A/N: I fear that this chapter might lowkey be a bit divisive, but at the same time I feel an obligation to at least try to make my story a cohesive and logical whole even if the original writers did not.

A major plot deviance here is the choice to not steal an Atlas Military transport ship. Of course, with this not occuring, there'd be no mech fight, no gigantic kaijuu grimm coming from the sea and Blake's weapon staying in tact, not requiring a repair in Vol 7. As time goes on, even more plot differences will lead to an extremely different looking volume seven and eight but I'm ok with that.

It's not my intent to alienate any of my readers, but I hate Bumbleby as a ship. Not because it was too easy or too obvious, but because of two factors that the writer's blatantly overlooked in order to appease a rabid portion of the fanbase who needed to feel validated for some reason. First is Yang's abandonment issues: I highly doubt Yang would ever have continued to feel romantically toward a person who damaged her in the one way that she was already wounded. Second, Blake's exclusive previous interest in faunus boys. She was interested in an undeniably romantic way with both Adam and Sun, both faunus boys, but showed disinterest in Ilia, a faunus girl, the evidence pointing to Blake having a type and Yang not falling into that category. Nevertheless, I feel like for the purposes of my story, I'm actually making a better case for the ship than the show ever did.

This chapter doesn't have a whole lot of Adam and Weiss, but I wanted to fill in the surrounding world to help build the stage for part two of this chapter and for the course of the rest of the volume.

High in the limbs of an evergreen, Oscar perched with a set of binoculars. No, the irony was not lost on him that he was assigned to sit in the pine tree for upwards of two hours. He'd been strategically placed to have a view of three things: the front entrance to the communication office, the fishbowl style situation room on the west side of the building, and the airfield of the nearby Atlas military base in case ships or troops were deployed as a result of their stunt.

"I'm in position" he said, tapping his earpiece. "Still not sure how well this is going to work."

"It's better than stealing an Atlas military ship of the base," Qrow's voice crackled with static.

"How close are you to going dark, Jaune?" Ruby asked, keeping a close eye on everyone's scroll icon. She'd been left behind with the relic to be the centralized coordinator once Jaune went inside with Terra as well as provide an alibi for Saffron and the baby.

"We're in position as well," Yang said. She and Blake were a few miles out of town with her bike, ready for the go ahead to start up the winding path.

"Us too," Nora chimed in. She and Ren were concealed in the tree line just south of the grimm radar tower.

Jaune's plan had been a convoluted one, but it was the best they could come up with under the circumstances and with the resources they had. Terra had said when the grimm radar triggered, it interfered with the equipment at the relay tower. If Jaune happened to just accompany his sister-in-law to work, and the grimm radar just so happened to be interfering with the security equipment, requiring Terra to step away from her station, and Jaune happened to use her station to open a comm channel to Winter Schnee's private scroll, it might work. Hence, grimm had to be attracted to the radar in the first place to set it off, which would be the set task of Ren and Nora. Draw enough grimm in to keep the communication relay personnel busy long enough for Jaune to make the call without drawing any attention.

The comm tower however, had to stay up. The quarter mile between the two spaces would undoubtedly create less of a draw for the grimm toward the actual relay tower, but it could still be a target nonetheless. Keeping the tower protected was the job of Qrow, Yang and Blake. It would be an easy enough alibi for the two girls to say that they were just on a bike ride on one of the trails and saw the grimm and decided to do something, being huntresses in training and all; meanwhile Qrow could simply disappear into the trees; plus, if the grimm were too many in number, the way the teams were divvied would prevent them being overwhelmed. Qrow would be able to escape, Blake and Yang had a bike to escape on and Ren and Nora could vanish from the eyes of the grimm instantaneously due to his semblance.

