Vernal stared at the metropolis, their place at the head of the boat; the city itself looked in a fit of despair. From the ship, she could see that city itself appeared dark and uninviting; the buildings that once had a bright glow were now primarily dark, a few sparse visions of life peaking. The skies, too, appeared to follow this trend of dark and gloomy as no moonlight nor the stars peeked through the near-endless expanse of gray and black cloud.

"Are you sure this place'll be suitable?" Vernal asked, turning towards Victoria, who, unlike her skepticism, had a look of astonishment; Vernal just rolled her eyes. She had been to Vacuo, Vale, and Mistral with Raven when they had to reposition their tribe. On the other hand, Victoria has spent most of her life in a rather large village, but even the largest towns never compare to the cities.

"It's amazing! If we can find a place near the main road, we'll-"

"Okay, I'm going to cut you off right there; first of all, there is no we in this. I said I'd help you settle in, and I need a distraction. Second, the main road has some of the highest buy-ins and rent possible; the closer you are to any major roadway is like that, so aim for a location of convenience. Near a mall or train station, places that aren't super close to main roads but have a lot of traffic. Then there are property usage laws to account for; if the area is a commercial location, you should generally be fine, but locations like industrial or residential are out, and there's also the laws to account for..." Vernal kept speaking of the different roadblocks that Victoria was going to run into being in Vale, but the girl had not a single thing in mind beyond opening her store and maybe going on a date with Sash- Vernal, but for now, she had to focus, quickly smacking her cheeks she looked to Vernal who was staring her down with a blank look in her eyes

"What?"

"You weren't listening to a single word I said." she said, causing Victoria to blush quickly; Vernal just sighed and turned towards the water.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be; you've got a lot going on, and I don't care enough to put too much effort into it." Vernal quickly said as she again readjusted her cloak as a powerful gust of wind blew past them. Vernal had made a conscious effort to keep her veil covering her body at all times, given the fact that on her left arm, she had the symbol for the Branwen tribe printed over most of her left arm and did her few favors. Luckily she didn't have to go through advanced screening, and it seems like Vale would be the same; at least the hope was there. There was a slim chance that they would be screened, but it was always possible, especially after the recent attack on the city, they may not want to take any chances. Looking over to Victoria, she looked the woman over.

Victoria dressed in a simple brown vest and cream-colored button-up, tucked into a pair of brown slacks and brown dress pants. From what she recalled, she always preferred to dress like a man was strange considering the pride taken in her hair and face, unlike most men she knew, but they were bandits, so they had a much lower standard for hygiene.

"Hey Vernal? Have you been here before? It sounds like you know your way around." Victoria asked, her curiosity piqued, to which Vernal sighed; she was far more curious than Vernal would have liked, but she was always that way, so Vernal spoke, "A few times before, but I've never stuck around for too long. Trust me, you'll hate it soon enough." she answered with a frown as another breeze came through to which she responded the same way, by hold her cloak tightly around herself.

(o)

Vernal was quite lucky; once they got off the ship, most of the soldiers were too busy interviewing and inspecting those on their way out of the city to be concerned with her slipping past the checkpoint, she wanted to vanish into the city but waited, and after about ten minutes Victoria came walking out of the checkpoint an exhausted look on her face as she straightened her glasses.

"I guess things went well?"

"H-how'd you get out here first? And where did you disappear off to?"

"I got a few friends around here; once we got in range, I messaged them, and they got me through without a hassle." Vernal lied as she held up her scroll. Victoria just grumbled to herself as she and Vernal began to walk along the sidewalk.

"So I guess you're looking for somewhere to stay while we search for a shop to get set up?"

"Yeah... know anywhere good?"

"Nowhere that's open... I assume I'll head out and check once we reach a refugee camp, I can search much faster alone than with you, and I don't trust that all the Grimm have been eradicated yet." she said, earning a nod from Victoria, who seemed more excited to be here than before as she looked around at some of the people trying to shift rubble or walking along talking about their futures, some of whom carried luggage.

"Alright, but how will you find me after?"

"I'll just call you." Vernal answered blankly as she pulled her scroll free from her cloak and held it out to the girl. "Just put your number in there, and I'll call you when I'm done."

"A-alright... t-there! I mean... done. Ha." she awkwardly said, earning a shrug from Vernal, who took the scroll from her hand and returned it to her cloak as she took a small step back and leaped into the air, landing atop a nearby roof and dashed away, leaving Victoria to gawk in amazement.

(o)

Pyrrha yawned as she sat up from her bed and quickly climbed out of bed and dropped to the ground, and began to do sit-ups; after about ten minutes straight, she flipped over and started to do push-ups for another ten minutes, rising to her feet she started to do squats, after finishing up her morning exercises she began to dress a white button-up and a pair of jeans over a couple of combat boots, walking out of her room she smiled at the door across from her, giving it a quick knock she heard some footsteps before the door opened, outstepping Jaune who was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants one shoe on the other in his hand

"Hey Pyrrha, sleep well?"

