Two Minutes Silence

by catsvrsdogscatswin

When Yang falls, its quiet. Calm. She did what she had to do. When Ruby and Blake fall, it's a jolt, a cold shock of horror that they didn't quite make it. When Weiss falls, it's almost with relief. Living or dead, she'll see them again. When Jaune falls, he thinks of his team, of one more letter knocked off of Team JNPR. When they wake up, they're at Beacon. Fix-it fic after V8.

6. Tricks and Treats

Sun being dared by the rest of the team to see if he could stow away the whole voyage doesn't make a lot of sense, I grant you, but then neither does the fact that he stowed away to begin with when he's a Huntsman student who was scheduled to be in the festival. Like I'm pretty sure his travel costs were covered by the school. Inspector Jacques Beau is, of course, a reference to Inspector Jacques Clouseau from the Pink Panther series. In the 2006 remake, there is a montage in which the inspector and his partner repeatedly use the hide-behind-unfolded-newspaper gag while tailing a suspect, including while riding a rickshaw and walking in a crowd. It was the only movie example I could remember off the top of my head.

Also THIS is probably my final chapter for a while, since my fall semester starts on the first of September. So, don't expect any new chapters until December-ish, and if I manage to squeeze out one between now and then, just be grateful that it happened! I am NOT abandoning this fic, though, rest assured. I'll be back with a vengeance once the semester ends!

---

"Nora…"

"Shh."

"Nora-"

"Shh!"

"Nora, I'm pretty sure this is not what Jaune meant when he said team unity." Ren sighed.

"And I'm pretty sure Jaune and Pyrrha are on a date, which requires intense observation!" Nora shot back, her eyes glued to the binoculars she had trained on a café window far below. Team JNPR been spending the last few group-trip weekends on learning/practicing urban movement and covert ops in Vale, and so despite being laid flat on the roof of a building opposite, Nora was confident that no one had seen her and Ren climb up here –or would be coming up to yell at them for trespassing and spying.

Beside her, Ren gave a long-suffering, nearly muted sigh, but he didn't argue. Nora knew he was probably just as curious about the whole Jaune-Pyrrha situation as she was, but unlike her, Ren was content to let his unfulfilled curiosity gnaw at him for as long as it took for the situation to resolve itself naturally. Strange man.

It lacked just a week before the end of the semester, and Jaune had been fulfilling his promises of extra training with a vengeance. Every single day after classes, and throughout most of the weekend, Team JNPR had been putting themselves through the wringer in some hard-core sparring, practical study sessions, and theorization. They'd go out on day trips to Forever Fall and the Emerald Forest and tackle Grimm, and even those that they could easily beat became more challenging foes when Jaune imposed challenges and restrictions, like killing an Ursa in one strike or fighting a Beowolf without one's weapons –with the rest of the team hovering nearby and ready to step in to prevent any injuries/death, of course.

They fought long and hard over the weekends, testing any new improvements they'd thought up or added to their combat style over the week –anything from improved Dust capabilities to a new idea for a move, or a more perfected swing, or a two-three-four combo of the whole team against a particularly unfortunate foe. Team RWBY sometimes came with during those weekend trips to a Grimm-filled location, or an outdoor spar, and Team JNPR had that much more to improve on, trying to cut through Weiss's impenetrable versatility or Ruby's disorienting speed, to somehow deal with Blake's Dust-augmented clones or Yang's terrifying ability to take hits and just keep coming.

Even disregarding the extra swelling when she flexed her biceps now, Nora knew she had improved markedly. Maybe she wasn't Huntress level now, but she was certainly good enough to press Pyrrha during their girls-only spars, and Pyrrha's natural talent as a champion had only been increased by that same brutal training. With all the practice she was getting in, Nora had learned to judge and time her strikes, to hit scientifically, to stop showboating and move to crush her enemies –all of it. Her ability to wield her hammer had increased by leaps and bounds, improved by oddly helpful tips from Jaune. Had he ever used a hammer before he chose his sword and shield? Or was he just such an incredible badass that he knew how to use all weapons? He'd known some pointers for Ren and Pyrrha, too, both with markedly different weapons than his own and Nora's.

Jaune had even managed to convince Weiss to swing by a few times outside of team practice and break down the use of Dust for them, and having the literal Schnee heiress explain Dust combat gave Team JNPR one heck of an edge in non-Team-RWBY fights. Nora had expected Weiss to know what she was talking about, sure, but the white-haired girl had been positively genius in her demonstrations and her explanations of Dust technique. Nora came out of it fully confident in her ability to use and even combine her Dust on the fly, not to mention several improvements on her weapon and unorthodox techniques that would mesh well with her Semblance –which Jaune hadn't neglected, of course.

No, Semblance training was at least once a week, and between Jaune's ability to recharge their Auras and all those pesky Grimm out in the forests, Nora was crushing it both literally and metaphorically. Her ability to channel electricity was easier, faster, and she had more control over it, was learning to push through and ignore the pain that came with higher dosages. Weiss, naturally, had an exorbitant supply of Dust, and Nora was burning through Lightning vials like crazy, trying to build her endurance and pain tolerance, trying for further, faster, more.

If Semblance training was like exercising a muscle, then they all were bulking out like crazy.

Ren was learning to be quicker with his Aura-masking, as well as holding it for longer and spreading it out over more people, with and without Jaune's help. Jaune had him reading up on books about Aura control and Aura sensing, and Ren was practicing being able to pick apart individual Auras without looking, since his Aura control was already fine enough to know when he was being observed. They'd gone to the scrapyard a few afternoons and had a pleasant time with Pyrrha maneuvering giant piles of metal junk to the appropriate trash heaps (much to the appreciation of the workers), as well as practicing her fine control by the use of smaller metal objects in the training room. Jaune had said that she could already affect small objects well, but what about moving them around? Moving them in complex ways? Moving them from a distance?

Nora swore, by the end of the school year Jaune was going to have Pyrrha figure out how to knit a scarf at fifty yards.

Not that she was discouraging that, though –and she was totally getting that scarf when Pyrrha was done with it– but the one aspect that Nora hadn't made any progress in…was figuring out just what the heck was going on with Jaune. She liked him –he was an excellent team leader, as shown by their monstrously fast-paced improvement, and more than that, he was kind and dorky and altogether a good person to know. He was great at their Friday game nights with Team RWBY, a good loser as well as a powerful player to have on their team's side, and he loved Ren's pancakes and was always a willing if hesitant accomplice in Nora's own shenanigans. He was her friend, one of her best friends, and Nora did not suffer her friends to have problems.

And Jaune had a problem.

Nora still wasn't sure what the problem even was, but she knew that there was something. Jaune didn't sleep well, most of the time, but he shrugged off his tiredness with apparent ease and kept working them almost…desperately. If Nora didn't know any better, she'd say he was trying to prepare for something, aim for something, always looking at them strewn over the training room, sweaty and panting, and saying again as he raised his sword, just as exhausted as they were but with something of a shadow of fear behind his dulled blue eyes.

Nora's mental conspiracy-theory-corkboard currently had a grand total of four points.

Jaune was afraid of something.

Something was going to happen.

He wanted to prepare his team for it.

He didn't want to tell his team about it.

That was the problem that gnawed at Nora's mind, waking and sleeping. If he came from the future, what was so monstrous, so horrible, that it drove Jaune to push himself and his team to the point of exhaustion, night after night after night? Nora couldn't and wouldn't deny that his desperate training showed results, but she also couldn't deny the fact that their weekly game nights with Team RWBY were just about the only socialization that they got outside of class. All Jaune's focus seemed to be narrowed to one thing, and that was getting Team JNPR ready for –something. Maybe the others didn't have her acute sensitivity, her intuitive ability to understand that there was something more behind all this, but Nora knew that even Ren and Pyrrha hadn't suggested that they stop. Maybe they sensed or saw that same desperation, maybe they just wanted to be better and took the opportunity without thinking about why, and maybe Pyrrha was competitive enough to ignore any oddities as long as she had a chance to grow stronger.

The point was, though, that Jaune was working them at a frantic pace for no real reason that Nora could see. He'd said that he wanted them to become Hunter-level, fine. Nora was smart enough to see that Jaune was definitely a few cuts above your average first-year trainee, and even though Pyrrha could usually match him (aside from the advantage Jaune had in Aura), Pyrrha was also a four-year champion and prodigy. The fact that Jaune could match her while trading blows at a thunderous pace said more than enough about his own skill level.

