An: This chapter is real late. It's not because it was overly hard to write or something bad happened it's just as summer is coming to a close I got incredibly busy from having to take the finals for my summer classes and start what basically is a fulltime job to complete my community service for my scholarship.

Because of all that there were many days were I just couldn't write anything and as such not only is this chapter late, but it's not as long as I would have liked. The decision was to push forward with my original plan for this chapter and make you all wait possible two more weeks, or cut it off early to get it out.

Sadly, I have a feeling that the next chapter is going to be delayed as well since I'll be heading back to college soon, but do not worry once I'm settled in things should be a lot more consistent. I've optimized my schedule to make sure I have plenty of free time to work on this story, so just hang with me.

Blake was going to die. This thing, whatever it was, was already nearly on top of her. There wasn't time to bring up her weapon and she was too far in shock to even think about dodging. Her only hope was if her aura held.

The monster crashed into her, dropping her to the floor under its weight and sending her weapon skidding across the street. Her aura saved her from any injury, but the impact had knocked the wind out of her, and all see could think about was the wet, sticky fur brushing against her stomach and face. The creatures two tongues licked either side of its mouth like it was is about to savior a delicious meal.

From this angle, Blake could see that her attacker did in fact have eyes. There was nothing natural about them, though. There was no white to be seen and the pupils looked and acted like black egg yolks, sliding independently across the iris like they were on frying pans. That was probably the creepiest thing about all of this. Not the unexplainable creature itself, or its violent aggression, but the way its stare seemed completely unfocused from what it was doing, like it didn't even care.

It brought its front two leg, or Blake guessed they could have been arms too, up above her stomach. For some reason, Blake was remained of the claw machines in arcades, expect this claw had one extra digit, looked sharp enough to pierce iron, and she was the prize to be won.

The thing's left appendage shot forward, aiming to tear Blake's chest open. She couldn't get out from under the creature to dodge, but she wasn't just going to sit here and die. She thrusted her arm up and forward to block. Her forearm was thin enough that instead of being run through by its claws, it fell between them and hit what could have been called the creatures palm. It was enough to stop herself for being gorged, but the creature didn't waste a second wrapping it's digits around her in a grab.

Blake felt her aura cry. She tried to pull her arm back, but the creatures grip was strong and she couldn't move it an inch, even when she brought her other arm in to help pull. The squeezing of its claws finally broke through her aura and cut into her skin. It felt like her arm was being crunched by a pair of scissors. It was tough to keep her focus especially since she still had to watch out for its other free arm. Honestly though, if it decided to use the other one, she was dead.

She was dead even if it didn't.

Was this how it was going to end? After all her talk about equality and saving faunus, she was going to die on an empty street with no one around to ever know what happened to her. She guessed it was her own fault. When you run away from everything and everyone of course there's going to be no one left to save you.

Blake could barely feel her arm anymore. If she didn't know any better she would have said it had already been crushed completely, but the faint plush of aura she was still able to send up to it told her it was still mostly there.

A twitch from the corner of her vision brought her focus back to the creature's other arm. Apparently, it was ready to end this. Blake might have been able to bring her other arm up to block it but what would be the point? At least this option would be quick. She really didn't want a slow death where she'd bled out from a crushed or separated arm.

Blake watched the second appendage move about, above her, once again being reminding her of the claw machine with it being adjusted to get the perfect position. In this case that position would be above her heart.

Blake couldn't bear to look at it, but she couldn't bring herself to close her eyes, so she looked into the creatures own eyes, sickened by how uninterested they look. One of the egg yolk pupils had drifted so far to right it may have as well have been starting at the warehouse wall.

"Fore!"

Suddenly everything changed as something smashed up into the creature's jaw, which to be fair made up about half its body, sending it slamming shut. If it had any teeth it surly would have bitten its two tongues off. The impact didn't end there, however, the force had been strong enough to push the creature off Blake and send it spinning backwards.

Taking every advantage of her sudden freedom, Blake rolled away, grabbed her weapon, got into a kneeling position, and pointed it at the monstrosity that had nearly killed her. She was aware of the blood dripping from her damaged arm, but she didn't have time to think about it.

