February 5th, 2000…

The atmosphere around the school was thick, with local news announcements about the brutal murder of Annabelle Taurus mere hours before making the rounds, no one knew what to expect.

But it was clear, Adam Taurus was back in the picture, and he was out for blood. No one would say the words out loud. But everyone knew the danger everyone was in.

These fears even bled into Jaune's circle of friends, normally everyone sat almost evenly around the table, today however there seemed to be an almost subconscious desire to guard Blake in particular. Jaune and ren flanked Blake and most of the group at least sat close to her.

Blake looked around with a sense of relief, having her friends around put her at ease, it would still be days before her parents got home and it was little comfort to have an officer camping outside of her home when she was there.

Blake was watching Jaune and Penny talk with Ren acting as an in-between, Penny, unlike the others that started to learn sign within a few months of hard work and tutoring, was not really understanding sign well at all. Blake wondered how well Jaune and Penny would work as a couple in the long term with such an obvious handicap between the two of them.

Jaune signed to Penny [You're out of your mind, I don't think it's legal to have a badger as a pet.]

Penny signed and said, "I don't mean like a honey badger or anything like that, I just mean something like A regular old badger, a small one."

[Why can't you just want a normal pet like a cat or a goldfish? Not something like a badger.] Jaune signed back.

Penny smiled and said, "Because normal pets are boring!" Penny said nonchalantly. "Besides you said your allergic to dogs and your stepdad's cat keeps you up all night"

[That may be true, but at least I don't have to worry the cat ripping my throat out in my sleep] Jaune replied.

Blake sighed deciding that she had more important things on her mind at the moment and turned to Ruby who was sitting quietly watching the conversation as well. Blake couldn't help but notice that Ruby was doing more than a little bit of staring at Jaune as her increasingly flabbergasted ex-boyfriend carried on with Penny.

"Are you sure you really want to do this? I should be fine with that officer outside my housekeeping watch," Blake said to Ruby.

Ruby smiled and Signed [We all agreed to take shifts sleeping at your place till your parents get back from their trip.]

"But if Adam tries something during that time?" Blake asked.

[My dad said the deputy outside your place is more than able to handle it, besides between Jaune and me? We can handle it.] Ruby signed before making a mock flex at Blake.

"Yeah I know you and Jaune could handle most anything, I'm just not sure anyone could handle Adam right now… I mean… I met his mother, she was a pretty decent lady, she didn't deserve to die." Blake mused.

Ruby's face turned to a look of shock for a brief moment as she looked at the table while signing [Yeah, that really made it hard for me to convince my dad it was okay for me to stay with you this weekend, Jaune apparently had a hell of a time as well.]

"I know everyone would have opted to spend the weekend with me if they could, I know Weiss wants to be there desperately, but Winter is being paranoid about it right now," Blake said to Ruby.

Blake felt a tap on her shoulder as she looked over and saw Weiss smiling "Don't worry' we'll all be there in spirit if nothing else."

Blake smiled at Weiss as she spoke "I know you'd be there as well if you could. Winter is right that it might not be super safe to be around me right now though."

"So what? It's not like anyone is safe right now as long as that psychopath is around." Blake said.

Ruby found herself latching onto something and asked [What was his mother like?]

Blake was surprised by the question and stammered out an answer "I honestly didn't know his mother that well, I knew his dad was pretty abusive till the day he died in an accident. I also know that Adam never really got along with his mother… I don't know why. I could never prove it but I think his dad must have done some fucked up things to him."

Blake paused for a second to find her words before she kept going "The thing is, Adam, Idolized his father, he figured that his mother was weak for never being able to properly stand up for herself." Blake paused "I guess the rumors about his dad's death didn't help at all."

Ruby signed out [What kind of Rumors?]

Blake sighed and leaned forward as she talked "Adam's dad… Well, he was not a good person. It was obvious he was abusing his wife, the one time I saw her before his death she had a badly concealed black eye. Are you following me here?"

Ruby nodded as she signed [I guess that would be enough to screw up any kid.]

"Well, the thing is, Adam's property had this unfilled in dried-up well that had been there for years, we all knew about it, and I know his dad knew to avoid it even blackout drunk. But they said that he just, what, fell in?" Blake added. "I never believed that, and I don't think Adam did either."

[I don't get it though, I mean if Adam's dad was abusive, wouldn't be happy that he's gone?] Ruby signed out as she had a look of confusion on her face.

"Adam, caught a lot of drunken abuse from his dad, and he saw a lot of abuse being done to his mother, but his father was great as gaslighting people, almost as good as Adam would later prove to be at gaslighting all of us in his circle," Blake said. "I… I think he also did things to Adam as well. But by that point, it had been so normalized to him what his dad was doing that he might have been told it was his father showing 'Love' to him."

Jaune who was still paying attention to the conversation up to this point just signed out [Jesus…]

"I'm not trying to excuse anything that he's done… but I can see what turned him into what he is you know? I guess all of us fell victim to him in a way, he made himself seem so unbroken, and unbending, that his past didn't damage him…" Blake mused sadly.

Blake rubbed her hands together "By the time that we started to see how wrong we were, how damaged Adam really is, we had all done things… None of us felt like we had an out. Scarlet, Sun and Sage, Well they all ended up like that Nine Inch Nails song, 'Happiness in slavery?'"

[Until you met us, and we got you out of it.] Jaune signed [None of us ever understood what we got you out from, not really]

Blake put on a forced smile as she took Weiss's hand and said. "Until Weiss and I became a thing, I didn't feel like there wasn't a single part of me that wasn't tainted or ruined by Adam."