So Nora could understand why he wanted to build them up to his level! It would be super frustrating if she was the one who was so much higher than her own team when it came to combat, and Jaune had lost some of his friends and fellow trainees before. Obviously, the fact that he wanted them to be as strong or stronger than he was made sense.

No, what was pinging on Nora's mental radar was how Jaune seemed to be pushing them so intently right now. They had four whole years to graduate, why was he acting like he wanted them to become Hunter-level as soon as possible, rather than by the end of their education? It couldn't be the Vytal Festival –Jaune had almost no interest in team-on-team competitions, as indicated by his annoyed grimace at their matchup with Team CRDL (who they wiped the floor with, obviously), and his visible distaste when they talked about the festival in general. Sure, Jaune was intensely practical and disliked Hunter training being used for sport on principle, but Nora thought that there might be something more to this. His brief expressions seemed to hint at something deeper than mere annoyance. Had some of his friends died because of tournament fighting?

But then, if Jaune didn't just have zero but negative interest on the Vytal Festival –what deadline was he aiming for? And if he was some kind of super-badass bodyguard for Pyrrha, what enemy was so powerful, so sneaky, that he wanted her and her friends (who would absolutely die in defense of her) to be Hunter-level to defend themselves against it?

And following all of this, why hadn't he told anyone? Aside from a few startled and approving remarks during class, none of the teachers seemed to pay any specific attention to Jaune. Nora had totally-not-eavesdropped on an incidental conversation between him and Ozpin when the headmaster had run across Jaune in the halls and congratulated him for running such a tight ship with his team, and aside from a few vague remarks that it was good to prepare for the future, the headmaster didn't seem to have clued in on Jaune's intense focus or the reasons for it. The other way to take that conversation, which had seemed a bit stiff on Jaune's end, was that Ozpin absolutely knew everything, was Jaune's superior in some way, and was either praising or admonishing Jaune for working so hard. It was kinda hard to tell –Ozpin had perfected the art of being inscrutable ages ago.

Jaune had been vague, too, in suggesting their Mistral trip over break. He'd said that it'd be fun to go camping and stuff with Team RWBY, and maybe squeeze in some sightseeing and family-visiting while they were there, but Nora's conspiracy senses were tingling. If Jaune wanted to go on a trip, why had he preplanned the destination? He'd phrased it like "Wouldn't it be nice to go to Mistral specifically," not "Wouldn't it be nice to go camping?" and then taking the team's suggestions from there, which would have been normal leader etiquette, etiquette that Jaune followed scrupulously on most other occasions. What was in Mistral that he wanted? What was so important about going there at that time specifically?

Nora didn't know where in her mental corkboard that pin went, but she certainly knew that she'd be adding a new pin.

Obviously they were going along with it. Pyrrha had seemed enthused by the idea of camping with her friends, and the way Ren's fingers twitched told Nora that he was keenly looking forward to putting their new skills into action on all the Grimm of Anima, perhaps even…

Well. Needless to say that Nora was down for it too, and not just for conspiracy-theory reasons. She liked the possibility of introducing a certain equestrian Grimm to the business end of her hammer.

But speaking of Pyrrha –and why Nora and Ren were currently belly-down on the roof of a Vale building with binoculars tightly pressed to Nora's eyes– Jaune had given them all the week off, since it was almost the end of the semester, but he had also invited Pyrrha out for a nice afternoon in Vale.

Alone.

Now, Nora understood how Jaune had been working on the team's interpersonal dynamics. She understood how he was trying to help her spread her wings a little beyond Ren, and vice versa with Ren, and how he was making every effort to get Pyrrha the opportunities to socialize with the rest of her team like a regular teenage girl. Nora remembered the shopping trips and the movie not-dates she'd been on with Pyrrha fondly, as well as the pleasant afternoons they'd spent in weapons shops gushing over the displays. She remembered Pyrrha's equally-not-dates with Ren just as fondly, since she had totally-not-shadowed-them-from-a-distance a few times before Jaune finally caught her and dragged her back to Beacon by the ear. The two had seemed like they were having a nice time, eating traditional Mistrali food and chatting about tea and books and other boring stuff.

Anyways, Nora's point was that Jaune had split up the team on two-person hangouts tons of times, including times when him and Pyrrha had gone out by themselves and hung around in Vale. They'd gone to movies and wandered in parks and poked around a few of Vale's tourist destinations, gone to arcades, tons of normal hanging-out stuff between teammates and partners. The thing was, all those trips between him and Pyrrha and everyone else on the team had all been mandated not-quite-training quality time spent with a teammate. They were sorta like field trips, except the purpose was for the members of Team JNPR to socialize with each other and strengthen their bonds, get to know each other as people and become close friends worthy of saving each other's lives.

But Jaune had given them this week off, which meant that this particular occasion was not training, this was social –and he had invited Pyrrha to a café. Nora may never have been on a date, but she knew damn well how it worked, and inviting a girl you stared at a lot to a café, in casual wear, leaving your teammates out of the invitation, was pretty date-y. Jaune and Pyrrha had conveniently settled in right in front of the window, and Nora could tell even through her binoculars that this was definitely not a regular social occasion. Was Pyrrha wearing makeup? Nora could tell that there was eyeshadow, but like, Pyrrha always wore eyeshadow. This was something extra: Pyrrha's complexion was looking pretty smooth, and her eyelashes looked darker, longer. Was she wearing lip gloss?

So she was prettied up, which argued that Pyrrha knew, or felt, that this wasn't your typical teammate meetup between two people.

Nora dialed her binoculars a little, squinting fiercely through them. She wished she could read lips, but an afternoon spent in the library had told their team that being able to accurately read lips was kind of a movie myth. You could get the general idea of what people were saying, but unless they were making a deliberate effort to enunciate –and often, not even then– it was anyone's guess as to the specifics of the words your target was saying. "Watermelon motherfucker" was a lip sync cheat for a reason, after all: despite how incongruous it was, that particular combination of syllables fit nearly every song, and all you had to do was stretch or shrink them to meet the lyrics.

Anyways, Pyrrha and Jaune looked relaxed and natural, which was good. Nora wouldn't like having to interfere to make sure that their date worked out. Jaune had some small bags under his eyes, but like, he always looked like that. They'd all mentioned him maybe taking some pills to help him sleep, or going into the nurse for insomnia, but Jaune had always smiled and waved it off, or said something about how he didn't like to take drugs. Nora had filed that point under her "super-secret-agent trained not to inhibit his awareness at any point, even while asleep" theory and left it alone, since Jaune clearly didn't want to talk about it. She'd considered setting up a camera on her Scroll or something to check for sketchy stuff while she was asleep, since she kinda slept like the dead and wouldn't be able to tell if Jaune really was murdering people in their bathroom on a nightly basis, but eventually abandoned the idea as going a bit too far. Her teammates deserved their privacy, and besides, Ren was a lighter sleeper and would totally have told her if Jaune was a nighttime serial killer.

In any case, Jaune and Pyrrha were talking casually over two steaming cups of something-or-another, looking pleased with each other's company and not too terribly shy. They had plates beside them, but all that was left were crumbs as the two swapped stories and laughed. It was cute. Nora may or may not have extended her Scroll a couple times and zoomed in as far as it could go to snap a few pictures.

"Nora, are you sure this isn't a bit…intrusive?" Ren finally asked, and without looking she could tell that his brow was furrowed. He'd obviously noticed how cute Pyrrha and Jaune were on their totally-was-a-date, too.

"If spying on them was all we were doing, obviously." Nora drawled with a roll of her eyes, lowering the binoculars for a moment. "But Pyrrha's famous, and right now she's sitting in front of that window for anyone on the street to see."

She glanced aside at her bestest-best partner, and saw Ren's eyes narrow a little.

"Be a shame if she got interrupted by some asshole looking for a photo…" Nora continued, doing her best to sound innocent.

Without saying a word, Ren reached down and withdrew one of his sickles from his thigh, where he had recently taken to storing them instead of up his sleeves, and laid it beside him for easy deployment. Hehe, Nora really had the best partner –Ren understood and accepted immediately that if they saw somebody paying way too much attention to their teammates' private date, they were gonna go down there and intimidate the shit out of whoever was going to try and pester their friends. Screw Jaune and his potential existence as a secret bodyguard for Pyrrha, Nora and Ren were gonna scare any enemies off without hesitation, before Jaune even noticed they were there.

Nobody was gonna ruin an Arkos date with Flower Power on guard.

(Nora was so glad that their team attack cues were versatile enough to use as code names.)