The most difficult part of the task however, was keeping Terra and Saffron out of it as much as possible. If things worked according to plan, Winter would be able to come for them and no one would suffer any long-term repercussions. Jaune knew the risks, that me might be arrested and have to sit in jail until they were sent for by the military, but if it failed, he might be there much longer; but it was better than his sister and or sister-in-law being detained by the Atlesean military. Hence, everything had to be perfect. Everyone had a place to be or a way out, except for Oscar, who with his already established reputation as a runaway could probably use his boyish charm to talk his way out of any trouble.

Ruby would oversee everything while Jaune was occupied, and could make any calls necessary to create a distraction. The plan was far from perfect, but it was the closest thing they had to a chance.

"I'm here. We're about to go inside," Jaune said.

"Roger that," Oscar said, following Terra's car into the parking lot.

A rustle overhead caught his attention. Looking overhead, he saw Qrow perched in the branches above him, hunched delicately on the branches. Year of practice must have honed his skills because he balanced perfectly on branches Oscar assumed would never hold his weight.

"Let me know when golden boy gets inside. I'll take off towards the tower.

"Will do." Oscar promised, following the two Arcs on their way into the building.

"You ready?" Terra asked.

Jaune nodded. "I promise this won't be tied to you if this goes south."

His sister-in-law gripped his hand. "Whatever it is, this mission you're on: you're willing to put everything on the line for it. I know it's important to you and your team. It's the least I can do to help."

He gave an awkward smile and a sincere: "Thank you," before tapping his earpiece one last time. "I'm about to go in. Ruby, you're calling the shots from here." He pulled the earpiece out and turned his scroll off."

It was easier than he would ever have expected. Terra introduced him at the security desk and got him a visitor's badge, and getting him walked through the metal detectors, introducing him to everyone as her little-brother-in law who was fascinated by technology and just had to come see where she worked. He played along as the overly eager, naïve teenager who asked lots of questions, discouraging anyone from engaging with him directly. Terra walked him to her work station and began showing him how things worked.

Outside, Oscar saw as the pair walked down the glassed-in corridor.

"Jaune's in," he said quietly.

Without a word, Qrow vanished overhead, heading toward the tower.

"Ren and Nora, you're a go," Ruby said.

Southwest of the building, hidden in the trees, Ren gripped Nora's hand and the two pushed forward. Using his semblance, he was able to conceal them to the eyes of the grimm that would invade from the east, but not from the security cameras. They had to wait until the cameras had panned across in a different direction to move. Finally getting close enough to the detection station, he removed his semblance.

Their auras were enough to keep them warm in the snow, but they couldn't stay out for too long or it would deplete their aura too much to fight any grimm that came their way.

"So, all we have to do is attract some grimm?" Nora asked, patting her hammer. "I guess it really isn't hard to think of negative things to draw them in after what Ruby told us."

Ren nodded. "I don't know what Ozpin thinks he's doing, but we have no guarantee that getting the relic to Atlas will even do any good. It might just delay the inevitable."

"Jaune took it really hard," Nora replied. "I know…I know we all feel betrayed, but the last thing he needed to hear was that he put Pyrrha through all that when he didn't even really have a plan. She may very well have died for nothing even if she'd survived Beacon."

"Would she have even been a part of our team if she had accepted and gotten the powers?"

"You're right, they would have replaced her."

"Even if she had lived…she would have been destined to leave the team."

Finding negative emotions to dwell on was far from difficult, as not only Ren and Nora were finding, but the tower defense team as well. Yang had to stow her bike in a semi-public manner to keep up their story that she and Blake were just friends on a ride through the trails when they stopped to be good Samaritans upon seeing the tower under attack.

"Uncle Qrow will be patrolling between us, Ren and Nora and back to Oscar just to keep an eye on us, so we'll be on our own until he shows up." She put the kickstand down and let her bike down gently to make sure it wouldn't slip in the snow.

"Are you ok with that?" Blake raised an eyebrow as she took a survey of the land. The comm tower reached some four stories into the sky with firm and steady scaffolding.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yang asked, having adopted one of Weiss' most common phrases from when they were in school together.