Weiss smiled "You don't seem tainted to me."

Blakes forced smile turned genuine for a moment before she shook it off. "Either way I need to go get ready for class. I'll talk to you all later."

Jaune signed out [I'll be at your place around seven, Penny and I wanted to get some time together today before I head over]

"Alright Jaune, we'll see you there, Ruby will walk me home… Are your parents okay with this?" Blake asked.

Jaune smirked [Well I don't think we have too much to worry about either way.]

As Blake stood up she said, "Yeah I hope you're right…"

With that, the group split up and went on their way.


Jaune had been in Penny's place before, hell he'd had even seen the inside of her room before now, he just wasn't used to her father being home as well.

Her father Pietro, hobbled around on a cane that he insisted on using around the house as he walked on his prosthetic leg. The dark-skinned man was clearly not Penny's biological father but Jaune was told he had adopted her when she was a toddler after her birth parents gave her up.

As the pair longed around Pietro's dining room table chatting over drinks, a glass of whiskey for Pietro and a diet coke for Jaune, they had a chance to finally talk.

"So you're going to go help out with Miss Belladonna after all this are you?" Pietro asked the young arc boy.

'That's my plan yeah, None of us want her alone this weekend until Adam is caught or until her parents are back in a few days.' Jaune wrote out for Pietro's sake.

"Your a good one Jaune, I do like you more than the first guy my daughter was sweet on," Pietro said.

"Dad!" Penny shouted from the kitchen where she was prepping snacks.

'I don't think she ever mentioned anyone else she was sweet on in the past.' Jaune said with a mischievous grin on his face.

"You might have met the boy once or twice, She had a thing for that boy next door named Sun Wukong, the Chinese kid that dyes his hair blonde," Pietro said with a light chuckle.

Jaune shook off his shock quickly as he wrote out with a shaky hand 'I think I might have met him once or twice.'

"Dad! He doesn't need to hear this." Penny said in protest poking her head out of the kitchen.

Jaune just gestured for Penny's adoptive father to continue.

"The truth is I never had much of a problem with the young man per se, till he started to fall in with the wrong sort of people," Pietro said as before taking a sip of his drink.

'You mean Adam?' Jaune wrote out.

"Yeah, good kid once, but he fell in with that Adam kid's group and I could see the influence that Adam had on him, that group started to raise all kinds of hell for our town," Pietro said before he kept going. "They almost started to worship the ground Adam walked on, the five of them? Damn near became little more than gang-bangers and punks."

Jaune got a look of confusion as he held up five fingers.

"Yeah, you had Sun Wukong and Adam Taurus of course, but then you had a young guy named Neptune, who was a childhood friend of Sun's as well as Sage and Scarlett who joined later." Pietro

'I know Neptune, he's dating my ex-girlfriend's sister, I didn't realize he once ran with that group' Jaune wrote out.

"Well that kid proved to be a real piece of work, he tried bedding my daughter a couple times, my daughter's a bit on the naive side and well I had a serious talk with him about his behavior towards my girl," Pietro said.

Jaune's eyes shot wide as he wrote 'That doesn't sound like the Neptune I know now.'

Penny finally decided to interject. "Dad's not trying to slander Neptune or anything, he has changed for the better and we both agreed that it was in the past."

'Jesus Penny, that's a hell of a secret to keep from us though' Jaune wrote out.

"What good would it have done to point out to Yang that his boyfriend was kind of an asshole and tried to sleep with me when I was in… 7th grade?" Penny asked, "I'm mean he's only a year older than me so it wasn't creepy, he also never tried to force himself on me or anything. He was just acting like a typical wannabe playboy"

Jaune didn't seem convinced. 'I guess either way that doesn't sound a whole lot like the Neptune I know now at least.' Jaune paused and added 'I guess he does come off as a bit of a manslut for Yang though'

Penny laughed out loud at Jaune's note, 'Yeah he honestly kinda does I guess, don't give him a hard time though, my dad is overprotective of me of course, but I don't think Neptune is one of the bad guys."


A while later as he walked from Penny's to Blake's place Jaune had time to think, the sun was slowly setting over the horizon and he suspected it wouldn't have been a great idea to be out too much later given what was going on in the town.

"I like Pietro, he's a good guy, taking care of Penny alone the way he does, I never thought to ask what happened to his leg but I guess it's none of my business."

"But that being said, I'm not sure I can trust Neptune now that I know he was once part of Adam's cult."

"Still Yang could deal with him if he becomes a problem, I just hope that feeling in my gut is wrong and that maybe nothing will happen."

As Jaune walked watching the setting sun, he grimaced.

"There's no way we can be that lucky."


Although things are moving along at a bit of a slower pace as of right now, things are slowly starting to kick off, it really is getting to the point where I'm even starting to wonder if I need to give them a break.

Well we can't always aim for 100% realism, and even in the real world situation like Adam's and Blakes happen all the time. Like Blake said in story, going through Adam's backstory in bits and pieces the way we are before we kick this off, will explain why he's the way he is, but i'm i now way excusing why he is the way he is. On paper he's meant to be a bit of a foil to Jaune in a way, his direct opposite. Both have lost parents, both suffer from mental illness, the difference is the environment in which they were raised.

Adam was raised by a monster, it's not surprising he became one as well.

I didn't feel like I had anything in the reviews that required a direct response to so i'm going to leave it at that, I'm going to get cracking some more on my second novel for now, so i'll talk to you all later! As always, thanks again for reading!