Thankfully, Pyrrha had become old and therefore boring news since she'd entered Beacon, and her two faithful guardians didn't even have any false alarms before their teammates packed up and walked out of the café, and Nora and Ren waited a delicately-calculated time before sliding down the side of the building and following. They put everything they had learned about urban covert ops into immediate use, slipping through the crowd easily without looking like they were following, ambling ahead, dropping behind, bending to tie their shoes, and otherwise sneakily tailing Jaune and Pyrrha.

Nora hadn't lied –she mainly wanted to protect Pyrrha and Jaune's date from any annoying interlopers– but she also hadn't lied when she said she really, really wanted to get all the juicy details of said date, real-time. So sue her!

Maybe she wanted tips on seducing, erm, enticing Ren for herself.

Maybe she was curiouser than a good deal of the total Remnant population, and she always wanted to go look and find out about things for herself.

Maybe she was hoping to pick up some more clues on what the heck was going on with her badass but confusing team leader.

Honestly, having one measly little reason for why she did something was boring.

So Nora and Ren tailed the rest of their team through the city, and Nora noticed with interest that they were getting onto more and more deserted streets, the places between warehouses and nightclubs where there was hardly any foot traffic, or regular traffic, at this time of day. The practically-deserted aspect made Nora's senses ping, and she wondered anew just where the heck Jaune was taking Pyrrha, since he was the one leading. The lack of people made it harder to tail them, but Nora never had and never would be a quitter, and Ren moved like a ninja. They still managed it, climbing up a service ladder to the rooftops and trailing them there –until Pyrrha and Jaune turned a corner and vanished.

Nora blinked and looked at Ren, and he blinked and looked at her, and they glanced up and down the street their teammates had turned onto. No Pyrrha, no Jaune. Nora tiptoed back to the street they'd come from and looked up and down there, and didn't see them either. She looked at Ren, still crouched above the street perpendicular to her, and shrugged. He shrugged back, looking frustrated, and she crept over to rejoin him.

And then everything went wrong.

The edge of the roof cracked and trembled under her feet as Nora felt, saw, and heard the blast of some Gravity Dust, and after all their training she and Ren would definitely have had the time and coordination to dodge if the impact hadn't translated directly into their bodies as momentum, sending them staggering on a dissolving roof edge before they both plummeted through the air. Ren, at least, had the time to withdraw StormFlower and stab it into the wall, halting his descent with a screech of metal on concrete, but Nora couldn't catch his outstretched hand in time as she dropped through the dusty air. She abandoned the idea of catching herself like he had instantly, preparing for her impact on the ground as she flooded her legs with Aura and reached for Magnhild.

She landed, kicking up another small puff of dust, but crashed back against the wall anyways as someone swept a foot under hers and yanked before she could really steady her guard. Even as she whipped out her hammer in grenade-launcher form, aiming up, Nora froze as she realized with a blink that Jaune and Pyrrha were the ones that had attacked them, more specifically Jaune, who had sent out that Gravity pulse installed in his shield, which was expanded and aimed towards her.

Whoops.

Nora smiled sheepishly and prepared to apologize, figuring that the two of them must have noticed a while back that they were being tailed without realizing who was tailing them, then probably decided to press against the wall under the eave of the roof to throw off their pursuers –but Jaune didn't drop his shield even as Pyrrha, who was aiming Miló up at Ren in its rifle form, slowly lowered her weapon.

"Who are you?" Jaune hissed as the dust started settling around them, and Nora, Pyrrha, and probably Ren all blinked.

"Jaune-" Pyrrha began, looking uncertain, but Jaune ignored her and raised his sword, staring at Nora with eyes fiercer than any she had ever seen.

"Who are you?!"

"Who are you looking for!?" Nora blurted in confusion, and Jaune blinked and instantly lowered his sword at the sound of her voice, looking stricken.

"I-"

"I'd apologize for interrupting, but I think Nora needs it more than you do." Ren said from above, sounding very annoyed, before there was a scrape and he landed beside her.

"I-" Jaune stammered again, hastily compressing his shield and sheathing his sword. "Guys, I'm so sorry, I-"

"Alright mister, that is it." Nora grunted, stowing Magnhild and putting a hand on her knee, shoving herself to her feet as Ren's hand drifted over her shoulder in needless, but welcomed, support. "What the fuck is going on with you? You expected me to be someone else, and I'm guessing that you meant someone specific, since you're looking like you were prepared for a Semblance. You're tense, you can't sleep, and I think your teammates have been more than patient enough in waiting for you to come to us for help. Spill."

"Nora's right." Pyrrha said, her voice as gentle as her hand as she touched Jaune's shoulder, like she was afraid of spooking him, worried that he was going to jump out in another strange, jagged direction that was fraught with entirely too much fear. Her green eyes were shadowed with worry as she looked at her partner. "I think we can all tell that you're worried about something right now, Jaune, and we want to help you. We're your friends, your team. You know that we'll support you."

"Yeah!" One crisis over, and her excitement flowing in a different direction, Nora punched her open hand with one fist. "Someone's coming after ya and you expect us not to care?! Bitch please, Team JNPR will send that bastard to the moon!"

Ren looked at their team leader with slightly narrowed eyes.

"You said that teammates were supposed to have each other's backs, no matter what." he finally said, his voice quiet. "We can't do that unless you tell us everything."

Jaune bit his lip. That indefinable something flickered in the back of his eyes, a shadow like the horror Nora had seen so many times from Grimm survivors, and a fear that she couldn't name. The whole team waited for several agonizing seconds as their leader thought, posture tense, shoulders hunched in, hand tight on the pommel of his sword. Nora could see the thoughts racing through his head, so many and so fast as he thought of and discarded a thousand possible what-ifs, before Jaune finally gave a slow exhale and looked up.

"We need to be somewhere private." he said. "This is kinda important."

---

Pyrrha kept a strong, calm façade as she and the rest of Team JNPR walked to a park Jaune had said would be "good enough," trying to provide a bastion of support for her teammates if they needed it like a proper Huntress should, but inside she was roiling with emotions. The way Jaune had tensed up when he'd noticed they were being followed, how urgently he had pulled her aside, the panic on his face when he saw Nora before he realized(?) that it was Nora…it all pointed to some strange, tense mystery that hung about him like a cloud, some unknown enemy that was close on his heels, and Pyrrha was anxious, worried, and curious all at once as she wondered what he was about to tell them.

And on the other hand, she also felt a little hurt and annoyed that Ren and Nora had apparently been tracking them while she and Jaune…were out and about, and part of her was also still glowing over their…would it be fair to call it a date?

It had been nice –no, it had been wonderful. All her earlier fears about Jaune being pushy or unhealthily interested had vanished like mist weeks ago, and he'd made her blush more than once as they walked through the city or shared a meal. When he'd approached her earlier this morning and asked, his eyes sliding aside bashfully, if she'd like to come have some coffee with him, Pyrrha had felt like she'd just dropped over the highest plunge on a roller coaster, elated and terrified all at once. Jaune was sweet and funny and a good fighter, not to mention fairly good-looking. He reminded Pyrrha of a human golden retriever, actually, at least when he wasn't fighting or working towards being a Huntsman. Then, he became rigid and steely, and Pyrrha had to wonder, as Jaune glanced around and let them to a pair of benches around an open stretch of grass, which aspect of Jaune was truest to his real self. Both? Or neither? Or some bizarre mixture?

They all sat down, and with Pyrrha's years of reading body language, she could tell that Jaune was tense, sitting stiffly and with hunched shoulders, and she touched his knee, trying to impart whatever encouragement she could. When he glanced at her, she smiled, and even though she caught Jaune smiling back, there was a flicker of something in his eyes, something almost like shock, something brief and unguarded and so, so devastated.

But then he looked away and coughed in that way he did when he was preparing to speak, drawing their attention to him like a magnet as Jaune straightened self-consciously.

"So, I, uh, have a few things to tell you." he said, clasping his hands in his lap. "I…Team RWBY…they found something interesting, recently, and they asked me for help."

"Help…how?" Nora asked, her eyebrows furrowing, and even as lacking as she was in interpersonal relationships, Pyrrha still knew that those two things did not connect up well. How did Team RWBY finding something "interesting" translate to Jaune being terrified of personal attack?

The hand not resting on Jaune's leg curled into a fist at her side. Whoever dared to contemplate such a thing…Pyrrha would teach them a lesson.

"Its, ah, well, pretty illegal." Jaune admitted, raising his thumbs in a brief what-can-you-do gesture that still didn't interrupt his tense posture. "Ruby said that they found some evidence of this conspiracy against the Hunter academies, but its not enough to act on. They know that some of the people involved will be by the docks this weekend, and they're planning on going there and confronting them, trying to get some more concrete pieces of evidence. They, ah, didn't want to tell anyone, but I kinda stumbled on it and then they had to tell me."