"I did; it's nice to finally sleep under a roof, " she answered with a sigh, earning a chuckle from Jaune as he knelt and began to tie his other shoe. "Any idea when Nora and Ren are getting up?"

"I think Nora wanted to cut his hair this morning, so it may take then a while to join us." Pyrrha answered, turning and heading down the stairs. "I'll get started on breakfast. Can you wake up Ruby?"

"Sure, is she down the hall?"

"Should be."

(o)

Walking down the stairs, Pyrrha let out a hum and turned towards the kitchen. Walking in she began to dig through the well-stocked fridge, pulling eggs, bacon, pork, and a few potatoes; after doing so, she began to cut up the meats and cook them while searching the cupboards for a bag of rice and began to cook it too.

"Hey, Pyrrha, Ruby isn't in her room." Jaunes' voice came from the living room as he began to walk around the house

"Oh... well, I'm cooking. Can you search for her?"

"Yeah, I gotcha!" he called back.

Jaune made his way down into a large room. At one end were training weapons; at the other were pieces of armor; laying in the middle of the arena, taking up the center of the room, was Ruby, covered in sweat and staring at the ceiling; under her eyes were bags, she yawned

"You okay, Ruby?"

"I... couldn't sleep... so I trained for a while."

"Ruby it's almost noon, we got here a little after noon... you didn't sleep at all did you?" he questioned as Ruby slowly sat up, clearly rather lethargic in her movements

"I'm... fine." Ruby said through a yawn before dropping back and falling asleep, it was clear that she wasn't exactly in a deep sleep but he couldn't do anything for her right now, nor to help her get any deeper sleep... maybe they should look into getting her a therapist... on second thought that might make her angry.

Leaning down he picked Ruby up but as soon as he got her in his arms and off the ground her eyes snapped open as she swung an elbow into his cheek causing him to drop her as she landed on her feet and rolled back grabbing Harbinger from the ground and she quickly looked around her eyes landing on Jaune who was laying a few feet away groaning in pain and delusion

"Sorry Jaune, I didn't mean to... well no that's a lie, I did mean to do that I just didn't mean it for you. You okay?"

"Peachy..." he groaned out massaging his mouth as she began to walk away towards the stairs "I'm gonna go take a nap. Okay bye!" she called as she trudged upstairs, reaching the top of the stairs she looked at the couch and flopped down on it almost instantly falling asleep, again though it was unfortunate that she couldn't sleep deeply anymore, it happened every time they slept in towns and such, outside of towns remaining out of deep sleep helped in their travels, but now... now she was exhausted and couldn't cure it, but she needed to try it.

(o)

Vernal sat watching as Victoria walked around her new storefront, there was shattered glass and dust scattered around the whole store, apparently, this place was a bookstore before Vale went to shit, and someone murdered the former owner, so it was getting sold off cheap... not that Victoria knows that it was better to keep the little nugget of information to herself, leaning out of the shattered window Vernal looked down the street, some people were starting to clean up the streets

"Thanks for finding this place Vernal, it's perfect!" Victoria said walking in from the backroom with a smile on her face

"No problem, but if I could ask a favor; you wouldn't happen to have a long sleeve shirt I can borrow?"

"Yeah, that's a bit weird to ask after finding me such an awesome place to start up." Victoria commented as she walked over to her luggage and began to dig through it eventually finding one of her shirts and tossing it to her, a white button-up "There ya go, it's a guys shirt though, so you'll probably wanna tuck it in your pants." she advised as the girl caught it and walked into the back for a few moments before coming back out, the white button-up was half-buttoned tucked into a pair of dark red pants, both her belt and vest were shades of dark brown, she had a pair of gloves one reached her elbow and the other reached her wrist, it was a strange way to dress, to say the least

"How do I look?" Vernal asked in a flat tone, she didn't really care but Raven always asked her that when she got dressed, so she mimicked her

"Pretty good, you can pull off... that style."

"Thanks, right so I'm gonna go see if there's anything I can do around town to help earn some cash, 'cause this place isn't anywhere ready to open up, so I'll help out how I can." Vernal said making her way towards the door as Victoria began to sweep up the shattered glass

"Alright, oh! And if you can find someone to replace this window I'd be grateful." Victoria ask earning a nod from Vernal as she vanished out the door leaving Victoria to happily get to cleaning

Walking towards the more seedy side of Vale she couldn't help but feel a little anxious, Grimm could be anywhere within the city still, and given the massive weakness that the Vale military has been stuck dealing with the heavily damaged wall, factor in the massive amounts of anxiety and depression scattered throughout the city itself there was a constant flow of Grimm heading into the south-eastern city sector, better seen as a battlefield at this point, another unfortunate part is that section of the city is the residential sector so displaced families are disgruntled and fearful as their homes are torn apart by Grimm and artillery, but it was also a lucrative location for a mercenary.

