmetic change."

"Will someone fill me in, please," Xion pleaded. She was starting to panic as much as Sun, but only because she saw that Torchwick was starting to make his way towards them.

"Faunus have enhanced senses, but the most common of which being the ability to see in the dark," Roxas revealed to Xion.

"And that's our ticket out of here," Blake finished for the blonde as she drew Gambol Shroud, switched it into its pistol mode, and fired a single shot at the junction box. When Blake's shot struck its mark, all the lights in the building went right out, driving everyone into a panic, while Roman tried shouting for someone to stop their group. Blake paid it little mind though, as she made sure that her group had kept their cool in the panic, and then directed them to their exit point. "Sun, Roxas, Xion! The window!"

"On it," the other three chorused in response.

Shortly after, the four had crashed through the nearest window and onto the street, where they all broke out into a hard sprint. For a moment, it seemed like they would manage to get away without any further complications, but that was before the mech suit they had seen on the stage came crashing out of the building to chase after them. It was at that very moment that Roxas and Xion both cursed a little for not getting Sora, Aqua, or Riku to teach them how to use Flowmotion or even Airstep, because that ability would have come in real handy right now. All the more reason for them to be thankful that they had not changed out of their Faunus forms just yet, because that allowed them to better reach the rooftops with Blake and Sun, and then continue to keep pace with the pair as they hopped over the line of roofs in an attempt to lose their massive pursuer.

Even with all the advantages they had in keeping ahead of the mech, it was still not enough to shake it off, and they knew that the person inside was likely to start using any or all of the weapons on that thing at any moment to get them, which would definitely lead to someone getting hurt. All this and more was reason enough for Sun to ask, "I don't suppose you guys have any kind of backup or something, would you?"

"On it," Blake replied as she attempted to grab her Scroll and call the rest of her team.

"I'm already way ahead of you," Roxas informed her, tapping away at his Gummiwatch so that he could get in touch with his teammates and the rest of their friends.

---

Sora could not help but shake his head out of amusement as he watched Ruby continue to nail more and more boards all over the dumpster they had previously been forced to hide in. Any awkwardness between them after their little…accident had already passed, but that did not make Ruby any less upset with the literal rat that was responsible for the whole thing in the first place. "You know, I'm pretty sure someone's going to need to use that at some point later," Sora pointed out to his friend.

"Don't care! Need to make sure that the rat either dies or can never escape," Ruby insisted as she struck one final nail into the board she was currently hammering into place.

As he watched Ruby stand up, finally finished with her work, Sora could already feel the need to joke about giving a warning to Little Chef if they visited him in the future coming to his lips, but he stopped short when he noticed something was off with the girl. "Hey, you've still got some stuff stuck in your hair," Sora informed her, indicating his own hair when he did. Ruby immediately went to brush out the junk in question, only to miss it completely. "Other side," Sora clarified, but to his amusement, Ruby missed again. "Here, let me," he finally offered with a short laugh.

Ruby was just about to say that she could get it when she suddenly found Sora standing really close to her, swiping his hand through her hair as he removed the bothersome trash from it. The fact that he was standing so close was enough to make Ruby start blushing, but feeling him running his hands through her black and red locks seemed to be the icing on the cake for her, as her stomach began doing more summersaults than ever before. She barely even noticed when he finally stopped his brushing, and she felt like her voice might have cracked a little as she barely managed to squeak out, "Uh, th-thanks, Sora. Is…Is it gone."

"Yep. It's all…better…now," Sora slowly confirmed with a smile, until he started to take note of their current positions as well, his hand still held within Ruby's bangs.

The next thing he knew, Sora had slowly let his hand finish its run through Ruby's hair before he absently started to caress her bright red cheeks, making her blush grow all the more while her silver eyes seemed to shine in a way he had never seen before. It was almost like the night sky had taken up residence in Ruby's eyes with how they were twinkling like stars, at least in Sora's mind, and he just could not look away at all. More than that, something about the feel of her against his hand was giving him quite the odd feeling in his stomach, while at the same time made him feel like Ruby was drawing him into her without realizing it, and for a brief second or two, a fleeting thought entered his mind; a question of whether or not her lips were just as soft as her hair and skin seemed to be.

Things were not much better on Ruby's end, as the minute that she felt Sora's hand against her cheek, a whole new sensation had suddenly burst to life inside of her. She found herself taking a great deal of joy in how his gloved hand gently caressed her skin, his fingers slightly rough from all the time he had spent wielding the Keyblade, and yet still surprisingly smooth at the same time. Before she knew it, she was raising her own hand up to keep Sora's where it was on her cheek, almost as though she were afraid of what would happen if he let go, and her eyes came to be fixated on his. Once again, she saw that same fire she always saw when she looked into Sora's eyes, but there was something else there that she had not seen before. It was a little similar to what she had saw that time in the Emerald Forest, or even a few other times that she had met his eyes, but at the same time, it was also incredibly different; something that just seemed to pull her closer as if she could get a better understanding by getting closer.