He shrugged, looking sheepish even behind his worry.

"Anyways, Ruby thinks that she and her team can take on these guys by themselves, but she wants backup in case things go wrong. I, erm, I volunteered myself, but I didn't want to drag you guys into something so obviously sketchy-"

"I'm down." Nora said immediately, practically bouncing in place on the bench as her eyes sparkled like stars. Ren gave a long-suffering sigh through his nose, probably knowing as well as Pyrrha did at this point that Jaune had enraptured Nora and gained her support the moment he mentioned a secret criminal group that they would be fighting.

"I still confused on why that made you attack us." Ren said as he stilled his partner with a hand on her shoulder, apparently still a little miffed at their team leader for his assault.

"Ruby said that one of the criminals has an illusionary Semblance, and that they seemed pretty dedicated to making sure that no one knew about their plans." Jaune admitted. "I thought- I thought that they might've found out that I knew about it and were trying to eliminate me. Hence my overreaction, and again, I am so sorry."

Ren looked a little mollified, but this time Pyrrha frowned.

"If they're so dangerous, why not tell anyone?" she asked slowly. "Why not ask for more competent people? You're very good, Jaune, and so is Team RWBY, but surely the teachers or some qualified graduates would be better help against a group like this?"

"Ruby said that some of what they found implicated Professor Lionheart, or at least someone really high up at Haven Academy." Jaune said, and they all went dead still. Accusing a headmaster was bad, but accusing one with proof was even worse. The Hunter academies literally stood between people and extinction: if the leader of one was even possibly corrupt…

"Jaune…" Pyrrha asked, hesitant. "Are you sure?"

"Ruby seemed pretty sure." he said, and shifted, lifting his hands to fold his arms anxiously. "I don't know- we don't know who we can trust, right now, except for ourselves. That's why we planned to go to Mistral over spring break, to find some clues if nothing turned up at the docks."

"Did you trust us?" Ren asked.

"Obviously!" Jaune looked horrified at the indirect accusation. "I just –I didn't want to drag you guys into it. I didn't want to-"

He paused, almost biting off his words, and looked away. Jaune's throat bobbed in a swallow before he finally spoke again, still not looking at them.

"I didn't want to lose my teammates again."

There wasn't much that anyone could say to that. Nora and Ren might've come from outside the cities, but they had seen for themselves how closely-knit Hunter groups were out there in the wilderness. Pyrrha had been trained at Sanctum, and people she had known from classes and in the hallways, bright and cheerful and looking forward to their futures –they had gone dead and dull-eyed overnight, forever shattered by losing a partner or a friend or a teammate. When you grew to rely on someone for your life, you formed a strong bond with them, and Hunters began their training young –Pyrrha had won the Mistral Regional Tournament for the first time when she was just 12 years old. Losing someone you had a close relationship with at that age, maybe even multiple people…it wasn't a scar that could heal easily.

A gentle breeze whisked past them and was gone before anyone dared to speak again, and when they did, it was Pyrrha, who took a deep breath and squeezed Jaune's knee.

"You aren't going to lose any of us." she said firmly. "And we're with you. Right?"

She glanced across to Ren and Nora, who nodded firmly, looking determined.

"So. What's the plan?"

Jaune gave them all a look that was unspeakably grateful, mixed with a lingering hint of fear, before he sighed and ran a hand through his bangs, pushing them back from his forehead. He did that a lot –Pyrrha could never understand why he didn't just get a haircut.

"Team RWBY's gonna go to the docks, and we –the backup– are gonna stake out a spot nearby." he said with a slow exhale. "The others think that the people that'll be there are pretty low-ranking, so the bad guys won't call for backup when faced with a group of trainee Huntresses. That'll give Ruby and the others the opportunity to beat some answers out of them, but if we bring in more people right at the start, the bad guys might take a look at the risks and just run."

He glanced at them sternly.

"If this plan is gonna work, our team needs to stay out of it unless we're called in. It doesn't matter if we see explosions, chaos, Grimm –hell, a magical Maiden duel– we are staying out of the fight until someone from Team RWBY calls us."

"We're going to be the emergency reinforcements in case our enemies bring a stronger force than expected." Pyrrha said with a slow nod of understanding. "I see. Team RWBY are very skilled, so they should be able to judge their strength and take on most low-level thugs quite easily, even a large group with unlocked Auras. They may perhaps even be able to deal with one or two Hunter-level foes, if they're prepared and work together. And crucially, I can't imagine any enemy strong enough to stop at least someone on that team from calling for help."

"Man, though." Nora sighed, palming her chin. "Sitting on the sidelines is gonna suck."

"Regardless, we're in." Ren said, his eyes gone cold with focus. "What time should we be in position?"

---

Ears unbound and squinting against the afternoon sun, Gambol Shroud resting comfortingly on her back and Aura at full meter, Blake read off a text from Jaune as she hastily trotted down the streets of Vale, the brisk sea breeze whisking through her feline ears.

"No emergency changes to schedule, right?" Yang asked, striding powerfully along beside her.

"Apparently, Nora and Ren caught him and Pyrrha on their date, and he flipped, thinking she might be Neo." Blake read off.

"Oooh." Yang winced. Blake scrolled a little with her thumb.

"He says that he told them we uncovered a conspiracy aimed against the schools, we think Lionheart might be involved, and we're investigating the docks where we think the bad guys will be this weekend." she continued. "They're on board to be our backup."

"So, the truth, just minus a few years' progress." Yang said with a quiet snort. "Think we'll miraculously learn about the Lamp and its all-knowingness during that fight?"

Blake let a faint smile curve her lips.

"One can only hope." she replied easily, and flicked onto another chat on her Scroll.

"So, this Ilia." Yang said with a click of her tongue, obviously catching the topic change. "Anything I should know about her?"

"I've already told you about what kind of person she is." Blake said with a heavy roll of her eyes. "If it's her past you're interested in, she went to an Atlas school, mimicked their prejudices to blend in, and blew her cover after she lost her parents to a mine accident. She's a chameleon Faunus, so she can change the colors of her skin and hair, and she turned blue when she got the news."

"Couldn't she have just passed that off as a Semblance?" Yang asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Her so-called friends snickered at the news, and she broke their teeth."

"Hmm." Yang made a pleased, approving sound. "Yang likey. So the White Fang picked her up after all that, she's got a crush on you, and she uses a whip laced with Electricity."

She continued ticking off the points on her fingers.

"Super agile –which means it is going to suck if I have to fight her– doesn't really trust humans, backstory involves assimilation, betrayal, tragedy, and stuck-up bitches getting what's coming to them. Damn. I guess I shouldn't talk much…?"

"It would help." Blake agreed, scanning over Ilia's message of her arrival in Vale and her agreement to meet today at a secluded, Faunus-friendly café. "You're here to serve as evidence that working with humans in general is better than fighting against them, as well as the fact that I have a supportive, valid, excellent team."

"Hehe." Yang clicked her teeth and shot finger-guns from both hands. "Damn straight, you do."

"I'm serious, Yang." Blake scrolled up further, to the first startled, tentative messages that had them both dancing around the fact that Ilia should inform the other members of the White Fang that Blake had contacted her. As cynical of her as it was, Blake was pretty sure that the fact it was Adam looking for her and Blake not wanting to be found by him that weighed in the most on Ilia's judgement to not let her superiors know. Romantic jealousy could be a powerful motivator, and Blake would not scruple to use it if that meant prying Ilia out of the bloodied grasp of the White Fang. "Ilia's an old friend, and I'm worried about her. I don't know how easy it'll be to convince her this time, because the White Fang hasn't gone so far yet."

"You'll figure it out." Yang said with a carefree wave, and her dismissiveness would be supremely annoying if Blake didn't know that Yang had no experience in this area, and even less of a chance at getting Ilia to listen to her more than Blake.

"Yes, well-"

Blake had been mostly trusting her own hearing ability and Yang warning her of other pedestrians to avoid running into anything, but for some reason Yang fell silent and stopped dead as they turned the corner onto the street where the café was, and when Blake raised her head to glance at her, she ran facefirst into someone else's chest with a mutual "oof!" born of her hasty pace and both of their surprise.

Blake blinked as they both stepped back. She knew those abs –ahem, that voice– anywhere.

"Uh, hi?" Sun asked, blinking and tucking a hand behind his head as he stared down at her in a mixture of friendliness and confusion. "Sorry…?"