(o)

reaching the barbed fence Vernal looked out at the crumbling ruins beyond she could hear the sounds of howling and gunfire, black smoke filling the air while trucks carried bodies towards gates in the fence, and structures built up around the gates had a rather heavy population of soldiers and a few huntsmen, making her way towards the camp a few soldiers gave her a side-eye but she ignored them as she waltzed into camp towards a group of huntsmen, one was an older and portly man he was dressed in dirty clothes with a blunder-ax resting next to him, across from him was another man he was much taller and scrawny in his hand was a thermos-thrower, his turned to her and spoke

"Hello, what is a fine young woman such as yourself doing here?" he asked in a rather exhausted tone, the portly man turning to look at her too

"A friend and I have come to live here, but my only skills are fighting."

"Are you a huntress?"

"Something like that."

"Well... welcome, I'd much rather not see a young person as you die but we all have our talents, Glynda handles most of our pay and logistics, so you'll want to speak with her when you get the chance, that or Commander Nils he should be in the tent over there, sadly we can't be too picky due to casualty numbers and our steadily draining manpower but Vale still needs those who are willing to fight to protect it." the Portly man said giving her a pat on the shoulder, shrugging off his hand she began towards the tent they pointed out a blank stare on her face as she looked over the heavily injured and weak who were getting carted away.

(o)

Ruby awoke to find the living room empty, leaping to her feet she quickly scanned the room and slung Harbinger over her shoulder, and began to search the household for the others, no one was upstairs nor in the kitchen, she eventually found herself in the training grounds once more where Pyrrha and Jaune were training, Pyrrha giving Jaune advice and smacking him with her scabbard when and where he would make mistakes, her training seems to grow more intense since the loss of her hand, but it seemed that she was far angrier about her loss to Sephiroth than anything else

Pyrrha was never some to take pride in her victories, Ruby always saw that she was happy to win but it was clear she had grown sick of it, but now after tasting defeat it seemed that she disliked that even more, given just how hard she was starting to push Jaune in his training

"Hey, Pyrrha wanna go a few rounds?" Ruby called as she walked past Ren and Nora who were taking turns spotting each other as they lifted rather large weights

"Sure, Jaune I want you to watch closely." she ordered with a smile earning a nod from the clearly exhausted man as he walked out of the arena and plopped down near the door to watch

Ruby drew Harbinger while Pyrrha leveled Jian, the two dashed forward Ruby swinging heavy strikes while Pyrrha danced out of the reach of the blade and tried to find an opening, finding none she was quite impressed, originally Rubys' stances were very tight and confined allowing her weapon to do most of the work, it was very taxing on her body, but now that there was a sword in her hands she could see that her stance was perfectly suited for the blade, and her stamina will allow her to fight for long periods of time uninterrupted, so attrition is out...

Dashing forward again Pyrrha slid under a slash from Ruby who leapt back and shifted Harbinger around to block a powerful slash from Pyrrha, sliding to a stop she dropped back off her feet with a yelp, Pyrrha dashed forward to land a devastating blow but was interrupted as Ruby kicked off the ground towards her nearly landing a powerful kick with only an instant to spare Pyrrha dodged her leg but was hit upside the head by the blunt of the blade throwing her away from the younger girl, rolling to her feet she clenched her fist as black energy engulfed causing Harbinger to slam into the ground and out of Rubys' hands Pyrrha then rushed in with a few quick swings which Ruby dodged much quicker than she had expected, she then twisted and kicked Pyrrhas feet out from under her causing the girl to roll away from her onto her knees and threw the sheath at her before calling it back stunning Ruby for a few seconds as she rushed in again, dodging and twisting her arm around Pyrrhas sword arm she caught her other wrist stopping the sheath from cracking upside her head, she then leaned back flipping Pyrrha over her then slammed her knee into the girls gut causing her to gasp in pain, releasing Pyrrha Ruby dived forward rolling over Harbinger and picked it up turning and swinging at Pyrrha who barely dodged the strike

Both breathing rather heavily as they separated and dropped their combat stances

"You've grown in both tact and skill Ruby." Pyrrha commented as she began to orbit around Ruby who followed suit

"And you've stopped relying on your semblance to avoid damage." Ruby spoke as she took a few steps forward and swung meeting Pyrrhas' the two beginning to battle again, Jaune from the sidelines couldn't tell what was going on at all.

A/N This one is a bit of a lower chapter, meant to be something of a break, no major conflict just a quick show of the daily life of some important characters, I don't know if it will be the next chapter or the chapter after when Yang'll get back into the fold. Anywho I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the bit of breathing room it has afforded, perhaps it'll be a juicy chapter, I'm struggling to get more FF7 lore into the story, I've got a few limit breaks in mind,

Rens' is effective on Grimm only allowing him to kill one no matter how powerful with a single strike

Nora is attack empowerment for her and her allies

Jaune is protection for him and his allies

Yangs is going to be a weird unique one that'll take some explaining but I'll save it for when I get there

Pyrrha can heal the wounds of her party at the expense of her stamina, so she can heal her allies but it makes her useless(Reverse Megumin)

They wont activate in every fight, obviously, it will only be for specific events and battles, Rubys' is something I haven't decided yet, I want it to be something similar to Omnislash but I also want it to be something completely unique to her, so I'm still debating that one, once it activates we'll probably get an answer.