Apparently, neither of them had realized that they were actually moving closer to each other, slowly closing the distance between them to the point where they could feel the other's breath on their lips, and even then, they did not stop their slow advancement. Before either of them knew it, the gap that divided them had finally closed, as their lips connected in a gentle, sweet kiss. From that very moment, it felt as though a brilliant display of fireworks were being set off in their minds while the rest of the world just disappeared from around them, along with any troubles or dangers that existed in it. Nothing else mattered to them in that moment other than the person that was standing before them, sharing in the incredible feeling that they were experiencing with each other. There was no kingdom, no school, no teammates, not even a single thought regarding their missions was able to exist in their minds right then. All that existed right now was a moment of paradise that was exclusive to Sora Hikari and Ruby Rose.

The problem with such moments of euphoria though, was that they could never last forever, but what made this one even more upsetting was how it came to an end. When he had finally realized what he was doing, Sora quickly pulled away and put as much distance as he could between him and Ruby, a look of near panic now taking residence in his eyes where there had once been such warmth. "No! No, no, I…I shouldn't have done that. I should not have done that," Sora frantically said, unaware right now of whether or not he was keeping quiet or shouting.

He was not screaming, but his words may as well have been a knife to poor Ruby, as she could only stare at him in sad shock. She had not been planning or expecting to suddenly kiss Sora like that, but it was definitely a moment that had made her feel incredibly happy. Hearing him say what he did while freaking out like this had crushed all of that happiness faster than she could move with her Semblance, because in Ruby's ears, it sounded way too much like a rejection, right to the point where she could feel cracks starting to form in her heart. Because of this, Ruby could not think much more clearly than Sora right now, otherwise, she probably would have been able to figure out a good way to help calm him down. Instead, the only thing she could think of was to meekly say, "I…I'm sorry."

Hearing Ruby's voice did at least bring Sora back to reality, but it did nothing to make him feel much better about what had just happened. Worse than that, when he saw how upset Ruby looked, he immediately had to turn away, feeling responsible to the point where he could not even look at her. At that point, the awkwardness from their earlier mishap returned stronger than before, but now, there was a new weight to it that neither of them knew how to address. All they could really do was pray that something came up that would alleviate them from this tense atmosphere, preferably something that could help them forget about this whole thing for even a second. Their prayers were answered pretty quickly when Sora's Gummiphone and Gummiwatch both started ringing, letting them know that Sora had an incoming call, and the boy did not hesitate to tap his watch so that he could answer.

"Guys, it's Roxas! If you're getting this, we're in a bit of…" the wielder of Oathkeeper and Oblivion shouted over the speaker, only for his voice to be drowned out a second later by a loud racket in the background, and Sun's panicked yelling.

"Roxas? What's going on? What happened," Sora asked, now more worried for his friend than anything else, right to the point where he did not even mind that Ruby had gotten closer so that she could better listen in.

"Torchwick was at the rally showing off some new additions to his arsenal, he spotted us, and now we're being chased by a freaking mech suit," Xion cried out.

"A what," Ruby asked, though it was hard to tell if she had gotten more worried or excited after hearing that last bit.

"They got a robot! A big robot! Really big," Sun rushed out in obvious panic.

"It's like one of those Gigas that you could pilot back in Toy Box, but with a lot more weapons, all of which are likely to be used on us at any second," Roxas clarified.

"Oh, we are not missing this," Ruby decided, eager to get into that fight for so many reasons, and now starting to seem a little more like her usual self.

Sora smiled a little when he noticed that, but he quickly shook it off when his mind started drawing him back to their kiss from a few seconds ago. The last thing he needed right now was to be distracted by something that had left him so…boggled, for lack of a better word. Their friends needed help, and Sora had no doubt that the rest of the team was already on the way to their location.

---

Ruby and Sora were not the only ones to receive Roxas's call for help, as the dual-Keyblade wielder had made it a point to make send out his SOS over a conference call, meaning that Ventus and Lea had also received the same alert. It was actually at the very moment that Yang, Lea, and Neptune were preparing to leave Junior's club, and they had listened in on everything that Ruby and Sora had just heard, and a little more too.

"That Torchwick guy is in it! But not like…it didn't eat him; he's like controlling it or something," Sun had continued on in his panicked explanations.

"That's called driving or piloting! He's driving the thing, Sun," Xion had snapped from her end of the call.

"Don't worry we'll be there as soon as we can. Where are you guys right now," Lea asked before his best friends tore the monkey boy a new one.

His answer came quickly enough when the four actually ran right past his group with the mech hot on their tails, making Sun's next scream end up being in stereo. "HURRY!"

"I think that was them," Neptune informed the two.

"Really? We couldn't tell," Yang sarcastically replied. She had not meant to sound harsh with him, but at the moment, they had a small problem that would make chasing after the bad guy currently trying to hurt their friends a little difficult. "There's no way I can chase them on Bumblebee with two passengers. Not without worrying even more about one of you falling off."

"No worries. I've got it covered," Lea admitted as he summoned out his Keyblade with an excited grin. "Ven's been teaching me a little trick with the Keyblade that I've been dying to use ever since I got it down."

Yang and Neptune were now a little curious, so they remained where they were for a second to watch what the redhead was going to do. To their surprise, Lea actually tossed his Keyblade high up into the air, and then, in a flash of light and fire, the blade actually transformed into a flying motorcycle chopper, with small flames decals on either side to make its silver and red paint job all the more noticeable. That was pretty much all that they had time to really notice, as Lea had quickly hopped onto the bike as soon as it had gotten close to him again, and with a rev of its engine, he was shooting off after it, with a flicker of flames shooting out from the exhausts on the back.