"Well, you seem to want nothing to do with me ever since I came back," Blake replied.

Yang sighed. "You waited until right now to talk about this?"

Blake was trying to find words but was becoming frustrated with Yang's attitude. "Yeah, I wasn't going to try and talk about this with everyone else around. We haven't had any semblance of privacy since…since right after the train wreck."

Yang folded her arms defiantly. "There's nothing to even talk about. I told you that back then."

"Then can you explain why you've had this wall up with me ever since I came back to the team?"

"Look…I'm…adjusting to a lot of things right now, and it's just going to take time for everything to settle down."

"Basically, what you're saying is you don't know how long it's going to be before you're done being mad at me?" Blake countered. "You don't want to bury the hatchet, but you're saying you want things to be normal: which is it?"

"Can we not talk about this right now?" Yang was beginning to lose control of her temper, and when her self-control went, her semblance was going to be impossible to contain. Her hands were already beginning to shake.

"Why? Is it making you uncomfortable? Just like sharing a room with someone who won't tell me if they hate me nor not is really uncomfortable? I'm trying to make things right, Yang. I promised I would protect you no matter what…"

"It wasn't that you couldn't protect me!" Yang finally snapped and shouted back. Her eyes flickered to crimson red and her hair began to glow faintly. "You left! I needed you and you just left!"

Blake stood dumbfounded. She'd been trying so hard to apologize for things she couldn't control, but being faced with the impact that her choice had left her with an uneasy feeling of guilt in the pit of her stomach.

"Yang…I'm sorry…" she stammered.

"My sister was in a coma! Weiss got taken away by her dad! I had just gotten kicked out of a tournament for something I didn't do, that was somehow caught on camera! I thought I was losing my mind! And when I woke up and tried to make sense of everything that had happened: Pyrrha, Penny, the school burning down, my arm, my sister…you had already gone. Just like everyone else I needed when things got hard. You just left me behind! Just like my mom! Just like Summer Rose! Just like Uncle Qrow does most of the time, at least he comes back sometimes, but we never know when or in what state. You didn't even have the decency to say goodbye!"

"I was afraid!" Blake shouted back. "I was afraid my past would catch up with me."

The blonde's shoulders sagged. "You're the second person in one month who've given me that same exact excuse. Fear being what drove them away from what was right…away from me!" She held her artificial arm up. "I lost an arm trying to protect you, Blake! Why wasn't I good enough to even get a goodbye?!" Her voice was filled with anguish, but there were no tears. She was beyond being hurt, or being sad, she was simply livid. "And you know what the worst part about it is? I…"

"Watch out!" Blake cried. A good sized nevermore swooped out of the trees, just missing Yang's hair as she ducked and rolled out of the way.

With a shot of her gauntlets, the inky bird came down, but was promptly beset by a small flock of them. Her semblance in full swing, she made short work of them, without even really needing Blake's assistance.

It was only the beginning.

The tree line became dotted with specks of black grimm, some small, like creepers and nevermore, but there were a few larger: beowulfs, and a ursa. Not too many for them to handle, but more than what they were expecting. The smaller and dumber of the creatures bolted toward straight toward the pair, the more intelligent choosing to stay back, having at least enough sense of self preservation to not rush in headlong.

Blake immediately took to the trees. Using the kusarigama portion of Gambol Shroud, she would swing between the trees, take a swing at one of the larger grimm and then disappear back into the branches. Always staying out of reach, she picked off the larger ones as Yang handled the smaller groups toward the foot of the tower.

Downwind Ren and Nora heard the radar alert signal overhead. A horn accompanied by red flashing lights told them their plan was at least working to some degree. Grimm were approaching, but only a few small creepers came their way.

"I don't get it. The alarm is going off but where are they all going?" Nora asked.

