Chapter Four:

About an hour or so later, the two Revenants, Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training and the only actual Huntress were in the Bullhead aerial transports on their way back to Beacon. The Revenants had been offered a room at Beacon to crash in overnight by Ozpin over a video call.

Much to Jackie annoyance and discomfort, she and Io had to take separate Bullheads. Jackie was sharing with Team RWBY and Professor Goodwitch while Io shared with Team JNPR. A few minutes into the flight, the half-blind girl felt thirsty, indicated by her left eye flashing crimson. Which prompted her to reach for a pouch attached to her shorts and grab something that could clench her thirst.

A Blood Bead, a small vial-like object in the shape of a roughly apple-sized bead (hence the name) that could be collected from Bloodsprings. Very few knew about the exact nature behind the Blood Beads, but something that was common knowledge within the Gaol of the Mist was that the crimson liquid within the Beads could satisfy a Revenant's thirst and help them maintain their sanity.

The Blood Bead earned the half-blind girl curious looks from the other passengers on the Bullhead as she grabbed her purifier mask with bandaged right hand and removed the mask. Revealing the rest of her pale face and scar. Poking a hole into the soft white material with one of her unusually long and sharp canines, Jackie started drinking the blood within the bead, causing her left eye to temporarily glow crimson, before fading as she finished draining the bead dry. Realizing the looks she was getting, Jackie raised her left eyebrow while keeping her right eye closed.

"What?"

"What the heck is that?" Asked Weiss while pointing at the bead-shaped vial-like object in the hand of the girl who had a very strong resemblance to herself.

"Wouldn't you like to know, princess?"

"It's heiress actually." Stated Blake Belladonna as the half-blind girl put her mask back on, earning a halfhearted groan from her white haired teammate.

"Whatever. If you must know, princess, it's called a Blood Bead. Not that the knowledge will do ya any good." Judging from what could be seen of Jackie's face, she was smirking underneath her mask.

ALoCB

When the two Bullheads landed near Beacon and the passengers had exited the transports Jackie noticed that Io had a rather uncharacteristically annoyed expression on her face, based on what could be seen of it. And the Attendant was one of the kindest and most patient people Jackie ever met, meaning that something had to be very annoying to even her this annoyed.

"Io!" Exclaimed Jackie rather loudly as she ran up to her Attendant, earning the attention of pretty much everyone nearby. "What's gotten your panties in a twist?"

"Jackie, you know full well that neither one-"

"Figure of speech Io."

"Oh. To answer your question then, Nora."

"Who?"

"The ginger with the hammer."

"Ah, her. What about her?"

"She talks. A lot."

Ignoring the two masked girls' conversation, some of the Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training took note of the masked girls' posture and interactions. While their posture was quite relaxed, most notably by Io having her massive halberd hefted in a relaxed manner on her shoulder, they still had a slight wariness (or possibly paranoia) about them.

Unbeknownst to the others, for some reason a headache, Weiss was having a rather painful headache. There was something about the cap-wearing girl that felt familiar. It felt like she had seen the girl somewhere before, maybe even known her. Wincing due to the headache, Weiss sent the cap-wearing girl and her companion a quick glance, just in time to see Nora accidentally knock Jackie's cap off the masked girl's head, which earned the hyperactive girl a surprisingly strong punch to the stomach, even more surprisingly sending the hammer-wielder flying. Admittedly not very far but the fact that the masked girl managed to get NORA briefly airborne with a punch was still impressive.

"DON'T TOUCH MY CAP! THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS TO TOUCH IT BESIDES ME IS IO!" Shouted Jackie furiously as Io absentmindedly picked up her charge's cap from the ground and checked it over for any potential dirt, but fortunately not finding any. Once Jackie calmed down from her outburst, Io calmly put the cap back on Jackie's head, albeit not in the same angle as the owner of the item preferred to wear it. "Thanks Io."

"No problem. You've always been rather overprotective of your cap." Stated Io rather fondly with, judging by what could be seen of her face, a fond smile as Jackie corrected her cap's angle. "Didn't you practically go berserk once when a Lost knocked it off your head?"

"Yeah. I think it was at some point during Operation Queenslayer."

"How can you be sure?"

"It was quite chaotic within that Vestige. The chaos of a battlefield. Almost makes me wish that the crew didn't find that particular Vestige."

"Okay. Have they managed to find any Vestiges containing any of your earlier memories while I was… asleep?"

"Besides the one that we found in the Cathedral and the one I went more or less berserk over my cap? Sadly no."