The other two could not help but stare after Lea for a few more seconds, Neptune wondering if he had really just seen that happen, while Yang eventually started to slowly grin a little more with each passing second. "Yang likey. Yang like a lot," the blonde finally said. "The next chance we get after this, we are so having a race."

Neptune barely had time to give his own opinion, because he had to scramble to grab a secure hold on the bike as Yang gunned the engine and took off after their friends as well. Thankfully their chase had eventually gotten out of the main city, but the bad news was that it had now moved onto a very busy highway. That did not stop Yang or Lea, more so in the case of the latter since his ride could fly over the other cars on the street, but it was still making things a bit more difficult since they now had to weave through the evening traffic. Torchwick had his own way of dealing with the other drivers, and that was to fling as many cars aside as he could, clearing his path forward and also creating more obstacles for the two to get through.

"Someone's going to get hurt if he keeps this up," Lea shouted over to Yang.

"I know! Any ideas on how we can slow him down at least," the blonde questioned.

"I've got one, assuming you can get a little closer so I have a good shot," Neptune stated.

Yang just nodded back to him and accelerated forwards, weaving through the flying and crashed cars as best as she could in an effort to close the gap between them and Torchwick's mech. Her efforts were rewarded quickly enough by Neptune drawing his weapon in its rifle mode so that he could fire off several rounds of electric blasts at the machine's back, damaging it a pretty decent amount from what they could tell, and the blue haired boy was not done yet. With an easy twirl of his weapon, Neptune extended it into its trident mode, energy blade glowing bright and ready for when he struck, and then leapt from Yang's motorcycle to score a hit on the mech's back. It was an impressive strike, but at the same time, it also left Neptune stuck on its back, struggling to hang on to the staff of his weapon in an effort to not be thrown off.

Sun had taken notice of his friend's situation soon enough, and halted his attempts at getting away from the deadly machine so he could activate his Semblance. With a clap of his hands, a pair of glowing shadow clones burst to life on either side of Sun, and they all immediately rushed at the mech, exploding the moment that they made contact with the machine that was practically holding his friend hostage. That attack seemed to have disoriented Torchwick quite a bit in Sun's eyes, given the way that he drew his staff to make another strike on his own, but unfortunately, that was where he was wrong. All it did was make things a little easier for Roman to finally throw Neptune off, and right into Sun while he was in midair, sending both boys flying away from their friends.

Even though she knew that the two would probably be alright, Blake could not help but worry about Sun and Neptune after seeing them fall from the highway. Despite that, she had to keep her cool; otherwise, they were all likely going to end up in a worse spot than them, and it became a lot easier when she heard Xion shout that she was going to go and make sure they were okay. Shortly after that came another bit of help for Blake's calm state of mind in the form of Weiss's voice calling out over her Scroll's hands-free, "Blake! We're in position!"

Not even seconds later, Weiss and Ventus had dropped down from the street running over the one Blake and her pursuer were on, weapons ready and gazes locked onto their target. An easy thrust of his hand later, and Ven was summoning out a powerful but steady blast of wind magic that would make one think he was trying to blow the mech back. In reality, he was just ensuring that Weiss had time to prepare her own attack, which would also guarantee that this fight would be moved off the highway and somewhere away from any civilians. Stabbing the street with Myrtenastor, Weiss managed to coat the street with a thick layer of ice that the mech was soon slipping and sliding across, and since it was pushing so hard to overcome the wind stream that Ventus was against it, Roman was unprepared for the moment when Ven's wind blast finally stopped and was redirected so that it was pushing him from behind instead, making his crash through the barrier and down to the ground below them.

Roman did not need much time to stand the mech upright again, but in the time that he was taking to get it back on its feet, he had quickly noticed that Ruby and Sora were already standing at the ready just a few feet away from where he had landed. By time he had gotten himself upright again, the rest of both Teams RWBY and SLVR had all arrived on the scene as well ready to fight with weapons locked and loaded. In his eyes, this was a perfect chance to finally rid himself of the little pests that had been giving him so much trouble ever since the night that he first ran into the red-hooded huntress, but he truly did not seem to have any clue the kind of challenge he was about to face by engaging both of these teams in battle at once. He would learn soon enough though.

"Freezerburn!" Ruby shouted out just before she and Blake backed off with the boys, giving Yang and Weiss room to execute the combo that they had been working on.

With another spin of her rapier, Weiss coated the ground with ice once again, but this time, it did not remain there. She had created this patch of ice so that Yang could shatter it with one, fiery impact from her gauntlets, creating a thick fog bank that would effectively blind them from Roman's view. Even with the mech's sensors, Roman had a hard time tracking his enemies' movements, as the fog made them too hard to see, and they were all moving too fast for him to react. This gave the Keybearers just the opening they needed to begin their own attack.

"Red Sunset," Sora could be heard shouting, and from out of the fog came Lea, armed with blazing chakrams that he easily used to deal some heavy damage to the mech, before he spun around and used his old weapons to boost a charging Roxas up into the air, getting the blonde into position for a downward, aerial double-slash.

