Just as I said I would, I got myself a PS4 and DMC5 along with it. And having had some time to do the first half of the missions (up to mission 10 as of this chapter being finished), I have to say I'm fucking loving it! While my skill at the game is truly atrocious due to how long it's been since I've ever touched a console game of any kind, much less a DMC game, relearning my usual style of combat had been easy enough, plus it helps that buying the necessary moves within the game have been quick thanks to how many red orbs one can get from thoroughly playing through each mission on top of how well one does.

Have to say, DMC5 truly was well worth the wait and then some. Nero is much more fun to play than he was in 4; V, while taking me quite some time to fully get used to, is pretty fun to play as well; Dante, of course, goes without saying really – he's just a combo machine once you really get the hang of him.

Bosses so far have been fairly challenging, at least for me, and have some interesting designs. Though the lack of dialogue/immediately given lore for most of them is kind of a let down, but eh, I can roll with it.

Heh, have yet to even get halfway through the game, much less fully complete everything, but it's already giving me some ideas for a DMC fic or two, crossovers of course. Whether or not I'll ever go through with them is up in the air though… but man, it'd be awesome to write a DMC fic again. Maybe one day, I'll go through with it, but no guarantees.

I could keep going on about the game, from its simple but interesting story to the gameplay to the visuals and music and so on, but I'll try to stop myself here, ha ha.

Now then, let's just get right onto the chapter!

Chapter 8

Blake picked out the best spot she could on the docks to watch for when the shipment would come in, but it wasn't easy.

Just as her new 'partner' had said, security had really been ramped up in preparation for the SDC shipment, no doubt paid for personally by Jacques Schnee himself, that pathetic snake of a man. Thanks to all the new security personnel patrolling the entire area, sneaking in and moving around had been rough going, even for her. She was just thankful Sun knew when to be quiet when it mattered and didn't cause any fumbles in their sneaking.

Must be because of his experience stowing away, she guessed.

But now that they've settled in for the day, her fellow Faunus felt it was finally time to speak again, much to her consternation.

"There a reason why we're here-?"

"To watch for the shipment, obviously," she hissed, more than a little miffed. Seriously, he freaking told her about all this in the first place and he couldn't remember that much?

"No, I know that," he said, finally sounding a little defensive in response to her snappishness. "You didn't let me finish: why are we here so early?"

At that, Blake winced just a little, feeling slightly guilty but not offering an apology. She was stubborn like that.

"It's just how things are," she explained quietly, keeping watch for any patrols that may be heading in their general direction.

"Something the White Fang taught you, I guess?"

"Yes," she replied and intending for that to comprise the entirety of her answer, but at Sun's inquisitive look, she grunted silently and decided to continue before he kept on talking. "Once they became known for going after SDC members and equipment, it wasn't uncommon for transportation routes to be suddenly changed up at the last minute or for decoys to be sent out first to try fooling us. Time changes also weren't out of the question either, meaning we'd often have to wait well in advance just in case the transports we targeted passed through earlier than we've learned or later."

Hence why they'd gotten here so early in the morning when the shipment was supposed to arrive in the evening.

Was this a little extreme? Perhaps, even for her. But she felt like too much was at stake to hold off on coming here later on. What if the shipment did arrive early? Or didn't arrive at all? She wouldn't know if she'd taken the risk of showing up later to try confirming, especially since she'd have no way of knowing for sure aside from visual contact. After all, she didn't have any recon aid like she did back then.

In all honesty, she'd been tempted to camp out here last night, but had reluctantly opted against it if only because the steady influx of transfer students from the other academies had occupied the docks most of the time yesterday. So, instead she'd merely found a place to hole up in and rest, though Sun had made that difficult too due to his constant questioning and the like.

"Huh, okay. That makes sense," he commented as he poked his head out of their hiding spot, a cramped little spot in between shipping containers, to look for any patrols. Seeing nothing to worry about, he shifted into a more comfortable position across from her. "But I gotta ask now… you're doing this to try and prove it's not the White Fang behind these Dust thefts, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, what'll you do if it turns out it is them doing it?"

