The horde of Grimm was quickly barreling down in the direction of the trio of adventurers as they stood at the mouth of the cave network they had been called upon to clear out of the foul monsters.

They were told to expect a moderated sized nest in need of destruction, they had no idea how grossly the group that hired them underestimated the Grimm's numbers.

Jaune held out his two-handed sword in front of him at the cave entrance as Penny held back behind him with her short bow and Ren was preparing a spell to try and collapse the cave. The walls of the cave were damp, a west musty cave with bioluminescent moss that grew on the walls giving the entire cavern a faint enough glow to see without a torch.

"If we don't hold them here they'll flood out into the countryside and kill hundreds before they are stopped!" Jaune shouted to his companions.

"I'm down to maybe two spells tops, and Penny's Animal summons are all hurt!" Ren shouted.

"How are we going to stop them!?" Penny screamed out. "We can't stop them all!"

Jaune sighed out, he knew the answer. "Both of you, fall back to the cave mouth and get ready to collapse the entrance once I'm out."

"Are you sure you can buy us time?" Ren asked.

"Just be ready!" Jaune said as he saw red eyes in the distance.

Penny fired an arrow down into the darkness to hopefully wound one of them as she fell back with Jaune leaving him alone in the dark, once he knew they were safe he reached into his satchel and pulled out a mining satchel he picked up while they were trying to clear out the cave.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Ren asked Jaune from the other side of the table.

In the real world, the group sat around the dining room table at Penny's house, her mother and father had invited them over to play because Jaune and Penny had become a semi sort of item. Penny sat in the middle occasionally leaning in to rest her head on Jaune while ren sat to Penny's left and Jaune on the far right. Nora was on the other side of the large oak table hiding behind a homemade GM screen she made out of a cardboard shoebox she glued a few charts to.

[I'm going to seal the cave] Jaune signed out.

"That's Ren's job! He was going to cast a spell to collapse the entrance." Penny said after Nora translated for her.

[Yeah that's going to take about six rounds though, I can hold them off for maybe two rounds in my condition.] Jaune said

Nora leaned forward and said, "Jaune you know you won't survive if you do that right?"

[Well maybe I'll roll up a Ninja next time, those sound kinda fun] Jaune signed out [Besides Penny is betrothed to the prince and Ren has a Family to support. My backstory is literally wanting revenge against the Grimm.]

"What's your point?" Ren said.

[Collapsing and trapping an entire Grimm nest would be a pretty good form of revenge and great send off right?]

"Well you got a good point, alright go ahead do roll out your demolitions check, it's -2 dice due to it being a rush job," Nora said.

[I don't have the skill but okay] Jaune signed with one hand as he rolled his dice. Re-Rolling a few more dice as they came up as "tens".

After doing some math he signed out [Got a 22, that should be more than enough]

"Yes that is, you managed to collapse the cave" Nora rolled some dice herself "Ah. well, I'm sorry to say you're trapped on the wrong side of it though, we can play this out but your now alone in the dark with a massive Horde of Grimm."

[Nah I'm good with assuming I went out in a blaze of glory anyways] Jaune said as he turned to look at Penny who was looking upset.

Ren asked, "Hey are you okay?"

Penny sighed "I kinda wished we could have survived that without losing Jaune"

[It's just a game, but sometimes we can't win without a sacrifice right?] Jaune signed to Penny while Nora translated.

Penny looked at Jaune and said, "I know it's a game, but I think I'd be really upset if you ever did something like that in real life."

Jaune pulled on his shirt collar and showed off the scar on his right shoulder.

"Wait, how on earth did that happen!" Penny shouted.

"You didn't know?" Nora said "Lordy you are the worst girlfriend"

"I'm not officially his girlfriend, I just kiss him sometimes," Penny said.

"That's something girlfriends do Penny," Nora said raising an eyebrow.

"Stop distracting me, why does my kissing friend have a scar?" Penny said seconds before Jaune kissed her on the top of her head.