The creature had recovered quickly and had latched itself onto a wall. It seemed to need to turn its entire head, or maybe it should just be considered the front half of its body, to observe both Blake and her mysterious savior.

Suddenly, the creature jerked to the side, rose to its hind legs, swatted the air, then quickly skirted up the warehouse it was hanging on. Blake followed it with her weapon ready to put a few holes in the disgusting thing, but as it reached the top, it just vanished. Blake was shocked but even more so when she caught, what looked like a cane, being raised to the side of her. The man holding it pulled a trigger and a projectile was fired above the warehouse, but it didn't hit anything as it sailed off into the night.

"Tsk," the man, who Blake now saw was wearing a white suit and bowler hat, huffed. Blake's mind was still trying to process everything when a very small and colorful girl literality appeared beside the man. She looked pouty with her arms crossed and an umbrella slung over her shoulder.

"Don't worry about it," The man said sounding just as cocky as he looked. "Your semblance wasn't going to work on that thing. What an annoyance that something like that had to pop up just as Cinder is working me ragged. What is that kid doing? He's supposed to be taking care of this stuff for me, yet here I am working overtime."

"Excuses me," Blake interjected, irritated that she was being ignored. "Would you mind telling me what the hell that thing was, and just who you people are!"

The man turned to face her and even Blake's overworked mind was able to tell who it was instantly. "Oh, that's right. You're still here. You're very lucky you know…actually I take that back. You're vey unlucky. Wandering around at this hour and running into that. Don't you have a bedtime or something?"

"Roman Torchwick," Blake said shifting the focus of her weapon to him, "I'm a huntress of Beacon academy and you're under arrest. If you don't comply and answer my questions I'll be forced to use force."

Roman rolled his eyes and Neo silently giggled. It was bad enough that he was being talked down to by a first-year Beacon student, but she wasn't even in a state where she could beat one of junior's grunts, let alone him or Neo. Did that dust store incident really sully his reputation that badly?

"I said put your hand up!" Blake shouted. Sweat was gathering on her forehead and she was starting to feel the burning in her arm. Surprisingly, with an almost bored expression, Roman raised his hands in surrender, but before Blake could even consider how she would actually restrain him, the smoke rising from his cigar shot out like a snake.

It struck Blake in the face, and she could feel it invading her nose and mouth. She tried to retaliate by firing her weapon, but her fingers felt so heavy that she couldn't pull the trigger. "Don't be scared," Roman said. His voice seemed so far away. "I'll have someone pick you up shortly. Try to treat him a little better than you did me."

That was that last thing she heard before she fell unconscious.

The first thing Blake noticed was her throat felt like she had slept with sand in it. The next thing she realized was that she was lying in a bed with a pillow under her head. She thought she might be back in her room in Beacon, but there were two voices that she didn't recognize talking to each other.

She kept her eyes shut, pretending to still be asleep, to try and get as much information as she could before making her next move. One of the voices was obviously male while the other was clearly female.

"Yeah, I got the call to meet him there," the male said. "He said he had something he needed me to pick something up. I didn't think it would be a girl."

"I hope you at least got some answers from him." The female didn't seem too pleased with the male.

"I tried but he left almost as soon as I arrived. He just told me I was doing a good job, but I'm still bad at the job. He also said that I owed him for saving the girl."

"Of course, he would do something like that. That man's a leech, but what did he mean with that job stuff."

"It's his cryptic way of telling me something without forcing me to use a scroll call. I think he was trying to tell me that we're on the right track, but we're made a wrong turn somewhere."

"How would he know what we're up to?"

"I've just accepted it."

"I haven't!"

"Sorry."

The female groaned. "Whatever, we just need to wait for that girl to wake up and tell us what happened. The sooner she's out of here the better. I already don't like her. A huntress-in-training out so late, without her team, screams hidden agenda or secret mission. We've got enough to deal with already. Don't what to stack any high school drama on top of that. Plus, she's sleeping in my bed."

"You did not just call it your bed!"

