"So where should we start looking first?" Ruby asked me as we departed from the terminal ferrying people between Vale City and Beacon Academy. "It's been an hour since Blake left. She could be anywhere in the city by now."

The city in question held enough of my attention that I failed to immediately answer. There were people, civilians, everywhere. Never had I seen so many people doing so many different things in one place. The Tenno Relays in the Origin System were the only places I got to watch a large congregation of civilians, but they were incomparable to the crowds of Vale.

"Uh, Tenno? You still with me? Hello?" Ruby waved her hand in front of my face, and I blinked, shook my head, then quickly swatted her offending limb away.

"Do not do that again!" I snapped at her, "Startling me like that will get you killed, understand!?"

Ruby recoiled back, looking like a kicked Kubrow puppy, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I understand now! Don't sneak up on you, got it!"

The extra confirmations and apologies were completely unnecessary, but I didn't say anything more. I had to conserve as much strength as possible on the off chance we got into a fight searching for Blake. We reached street level without incident.

"BLAKE!"

Well, almost without incident.

My hand shot up to cover Ruby's mouth as I darted in front of her, "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" I harshly whispered as someone walked by, looking at us suspiciously, "Blake does not want to be found! Yelling her name in the streets will alert her to our presence, then we will never find her, understand?"

Ruby nodded.

I remove my hand from her mouth and continued walking down the street, glancing down alleyways and into buildings as I moved forward. Ruby caught up to my gait, staying silent as we began our search.

Beyond searching for Ruby's teammate, this provided an ample opportunity to learn the layout of the city as well as points of interest worth researching later. One such location was the Vale War History museum. Battlefield tactics from any civilization no matter how old will always have some value to them, so I made a mental note to visit them eventually.

After about an hour of walking through the busy streets of Vale, my legs were feeling rather numb. I spotted a café overlooking an intersection and motioned for Ruby to follow me into the building. There were a few patrons talking to one another, but none of them were Blake. We took a seat at one of the corner tables close to the door, just in case we needed an accessible escape.

Ruby sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, keeping her eyes on the floor, "So, um, I haven't had lunch yet. Do you think we have time to eat before looking for Blake again?"

"I have no problem with it," I replied, rubbing my legs to get blood flowing again, "We'll need to be as alert as possible if we're going to find her."

"Well, yeah. Where would she be, though? We can't search the whole city. That would take weeks!"

She had a point. Chances were, Blake was looking for a way out of Vale, and there were a few different ways to accomplish that goal. Boarding a flight was one, but the risk of being caught for any reason was too great to consider. Another way would be to leave to city on foot, but that was too slow, easily trackable, and risked contact with the Grimm. There had to be some way for her to leave Vale quickly without risk of being discovered.

I caught myself staring at the rolled up utensils on my side of the table and shook awareness back into my senses. Ruby was already eating some kind of pink cake with white cream on the top. It smelled sweet and fruity.

"Ruby, how many different ways could someone leave the city?" I asked.

"Mmm?" She hummed, then thankfully swallowed, "There's the long-range bullheads to get to another Kingdom, the Atlesian Navy for the military, a boat to get to islands like Patch, walking out any of the gates along the bordering wall, and working for the Schnee Dust Company's delivery service on one of their transports. Why do you ask?"

"There's an incoming shipment tonight I have to watch, and I better not see you or your team there."

I smirked as I put the pieces of a plan together.

"She's planning to become a stowaway."

Ruby and I were set up inside of a recently abandoned warehouse office overlooking the only port with some semblance of activity. Security guards walked casually along simple patrol routes intermittently, supposedly making sure the shipment goes according to routine. The sun had set an hour prior, and Blake was nowhere to be found.

We did, however, manage to spot someone else.

Ruby gasped, "Hey, look! I think that's Big Tim!"

She had her weapon resting on the window ledge with the magnification scope fully extended with the purpose of scanning the shipping dock for her wayward teammate. With nothing to do for the last three hours, Ruby had become very restless; pacing around the complex, playing games on her Scroll, trying to get me to participate in some kind of spot-the-object challenge, and messaging Yang about Weiss' condition were some of the antics she entertained herself with.

"I'm not interested in playing I Spy," I sighed, having already memorized the layout of the dock. I was meditating to pass the time.

Ruby didn't seem to hear me. "I wonder how big the shipment is since it's taking so long to arrive. Maybe it's late? Oh! I see more guards coming out."

I snapped myself into full awareness and looked out the window. Seeing a pair of moving lights in the sky, I grabbed the underside of Crescent Rose and tilted the barrel upward.

"Is that the shipment? Oh man! We have to get out there-"

"No. Not yet." I cut her off. "When it lands and begins unloading, keep your eyes on the opening. If you see Blake sneaking past the guards and onto the aircraft, that's when we move in."

Ruby made an apprehensive whine, but did not protest. We watched the dock light up as the aircraft made its approach, its engines howling as power was slowly drained. Dirt and ocean spray buffeted the window when it finally touched down on the dock. Workers disembarked the monstrous aircraft to secure it to the ground, and only then did the engines finally shut off.

Except, I could still hear them.

A row of stars began blinking sequentially, as if something was passing over them. The engine noises only became louder.

"A bullhead?" Ruby zeroed her scope on the new aircraft. "Who are these guys? Do they distribute the shipments to the rest of the city?"

"Let me see," I said, moving to take Ruby's position behind the scope.

This bullhead lacked tracking lights, was painted completely black, and had a protrusion mounted on the nose. It circled over the complex we were staying in and slowed to hover between us and the unloading airship.

"There's Blake!" Ruby pointed toward a shipping container, and sure enough, her teammate's silhouette appeared against the moon-lit ocean, weapon drawn.

The whine of an electric motor gaining speed pierced my ears.

"Ruby, we need to move in, now!"

Author's Notes:

It took 10 months, but it's finally done. Here's Chapter 13.

While I'm not sure how to feel about this one, I'm just happy to have finally broken through the shitty Writer's Block. Once I started, continuing felt so much easier.

Happy 37th Birthday, Monty.