"It's not them!" she hissed out, defensively.

The monkey Faunus had been nothing but patient with her all of yesterday and this morning, but now even he was looking a little worn out from her attitude. "Jeez, calm down. Why are you so defensive about them, anyways?"

Blake didn't answer at first, instead looking at Sun as if he just grew a second head. "A-Aren't you…? Aren't you aware of their history?" She couldn't help but sound incredulous for some reason.

"A little." Sun folded his arms across his chest. "Started out peaceful, but then turned to violence when things didn't really go their way, yeah?"

Blake tried not to bristle at his insensitive words, even if he likely hadn't meant it that way.

But even so, how could she not be angry? She recalled once upon a time her father telling her reluctantly of how the White Fang had shifted to what it is today.

She remembered her father telling her how his group had been attacked when they'd merely been transporting some goods between places. This had been back when protests had been all the White Fang did; they were simply passing through, not causing any trouble… and yet racist humans had attacked them anyway.

And it'd been this that broke the camel's back for most of the Faunus that had been there that day. And when news of the attack upon their high leader, her father at the time, had spread to the rest of the group, they'd been absolutely livid. Combined with all the indignities and discrimination they'd put up with until then, they'd finally had enough.

And so began their shift into the organization the public now knows them as.

Was this a change Blake was proud of? No, not really, not anymore. But she's given her life to the group back then and even though she's left it, she was hard-pressed to truly condemn it.

They were just misunderstood…

Realizing her temper was flaring and that she was on the verge of shouting at Sun, Blake took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Now wasn't the time to be chewing him out.

Even so…

"The White Fang is nowhere near as bad as the media would have people believe," Blake said neutrally, but there was also a hint of desperation there too. "There's lines not even they would cross."

Sun looked at her, bewildered. "But… they've raided SDC facilities and derailed transports," he said. "They've bombed places that don't allow Faunus and even killed some members of the SDC from what I've heard… so is Dust robbery really that big a deal in comparison?"

He said those words with all the simplistic confusion and innocence one might hear from a child.

And it was enough to make Blake freeze.

The logical part of her told her this was all true. Ever since the radicalization of the White Fang, every member, from the frontline ones such as herself and Adam to even the support members, had committed their fair share of crimes for one reason or another, had fought in actual battles for the sake of equality.

And just because they've fought for a righteous cause didn't necessarily excuse what they've done? After all, didn't she leave precisely because Adam and others like him within the group were starting to take things too far?

…No. No!

She shook her head several times.

Even if they were steadily becoming worse, there's no way they would've stooped this low so quickly.

There was just no way… right?

The skeptical look on Sun's face was telling her otherwise.

Quickly, she looked away from him, suddenly unable to find it in her to bear looking into his questioning eyes any longer.

The shipment. She just had to focus on that for now. Once it came in, she'll have her answer.

But what ever shall she do afterwards?

Her heavy heart grew heavier at the thought.

It made waiting for nightfall all the more unbearable. But she persevered nonetheless.

Ruby had woken up bright and early today, not something she normally did on a weekend. Heck, even on a weekday, waking up early to get ready for class was rough, rougher than even fighting Grimm it felt like.

But today, she'd done so without a single compliant. So had the rest of her team, actually.

Why? Simple, to keep looking for Blake, of course.

And they hadn't been the only ones to wake up a little earlier than usual either.

"Thanks again, Jaune," she said to her fellow leader as they walked side by side off the bullhead, other students disembarking along with them.

"You're welcome," he replied simply, the soft tone of his voice making her smile and feel all warm inside.

The feeling only lasted a moment, however, before trepidation set in. "I just hope we can find a clue on where she went soon…"

Yesterday, their search hadn't turned up anything, sadly enough. Even though both her team and Jaune's had spent a few hours doing as thorough a sweep of the market district and the seafood places as they could, they hadn't spotted hide nor hair of the B of team RWBY. Looks like Blake had either suspected they might go searching for her and took appropriate measures or simply ran further than they'd thought she would.