Anything else they said was lost as they talked over each other with childish bickering. At the very least, Blake felt like they weren't any threat to her. She was a huntress and ex-White Fang member. They sounded like civilians. They had probably just stumbled on her and brought her to their home since they wouldn't know who she was. She would just thank them and leave. No need to involve anyone else in her problems.

Blake groaned and tossed around like she had just woken up. She didn't want them to think that she had been eavesdropping on them. She made her eyes slowly flutter open as she took in the room she was in.

"The cat is finally awake," the female said.

Cat? Blake thought. That must just been a saying of hers. No way she could actually know that she was a faunus. Blake reached up to make sure her bow wasn't loose and had a mild-panic attack when it wasn't there at all. Her cat ears were open to the air, free for everyone to see.

Her eye shoot open, forgoing her pervious plan, and she bolted up with her hand over her ears like that would make the other two conveniently forget they were ever there. It was also the first time she got a good look at them and the rest of the room. She had been wrong about them being normal civilians. The girl had a venomous stare and a posture that made it clear who was in charge around here, and the consequences if you didn't agree. She didn't even try to hide the deadly weapons strapped across her butt. Huntsmen quality weapons weren't bought for a simple hobby.

The boy looked a little more aloof and kind of clueless. She didn't even know what to think about his bunny jacket, but it could just be in act carefully crafted to make her let her guard down. The sword on his hip wasn't anything special, probably just some junk that he worked on a bit to make it look a little better. Judging from the way he was slouching and the conversion Blake had overhead, he was likely the girl's assistant or possibly some addition muscle just in case. If Blake had to fight her way out of here she'd go for him. He looked exhausted, something Blake could understand if he was the girl's underling and had to put up with even half the stuff her personality seemed capable of.

As Blake planned and though the intensity of her situation was suddenly broken when the boy spoke in an almost whining tone. "Could you please stop looking at me like I'm an abused puppy. I'm no stranger to receiving pity, especially from my sisters and from people who know all my sisters, but you've literally just laid eyes on me. I even patch you up, some gratitude would be nice."

The girl beside him nearly doubled over in laughter. "Can you blame her. I'm mean just look at you. You don't exactly scream valiant warrior."

"If I recall," the boy said, unbelievably taking his eyes off Blake to look at his partner, "when I tracked you down you were terrified that I had come to kill you for stealing my journal."

That got the reaction he was looking for as the girl stopped laughing and jumped back up to refute him, face slightly red. "I was not terrified! I was cautions. A pathetic guy like you chasing down a thief for a stupid book wasn't natural. What was I supposed to think?"

This would have been the prefect chance to escape as the two of them fell into another bricking match, but Blake found herself rooted to the bed. Were these two crazy, or was this just a bit they were doing to make her lower her guard even further? "Who are you people?" Blake thought aloud.

The man turn back to her seeming embarrassed that he had forgotten his manners. "I'm sorry, we should have introduced ourselves. I'm Jaune."

The girl slapped the back of his head. "Idiot, don't tell here your real name. We don't know anything about her."

"This is Emerald." The girl, apparently Emerald, grew furious. Blake didn't even want to imagine what she was going to do to him for giving out their names. Maybe she could do something to protect him. "You're giving me that look again," he whined.

Whether it was intentional or not Blake couldn't help but relax. She didn't know what to think of these two. She wasn't going to say that she wasn't in any danger, but if those two wanted to hurt her they could have done it by now. That gu—Jaune had even warped bandages around her arm, so maybe they weren't as bad as she thought.

"Are you just going to keep sitting there like a log. We've got some questions to ask you, and once we're done you're leaving. I would actually like to get some sleep tonight and you're just being a freeloader."

…or maybe one was exactly as bad as she thought.

Jaune's jaw hit the floor as he turned in place with an expression like he just been told Remnant was flat. "You are the last person that should be talking about freeloading! You basically barged your way into living her."

"We made a deal. I provided a valuable service to you. This girl has done absolute nothing and we're not in the business of taking care of stray cats."

