This chapter is coming late today instead of it's usual time tomorrow because I'm going to the Kingdom Hearts World Tour Orchestra! Also, this chapter is a little shorter than normal, but for a completely different reason. My apologies. So now that that's all out of the way, as usual, please enjoy and, if your up to it, drop a review!


Phoenix had every waking minute between Viper dropping him off and the next time he would be escorted out of the room to come up with a plan. He knew this wouldn't be easy, and he needed to do everything in his power to make it work. And he knew he didn't have a lot of power. He had to outsmart these people to succeed. He started by readying his mother's number on the scroll. All he had to do was open it and hit send to make the call.

The door opened suddenly and Phoenix quickly hit the phone under his hood. Lizzy came in to give the child his breakfast. She smiled wide. "Good morning!"

The child nodded and ate, noting Lizzy wasn't leaving. "Am I going somewhere today?" Phoenix asked.

"Adam wishes to speak with you." Lizzy responded.

"Right." Phoenix finished his food slowly. Lizzy watched as the plate slowly emptied. The child intrigued her as he had intrigued everyone at the base, simply by being Adam Taurus's son. Apparently, his mother was supposed to be some now famous huntress. But she was also supposed to be human, and why did Adam have a child with a human? It threw some of his loyalties into question. Anyone to question it to his face got thrown themselves. Usually off someplace high.

Finally, Phoenix finished eating and Lizzy escorted him out of the room. She strode through the halls with purpose, heading straight to the armory where Adam was currently waiting. Until she felt the presence behind her begin to lessen. She quickly turned around and saw Phoenix had stopped a few feet back, looking down a passage with a look of disbelief on his face.

"MOMMA!" He shouted, before taking off down the hall.

Lizzy's face showed her clear surprise at the action. She turned to a few comrades close by. "Search the base for intruders!" She shouted at them, "And someone get the boss!" Lizzy chased after the child, quickly closing the distance between them. Just as she got to him, a few other White Fang soldiers also arrived to hold him down. He struggled with their grasp for a few minutes before settling down. Adam arrived soon after.

"What happened?" He asked.

"He just started running down the halls, screaming for his mother." Viper asked.

"It was like he saw her." Lizzy clarified.

Adam looked to the boy. "There are no intruders in this base, Isan. Like I said, that woman is not coming."

"I… I thought I… I hoped…" Phoenix lamented.

"Isan…" Adam provided a comforting voice. "Do not hope for her. The humans such as her have discriminated us, put us down, hurt us for being different… She stole you from me, and I never got raise my own son. I'm rescuing you, teaching you the truth. We're going to change the world, and set our faunus brethren free."

Phoenix was quiet for a long moment. "So… she's not coming…?"

"No." Adam confirmed.

Another long pause. "Alright." Phoenix nodded. "What's next… father?"

Adam smiled. "Come with me, Isan. It's time to show you a few things."

The pair of bulls proceeded back down the hall that Phoenix ran through. The child kept his head forward, though his eyes did temporarily dart down. Underneath a jut near the bottom of the uneven rocky wall, a scroll was barely visible. The adults would be too tall to see it, but Phoenix could. As well as the indicator for a signal that was weak, but there. All alongside an active call. It was very difficult for the young bull to hold back his smile.


Ruby woke up, clutching Beo close to her. In the past few days, they had eliminated many old White Fang bases as Adam's current hideout. The young mother was beginning to believe that wherever they were right now, it was someplace new. New this quickly meant impromptu, but that could be anything from abandoned building in a burnt out town to an underground cave system, and didn't exactly narrow things down.

She began her morning routine of forcing food down her throat to keep her strength up, all while feeling amber eyes that were having a difficult time not watching her. Ruby had shrugged that off long ago. She hastily reviewed various reports of more cleared bases, and sighed heavily. At this rate, it would take them months to find-

Buzz.

Ruby raised a curious eyebrow as she felt her scroll go off. Anyone that might want to talk to her was here, and didn't need to call her. She pulled out her scroll to an unfamiliar number. She cautiously answered, and heard nothing but incoherent background noise. Maybe their waiting for me? "Hello?" Ruby tested. Still nothing.

The young mother considered hanging up, but a thought crossed her mind. The only other time Phoenix was anything considered 'lost', his first instinct was to find a scroll. Just like I always taught him to. She even managed to afford to get him his own scroll soon after that incident, but that device was still here. Not to mention, I told him I would find him using the scroll. Would he remember something like that, even with how frightened he was at the time?

Ruby immediately used the databases they had access to for this search to look up the number. The face and forked tongue of a snake faunus showed up on the screen. Former affiliations, White Fang. Current location, religious sabbatical? Could not contact? Ruby's hope soared, and she practically did as well as she ran to find Winter, Weiss and Yang.