Ren looked intently to see if there were more coming. He closed his eyes, focusing on his other senses. He'd always been able to faintly sense both other people and grimm. People gave off the faintest of auras and grimm were the exact opposite, like vacuums of life and energy that were easy to sense because of the negative space they created. None were nearby, but toward the north, out of their reach he could sense them.

"It feels like they're going toward the comm tower," he said.

Nora shrugged. "Do we go help them?"

Ren shook his head. "We need to stick to the plan. If we're caught with them, we have no way of escaping or explaining our presence."

"Ren's right," Ruby said in their ears, "Unless it's life or death, let them stay where they are and keep drawing whatever grimm you can to the radar tower instead of the comm tower."

A flock of nevermores flew overhead straight toward the tower. Nora was able to take out about half the flock with her grenade launcher, but at least six of the birds made it past unscathed. Nora sighed, letting her shoulders sag. "I hope they'll be ok."

If Jaune had known the tower was going to be assaulted by a never-ending stream of smaller grimm instead of a few moderate sized ones, he would have sent Ruby and Yang together and left Blake to handle the coordination. Ruby was much more suited to the "crowd control" type of combat than Blake was. As they were now, Yang was doing most of the leg work, fueled by her temper, her semblance was draining and she was burning through her aura at an ungodly rate. Once the larger grimm arrived, Qrow would have to step in. A few beowulfs and alphas were coming closer, but their biggest concern was a creature neither of them had encountered before.

They'd seen their fair share of ursa and even encountered ursa major. This creature, however, seemed even more menacing. Unlike the normal ursas that would roar and charge; this one stayed quiet, observing first how the other grimm attacked. It was small for an ursa major, but its spikes and bone-like armor plating covered its entire body from face to claws, allowing it to blend in with the drifts of snow. Blake had taken a few shots at it from the trees above with no success, but other grimm that were more aggressive occupied her attention, leaving the pensive creature to inch forward remaining on the edge of the tree line, drawn to the source of negativity, anger and fear.

It was stalking Yang.

"I have to go," Terra said as the alarm shrieked throughout the communication building. "If you need anything, I'll be in the situation room. Stay here and I'll be back in five minutes, ten at the most."

"I'll be ok," Jaune said, nodding that he understood.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Good luck."

"Thank you," he said.

Terra disappeared out of her office and began down the hallway into the situation room, the screens displaying the horde of grimm crawling toward the comm tower.

"I see Terra," Oscar said into his earpiece. "She's in the situation room."

"Good," Ruby replied. "Everyone hold your positions until I give the signal. "Oscar, keep your position and make sure you let me know as soon as Terra is on her way back."

At her office, Jaune could feel the pressure and the blare of the alarm was not helping his focus. Following Terra's previous instructions, he typed her password into her computer and navigated to access the comm tower, using a program to make an emergency outgoing broadcast. It required her security passcode again as well as her soft authentication token, which Jaune had practiced a hundred times to use. He had Winter's scroll number memorized, but he also had it written down on his forearm in ink. Using a headset he found in her drawer, he plugged it into her audio port, and took a deep breath before pressing call.

Hearing Adam's half-apology, half-confession was qual parts thrilling, relief, and terrifying for Weiss. It confirmed her suspicious that he was softening towards her but also that she had softened toward him: a dangerous predicament for them both. Hence, when he told her he wanted to see where their relationship went she was unsure how to answer.

"I'd like that…" she finally managed.

Adam's fate and posture immediately relaxed as if sighing in relief.

"But if we're going to…do…this, we need to has some things out firs and set some boundaries."

Adam nodded "There are some things that you need to understand as well."

"Like what?"

"Like my position as high leader and yours as a political prisoner. Unfortunately, I have an image to maintain, which means outside these walls, you are still my property and I still use and abuse you as a human and a huntress. For both of our safety, we have to keep up appearances."

"I understand," Weiss replied. Clearly, he'd been thinking about this.