Roxas managed to dash away thanks to a quick burst of his light powers, and soon let loose a few blasts of light and dark magic from his Keyblades to further disorient Roman, giving Lea the chance to rush in and land a few hits with his chakrams before changing them back into his Keyblade for one final blow. The added smokescreen from Lea and Roxas's attack gave Ruby even more cover for when she finally burst forward to scored a hit on the mech with her scythe, and Sora and Ven would probably have landed a hit of their own as well, had they not suddenly been intercepted by a spinning scythe that most definitely was not Crescent Rose.

"What the…?! Where did that come from," Blake asked as she continued to run around in an attempt to keep Roman from zeroing in on her.

"I'll give you three guesses, assuming you don't want eleven," Roxas replied as he indicated the attacker.

Only the Keybearers seemed to get his reference, but the girls did not need to in order to spot the Reapers that had just descended into the fight, with a small squad of Ninjas following soon after. "Oh yeah, I guess I should've mentioned that we found out about some of the other types of Nobodies Roman's got working for him a little sooner," Lea sheepishly remarked.

"You can give us the full list later. Let's just tear these sons of witches apart," Sora growled, startling the others with how angry and vicious he sounded. "Girls, you deal with Torchwick and his oversized scrap pile."

"Sure, okay," Ruby rapidly nodded without question, leaving everyone a little stupefied by how quickly she had agreed with that plan.

Shortly after that though, Yang had to agree with the idea as well, as a number of the Ninjas had suddenly dashed in and tried to claw her apart with their knives. They probably would have too, if it were not for Lea making a last minute save by shoving her aside and then parrying or deflecting all the attacks with his Keyblade. After one last deflection, Lea then swept his Keyblade around in a wide arc to unleash a burning wave of fire upon the Ninjas, destroying a good number of them in an instant, and he let out a small grin right afterwards. "Not gonna lie; even though they aren't Larxene herself, it still feels really good destroying them in her place," Lea confessed.

"Well you've got plenty more chances to enjoy it," Ventus informed him as he pointed out the remaining Ninjas.

Unfortunately for Lea, Sora had other ideas, as he then shouted out, "Blade Storm!"

"You heard the man," Lea shrugged in playful defeat before he leapt back, letting Roxas take his place so that he and Ventus could attack.

Shortly after, the two were tearing through several different Nobodies in a fluid display of high-speed swordsman ship, to the point where they were little more than a furious blur of swinging blades. It certainly made an impressive backdrop to Weiss and Blake's own team attack, Checkmate, which was very similar to the move that they had used against the Demon Tide back in Twilight Town, now with a noticeable amount of refinement and adjusted for this particular enemy. Sure, Weiss had been pushed further back from Blake due to taking an enemy hit when she could have defended herself instead, but the end results were still very much the same, as it allowed her to properly cast time dilation on Blake, making her fast enough to cut down all of the missiles that Torchwick fired at her afterwards. Though she did take a little bit of pride in knowing that she had nailed a few of the Dusks as well, but she still kept her attention on her own fight. It was a good thing she had; otherwise, she might have missed it when Ruby shouted out their next attack pattern.

"Ladybug," Ruby had called out, signaling Blake to move in for a combined attack with her. Most of their strikes were low and focused on the mech's legs, while also too fast for Roman to really track, and even when they leapt up to attack from above, they were still moving just as quickly, and that allowed them to finally sever one of the mech's arms in half.

They then leapt back again so that Yang could hop on and start beating down on the machine while sitting on its back, and while her sister was doing that, Ruby decided to show these Reapers who the real scythe wielder was around here; namely by cutting down as many of the high-ranking Nobodies as she could in an impressive display of skill that almost made it seem like she was showing off. After cutting through at least three of these foes though, she was prevented from taking out a fourth one when Sora beat her to the punch, slicing it in half with his Starlight Keyblade. He then spun around to aim his Keyblade at various different Nobodies, and then activated his Blades of the Round Shotlock, destroying several Ninjas and seriously damaging the remaining Reapers just enough for Ventus and Lea to finish them off.

Ruby was about to send Sora a comment of thanks, but ended up flinching back a little right when she opened her mouth due in no small part to the harsh glare that Sora threw at her when he turned to face her. "I told you to worry about Torchwick! We can handle the Nobodies without you getting in the way," Sora snapped.

"S-sorry! I just wanted to…I mean I thought…" Ruby stuttered.

"Well you thought wrong," Sora interrupted, and he raced back into battle once more.

Ruby was a little hurt by that remark, wondering if Sora had even realized what he was saying before he had opened his mouth, but she was brought back to the task at hand when she heard a loud crash, and turned to see Torchwick had just bashed her sister through several different columns. "Yang," Blake cried out in worry.

"Don't worry," Ruby reassured her Faunus teammate, trying to keep her voice sounding as calm and confident as she could. "She gets stronger with every hit she takes, and she can then use that energy to fight back with twice the power. That's what makes her special."