"Blake." she replied, feeling her shoulders relax. Sun always had that effect on her –he was a very soothing presence, born perhaps of his idiotic urge to throw himself headfirst into danger at the slightest sign of his friends –and strangers– needing help, and his even more idiotic ability to somehow survive. It was very reassuring to have someone that blindly faithful –and strong– on your side, unconditionally, and Blake had relied on him more times than she could count, at one of the darkest periods of her life. Sun had been the catalyst to help her finally grow out of the frightened shell Adam had tried to lock her into: he might be a reckless dork, but he was her reckless dork, and one of her best friends outside her team.

Perhaps the best friend outside her team, come to think of it.

He and Ilia were sort of tied, since Ilia had been her friend for longer.

"Sorry for running into you," she continued. "-but we're kinda in a hurry to meet a friend."

"Oh?" A bright ginger head popped up from behind Sun. "Sal-u-tations! Are you lost?"

Blake froze, and understood exactly why Yang had stopped dead and not warned her about the oncoming pedestrians.

"Uh, no. Y-you two are together?" Yang finally managed, and thankfully she only sounded bewildered. Blake didn't dare look at her as Sun laughed and scratched the back of his head sheepishly –at the same moment Penny nodded.

"Ah, I met Penny here as I came off the boat from Mistral. I'm a Huntsman trainee, and I'm here for the Vytal Festival!" Sun explained, jabbing a thumb at Penny before puffing his chest out and striking a pose.

"I was attempting to apprehend a stowaway, but when I apprehended him, the perpetrator explained that he was the victim of a 'dare'!" Penny said happily. "He had been dared by his teammates to see if he could hide his presence for the entire voyage from here to Mistral, and he has acceptable credentials that prove he is indeed a student and a contestant of the festival. It was quite fun! I had no idea that dares could be so risky."

"A risk isn't a risk unless something's on the line." Sun said cheerfully. "It's no fun otherwise!"

"That is the very definition of a risk." Penny said, nodding, before looking at Sun with shining eyes. "You are so wise!"

Good gods, there's two of them. Blake thought, her ears drooping slightly. Then Yang nudged her, and she looked at her Scroll, and winced.

"Uh, sorry to cut and run, but we've got places to be." Blake said with an apologetic grimace, shifting to walk around the duo and head in. "Yang, can you go ahead and check?"

"On it!" her partner chimed, already moving to weave her way through the crowd and do a sweep of the café as she entered first.

"Woah, you guys meeting someone important?" Sun asked, probably recognizing this search pattern very well from his time in Vacuo, as he and Penny followed Blake to the front of the shop. Of course they followed her: Sun was a staunch ally once he befriended someone, but he had the attention span of a particularly flighty butterfly, and anything that caught his interest was worth trailing after, regardless of his previous plans. Penny was still naïve when it came to social interaction, and was willing to go wherever she was led if it was done by someone friendly.

"You could say that." Blake said, looking at her two tagalongs with a harried expression. "Listen, um-"

"Sun." the blond supplied, with a smile as bright as his namesake.

"Right, Sun, I'd love to talk to you two more, so can you and Penny…ugh, just occupy yourselves for a little bit? I promise, we won't take all day, but we're meeting a friend for a pretty serious talk." Blake said hastily, already moving to open the door to the café. She stepped inside, before ducking out for a brief moment. "Bond over being airheads!"

With those parting words, Blake retreated back into the store, and Sun turned to Penny with an injured expression.

"Airheads?" he asked. "How does she know we're airheads?"

"I do not know, friend Sun. Perhaps we should ask her!"

"No no no." Sun waved a hand at her without looking as he glanced back to the quiet café, cupping his chin in thought. "She said she was meeting an important friend for a serious talk. We shouldn't interrupt."

He snapped his fingers after a few seconds, visibly brightening.

"I've got it! Let's go grab some newspapers!"

"Sen-sational! I've always wanted to try that!"

---

Blake's eyes swept the café as she entered. No Yuma, no Trifa, nobody that she knew from the White Fang –nobody except Ilia, sitting in the back corner and watching with a wary expression as Yang settled in across the table from her. Blake's old friend was wearing a civilian hoodie and some cargo pants, and she brightened visibly upon seeing Blake, though there was still an edge of nervousness to her face and posture. Blake made her way over smoothly, weaving between other diners before taking the chair beside Yang. Luckily, the table was arranged parallel to the wall, so if Ilia felt threatened –if any of them felt threatened– their escape wasn't blocked. Blake rather fancied that Ilia would be even more tense if her back was to the wall and Yang and Blake were both sitting between her and the rest of the room –and the two of them certainly wouldn't like having their backs to the crowd.

"Hey, Ilia." she said, folding her hands on top of the table.

"Hey, Blake."

"This is Yang Xiao Long, my partner and one of my teammates at Beacon." Blake said by way of introduction, nodding to the blonde sat beside her. "Yang, this is Ilia, one of my oldest friends."

"Pleased to meetcha." Yang said, fluttering her fingers with an affable grin. Ilia nodded to her, still looking a bit wary. That was why Blake had brought Yang rather than any of the others –Yang was excellent at projecting a warm and friendly demeanor that felt absolutely genuine, and while it was pretty much impossible for anyone to be mad at Ruby for any length of time, she didn't quite have the pessimism for a conversation like this. Ruby's boundless optimism and desire to fix everything had its place, but that place was not in a conversation where she might inadvertently offend Ilia by skating over some of the darker topics in an effort to avoid them.

The idea of bringing Weiss Schnee, of course, was laughable.

Blake was going to lead into that after a good long time of trying to gauge Ilia's mental position, and even then, she was going to tell Ilia how different Weiss was from the rest of her family and make it clear that she was not even remotely racist, not anymore. Weiss would serve as a good example of how even the most bitterly-opposed Faunus and humans could get along, but Blake would not dare to bring her with a meeting with Ilia, not right off the bat.

Firstly, even though she and Yang hadn't seen anyone, it was possible that Ilia had spilled and told her superiors everything, and an ambush had been set up. The members of Team RWBY could take care of themselves just fine, but bringing Weiss with as Blake's escort would have changed the mindset of their opponents from "doing their job defeating/capturing a fighter and a traitor" to "bloody, incoherent, berserker rage," and even having their Auras broken might not stop them from continuing to attack. A fight like that might drag in civilians, might result in Blake and Weiss killing or hurting someone in self-defense, and no one wanted that.

Secondly, Weiss as a concept represented everything Ilia hated. Human, Atlesian, spoiled, rich, powerful, part of the family who ruled the Dust mines that had gotten Ilia's parents killed. Bringing Weiss would have just ignited an argument, an argument that Blake was not entirely certain that Weiss wouldn't inadvertently feed due to her temper, even when she knew that Ilia was right.

"So…you wanted to talk?" Ilia finally said, awkwardly stirring a straw inside the drink that she had apparently bought while she was waiting.

"I did." Blake said. "Ilia, I left the White Fang."

Ilia stiffened, and her eyes darted to Yang, obviously tense at having their membership in the White Fang be mentioned in public and in front of someone who had clearly not been part of the organization. Blake nudged Yang with a foot, giving the blonde tacit permission to speak, and her partner shrugged.

"Blake told us all about her past." Yang said, slouching a little in her chair and draping one arm over the back. "You guys fought a lot, trying to bring equality to the Faunus, but then you started pushing too far, and Blake left."

"Ilia, we aren't fighting for equality anymore." Blake stressed, holding her friend's eyes as Ilia glanced back to her, frowning a little. "We're fighting for revenge, to hurt people the way that we've been hurt. That's not right."

"So what, we're supposed to just roll over and let them trample all over us?" Ilia asked, her frown deepening into a sneer. "Maybe you're willing to let that go, but after everything that they've done –to us, to me, to you– I think it's more than time for humans to have a taste of what they've dished out."

"Just a taste?" Yang asked, and Ilia looked at her, startled. Yang raised the fingers of her free hand and pinched them in demonstration, continuing. "You're just gonna give them a little taste of their own medicine, shock 'em into finally behaving like good boys and girls, and then you'll leave humans alone, right?"

"Y-yes. Of course." Ilia said, but her expression wasn't as certain as it had been before. "We just want to finally be treated as equals. We're not going to-"

"Become tyrants?" Blake asked, and Ilia looked down. "Ilia, I know that you would never go that far, but look me in the eyes and tell me that Adam would stop when he finally gets humans to stop treating us badly out of fear. Look me in the eyes and tell me that he wouldn't punish all humans, regardless of what they've done, once he's subjugated them."