"That means I can't go easy on you when others are around, especially now that I'm being scrutinized by Artis and her faction in Atlas. I've recently been perceived as…favoring you, and that has inspired some negative opinions of me. In order to combat that perception, you're going to have to play the part, do you understand? My laundry, my food trays, our training at the dojo, you're going to have to be in subjection and even a little afraid of me."

"I can do it," she promised.

"And you can't put me in any difficult positions. Not like what you did with Blake and her monkey friend when we were in Haven. In public, you can't make me choose between you and the White Fang, because if they think I'm choosing you, it'll be just more ammunition for Artis to use when she tries to usurp my seat as High Leader." By this point, he'd released Weiss hands and was leaning back in his chair.

Weiss folded her arms. "And how long are we going to have to keep up appearances? You realize you can't actually keep me here forever, right?"

Adam tossed his hands and let them fall back to the table. "Until I and guarantee my absolute authority and through that, your safety. I have to ensure you won't be killed when you try to leave, not just by the faunus here at HQ, but by the chapters in Argus and Atlas as well."

"Fair enough," she sighed, "But if I'm going to basically be a house maid to you on the surface, I'd at least like some concessions."

"Of course." Adam gave a single nod. This was going like a business negotiation.

"First, I'll look to the outside like I'm your trophy or spoils of war or whatever: I'll take the food trays and do whatever you want in your big wig meetings parading me around, but from here on out, you can sort and wash your own clothes, change your own bedsheets and do your own share of the house chores."

"That's fair. When I am able to release you, however, I expect you to keep this place and its people confidential. The police from Haven may have been averse to firing on us in the city, but out here, they'll kill us indiscriminately."

"Your secret is safe with me."

"Thank you. What else?"

Weiss hesitated before speaking her next statement. "No more drunk advances."

The conversation went from business discussion to somber reality check in just one sentence. They weren't just discussing a role-play they planned on acting out, they were discussing their actual lives and the gravity of all of it hit the both of them with her statement; the weight of the real danger and the real consequences they could be dealing with gave the conversation a much greater weight.

"You're right." he said, "and I won't. From here on out, anything we do…romantically…we do sober, and we do together."

"Thank you."

Adam inhaled deeply, letting out a long exhale of concern. "It's going to be a weird game of pretend for us until we get any kind of opportunity to get you out, but here, inside the house, we can actually be ourselves for once."

"And what does 'being ourselves' entail exactly?"

"Whatever we're ready for and comfortable with." He stood and leaned across the table, kissing her gently on the forehead, then as a show of good faith, stepped into the front room, picking up where Weiss had left off: sorting his laundry into various baskets for later washing.

It was the first of many small changes he began to make, and Weiss rather liked the direction this was going.

It was a long day and Winter had just returned to her quarters. She removed her scroll and dropped it in the catch-all bowl near the door of her small apartment. Being an officer with rank came with its perks, including a larger than normal quarter allowance, which was still only the size of a small apartment but with modern conveniences, all the accommodations of the modern world were at her fingertips and best of all, it was private. She could finally have a minute to unwind and decompress. Ironwood was growing more and more paranoid by the day and the strain of carrying all the knowledge of the relics and the maidens coupled with the fear of war around every corner left him on edge. As his right-hand man, she was shouldering a portion of that emotional and mental exhaustion, and it was starting to get to her. What if Penny wasn't enough? What if her father actually succeeded in winning a seat on the council? What if they did go to war?

She hadn't even had time to sort through her own personal feelings. She went from an officer just trying to find her sister to the presumptive winter maiden and took on duties to match. She wasn't ready for this: she had a life, and a career and a family that was still in shambles. Nothing in her life was together enough for her to even consider herself settled and yet, Ironwood expected her to take on the role of magical protector of the staff that kept Atlas floating.

Sitting on the loveseat in her front room, she pulled her boots off, taking a moment to relax before cooking dinner. Tonight was definitely a "two glasses with dinner" kind of night after seeing her curfew and travel restrictions PSA air on the digital banners surrounding the city.