Yang ended up giving a perfect display of Ruby's words when Torchwick took another swing at her, and she ended up actually stopping the mech's massive, metal fist with her bare hands. Continuing to hold it back, Yang's usually lilac colored eyes turned red just seconds before she shattered the entire arm in just one blow, leaving the mech completely disarmed. Yang was now ready to unleash her Semblance in full, but before she could, Torchwick kicked her back, sending her flying past Blake and Ruby. Little did he know that he had just set the girls up for another combo attack, and they were more than happy to use it.

"Bumblebee," Ruby shouted, and Blake immediately switched Gambol Shroud into its pistol mode and then tossed it over to Yang, keeping a tight hold on its ribbon as she did. When Yang caught the pistol, Blake pulled back on the weapon's ribbon, making it go taut, and allowing her to swing her partner around while Yang used her gauntlets to make her swing faster and ensure that her next hit would be even harder. Unfortunately, it was not fast enough, as Torchwick managed to avoid it by taking a few quick steps back. That did not deter Blake and Yang though, as they made another attempt soon after, only to have this one intercepted by some of the Ninja Nobodies.

"Hey, aren't you four supposed to be dealing with them," Weiss questioned the Keyblade wielders as she came to stand next to Ruby.

"Give us a break! In case you haven't noticed, these aren't your basic Dusk," Lea said in his defense.

"Less talking and more Sunburn," Sora snapped to the redhead, signaling Lea to get another strong fire blast ready.

Lea's fire was not the only bit of fire magic that was being used, as Sora had raised his Keyblade high in the air to summon out a massive, flaming sphere, which soon began raining down several fireballs on the remaining Ninjas. A few more fiery slashes from Lea's Keyblade later, and the redhead had soon built up enough juice to fire one powerful fireball into the one Sora had created, making his newly reawakened Firaga Burst even stronger by shooting a greater number of fireballs at a much faster speed. The poor Ninjas never stood a chance, and were soon all incinerated, but there were still one or two Reapers left to contend with, and Roxas and Ventus were starting to tire out a bit.

Seeing his teammates were having a tough time, Sora let out an annoyed growl before activating Second Form S with a loud yell, increasing his speed to the point where he was able to rush in and deliver several powerful, severe blows to the remaining Reapers. He barely even stopped to allow his enemies to take a breath before he unleashed his Ancient Light finisher, annihilating the last of the Reapers in a brilliant burst of transient light energy. As impressive as it was, the way that Sora had fought had definitely come off as very concerning for most of the group, save for Ruby, who had to fight to not look away in shame after Sora's attack had ended.

Thankfully, Ruby was able to focus just enough to come up with a way to slow down Torchwick, and fixated the mech with a determined glare as she called out her team's next attack to her partner. "Weiss, Ice Flower!"

Weiss merely nodded to Ruby as she began summoning forth a trio of glyphs, while Ruby lined up her scythe for another shot. The hooded huntress's next blasts were carried through and made all the more stronger by Weiss's glyphs, which made it that much easier to encase the mech in very solid, tough ice that would refuse to shatter under anything that Torchwick could do. Yang's next attack on the other hand was a much different story, because the next time Blake swung her around, Yang's hit connected, and not only shattered the ice, but also completely obliterated the mech. Torchwick just barely escaped the destruction of his machine unscathed, but there was no way he was going to be able to recover much of it now. Not that he seemed too concerned about the mech.

"I just got this thing cleaned," Roman muttered as he dusted off his suit and bowler hat, not really paying much attention to much else around him. That meant he missed Yang gearing up to fire another blast from her gauntlets, but it turned out he did not need to pay attention, as his partner from the rally dropped in to block the blast with an umbrella of all things.

The two teams of heroes all narrowed their eyes a little at the small girl, who could only smile at them while a look of mischief seemed to dance in her mismatched colored eyes, one brown and one pink, and Torchwick shared in her smirk as he addressed the group directly. "Ladies, gentlemen, Ice Queen," Roman bade.

"Hey!" Weiss snapped, a little annoyed at hearing one of the bad guys of all people were now calling her that.

"Flame-Brain," Roman continued on.

"Hey!" Lea snapped right after, not liking the way it sounded coming from Torchwick.

"Always a pleasure," Roman finally finished before he looked to his partner. "Neo, if you would."

The two-toned girl did not say anything to her boss, but instead gave a dramatic bow to the heroes like she was mocking them. Everyone expected Yang to be the one to charge in and attack after that, but to their surprise someone ended up beating her to the punch, and it was the last person most of them had expected. "No you don't," Sora angrily shouted as he charged. One vicious slash later and Sora was left with the surprise of the two shattering like glass, indicating that they had somehow deployed an illusion against him and the others. Looking around, the group quickly spotted a bullhead taking off with the bad guys onboard, but none seemed more upset about Torchwick's latest escape than the Keyblade wielder who had been tricked into attacking an illusion. "Get back here! We're not done!"

"Whoa! Sora, chill out! They're gone," Lea attempted to reason, only for Sora to shove him off.

"Yeah, I can see that," Sora snapped.

"Then stop getting mad at us and everything else around you. There will be other days to catch the bad guys," Lea told him.

Sora just glared at the redhead before he finally huffed and began storming away, changing his Keyblade back into Kingdom Key before dismissing it completely. Everyone watched after him in concern before Yang finally commented on the matter that had thwarted their attempt at capturing Torchwick this time around. "So, I guess it's safe to say that the Nobodies aren't his only new henchmen," the blonde commented.