"Maybe most of them deserve it." Ilia said, refusing to give in as she looked up from the table again. "Maybe they don't all hate Faunus, but there's plenty that stand by and do nothing as the hate happens! I don't like hurting people, but the fear of that has gotten us results."

"There's plenty of humans that don't hate us, or stand by as the hate happens." Blake said sharply. "Ilia, you were there! You remember at rallies, don't you, back when we still had signs instead of swords? There were humans that stood with us, humans that were shouting just as loudly for us to be treated as equals! And do you remember what happened when we started attacking humans to try and create equality? The humans that supported us stopped standing with us, because they were afraid that we'd turn on them next!"

Ilia flinched, just a little, subtly.

"I'm not saying that there aren't evil people in the world." Blake continued, trying to convey her earnestness in every note of her voice, every inch of her posture. "I'm not saying that we're wrong to want equality, or that we were wrong to fight back when people tried to hurt us. But the White Fang has changed, Ilia. We're not fighting in self-defense anymore, we're fighting to sow fear. Sienna's just trying to use violence as a tool to get humans to listen, to make sure that they know that they can't push us without us pushing back, but there are people who are taking her ideology and running way too far with it."

"Blake told us about it." Yang spoke up again, receptive to Blake's nudge. "You guys armed yourselves, and then when you saw how well that worked, you started making hits on stores that refused to serve Faunus. When those started working, you moved to larger hits, on places and people that haven't directly offended you. That's still working, and you're starting to hurt people rather than places. There's a pattern of escalation here, Ilia, and you can see it for yourself if you take a step back and look. You're in the White Fang, so you'd know way better than me –with this kind of pattern, and the people you work with, when you do think they're gonna be satisfied? How far are they gonna escalate before they stop?"

"On the mission to hijack the Schnee train, Adam was going to set charges to blow it up. He was going to kill the crew members or leave them injured and panicked in a wilderness crawling with Grimm." Blake said staunchly. "Crew members, Ilia. People who were just hired to work on a train that was guarded by Atlesian robots. For all we knew, there could've been Faunus there, but he didn't care!"

"So what?" Ilia snapped. "That's just Adam, I can- we can tell Sienna, if you come back-"

"Adam has too many supporters for that to work." Blake said, guessing, but pretty sure that her guess was correct. Adam had murdered Sienna, after all, and taken over the White Fang, and that was only a year or so in the future. When it came to the matter of buying or acquiring loyalties, a year was a fraction of time, so Adam probably did have roughly the same amount of adherents within the White Fang now as he had when he'd killed her. He always had been a symbol for far too many…and he'd gotten the manpower to attack Beacon within just the next few months, and the power and authority to force the White Fang to keep working for Cinder even after the debacle of the train crash, where so many of them had died.

Ilia looked…stricken. Torn. Wavering, like Blake had managed to argue her into a position where she at least didn't have any fresh counterpoints, where she finally was taking a look at things for herself and questioning all that she had seen. That was good progress, excellent progress, really.

"Ilia, my team and I have found some suspicious things in Vale." Blake said. "The White Fang is stealing Dust –a lot of Dust. More than we could ever possibly need, unless we were trying to blow up a school. The night before I left, these three humans came to our camp, trying to get Adam to do something, join with them for some kind of revolution –and even though he refused them then, I think he accepted after I left. I think he's planning to do something that won't help anyone except himself."

All true, of course, but that wasn't why Blake had presented this information in this way and at this time. Antipathy could be a powerful factor in someone's subconscious decision-making, and as charismatic as Adam could be when he put in the effort, his charisma was very much a "follow me to victory" sense, or an intrusive, creeping thought in the back of your head, poisoning you with his opinions. He did not waste time on being friendly with anyone, and Ilia…Ilia had her own reasons to dislike someone that Blake had once been infatuated with.

So. Ilia was predisposed to not think well of Adam, and Blake was telling her that Adam was doing something wrong. It was easy for Ilia to follow that thinking, and it would open up her mind to other possibilities, other memories of the things that Adam had done and the affect on the White Fang and Ilia herself. If Adam was doing something wrong, and many people admired and followed him, then did that not imply that something in the White Fang had warped? Had something in the way they thought gone wrong? Blake was arguing that, and Ilia liked and trusted Blake. Surely her idea had at least a little merit.

"So what do you expect me to do?" Ilia finally huffed bitterly, looking away. "Spy on him?"

"I want you to leave, with me." Blake said, making her friend blink. "I want you to get away from the White Fang and be safe."

"And I want our stalkers two tables over to get a grip." Yang said loudly, and they both gave a violent start. Blake already had a hand on Gambol Shroud by the time Ilia whirled around, but instead of drawing her weapon, Blake just groaned in exasperation.

She really should have expected this.

Sun looked sheepish as he lowered the widely-unfolded newspaper he had been pretending to read, but Penny kept hers up, hiding her face and most of her body. Idiot, idiot, idiot, of course she should have expected those two to try and eavesdrop, Sun had a nose for trouble and he'd seen her agitated before she came into the café. He would've wanted to find out what was going on, see if there was anyone in need of help, and the moment Blake raised her voice, he would've been positively glued to the situation. Great. Just, great. Penny could prove to be a huge problem, she was still loyal to the Atlesian regime and if she heard them talking about the White Fang…

A spike of fear iced down into her stomach. Blake could've just gotten Ilia arrested, and neither of them had any reason to expect the slightest kindness from the Atlas law system.

"Penny, we know its you." Yang sighed, rubbing her forehead, but the other girl kept her newspaper up.

"False!" she said happily. "According to the documentary I viewed on the Scroll network, blocking out the target's view with a newspaper keeps them from identifying you."

"Dude, there's a documentary about that?" Sun asked, looking over to his partner-in-crime as though he had completely forgotten the fact that they had both just been eavesdropping on a duo admitting to be part of an international terrorist group.

"Why, yes. It was quite a thrilling story about the Inspector Jacques Beau and his efforts to reclaim the famous Carnelian Cat diamond." Penny answered enthusiastically. "It seems that a sports team became embroiled in jealousies over a famous singer, and the theft of the diamond after the death of her fiancé sparked a furious controversy within Atlas as to the identity of the culprit-"

She was cut off by Yang, who had come to stand over their table and was pressing down on the middle of the newspaper with a single finger, forcing Penny to reveal herself. Yang's face was locked in a kind, closed-eye smile, but the aura shuddering behind that placid expression had both Sun and Penny shrinking back in their chairs.

"How much of this highly private conversation did you hear?" Yang asked sweetly.

"Um-"

"M-my goodness, your tone and expression are not matching your intent at all-"

Yang's eyes flashed wordlessly, and Sun and Penny both "eep!"ed and cowered back.

"Friends of yours?" Ilia asked, her hand hovering warily by her hip, where Blake assumed one or more weapons were concealed.

"They're about to be." Blake sighed, and let go of Gambol Shroud. "Yang, its fine. Let's just talk to each other face to face, since they seem to want to be a part of this so much."

"Oh, sweet! Thanks, Blake." Sun said, apparently forgetting his danger entirely as he perked up and grabbed his chair and dragged it over, Penny following close behind. Ilia frowned.

"This is a complex conversation, we don't need any more humans involved." she said stiffly, her hand slowly moving away from where her weapon lay, and Sun lifted his tail, which Blake saw with exasperation was wrapped around a drinks cup, complete with holder and straw.

"Hey man, I'm cool." he said, and brought his tail around to take a sip.

"I am definitely 100% an organic human." Penny said, and hiccupped. Ilia stared at her for a few seconds, and Blake knew she was running the mental calculations for whether or not Penny was just in the closet as a Faunus or just a bit off as a person, since she had phrased that so oddly. Blake sighed again and massaged her temples, knowing that this was building up to be something of a grand headache. Well, she could kill two birds with one stone here, as long as she phrased this correctly and got all the pieces to fall in line. Yang's eyes met hers for a moment, and her partner gave a significant nod, probably understanding the importance of this moment as much as Blake did.

"Right, well. Sun, Penny, this is Ilia, and she's an old friend of mine in a bit of a concerning situation." Blake began wearily. "You see, I was once a member of the White Fang, and some of their recent activities are concerning me…"

---

Ilia stared at her reflection, and wondered where it had all gone wrong.