Apparently, Ironwood also expected her to fall of the sword of public opinion to maintain his image of a caring benefactor. She hated being the villain to the citizens of Atlas and Mantle, but the general had wanted her to be the one in front of the camera. She was his enforcer, and while she loathed it, she also understood it: she was an uncaring ice queen who could toe the line to keep him from looking as harsh and irrational. He expected her to do take whatever steps were "necessary" and she already had the reputation of being an ice queen, she could be both authoritative enough to fear and obey but not sympathized or empathized with.

She had a sneaking suspicion he had ulterior motives for making her deliver the new executive orders that limited their freedoms: he wanted the people, especially the people of Mantle to distrust the Schnees; anything he could do to sow seeds of discord to hinder Jacque from buying himself enough votes to win a seat on the council.

Her scroll started vibrating. Audibly groaning she pulled herself out of her seat, half expecting it to be Ironwood or Clover and was surprised to see it came directly from the military base in Argus.

"This is Military Specialist Schnee," she said, hoping her fatigue wasn't audible in her voice.

"Winter Schnee, this is Jaune Arc, I'm a friend of your sister and Qrow Branwen. We need your help."

He sounded rushed, almost panicked and there were alarms going off in the background on his end. It was all very odd. He sounded too young and too unskilled to actually be a comm's agent. Her first reaction was to go on high alert. She immediately began grilling him with questions.

"How did you get this number? Why are you contacting me? Do you have any idea how many security protocols you're violating right now? Why haven't you gone through the main relay? Who authorized you to use this channel?"

"No one has authorized me. Look, I know what I'm doing isn't exactly legal right now, but Miss Cordovin won't let us send any kind of communication out," he was trying to keep his voice calm. "We have information we know you need, about Weiss, about the attack on Haven, but we need you to send Ironwood a message. We need to get into Atlas and we can only do that if we're sent for."

"Why would I believe any of this? How would I even know you are…?"

"Snowbird." Jaune cut her off before she could finish her question. "Qrow said if you asked how you know you could trust us, to say Snowbird."

Qrow called her many names: Ice queen, your worship, steel maiden, a few she couldn't repeat in mixed company, but the only one he said that made her feel special was Snowbird. Qrow must have trusted this kid a great deal to share such an intimate piece of knowledge. At least he was alive and well.

"What do you need?"

"I need passage from Argus to Atlas for my team, Weiss' team, Qrow and two more travelers we've picked up along the way. Altogether, there are nine of us. We have knowledge about both the whereabouts of your sister, we have the relic, and we need to discuss all of this with Ironwood. We were at the Battle for Haven and Atlas is going to be attacked next. Will you tell General Ironwood this?"

"My sister is alive? You know this?" Winter demanded.

"Yes. At least she was alive three weeks ago. She's with the White Fang's high leader Adam Taurus, but she was unharmed." The alarm bells in the background ceased. "I'm running out of time, will you send a transport for us or not?"

"I'll see to it that you and your teams are on a transport ship to Atlas by the end of the week." Winter promised.

"Thank you! Thank you, Miss Schnee!" Jaune said, thrilled beyond belief his plan actually worked. "You have no idea how much you're helping. I can't stay on the line for much longer, I have to go. I'm probably going to be arrested, but you'll come bail us out right?"

"I'll see to it personally," she promised.

Before he could reply, she though she could faintly hear a man's voice say "What do you think you're doing?" before the line promptly cut short.

That boy was definitely going to be arrested. How he managed to pull off a comm hijack she couldn't imagine, but she didn't have time to think about it. Too much was happening at once. Qrow was ok. Weiss was ok. The relic was safe. She immediately dialed Ironwood's scroll: she was one of only eight people who had permission to call him.

"What is it, Schnee?" he asked as he answer.

"Sir, we have a situation. I think I'm going to need to go to Argus."