"Yeah, I guess she really made our plans…fall apart," Weiss attempted to joke, surprising some of the others at her attempt to lighten the mood.

It seemed to work for Ruby and Ventus, as they both at least snickered a little bit at Weiss's quip, while the others all shook their heads in dismay. Even Yang did not seem to approve as she said, "No, just no."

"What? But you do it all the time," Weiss protested, hardly believing that Yang of all people was telling her not to joke.

"There's a time and a place for jokes, Ice Princess," Lea scolded.

"Was this not it?"

"No, it just wasn't very good," Yang admitted.

"Well at least I'm trying," Weiss complained.

"You might want to try a little harder then," Lea advised.

"I thought it was a pretty good try," Ventus said in her defense, much to Weiss's relief.

Ruby then realized that there were a few people missing from their party, and asked, "Wait, where are Sun, Neptune, and Xion?"

"Oh crap! I almost forgot," Roxas gasped, and he quickly tapped his Gummiwatch in a frantic effort to call his girlfriend. Thankfully, he did not have to wait too long before she picked up. "Xion! Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine. I just have to pry these two idiots away from the noodle stand, but we'll be there to help out pretty soon," Xion reassured him, sounding more than a little aggravated that the two visiting students had decided to get a late night meal instead of going to help with the fight.

"Yeah…you're a little late on that, Xion. The fight's already over. We won by the way, even if the bad guy did away," Roxas informed her. The line then went quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time, and that got Roxas a little worried. "Uh Xion? Are you still there?"

"…I'm gonna have to call you back," was all Xion said before she finally hung up, immediately telling Roxas that he was right to start praying for Sun and Neptune.

Unfortunately, everyone else overheard the conversation, and while they were all annoyed to varying degrees, only one of them seemed truly pissed off at the moment. "Unbelievable," Sora shouted. "They insist on helping us, and yet when we actually need them the most, they decide to stop for a snack! We probably could've gotten them if they were here!"

"Hey come on, Sora, you don't know that. Besides, they were knocked off the highway a pretty fair distance away," Lea tried to say in the two's defense.

"And honestly, I don't think we need to worry about getting back at them. Xion's definitely going to make sure of that," Roxas promised, knowing that the two were about to find out what happened when his girlfriend was mad.

"Well goody-goody for her. I'm sure that makes everything all better," Sora said as scathingly as any human being could.

"Look, none of us are too happy about it, but it's not like we can change what happened. Like Lea said, we can always catch them next time," Ruby tried to reason, and for a moment, everyone thought that would be the end of Sora's tirade. What happened instead ended up being far from what they had expected.

"There shouldn't even have to BE a next time! Not when we could've ended it right here and now," Sora angrily snapped at Ruby, making her flinch back and look at him with a very scared expression.

As startling as it was to see Sora go off on her sister like that, Yang's first instinct was always to come to Ruby's aid no matter what, and she instantly went to work. "Hey, back off, Island boy! It's not like its Ruby's fault that they got away, so don't go yelling at her like it is!"

"Or what?! You'll throw one of your temper tantrums at me," Sora challenged, getting Yang even angrier with that remark, along with the rest of Team RWBY.

"Okay, just calm down," Weiss ordered, trying to maintain her cool but slowly losing it as Sora continued to rage on.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Sora snapped back.

"Then how about we just make you," Blake dared, fingering Gambol Shroud so that she could draw the blade at any second.

"You're more than welcome to try," Sora dared right back, his Keyblade returning to his hand on instinct, and much to the girls' shock, he then turned it on them! The only thing that was even more shocking was how some faint dark wisps seemed to start forming around Sora's body, giving them a very foreboding feeling about what could happen if he was pushed too far.

The other Keybearers did not need to guess; they all knew what that meant. Sora's anger was starting to reach its breaking point, and when that hit, out would come his Rage Form, the one form Sora had that they definitely wanted to avoid letting the girls see at any costs. They had to do something before he finally triggered the form in question, or worse, before Sora ended up destroying any friendship he had with Team RWBY, assuming he had not done so already, but right now, there was only one thing any of them could think of to stop this. Thankfully, Roxas had no qualms about using said tactic.

"STOP IT," Roxas screamed as he aimed Oathkeeper and fire off a blast of light magic right at Sora, blowing the unsuspecting Keybearer off his feet. The other two members of Team SLVR then moved to stand between Sora and the girls, both of them poised to block either the other team or their leader at any second while Roxas roughly hoisted Sora up to his feet and slapped him as hard as he could. "Get a hold of yourself, Sora! Before you do something worse than scaring all of your friends."

Hearing that made Sora's blood run cold, simultaneously making all of his anger drain right out of him as he turned a shameful look towards Team RWBY. For the most part, the only looks he received in return ranged from frightened to angry, but the one that hurt the most was the sad, hurt one that came from Ruby herself. In that moment, something broke inside of Sora, but what it was or why, Sora could not say for sure. Yes, he had a good idea, but at the same time, it was also a bad idea because it meant something that he was not sure he was willing to believe. Either way though, it hurt him a lot, right to the point where he slumped over quite a bit after Roxas finally let him go.