Oh, that's right. Blake still had to deal with the fact her faunus heritage had been revealed. She had actually forgotten having gotten caught up in these two's game. She couldn't lose focus. "Why did you remove my bow?" Blake demanded. "I haven't told anyone about my ears. How did you know that I was faunus, or where you just trying to do something to me while I was unconscious?" Looking around, this apartment did seem like the kind of dirty and rundown place that horrible guys would take girls to so they could have their way with them. If that guy really had done something like that with her, she would make sure he suffered.

"Wait, you were hiding your cat ears. I thought the bow was just some sort of fashion statement. I took it off to see if there were any injures plus it looked uncomfortable."

Blake flushed at Jaune's word. Was her disguise really so obvious? She knew it wasn't prefect, but if it couldn't even fool him, how many people at Beacon knew?

Blake slumped in a slight depression as she realized just how flimsy her new life really was. She hadn't even changed her name for Oum's sake. The teachers, at least, must know who she really was.

"Can you tell us about that attack already?" Emerald said, fed up with waiting.

As if her words had been a trigger, the memories of what happened before she woke up came flooding back. How had she forgotten about that, even for a moment? She should have woken up screaming and panicking over the injures to her arm, and as she thought about that her arm suddenly went from no pain to severe as if her wounds hadn't even been there until now. She griped her bandaged arm and clenched her teeth trying to force as much aura as she could to numb the pain.

Jaune looked visibly worried about her sudden distress and moved a little closer. Emerald only seemed annoyed that there was another delay. "Aren't you a huntress? Shouldn't you have a little more pain tolerance?"

"Ignore her," Jaune said resting a hand on Blake's shoulder and shooting Emerald a look, "she gets cranky when she's tried."

Blake choose to take Jaune's advice and breathed her way through the pain while thinking about that monster. Every detail of that thing was burned into her mind, and would probably haunt her until the day she died, from the way it moved to the smell of its breath. It should have killed her, but someone had saved her. She knew they had, but no matter how hard so thought she just couldn't recall who it was. Why was that part so hazy when every other detail of that incident was so clear? It hadn't been the two she was with now, and there had been something with smoke, but she just couldn't get any sort of picture in her head. It was almost like that part of her memory had been purposely redacted. Could it be a symptom of shock? Hopefully it would come back in time. She really needed to thank whoever it was.

Blake was able to answer her hosts questions once she got the pain in her arm to subside to a mild throbbing. She told them everything that happened while Jaune skimmed through a book that Blake swore appeared out of nowhere. Once she was done talking Emerald gave Jaune a questioning look to which he nodded and closed his book. This time Blake was sure it had just disappeared.

"Thank you for telling us this," Jaune said. "We were a bit stuck, but you really helped us out. You should probably get back to Beacon, though. Your scroll rang about half a hundred times since I brought you here. Judging from the voice messages it would seem that you have a lot of explaining to do. If you could do me a favor, though, and not saying anything about the creature that attacked you, I'd appreciate it."

"Wait a minute! I'm not just leaving. I've got some question of my own. What was that thing? Why did it attack me, and who exactly are you people?"

Emerald tossed Blake her ribbon and weapon with almost no care. "Just head back to Beacon and focus on killing grimm, that's what you signed up for. This is our territory so leave it to us. You're just an unfortunate bystander who got caught up in it. Go back to your loving team and forget this ever happen."

"I can't do that!" Blake fumed. She was not going to run away from another one of her problems just because Miss. Bossy didn't think she could deal with it. "That's the thing that's been killing faunus, right? I have to stop it."

"You have to stop it." Emerald hissed. "Why? Just because it's killing faunus and you're a faunus, or is it your sense of justice. Don't make me laugh. There's thousands of faunus who are still very much alive that you could be helping. Going after that creature when the two of us have already deicide to deal with that thing would be a waste of your time. Use that time to help someone who hasn't gotten any yet. Trust me they'll be way more grateful than the dead."

Emerald ended their conversation by more or less shoving Blake out of bed. It took everything she had to not straggle her with Gambol Shroud, but Jaune, sensing the dangerous atmosphere, calmly lead her out of the apartment. "Sorry about her," he said," but seriously go back to Beacon. Your team's worried about you. There's no reason for you to get involved in this. You have your job and we have ours."