Either way, they'd all gone back to Beacon more than little dejected… except for Jaune, who'd merely said he'll help them out tomorrow, completely undeterred by their failure. And sure enough, that's exactly what he was doing.

However, things hadn't quite gone as well as they'd have liked already.

Yang, in her haste to go looking for Blake, had ended up running a bit too quickly around campus and ended up crashing into professor Goodwitch, a collision that had somehow resulted in some papers the professor had been carrying being torn up beyond recognition.

Yang was now being forced to help the professor as punishment. Weiss had reluctantly stayed behind to help out as well in the hopes they'd finish faster and join the search.

As for Jaune's team, Nora had apparently overeaten during dinner last night in addition to having more than a few late-night snacks for energy and now her stomach was paying the price.

Ren was busy taking care of her while Pyrrha was stuck with cleaning up the, ah, mess Nora had made when she couldn't make her way to the toilet fast enough whilst holding back the bile.

Because of this, it was only the two leaders who were able to head out so early into Vale right now.

Not that Ruby was particularly bothered by this – if anything, it felt oddly nice for it to be just her and Jaune. After all, he'd kinda-sorta been her first friend made at Beacon (Weiss didn't count since she was so crabby those first few days).

That he was so dependable while also being so cool and strong despite only having two simple swords as his weapons was just icing on top of an already good cake.

Huh, that didn't really sound like a good analogy there. Or was it called a metaphor? Ruby never could get those things straight.

Anyways, she was just glad to have someone reliable by her side right now. Though she's had a day to process it all, it was still hard for her to fully come to terms with what had happened.

Blake, one of the few friends she had, was a former member of the White Fang, the same group of bad guys that she usually saw being talked about in the news. It was just too much for her little mind to fully take in.

But like Jaune had said yesterday, she and her team weren't going to get to the bottom of this unless they found Blake and talked with her first.

So, she put on her best game face and prepared herself for what would likely be another long day ahead.

"So what now, Jaune?" As yesterday had proven, he had some level of expertise in tracking. Even though nothing had truly come of it, he'd been the one to come up with some kind of basic plan in the first place. That counts for a lot.

"All we can do for now is just pick up from where we left off yesterday," he replied. "We will have to go deeper into Vale, most likely…. But maybe before doing that…"

A thoughtful expression appeared on his face and Ruby waited patiently as he seemed to mull things over.

While he thought, Ruby ended up doing a quick sweep of the area in with the childish hope that she'd see Blake, however reluctantly, walking right back this way to head back to Beacon.

Obviously, this was a childish hope for a reason – Blake was nowhere in sight.

However, plenty of people were already milling about this early in the day here in downtown Vale, shops opening up and customers quick to be the first ones in there.

Plenty of them were looking hers and Jaune's way.

Well, more Jaune's than hers, really and with reason:

He was armed.

There, by his sides, his blades naturally hung, the obsidian colored sheaths somehow standing out to the public's collective eye despite Jaune's equally dark clothing. Must be because the rest of Vale was rather colorful in comparison, making it stand out.

Well, that, and it was only natural for civilians to be wary around any armed person, regardless of who it was.

Though it wasn't illegal for huntsmen to go around with their weapons out in the open, it was somewhat frowned upon to carry them so openly. Made the public wary about a fight breaking out.

Ruby had her precious baby on her, but it was in its compact form, tucked away behind her back and concealed somewhat by her cloak, so the civilians around her wouldn't have too much reason to be wary of Crescent Rose.

Jaune, however, did nothing to conceal his swords and it seemed to unnerve some people slightly, enough to make Ruby worry if maybe they'd be stopped at some point and told to cover up their weapons better or return to Beacon.

She really didn't like the idea of that happening – every second counted in looking for Blake.

Thankfully, nothing actually happened, at least not yet.

"I just had a thought," Jaune said, snapping Ruby out of her thoughts. "You said she took offense to what Weiss had been saying?"

"Y-Yeah," Ruby responded with a wince, remembering the argument between Weiss and Blake so well. Back then, it'd seemed harmless enough if pretty darn tense… but now, thinking about it made it seem so obvious to her about Blake's former affiliation. "It's what got her so riled up and spilled the beans."