Blake had called her directly, and that had been wonderful news, but ever since then…Ilia had been making some risky decisions. She hadn't gotten permission to come to Vale, but come she had, making an effort to dodge the usual White Fang connections and routes. Adam was pretty desperate to get Blake back, or so she'd heard, but she had lied to him and all her other superiors by direct omission, not telling anyone that Blake had wanted to meet her in a secluded location to talk. Blake had come armed and with a partner, but they could've overwhelmed them by sheer numbers, and Blake would be back with them again.

She would've forced Blake to be back with them.

Ilia shivered and shrugged the uncomfortable thought away. Maybe she had a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting noticed by her friend in that way, but Ilia wasn't a monster. As much as it hurt, to be left behind without even a farewell Scroll message, Blake was an independent young woman who could make her own decisions. If she wanted to leave, betray all that they had worked for, then that was Blake being a coward, and they didn't need any cowards with them.

Did you know, Kali had asked, when she'd reached out for Ilia's Scroll. Did you know what he did to her?

And obviously –obviously Ilia hadn't known anything of what she was talking about. Obviously it was stupid to think that Adam had done anything: sure, Blake was infatuated with him, but they were partners, it wasn't weird that partners got close. Ilia had been jealous, of course, but Adam had never really reciprocated, never treated Blake as anything but a close friend and another soldier. Just look at him now, more angry than heartbroken, demanding that the White Fang in Vale hunt Blake down and bring her back into the fold so that he could punish her for leaving. What kind of lover would do that? If he'd reciprocated Blake's feelings, he would've been sending out orders to ask for her to come back, telling everyone to let him know the second Blake contacted them so that he could beg for her forgiveness. He had told everyone to let him know, but he'd said to lure her into a trap, not tell him personally.

Do you know what he did?

Ilia growled in frustration. Those words had been burning in her mind for weeks, and she impatiently smacked her cheeks with both hands.

So what! Blake's mother was biased in her favor, as any mother should be, and Adam had successfully convinced Blake to keep carrying on the fight with them. Obviously Kali would hold a grudge, and obviously she'd say whatever she could to try and keep Blake "safe." Stealing her daughter was an unforgivable offense, whether that be morally or…or more emotionally. O-or even carnally.

No, Adam would never, Ilia reassured herself. Blake's parents would have murdered him on the spot as soon as they heard about him doing that.

…though, really, how often had Blake called them? H-had Blake ever called to them, talked to them, since she'd come with the rest of the proper White Fang five years ago? Ilia couldn't recall if she had.

"Gah!" She swung her arms out, swatting the can of juice off the wall beside her without looking. This constant doubt was all so frustrating! Obviously Blake was fine, because she'd have told her if she wasn't fine, and Kali was just being a helicopter mom, and everything was fine!

"Woah, and she striiiiiikes!"

"What are you even still doing here?" Ilia grumbled, looking down to the other side of the harbor wall where that monkey boy who had been following her for the last day and a half, Sun Wukong, had expertly caught her flying can of juice. He looked up at her and shrugged, changing his grip to crack the tab on the unopened juice.

"Blake said I should keep an eye out for you, remember? And I figured you shouldn't be wandering Vale on your own!" he said cheerfully, then tilted the can back to gulp down its contents. "Oh, man, that's some pretty good stuff. Sure you don't want any?"

"I'm fine, thanks." Ilia huffed, looking away. This guy had been following her all day today and all day yesterday, after Blake had left with those two humans, Penny and Yang. She didn't know what he wanted, since he always grinned and waved when she whipped around to glare at him, and didn't seem perturbed by all her many insistences to leave her alone.

While she was occupying herself with longing thoughts of somehow forcing the whole world to make sense again, Sun sprung up onto the wall beside her, looking out over the waves.

"You sure? Some cities can be pretty rough if you don't know 'em."

"Yes, I'm sure. I can take care of myself, you know." Ilia groaned, rolling her eyes towards the heavens in despair. "Have you seriously been following me all this time just to offer to be my tour guide around Vale?"

"It'd kinda suck if I did, since I've never been here before." Sun said with that thoughtless, brainless smile of his, before pulling another can from behind his back and offering it to her. "Hydrate? Trust me, you guys think its fine staring at the ocean all day, but the reflected glare will dry you out something awful."

Ilia looked at the water rippling below them with a thousand-yard stare and weighed the pro-cons of just shoving him in.

"Why are you even here!?" she finally cried as she threw up her hands, despairing at ever understanding the situation she had gotten herself caught in. "I heard Blake, you're training to be a Huntsman, and I'm a member of the White Fang! Why haven't you at least tried to arrest me?! Why are you following me around if you know I don't have anything planned!?"

"Blake said the White Fang was doing some sketchy stuff in Vale, stealing Dust supplies and whatever." Sun said, cracking open the tab of the second can and offering it to her again with an encouraging wiggle of his eyebrows. Ilia finally decided that ignoring and insulting him wouldn't make him go away, and grabbed the drink, swallowing the admittedly refreshing juice down with a sigh of deepest despair. "You are from the White Fang, so you can tell me how weird that is, can't ya? And besides, I bet you're curious."

"I'm not."

"Mm-hmmm…" Sun drew the sound out for a very long time. Ilia glared at him.

"I'm not! How is it any of my business, anyways?" she scoffed, looking away.

"You're a member of the White Fang and if their reputation gets dragged through the mud, you go with it; you care about Blake; they're stockpiling Dust, which by definition means that they're going to light off something big." Sun said, slowly ticking the points off on his fingers as Ilia sipped her drink. She spluttered on it as he then poked her temple. "Dude, you must be messed-up in the head if you're not curious about what they're planning."

"So what if I am!" Ilia shouted, then froze, her spots turning pink. "Erg, y-you didn't hear that."

"Mm-hm." Sun nodded wisely. "So what I'm hearing is, you're totally not worried or concerned or curious at all about why they're stockpiling Dust in Vale of all places, where there's no Atlesian targets to go after. Those guys are your favorites, right, because everyone in Atlas are such jerks?"

"You are not tricking me into revealing information." Ilia ground out.

"Mm-yep. Just speculating. Say, what would be a reason to stockpile all that Dust?"

"I don't know, okay?" she groaned. "There isn't one! There's no outstanding targets in Vale that would need that much munitions, and its only the Vale branch that's doing this, so they can't be stockpiling for the whole organization. It doesn't make any sense?"

"Sooooo, if there's no reason for the White Fang to be doing this, then maybe they're doing it for someone else and Blake is right?" Sun asked innocuously, and Ilia spat on her drink as she realized the line of thought that he'd led her into.

"Y-you-!"

"What?" Sun looked confused. "It makes more sense than them trying to blow up a school or whatever, doesn't it?"

"You are not tricking me into betraying the White Fang!" Ilia cried, chucking the empty can of juice at his forehead. Given the fact that he had Aura, it bounced off pathetically, clattering to the ground, and she growled, leaning over and stabbing at the monkey boy's bare chest with her finger. "Okay?! Maybe you're right and it is sketchy, wh-what they're doing here, but I'm not turning my back on the people who need me!"

Sun blinked at her with guileless blue eyes.

"Who says you have to be part of the White Fang to help them?" he asked blankly, and Ilia froze. "I mean, there's no rules that say they're the only ones who have to fight for Faunus rights and stuff. S'why Blake left, isn't it, because she didn't like their way of 'helping' anymore?"

N-no. No, it couldn't possibly be something so simple. Ilia swallowed.

"O-okay, so if you are right, how would we even prove it?" she huffed, leaning back and crossing her arms.

"We investigate!" Sun cried excitedly, leaping to his feet and pointing at the sky as the light glistened off his bare abs. If he'd been a hot Amazon of a woman, Ilia might have swooned: as it was, she just watched with resignation at his next bit of theatrics. "We track down leads and see if what Blake said was true!"

"Okay, but how?" Ilia stressed, resting her chin on one hand. "We're both new to Vale."

"Ah-ah-ah." Sun grinned and wagged a finger at her. "That's quitter's talk."

"It's not quitter's talk, its being practical and logical." she groaned, already regretting her decision of letting him ramble on, even momentarily. "I can't reach out to any of the White Fang members here without them knowing that I'm here without leave, which would bring its own problems. How do you propose we find evidence?"

"Logic, duh." Sun plopped down beside her again, folding his legs atop the thin stretch of concrete that she was sitting on. "They want Dust, so let's find some place with a lot of Dust, and see who shows up and why."

"And when it isn't the White Fang, or the White Fang for a totally legitimate purpose, you'll leave me alone about quitting the organization. Right?" Ilia asked pointedly.

"Eh, Blake asked me to look after you while you were in Vale, so I still might hang around." Sun admitted without shame. "But we can save that for later. For now, we investigate!"

