James the mercenary hired to protect the tournament sat in his desk watching back footage from. He wasn't sure what he was looking for but he knew he was looking for something, his gut told him something was wrong. As he looked around the various faces he played back the moment that Yang stepped out instead of Tai.

He had a feeling about a few people but he needed to be sure, he moved the wrong way and his chest tensed in pain as he growled and checked on the batca patch on his chest. The lighting was dampened by his armor but he still had a rather impressive burn and was annoyed at how the hair on his chest now had a bare spot where it was singed off.

"You need to take it easy in there"

Asha yelled from the kitchen. James rolled his eyes and was about to get back to work when he heard her yell again. "Do NOT roll your eyes at me, you got shot with lighting!"

James smiled and shook his head. There were some side effects to marrying a former Jedi knight, one of them being that she had a habit of somehow seeing what he was feeling. Getting back to his work he watched the faces of each major house glad to see honest shock on each one as Asha came in with a bowl of soup and set it down near him sitting into his lap as she did so.

"What are you even looking for?" she asked. James was technically the one with the legal authority but Asha learned many things working for the Jedi and she often knew more about investigative work than he did.

She looked over the camera with him and made sure to study what she could from the people. "I see a few things of note, Clan DIachi's mother looks apathetic but that is to be expected" she said, snuggling gently into him as she settled into her rhythm. "Clan Belladonna isn't even here but neither is clan Winchester." As her eye moved over clan Schnee and clan Vizsla she paused the video

"Clan Schnee looks, well disgusted is the word for it"

"Yeah I noticed," James replied, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Means she had nothing to do with this."

"And what is THIS?" Asha asked again , trying to figure out what he was looking for.

"I cannot think of a reason for Tai to send his child out in his place, which means Yang did something," as he spoke their gaze drifted over Pre Vizsla. "Which brings us to clan Vizsla who would have had to know what Yang was doing, and for some reason chose not to tell Tai"

"Maybe he is forbidden by the rules of the tournament, or he felt that the clan would be better off not losing its leader?" Asha said not sure she believed either one but wanting to make sure they were addressed.

"Maybe, but he hasn't shown any public remorse for that until now, so I suspect he will claim that he was not fully aware of it himself." James said knowing damn well that Pre Vizsla would have known what Yang had planned.

"Pre looks like he is trying to stay stoic but I can see some shame on his face, you're right he knew" Asha said getting back up and going to get her own soup.

James looked long and hard at Pre's face while thinking about what may be behind that face before deciding that he wasn't worth putting too much effort into it given how little he knew and how far outside of his job he was. He did however send a message to an old friend of his.

…

Tai looked out over his open plains with his wife at his side trying to figure out what he needed to do. He felt the anger he was known for and he wanted to lash out. But he knew that lashing out wouldn't help. Not yet.

This was a waiting game, so many of them knew something was wrong and someone was to blame. But nobody could tell who Tai had put his feelers out and was waiting even if he hated it. His waiting however had paid off as he got two messages one from his old teacher Peter Port, and the other was from Jaune. Skipping over the message from Port he checked on Jaune. It was a video of Jaune holding some Rodia by his neck with a blaster to his head. "Say that again," Jaune snarled.

The man looked like a deer in the headlights but the several small cuts and clearly broken face Tai guessed he was. "I don't know who hired me I was just paid to kill you and that was it" he pleaded

"The other part" Jaune snarled again, pressing the gun harder into the man's head.

"I,I,I said that my squad was sent to attack a sector of Xiao Long space and someone else paid extra a few hours ago to prevent the attack, my squad was clearing up to leave when we got another message offering a price for you"

The fact that this mercenary was spilling his guts told Tai that he was clearly either new to the trade or not very good, based on the fact that he must have attacked Jaune and failed so badly Jaune didn't kill him on sight Tai was guessing both.

"Good" Jaune growled before blasting a hole in the man's head letting the body fall as Jaune turned for his ship. "I am already going after these scuzzballs, I will keep you posted" he coldly said before the video ended.

Tai wanted to go after Jaune but he knew that what these mercs had gotten into was more than they had bargained for. And if Jaune wanted to purge his anger on them then so be it.

The other was a message from Peter Port telling Tai that he needed to come to Port's home on Mandalor as soon as he could. The fact that the old war horse was being subtle told Tai about the importance of the matter as he stood up not speaking as Cinder was more than able to see into his mind and tell what he was doing. As he headed for his personal ship.

…

Jaune walked up the boarding ramp with Pyrrha waiting for him. She saw the blaster burn on his armor and before she could speak "I'm fine but the other guy isn't I know we were going to be heading to mandalor to drop you off but I need to go after these guys, do you want me to give you a ride somewhere or…"

"I am going with you" Pyrrha said, knowing that she would be able to keep a lid on Jaune's wrath and to offer some actual authority. Jaune looked like he wanted to argue but even in his anger he must have recognized that she would be useful as he went back and sat in the pilot's seat.

"Buckle in Jedi, we are heading for the edge of the system" Jaune said as he plugged the coordinates he had gotten from them merc before he recorded the video for Tai. Pyrrha did just that and once she was set Jaune lifted off and took off fast enough that he would do a bit of damage to the ground below them as he headed off already missing his personal fighter but glad to have one of Tai's WarHawks as he called them.

The flight was quiet since Pyrrha didn't really want to talk and Jaune didn't either. Their hyperspace route spit them out right where Jaune knew it would and that was over the moon that the merc were camped on. He did a scan and found their ship flying in fast; he made use of the WarHawks chin guns to destroy their ship and any poor souls still onboard. Setting the WarHawk to auto land, Jaune threw on a jump pack and jumped out of the beck realizing after he jumped that Pyrrha had no way of following him through the 50 foot fall before he saw her gracefullying diving beside him.

He almost forgot to hit the jump pack, feeling the sudden jolt as the engine kicked on and slowed him down until he hit the ground with a second jolt as he drew his pistols and blasting the first two who were still going for their weapons in shock from the explosion of the ship.

The three left all surrendered as Jaune marched over to them "on your KNEES" he barked. As all three men did so. "Jedi go get the ship" he said as Pyrrha, very reluctant, did so aware of what was about to happen.

Once she was Gone Jaune looked at the most nervous one and killed another one. "Answers, who hired you" he snarled.

The man looked like he was about to wet himself and Jaune felt an evil tinge smirking over his face as he knew he was one step closer to what he wanted.