Jaune signed out [I got that from a shoulder operation, from, hell it's been a full year ago now.] Jaune paused and thought of his words for a second [Long story short is that the bitch that ran over Weiss and crippled her almost ran over Ruby and I one fateful evening. I ended up pushing her out of the way and I got hit instead.]

After Nora interpreted for Penny she turned pale and looked at Jaune "Th-that could have killed you ri-right?"

[I had a hell of a concussion and it fucked my shoulder up for months until the operation but I guess I got lucky.] Jaune signed.

Penny stammered out "That's horrible!"

"Penny if he didn't do something Ruby would like been seriously hurt like Weiss had been, she might have even been killed," Nora said.

"Besides if Ruby was gone we might not have Jaune here either" Ren added.

Penny thought about it for a second before she quiet and meek as she said "Because of Jaune almost did"

Jaune reached over and started to rub Penny's back causing her to lightly sigh out.

"Yeah well we're happy we have both of them still around, so sometimes sacrifices are really necessary," Nora said.

Penny wrapped her arms around Jaune "Just be careful okay?"

Jaune smiled and nodded [Relax, things have been calm and were mostly passed all that drama from last year,.]

Ren translated for Penny who smiled and rested her head against Jaunes shoulder "Okay I'll relax"

"Well this is a good stopping point, for now, Jaune needs to make a new character, shall we pick up next week?" Nora asked.

Jaune nodded as Ren spoke up "Yeah let's walk down to the diner and get something to eat, I'm getting hungry."

As the group exited Jaune repress the urge to panic when he saw Sun Wukong was walking towards the group, no one in the group knew about Sun's involvement in the attack on him almost three months back as he still had no way to prove it was them.

Sun seemed to hesitate for a second when he noticed Jaune was part of the group leaving penny's, whatever was going through his head he shook it off when he walked over to the group with a book under his arm. "Hey Penny, do you have a second?"

"Hey Sun, what's up?" Penny said with a smile.

Ren and Nora politely waived as Jaune just nodded to Sun trying to hide his displeasure. "I don't think we met," Ren said holding out his hand out to shake Sun's.

Sun hesitated to glance slightly at Jaune. "Ah, sorry I'm Sun, I live next door to Penny here."

Ren pointed around and gave names "That's my girlfriend, Nora, that's my best friend Jaune, and I'm Ren."

Sun relaxed a bit before he said: "Well good to meet all of you."

Jaune politely nodded.

Sun reached out to hand Penny something "So I finished that book you loaned me, I just wanted to pop over and give it back to you."

"Do you think it'll help you out with that assignment of yours?" Penny asked.

"I'm hoping so, I mean I'm am learning a lot about meerkats from it so we'll see," Sun said rubbing his neck. "I got to bounce, say hi to your parents for me!"

As Sun walked away Jaune struggled to hide a grimace, all he could think about was how he and two of his friends kicked the shit out of him a couple months back.

"This is going to complicate things a bit" Jaune mused to himself…

Elsewhere Tai Long was clipping his vest on as he was getting ready for his second shift patrol, he was assigned to tackle the area around his home turf tonight and was looking forward to an easy evening. Home was a small town that almost nothing happened in, no drunk calls, Almost no vandalism calls.

The worst call he had to take working this beat, ironically involved his daughter's ex-boyfriend Jaune after his brutal beating a couple months back.

As he slammed his locker shut and started to button up his uniform shirt he heard someone call his name out from behind him. "Hey boss, we headed out on patrol?"

Tai looked over to see a fellow sheriff's deputy named Clover striding up to him fully dressed for the shift. "The Sergeant says I'm riding with you today."

"The sergeant can kiss my ass," Tai said teasing the younger officer.

"Well make sure you get around his fart box then because he told me you'd say that," Clover said with a laugh. "Let's get going 'Partner'"

"You know nothing happens on this beat right? The worst I'm going to hear about is some teenagers raising hell?" Tai said as he started heading for his patrol car.