"I have something!" She shouted at them as she stopped in front of them.

"What?" Weiss questioned. "How? We've had nothing concrete since we started this?"

Ruby showed them her scroll, still on an active call. "Can we trace this call back to its precise location?"

"Who's calling you?" Yang asked.

"According to records, a snake faunus on a religious retreat." Ruby told them. "I think Phoenix got one of his captor's scrolls, called me, and hid it somewhere."

"Seriously?" Winter questioned next. "That seems a little farfetched… and too good to be true."

"Actually, Phoenix is a smart kid." Yang defended.

"And, I've used scroll tracking to find him when he was lost once before." Ruby informed. "He may have remembered. What harm is there in looking?"

"Well, was this faunus ex-Fang?" Weiss asked. Ruby nodded. "Then that's that. As long as the call remains active, we should have a location within the hour." The heiress took the scroll to a nearby computer and began the triangulation process.

"This is it, Yang! I can feel it!" Ruby practically bounced with anticipation.

"All right, Rubes, don't pop a gasket." Yang calmed her sister down. "You'll need that energy in a few hours.

Ruby stood still and nodded. Phoenix, we're coming soon! Just a bit longer son… you're doing great.


A small group of huntsmen and huntresses sat in one of the many little-used guest rooms of Atlas Manor, that had been converted to a temporary war room of sorts. Ruby stood at the front of the room and cleared her throat. "Hey, everyone!" She greeted informally. Weiss face palmed form the back of the room.

"Uhh… right." Ruby nodded. "Well, this meeting is to tell everyone that we found the White Fang base."

The commotion from the crowd made their surprise clear. "How?" Someone actually asked.

"Let's just say, an inside source." Ruby sighed. "We all know why we're here, what this job is. We're trying to take down Adam Taurus and his White Fang before they gain power once again. A few of you know that I have my own, sort of side, sort of main, objective here. For those of you that down, the short of it is… Adam has my son."

The room fell silent, as those who were just learning this took in what it meant for the woman leading them on this charge.

"I have reason to believe he took a scroll to contact me with and hid it, allowing us to trace the location back to a series of caves in the Vacuo desert. A scout we sent to check on this confirmed the location." Ruby continued the briefing, nodding to Qrow in the back. "We think there's no more than seventeen White Fang members inside. With, umm…" Ruby did a quick head count. "Twenty of us! Oh wow, that's more than I expected… um, yeah, we should have the advantage of numbers!"

"When are we heading out?" One of the voices Ruby recognized, Coco Adel, asked for the group. "Soon. We just need everyone to be clear, we will find at least one child in the base. Please, be careful."

"Don't worry." Yang assured. "We'll bring Phoenix home."

"To recap, this will be a full on assault." Ruby told the group. "We may be able to keep under the radar until we enter the caves, but once we do, we will be detected. Adam has been known to fight ferociously, and some of his allies may fight like they can win if they fight hard enough as well. The White Fang is dead. Let's keep it that way."


Phoenix could not believe the amount of bull-ploppy coming from his father's mouth. As Adam droned on about the faunus, the White Fang, and their mission, the child could tell he was starting to throw his usual cautious wording aside. He must believe he already won with me, and is trying to move on to the next part of his brainwashing. Unless he actually believes his own nonsense. Phoenix didn't doubt that the latter was entirely possible. But he had to endure, to keep up this charade until his mother finally showed up. And he fully trusted she would.

"Well, Isan? What do you think?" Adam asked.

Phoenix had to quickly recall just what his father was just talking about. "Umm… I'm sorry, father. I must have spaced out for a minute."

"That's fine." Adam nodded. "It's a lot to take in at once. It's about time we got you back to your bedchamber anyway." The bull man started to lead the way back to the bedroom Phoenix spent that last week within. Adam pushed him inside. "Tomorrow, we talk some more. Think on what you learned today, Isan." Adam took his leave. He still locked the door, Phoenix noted. Not that foolish. But I'm tricking him for the most part. The boy nodded as he put himself into bed.


Ruby's group assembled on a hillside close to the cave complex. It was nearly midnight, and the group contemplated resting up and waiting until morning. Ruby was so close, and couldn't stand to sleep. Coco noticed this, and spoke to the rest of the group. "Hey, who here is actually that tired?"

The group traded looks between themselves. "I know I could fight." Coco continued. "In fact, waiting until morning in a desert may just be foolish."

"It'll be darker in the caves." Ruby countered her. Coco didn't think the redhead could hear. "Faunus can see better in the dark."

"Are you sure, Ruby?" Coco asked.

The redhead turned. "I appreciate what you're doing. But we wait until morning. I'm not going to lose this."

"You need to get some rest too, then." Blake spoke up.

Ruby was still on edge around the cat faunus, but nodded.