Seeing that his friend's anger had been quelled a bit for now, Ventus let out a tired sigh and reasoned, "Look, we've all had a very long night, and it's clearly left us all exhausted and very high-strung to say the least, so why don't we all just head back to the school, turn in for the night, and let cooler heads prevail, okay?"

Everyone silently agreed to that, but there was a very noticeable gap between Sora and the girls as they started the trip back to Beacon. For the other guys, it was hard to really say if it was Sora or the girls who was making more of an effort to build that distance, but whatever the case, the only thing they knew for sure was that something very serious had gone wrong and had made Sora's change in attitude worse than ever. Of course, they could have told you that just from the fact that he had gotten mad at Ruby, and as much as they did not want to question her on the matter, they all figured that she had some kind of answers behind this sudden decline.

"Ruby, what…what happened after you and Sora took off after Penny," Ventus eventually managed to ask.

Ruby did not say anything at first, her mind a jumbled up mess of emotions from that fight that they all just had and the kiss she had shared with Sora, ultimately leading her to only have one answer. "Sorry Ven, but…I-I don't want to talk about it."

Ruby did not say anything else after that, but none of the guys had the heart to try and push her into doing so. Her answer had already given them a decent enough picture to work with, right to the point where Lea already had something to say loaded for the moment when Yang marched up to demand some answers behind Sora's behavior. "Look, we all know that Sora was out of line, and we're going to get to the bottom of it," Lea promised.

"That's not good enough," Yang retorted.

"Well that's all I can say right now," Lea shrugged. When the blonde just continued glaring at him, Lea sighed and said, "Look, there's a lot of stuff that happened during the Second Keyblade War that each of us are still recovering from, but none of us have more baggage to get over from then than Sora. He's in a really, really bad place right now, and getting upset with him is only going to make things worse."

"So we're supposed to just stand and there and take it if he decides to bite our heads off like we're the bad guys," Blake demanded.

"No, no! I never said that, I'm just saying…Urgh," Lea groaned. "Look, we've got a pretty good idea about what the whole thing stemmed from, but we can't tell you about it yet. Just let us handle this for now, okay?"

At any other time, Yang would have probably threatened someone with the most ferocious beating she could deliver without Ember Celica, but when she took in how desperately Lea was begging her, all desire to do so seemed to leave her, so she simply sighed in defeat and nodded to show her agreement. Not that she did so without some form of warning. "Just know that I'm not letting that jerk within a mile of my sister if I can help it. Not unless he plans to apologize a few thousand times over or explain why he suddenly did all of that."

"…Can't say I blame you for that," Lea quietly muttered long after Yang was gone, leaving him alone with his two blonde teammates, as Sora had already departed, leaving them alone in Beacon's courtyard. "This is great. Just great! I knew that he was getting pretty bad again, but I never expected him to get this bad so quickly."

"Are you kidding me? He's not just bad; he's worse than ever, especially if it's to the point where he would actually get that upset with Ruby," Ventus corrected.

"Well if Ruby can't get him to calm down anymore, what are we supposed to do," Roxas asked. "In case you hadn't noticed, we haven't had the best luck with getting him to see reason in a way that didn't involve just outright attacking him."

Unfortunately, Lea knew that there was only one answer to the problem at this point, and he was sure that his friends knew it too. They just did not want to say it, so he decided to be the bad guy and do so. "I'd hate to say it, fellas, but I think it's time we finally tell him the truth."

"No! We can't," Ventus tried to argue. "If we tell him about what Yen Sid discovered, it will definitely send him down a spiral that he won't come back from."

"Like we aren't already at that point," Lea questioned. "Ven, there's no way that this could possibly make him any worse than he already is, and quite frankly, it'd be better if we tell him now before he hears it from someone else."

"But…but we promised Aqua and each other that we wouldn't," Ventus weakly insisted.

"Yeah, back when we were able to see some of the old Sora in there, but I definitely didn't see any of him just a few hours ago, did you," Lea questioned. "Besides, we've uncovered more about whatever Torchwick is scheming with the White Fang and the Dusks than we did about our own mission, and considering how little that is, that's really saying something. At this point, I think we may have to make the call that none of us want to make."

All throughout the argument, Roxas had kept quiet, but when Ventus said nothing back after Lea's latest shot, he finally found a point to get in. "So our options are either keep quiet and do nothing, letting Sora get even worse, or tell him the truth and risk making him worse on the off chance he may actually take it well. Do I have that right?"

"Pretty much, but I think we all know that it isn't really a choice anymore, especially since doing otherwise runs the risk of losing some of our closest and best friends on this world," Lea insisted. "We have to tell Sora the truth about what Yen Sid learned regarding Kairi's being on Remnant."

Ventus no longer had any arguments to give, telling Lea that he had most likely won, despite how much he hated it, and Roxas, well, he could only sigh and mutter one sentence. "What a mess."

---

AN: [still running from Qrow until he slams a door closed behind him and barricades it, still sweating bullets even as he looks to you] Now, I know what you're all thinking after that very last bit at the end...Should we rip off lyokoMARVELanime's head? And the answer, just might surprise you, but before you get it, I'm just going to go hide over here. Pay no attention to the fact that it is a heavily fortified, mini fortress that has multiple weapons that are to be used for defensive purposes only.