"If she got so defensive about the White Fang," Jaune began. "Then maybe she'd try to clear their name of these Dust robberies?"

Ruby froze at that, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. Jaune immediately reached out with a hand to help steady her. A slight blush of embarrassment formed on her face over this, but her embarrassment wasn't enough to keep her from thinking now.

What Jaune just said made a lot of sense. Like, a lot.

And if that was true, then…

"Blake must be keeping an eye out for any easy to hit Dust shops!" she nearly exclaimed, only to try and make it sound like a loud whisper instead. They were out in public after all.

Jaune nodded. "Or," he started to add. "She may take to watching any Dust shipments that may be coming in anywhere."

Right… right! How had she not thought of that?! Oh, right, sadness, depression, the whole she-bang. But man, and she called herself a leader? She still had a long way to go, it seemed.

But that self-reflection stuff could wait until later. She first had a teammate to find!

Feeling much more energetic now, Ruby had to actively keep herself from bouncing in place. "What're you thinking now?"

Though not quite as enthusiastic as her, at least not in the same bubbly way, Jaune was looking much more alert now.

"Pretty much every Dust shipment comes from Atlas thanks to the SDC. From there, the Dust is transported to the various Dust shops and so on and so forth. Would make the docks a pretty big target now that I actually think of it…"

"But," Ruby started. Her silver eyes narrowed in thought. "While that sounds like a lot of Dust, there's no way it all comes on the same ship, right?"

"Not always, at least as far as I've ever heard. Orders for Dust always come in at different times, after all, so waiting to ship out all the Dust when places need it as soon as possible wouldn't be efficient."

Well, that would rule out the White Fang – assuming it's actually them stealing it, Ruby hastily added within her thoughts – going on a stealing spree along the docks. She was no criminal mastermind, but hitting multiple shipments coming in like that seems impractical.

In which case…

"Whoever is truly behind the Dust thefts would target the biggest possible Dust shipment there is," Jaune concluded.

"Then that means Blake must be thinking along the same lines too," Ruby mumbled. "Which means she might be looking around the docks?"

Jaune nodded. "Only one way to find out at this point. Come on, let's check."

Invigorated for good now, Ruby was quick to take the lead, blitzing past Jaune with her semblance. "Come on, come on!" She felt a large smile threaten to split her face open right now, for the first time feeling truly upbeat since yesterday.

Jaune merely smiled, softly, and quickly dashed after her, his speed surprising her a little.

However, the two of them simply couldn't run at full speed in Vale like this, so they had to slow down a bit along the way as to avoid accidentally bowling over any civilians.

Even so, Ruby's alive and determined smile remained.

They finally had a clue on where to search – the docks.

And just how hard could it be to check that place out?

"-ake. Blake!"

The B of team RWBY, startled, woke up with a rather fitful start, nearly falling onto her face in the process.

"Sorry. You alright?" asked a sheepish Sun, who'd been the one to shake her awake.

Ashamed at having fallen asleep at her self-determined post – she knew she should've tried to sleep better last night – Blake got up and waved off his mild concern. "What happened? Did anything change? Is the Dust here?"

Her rapid-fire questions took Sun slightly aback, but the monkey Faunus had seemed to have gotten used to how she is today and merely rolled with it now.

"Kinda," he started. "Take a look – the docks are clear now."

It was early night now and getting darker by the minute, but as Faunus, both of them had excellent night vision and were thus unbothered by the darkness.

Poking her head out of their spot, Blake narrowed her eyes at how deserted the area looked.

No way all that security from earlier would've cleared out like that. "When did this happen?"

"Just a minute or two ago," Sun answered. "They were all doing their usual thing, but then it seemed like they all got an important message over their radios and hightailed it somewhere."

Blake accepted that answer silently and decided to take the risk of moving out of cover and looking around some more and saw no one.

The dock was all but deserted now.

Narrowing her eyes, she hopped from one cargo container nearby to another until she was atop the tallest stack of them. Sun hastily followed after her and once up there, they crouched low and used their new bird's eye point of view to check out the entire area.