Jaune gently shut the door on Blake, and waited until he heard her walk away, which took a long time with her pounding to be let back in, before turning to Emerald. She was already in the bed with the blanket pulled up to her nose. "You know, you were being a major bitch. Why were you so mean to her?"

"Didn't you already figure it out and announce it to the cat? I'm exhausted. You had us running around all night? You better not be expecting me to go out again. I don't care if that things kills every person in Vale. I need my sleep."

"I find it hard to believe that Emerald "the thief" Sustrai hasn't ever had to sacrifice her sleep before, and even if you do get a little more irritated, the way you went after that girl was pretty vicious."

"You're reading too much into things. That's the way I am to everyone. The kindness I treat you with is the anomaly not the other way around. You should feel honored." Jaune couldn't see it, but he knew that beneath the bed sheet Emerald had that that mischievous grin.

"You must think I'm an idiot—don't roll your eyes!" Jaune said, then quickly regained his composure. "The point is, there is one thing I've been getting really good at over these past few weeks."

"Please, enlighten me," Emerald said, sarcastically, "because I know it isn't your swordplay, and just because you can functionally use your aura now doesn't mean you've gotten 'really good' at it. It's something that should be expected."

"Your commentary is always appreciated, and I'm still grateful for your help in my training even if you do try to put me down at every turn, but those are not the things I'm talking about. Being a caretaker has forced me to become far observant, and something I've gain from this is I've gotten much better at reading people."

"Yet you still can't tell that I want you to shut up so I can sleep."

Jaune sighed and dropped his posh speaking pattern. "Listen, you clearly had something against that girl. Do you dislike faunus?"

"Do you really think I care how many appendages a person has?"

"Is it because she stood up to you."

"Like you're doing now?"

Jaune snapped his fingers. "I know. Is it because you were jealous? I brought a black-haired beauty—with cat ears—back to the apartment, bandaged her up and let her use my bed. You were afraid she was going to fall in love with me and that I would leave you for her."

"I still have my weapons. Do you want me to kill you?"

"Then is it what she said about her needing to be the one to solve this?" Emerald opened her mouth for another witty remark but quickly shut it as her eyelids lowered into slits. It was Jaune's turn to grin. "Told you I've gotten better, but I still don't know why you got so angry. It's not like you have a huge investment to this case."

Emerald hated herself. Jaune had led her into that one and she walked in without resistance. She'd blame it on her current weariness, but that didn't get her out of this situation. "People like her disgust me."

"People like who?" Jaune asked not prepared for such a loathing response.

"People who care about the big problems that they have no hope of fixing on their own, but ignore all the little ones that they could easily solve."

"You're going to have to explain," Jaune said rubbing his hand down his hair and face. As much as his intuition had improved his partner was still a buddle of strange personality traits and thinking patterns. If he didn't know any better, he might have thought she was bipolar. "She was unconscious most of the time she was here. How could you have ever decided that so quickly."

"You aren't the only one with people skills," Emerald said," and despite your claims I pretty sure I'm superior. You brushed it off as a joke, but she was obviously very nervous that we exposed her as a faunus. I would say she's a least been through some discrimination and hiding it so people won't judge her for it, but at the same she clearly thought it was her job—her calling—to protect faunus."

"I don't see how that's a bad thing," Jaune said getting more confused as Emerald went on.

"In theory it's not, but in practice she's more useless than a person watching from the sidelines. She had to kill that thing, give me a break. We've had already made our intentions clear that we would deal with it and whether she admitted it or not it's obvious that we knew far more than she did, but that wasn't good enough. She wanted to be the one to do it—needed to be the one to help. But how would killing that creature help anyone, especially the faunus she so desperately wants to protect? Prevent a murder where the victim doesn't even know there in danger in the first place doesn't change anything. As far as everyone else is concerned it would be a normal day. She's the type of person that will take a stand against a power, anti-faunus politician, but doesn't have the courage to call out a bully on their faunus harassment. Reminds of those rich guys who donate millions to charity to help the homeless but push them anyway if they ever come into eyesight of their luscious mansion. I can't tell you how many people walked by me, wishing me well and maybe even give me a few lien to feel better about themselves, but never did anything that actually helped me."