"Investigate what and investigate how?" Ilia asked, watching as he hitched himself around and leaped back to the ground side of the wall. Sun turned and looked up at her with a grin.

"While I was on the ship, I heard some guys talking about offloading a huge shipment of Dust coming in from Atlas." he said. "We're talking huge: a big Schnee Company freighter. Think that'll get their attention?"

Ilia stiffened, and then hopped off the wall to land beside him.

"That'll do." she said, and reached up to pinch the loudmouth's ear. "But Huntsman cadet or not, you will listen to what I tell you while we're investigating, got it? Follow my signals and do as I say, or else you might ruin everything."

"I'm crap at following orders, but I'll give it a go." Sun said with a negligent shrug, and Ilia sighed and let him go.

Really, where had she gone wrong?

---

Night had fallen across Vale: the streetlamps were on with nary a flicker, and the air was cool and still. The docks where shipment was supposed to be were quiet, with nothing but the sound of chirping crickets but to Ilia, that meant nothing. The shipment was here, it had been offloaded, and now there was a small window of time between proper legal retrieval and when any thieves could come and snatch it. She was waiting on the roof with Sun, who, she could begrudgingly admit, had gone professionally quiet the moment they began their stakeout, leaning against a service box on the roof beside her and waiting with clear, focused blue eyes, not complaining about the cold or the need to remain still for so long.

She was camouflaged, of course, her body set to match the roof as closely as she could as she lay with her face looking out over the edge of it, trying to become one shadow among many. Her whip was fully loaded with Dust, not that she planned on using it near the containers, where one wrong move could ignite the whole thing in a catastrophic explosion. True, the Dust was almost certainly properly sealed and contained, but containers meant to keep the purified, refined Dust from becoming volatile during transit would do nothing in the face of a piercing strike from a bullet or a weapon imbued with actively-charged Dust –and once one explosion lit off, a terrible domino effect would follow as the entire contents of each shipping container went up in flames one by one by one.

Ilia knew the consequences of Dust accidents better than anyone.

"So like, we're sure we can take these guys if anyone shows up, right?" Sun whispered to her, making Ilia look over. He gestured vaguely with one fingerless-gloved hand. "'Cause like, its gonna suck if we confront them and they kick our asses."

"We're not going to confront anyone." Ilia hummed, her eyes drifting back to the docks below. Missions always had a calming effect on her –it was the relaxation of doing something rather than reacting to it, the palpable sense of taking a step forward to solve whatever problem she'd been confronted with. It always helped calm and center her, the quietness of a purpose letting her think and focus with crystal-clarity. "The White Fang has never had a reason to steal this much Dust, which means that someone else is doing it and framing us. We're just here to get the evidence of that and then leave. Got your Scroll?"

Sun flicked it up and twirled the small device as it expanded.

"Full battery, my dude."

"Good. This is a lot of Dust, so whoever's stealing it should try and hit hard and fast-"

Wind suddenly roared to life around them, cutting her off, and Ilia pressed tighter against the ground and closed her eyes, trusting her camouflage as Sun grunted and she heard the scrape of sneakers. Looking back and daring to crack her eye open, Ilia saw him pressing himself up against the boxlike projection in the roof with both feet as the wind tore past them, tossing their clothes and throwing dust everywhere. When she glanced up, there was a Bullhead over them, two searchlights swiveling as it scanned the docks area. Luckily, it missed the roof, since even Ilia's changed color might be picked out if she didn't change it fast enough against the glare of those lights, and Sun, of course, was trying to be stealthy in an open white shirt and faded jeans.

Finding nothing suspicious, the Bullhead swiftly pulled up and came to a landing, a runway slamming out to land on the bare concrete. Ilia tensed as she brought her head up and she heard another shuff of Sun's sneakers, feeling more than seeing it as he came beside her and lifted his Scroll, recording light on. This was it. Who had come to steal Dust and blame it on her people, and in the name of the brother gods, why?

The thieves started to descend, and Ilia's senses all sharpened to a razor point as she watched the first one cross the bulk of the vehicle into their line of vision. Dark trousers, grey gauntlet or sleeve, white tunic-

White tunic with red White Fang insignia on the back. Her breath caught, and she heard Sun hiss quietly beside her.

"Ooh, that's not good." he mumbled under his breath.

"N-no. No, we're being framed, they just took the uniforms to make that easier." Ilia whispered.

"From…who?" Sun asked, and she glared at him as he continued in a hushed, urgent whisper. "What? All I'm saying is that if someone stole enough uniforms from you guys to outfit a group, you'd have noticed, right?"

Well, yes, but- but she hadn't heard anything about that. No one had said anything about a bunch of uniforms being stolen, and damn him, such a theft would have been made note of for exactly this reason. M-maybe these people had made these uniforms themselves, made fake uniforms so that they wouldn't bring themselves to the attention of the real White Fang as imposters?

Made them well enough to fool an actual member like you? whispered a nasty little voice in the back of her head, a voice that sounded uncomfortably like Blake and her mother. Made the masks, too?

"All right, grab the tow cables!" one of the men commanded, and Ilia felt her insides squirming. She felt like maybe she knew that voice, that maybe at one of the inter-branch gatherings she'd heard someone sound like that through the crowd, another recruit like her. She felt like maybe she recognized that guy over there by the shipping crates, that he'd been with Adam a few times as an escort when they met. But that was impossible, because there was no reason for the White Fang to do this, and they weren't bad people!

"This isn't looking good…" Sun hummed through his teeth, swinging his Scroll around a few times to capture the men busy at work. Ilia knew that. This was Schnee property, which didn't make it a problem to steal, but the quantity itself was…worrying. As Sun had said, as Blake had argued, if the Vale branch was seizing and hording this much Dust, what were they planning to use it for? Dust by its very nature was a propellant or an explosive, both of which had a vast array of military uses. But if they were- if they were targeting anyone reasonable, trying to blow up Atlas officials coming to the Vytal Festival, even one store's worth would have been more than enough. They didn't need to keep hitting store after store after store, and not an entire Dust shipment on top of that, unless they were planning something even bigger than that.

And if they were, why hadn't those plans been announced to anyone in Menagerie's branch?

The squirming pit of her stomach turned cold. She had an awful, horrible feeling that Blake might've been right.

"Hey! What's the holdup?!"

Ilia stiffened as she heard another voice, one that she knew, but wasn't familiar with. She'd heard this voice before…on the news.

A tall human man wearing a bowler hat and a white coat strutted his way down the landing ramp, gesturing with a long gentleman's cane. His orange hair was styled and swept to one side of his face, and his voice was belligerent.

"We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment, so, why don't you animals try to pick up the pace?" he asked with a sarcastic half-bow and twirl of his hand, and Ilia gritted her teeth. She'd thought for one elated moment, when she'd heard the sound of a Vale criminal, that maybe Blake had been wrong, that maybe she was right and this whole thing was just another attempt to get the Faunus in trouble –but he'd called them animals, which meant that even if their features weren't on display, those men down there were her brothers and sisters.

"Uh, isn't that guy a human…?" Sun asked, holding his Scroll horizontally with both hands as he recorded the scene below in widescreen definition. "Why's the White Fang working with this asshole?"

"I don't know, but we're about to find out." Ilia said in a venomous whisper, standing up and reaching for Lightning Lash.

"Hey, wait wait wait wait-" Sun let go of his Scroll to snatch at her with one desperate hand as Ilia crouched and then leaped forward silently off the roof. "Ugh, and there she goes."

He groaned and let his free hand flop to his side.

"Man, and I thought I was the one who jumped headfirst into trouble."

Flipping his Scroll around, Sun canceled the recording and shuffled back from the edge of the roof, going around to the other side of the maintenance box as he dialed a number he had only recently gotten, pressing the phone to his ear as it connected with a faint beep.

"Hey, Blake?" he whispered. "We're at the docks right now, me and Ilia, and we've kinda run into some problems of the way-too-many-bad-guys variety. I don't suppose you could be totally awesome and bring us some backup?"

---

Hidden behind a dumpster in an ally a measly three or four blocks away from the docks, Scroll to her ear, Blake looked at the rest of her team and nodded significantly. All four of them were armed to the teeth, with combat clothing, the upgrades they had gotten in Atlas, and their weapons fully stocked up on Dust. Yang grinned and cracked her knuckles as Blake met her eyes, and Weiss huffed and straightened her shoulders, her gaze full of icy determination.

Ruby, holding up a Scroll of her own, pressed the fourth speed dial.

"Hey, Jaune?" she said when it connected a few seconds later. "We're going in."

---

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