Sora: Dude! What gives?! I know that I'm not exactly in the best place in this story, but you didn't have to go and make me do something like that to Ruby?!

WBY: Hey! What about what you did to us?!

Lea: No offense girls, but I think more people are going to be hung up on Sora's little burst of anger at Ruby more than anything else.

AN: I have to agree, but if I may be allowed a moment, I will explain my reasoning. Now, for the first part, we all know that in situations like this, things get worse before they get better, and there were very few options to go with when it came to finding just the right trigger for Sora to get worse, aside from him finding out the truth from someone other than his teammates. Secondly, I just really wanted to have Sora and Ruby share their first kiss. You have to admit, despite what happened afterwards, it did turn out to be a really sweet moment. Right?

RoseHeart: [blushing very heavily at the memory of that moment]

AN: I think that proves my point. Besides, a lot of people have been begging me to get Sora to go Rage Form be it on his friends or just in general at some point, but for right now, this is the most we're getting out of that. Don't worry, next chapter will definitely be the first step to making everything Sora-related right again. I promise, I promise, I promise! Eagle Scout's honor promise!

Roxas: Okay, dude, they get it.

AN: Just need to make sure of that. Anyways, hope you guys liked how things were changed up with Yang's interrogation of Junior. I may or may not have been thinking of that one scene from Justice League Unlimited where Batman played good cop while I was writing it. If you've seen the series, or even just heard about it, you probably know what I'm talking about. Plus, the mention of those specific types of Nobodies will more than likely come into play later on in the story, namely before we've finally finished Volume 2 of the RWBY series.

Hope you also liked that fight at the end, aside from Sora's little outburst that had come in the aftermath. Yeah, I needed to think a little bit when it came to the names for Team SLVR's team attacks, but some of them did kind of write themselves. I'll admit, I am a little sad that I couldn't work in a combo for Sora and Ven, but that was mainly because I couldn't find a place to fit it in. Don't worry, I'll try my best to showcase their team attack in the future if at all possible, or at the very least tell you guys what ends up being named.

And yeah, that moment when Roxas called Xion to make sure she, Sun, and Neptune were okay was basically my way of getting back at those two for basically bailing out on the girls for the entirety of the main fight against Torchwick. That will be referenced in the future for the sake of comedy, as those two boys will more than likely be very scared of Xion for a long time to come. Hehehehehe.

Hope you guys also liked how having Team SLVR and Xion along had also had an effect on each of the various groups for the duration of this mission as well. Be honest, how many of you were expecting Ven to suddenly give Weiss a tickle attack? Cute little moment for Windchill there, am I right? Among other things that seem to have made it advance a little more. And then there's Roxas and Xion's comments on the reason behind the White Fang wearing Grimm Masks. You know that they do make a good point, especially after their own experiences of being the "bad guys" in a bit of a way.

One thing that I do want to mention about the scene when Penny revealed she was a robot, part of me actually considered having Jiminy Cricket suddenly appear and basically start doing his duty as an official conscience, even going so far as to go along with Penny so that he could do for her what he did for Pinocchio. And yeah, we all knew that Sora was going to go into a little bit of a speech about how Penny has a heart and such at some point during that conversation.

So, aside from that last bit at the end with angry Sora, which I hope you guys won't get too upset with me over, unlike some people [looks to security camera feeds to check on where Qrow is currently located], but don't worry, I will be doing my best to get the next chapter out so you can all see how Sora starts finally coming back to his senses and making amends with the girls (mainly Ruby), and yeah, it will be at a point that you're all thinking it will be. The proof is when in the pudding, as you see when you go Onto the Preview!...

Sora's on the verge of breaking beyond repair, but the guys all have hope that they can get him back to his old self, and in time for the dance too. It would certainly help lift the spirits of a certain Rose if they could, but their first attempt ends up having a very drastically opposite effect on him. To make matters worse, Team RWBY are facing their own problems within their ranks, and not just with Blake looking like she's going to collapse at any second. Ruby can't get that moment between her and Sora out of her head, and Sora's reaction to the whole thing, combined with his recent attitude isn't helping anything. Add in a bit of drama on Team JNPR's front, and you've got quite the debacle to clean up. Here's hoping that Roxas and Yang can help their respective teammates, while simultaneously helping Ruby and Sora start to patch things up, even a little bit. Though it seems pretty clear that a few hard truths are going to come to light at last for everyone before anything is said and done. Find out just how everyone comes to cope, next time.

Okay, now I've gotta get back to running for my life from Qrow, because he's definitely not going to be happy until I've patched things up between Sora and Ruby, or until I post my little birthday present for Ruby in RWBY Meetings, so bye! [runs from the room]

[door and the wall around it finally get broken in, allowing an irrate Qrow to enter]

Qrow: GET BACK HERE, BASTARD! You're gonna pay for making my niece cry!

AN: I didn't make her cry! There were no sad tears despite the sad moment! [suddenly ducks to avoid getting blasted by the gun in Qrow's sword] AH! SOMEBODY HELP ME!

Ruby: This is getting ridiculous. At this rate, my whole family is going to want his head over something at one point or another. Anyways...

Please read and review, and may your heart be your guiding key for your landing strategy.