"You don't like her because she the person who's only willing to do big things and pass up the little guys like you?" Jaune said, finding some sense to Emerald words. If only a little.

"We're done talking about this," she said, turning to her side so most of her head was beneath the sheets. "I hope that cat's story was helpful to you."

"It was," Jaune replied willing to let the conversation drop. "I've figure what we're dealing with, but I still have no idea what's it's trying to do."

"What are we dealing with?"

"Nothing good. It's called a spider-slug, and it has a nasty little trick that's going to be a real problem for us. You know how Tukson was apparently dead for hours without anyone noticing. Turns, at that wasn't just fluke or a diversion strategy. They didn't notice he was there because they literately couldn't see him. The spider-slug could have even been building that thing right above everyone heads and no one would have noticed."

"So, it can create illusion like me?"

"No, it's a little more complicated. The book gave a very long explanation but here's the short version. You know how if something is moving fast enough that your eyes can't really see it and it just becomes a blur, and if it's really hitting crazy speed, you won't see it at all. Basically, it's like our eyes are cameras taking snapshots to relay the information to our brains, but it can only take snapshots so fast. Somehow spider-slugs can slip themselves, and other things they're interacting with, in between those snapshots and become completely invisible to us. It's like we're watching a movie but only seeing half the frames. It also means that your semblance, that creates illusions to trick the human brain, will be complete useless against that thing."

"If it can completely avoid our sight then how did the cat see it?"

"Apparently, it's not as perfect as it seems. It can get knocked out of sync by being hit, forcing it to dodge or it might just straight up make a mistake."

"That doesn't sound too bad. From what the cat said it doesn't seem to be the smallest or speediest thing around."

"I was thinking the same thing, but it's not the actual fight that has me worried. It's finding it in the first place. Obviously, my theory was wrong so we have no idea what's it's trying to do or where it might strike, and with that ability to completely avoid our sight and that sticky stuff it can make, it could be anywhere. Also, want to know another piece of information that makes this whole thing even more complicated? Spider-slugs are herbivores.

"You've got to be kidding me. Why has a plant eater been tearing people apart and hanging them up like an art display? Also, if it doesn't need to hunt and kill its food, why is it so strong?"

"If we assume proper evolution can even apply to that think it would kind of make sense. A great stealth ability to avoid predator and a massive strength if that doesn't work. Excluding grimm, herbivores are some of the hardest hitting, and thus most dangerous, animals on the planet."

"Great, I don't know what's worse, the murderous, and apparently vegetarian, monster running around, or that you just talked about it like you were reading form a biology book. I'm going to bed. Don't wake me. I don't care what you figure out. Even if that thing's plan is to incinerate all of Vale, I don't want to hear about it until I'm rested. Goodnight," Emerald said just as the sun started to peck through the window.

Jaune decided he need to get to sleep too. They needed a new plan or things were only going to get worse.

Excerpt from the book

It's strange to think about, but these creatures of the unknown world are not simply beings with their only defining characteristic being the ability to use magic. They have their own ecosystem and interact with the environment similar to how any other animal would.

This can blur that lines of what is a creature of the unknown and what is simply an undiscovered species. Not everything is so simple as watching something rise from the Abyss. I have already discussed in detail my belief of dividing the world into three categories of natural, unnatural, and supernatural so I won't retread, but like all theories put to paper it becomes much more complex when applied to the real world.

Humans and Faunus, for all purposes, are supernatural creatures able to harness the power of the anomalistic properties of aura, but since we are bound to our own lens of perception we could never consider ourselves anything but natural, so with that in mind, let me pose a question to any future readers.

If there are no fundamental differences between us and the creatures of the unknown world besides our perception of thing then why are we to believe that we are not the denizens of the unknown world?

After all, while we like to see these creatures as encroaching on our world, there's an argument to be made that we're encroaching on theirs.

.