"I like an easy shift as much as the next guy" Clover said following suit.

"Man after my own heart, I don't think we ever talked before though, you signed on about, what, six months back?" Tai said as they crossed through the front door out to the lot where squad cars were kept. "They trying to get you, rookies, out more?"

"Well someone's gotta take over for your geriatric ass once you retire," Clover said

"I am not that old, I'm only 43." Tai protested with a chuckle

"And I'm 23 so as far as I'm concerned you might as well be telling me stories about how you rode a dinosaur to school," Clover said with a laugh.

"Please, I walked to school, fifteen miles, uphill, both directions, in snow." Tai retorted.

"Let me guess, all year round?" Clover said as he reached the passenger side of the car.

"Well, you know how the ice ages were," Tai retorted as he unlocked the doors to let him and clover in.

As the pair sat down and buckled up, Tai turned on the car and was immediately greeted by a radio call. "All point advised, we have an APB out for two escaped convicts from McNeil Island Penitentiary, I repeat we have an APB out for two escaped convicts from McNeil Island Penitentiary."

"That's weird, that's the wrong side of the state from us." Clover chimed in.

"Dispatch this is Deputy Tai, Car 253, what's the odds of that 10-98 impacting our county over?" Tai said into his headset.

"Details and ID's of the inmates is forthcoming, we have reason to believe one of them might make their way to our neck of the woods officer." the hard clipped voice of the female dispatcher radioed back.

"Why in the hell are they even bringing it up then, it's not like we'd know who they were if we saw them." clover asked.

Tai thought about it for a moment. "Well it's a statewide APB so it could be so we'd keep an eye out for any faces we don't know for now."

"That's not how that's supposed to work," Clover added.

Tai nodded as he picked up the radio again and spoke: "Harriet Are we sure we don't know why these two escapees are?"

The voice of Harriet called out from the other side "Tai I can't say much, we know these two inmates disappeared from a work detail a couple days ago, we think they had help from an outside source."

Clover took the handset "You can't say too much because… why?"

"We're going to have a formal announcement within the hour," Harriet said.

"This whole thing stinks," Tai said. "I'd better call my wife and let her know it might be a long night."

"Yeah go ahead I'll listen to the radio for you," Clover said as he watched Tai get on his phone.

Elsewhere in town Yang and Neptune were relaxing on Neptune's couch watching a movie not what the pair would have wanted but the couple decided that since Neptunes family was around they could get away that easily.

Neither was paying much attention to the Tv until the move was interrupted by a breaking news alert.

"What's going on?" Yang asked Neptune

Neptune shook his head and said "I.. I don't know…"

They watched as the spokesperson for the county's sheriff's office came on TV, he stood behind the podium in the spartan looking room and spoke...

Blake sat with Weiss inside of the living room of the Belladonna residence, It was still too early for them to put down new crops due to the cold weather, and hired hands were maintaining the animals and caring for them while they were on a lengthy Caribbean cruise. Weiss and Blake had been relaxing on the hand-carved wooden loveseat her father had made, much like most of the furniture in their home.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Blake said with a hint of fear in her voice.

The voice on the TV said "Three days ago we learned of two inmates that had escaped from an offsite work detail from McNeil island penitentiary. We have learned the names of the two escaped convicts."

Weiss reached over and took Blake's hand as the voice kept going. "We can now confirm the two inmates in question as Mercury Black, a low ranking gang member from the western half of the state, and Adam Taurus. Adam, in particular, is a concern to us as we suspect he might return to our local area, we will announce more as we learn more."

Blake shook like a leaf in her seat "N-no… this can't be…"

Weiss put a hand on her shoulder "We got your back, he won't get anywhere near you."

Blake wrapped her arms around herself and leaned into Weiss. "I don't think we can stop him if he tried…"

"You were alone last time, that will never be alone as long as we're all alive and kicking," Weiss said with a smile.

"That's what I'm afraid of, that he'll hurt you all to break me," Blake said as tears started to fall from her face.

Weiss just pulled her into a tight hug and let blake sob into her shoulder.

Elsewhere Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Penny heard about the news at the diner. Jaune clinched his fits in anger knowing the kind of bastard they were dealing with. "If that bastard comes within a mile of her, I'll end that son of a bitch."

As he sat there he felt a hand take his and squeeze it as he glances over

Tai and Clover meanwhile had parked their patrol car and had heard the formal announcement over the police scanner. Tai remembered back to when he had helped arrest the deeply disturbed youth, he remembered the sheer lack of remorse over what he did to Blake Belladonna. "Alright kid, it looks like our quiet shift won't be so quiet after all," Tai said as he turned on the car and got them back to work.

Yang was glued to the TV and Neptune had stepped into the next room, he didn't want to believe that the bastard was going to be back so soon, Neptune hoped he'd have a couple more years to graduate and leave this shitty town for college before he'd be released. When he heard the phone ring he answered it immediately. The voice of Scarlet was on the line.

"Maybe it's about time for you to reconsider where you stand Neptune…" He heard the voice of Scarlet say into the phone.

Neptune just hung the phone up and leaned against the wall with a feeling of disgust in his stomach.

Elsewhere, Sun's saw the news report and was in shock, he almost didn't catch it when the phone started to ring, he already knew who was calling as he reached out with a shaky hand...


With all the players in place the nightmare can begin. This was a storyline that I had planed almost from the very beginning of the story. I knew even back then the amount of work it would to even bring the characters up to the point where I needed them to be so I did small shifts and adjustments as I went. I won't say it's going to play out exactly how I originally envisioned it, I got to keep flexible, but we'll see.

It's going to be "fun" Really, I mean that... So much "Fun". Then again if you read this for 60 chapters to reach this point you know now that I tend to put characters through the ringer.

So that said, I did want to talk about the reviews. I got a bit of criticism from the last chapter and I always like to directly address these sort of things in these author notes because honestly, I personally feel like anyone that takes the time to drop a comment is worth my time to respond to ya know? I know on a given chapter, hundreds of people take the time out of their day to read something I write and I want to make sure if someone wants to point out a glaring issue I either take steps to correct it, or at least address it.

First off Dragonlord, Not sure what you meant by that one, but it's always good to see you. Hope your doing well.

LadWatcher: I get where your coming from here. but I don't know if like the idea of seeing Penny as a "Reward" or a "Prize" for Jaune per say, I don't like to treat relationships in anything I write like a prize, because that's not relationships work in real life. Penny is driving a storyline here, she created a new narrative path just like how Sun and the gang came in late in the last storyline to create a new antagonistic arc that's helping to creating the first external threat to the group.

So far the story had been a lot of "Man versus self" style story telling where the cast had been battling their own faults with the help of their friends. But the reward for making it through the challenges thrown at them was always a certain level of them growing stronger as characters. Jaune at the start of the story was a depressed mess of self doubts and suicidal self loathing. Now sixty chapters later, he's on medication for both major mental issues he's fighting and surrounded by friends. I'd say honestly that even though Ruby and Jaune didn't end up together at the end of the last arc, they are still friends.

Besides I have plans to drag this Fic out to at least chapter 100, we got time for things to change. Also, Bruh, if I was going to get bored of a story, I'd wrap the story up and put a bow on it. I wouldn't end it like that.

Other than that though, I don't have much else to say about the chapter, it was a pure setup chapter and I'm not going to apologize for it, I'm still chipping away at my second novel on the side and I'm updating my novel writing site (link in my profile) with how that's going from time to time. But it's going to be a while before my second novel is finished. Either way, as always thanks again for taking the time to read, and i'll catch you all next time.