It was as if it was suddenly a ghost town, err, ghost dock; no one seemed to be around anymore.

"Well, that's totally not freaky," Sun commented.

"…What else happened while I was asleep?" Blake asked.

"The Dust came in-."

Blake whirled around and glared at him. "And you didn't wake me up for that?!"

Sun merely held up his hands placatingly and continued. "When the Dust came in, nothing happened, Blake. The ship came in, security watched as the dock workers offloaded it and that was that. See all those right there? That's all the Dust."

Looking in the direction he just pointed in, Blake turned and glanced at several small stacks of cargo containers nearby. She squinted at them, immediately noticing the differences between them and the other ones here.

Though not too obvious from this far away, she could make out the fresh paint job on those containers versus the ones she and Sun were on, which had faded or peeling bits of paint, from both age and use.

Compared to these worn-down cargo containers, the much newer and pristine looking ones stood out.

Ah, to be expected of Atlas, she supposed. And to be expected of the SDC too. Though they didn't bear the SDC logo or any kind of logo from Atlas, the simple fact they looked so new and fresh was all it took to know it came from that kingdom.

Blake grimaced.

She wasn't liking this one bit.

She'd initially thought whoever was truly behind these Dust thefts would've attacked the ship when it was on route to Vale or when it docked. But that the ship was able to leave without any hassle was unexpected. Combined with the complete lack of security while the Dust just sat there in the open…

Something was just about to happen.

And sure enough, as if to mock her…

"H-Hey, look! There's a bullhead incoming!" Sun pointed out.

There in the far-off distance, well away from downtown Vale, was a bullhead. Somehow, it looked a little larger than the average one and rather than fly in a single straight line, it was seemingly making its way here via a circular path.

Blake knew it wouldn't do that unless it was trying to avoid visual detection. It helped that it was sporting a darker than usual paint job to blend in with the night.

A moment later, it flew low over the water as its flightpath briefly took it out over the water and eventually touched down on the docks itself, the deserted area providing it with more than enough open space to comfortably land.

The bullhead stayed on, ready to take off again from the looks of it.

But the people aboard now disembarked.

And the sight of all too familiar outfits and a certain symbol was enough to make Blake silently gasp.

"No…" she whispered weakly, feeling her heart practically drop into her stomach.

Members of the White Fang poured out of the bullhead in single file lines before spreading out. They easily numbered at over a dozen members and even more began to pour out, each one armed with assault rifles and looking more than a little eager to shoot if necessary.

"Blake…" Sun began, the awkward and cheerful blond looking solemn now. "I'm sorry… but I think you're going to have to accept reality now."

"I…" she began, then pausing and gulping.

Emotions warred within her, her naïve hope that it hadn't been the White Fang after all struggling to stay alive in the face of her sense of logic and the reality clearly visible before her eyes.

Her shoulders hunched up and then slumped a moment later in complete defeat.

"…Deep down," she started, unable to do anything other than watch as the White Fang crew spread out and headed right for the Dust shipments. "I always knew it'd come to this. It's just like you said earlier, Sun – if they'd reached the point of bombing buildings and assassinating SDC members, then robbery like this… it definitely wouldn't have bene out of the question. It's just… I wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, they still hadn't degenerated this much."

Hadn't she left the group precisely because they'd started to take things too far? Just why did she even bother leaving them if she couldn't even bring herself to truly admit this after the fact?

She looked to him and for the first time, apologized. "…I'm sorry. I've forced you through quite a bit."

Sun smiled slightly. "Hey, no need for that. Wouldn't have come along if I was that against it." His smile lasted only for a second longer. "But seriously, what now? Wanna jump in there and stop them? Not to sound mean again, but I'm not exactly a big fan of terrorist groups getting away with things like this."

Blake slowly nodded, her sadness and despair giving way to a solemn determination. She'd ran because she couldn't face what the White Fang had become. But running away didn't change the fact they'd only continue to spread out through the kingdoms and carry on with their actions.

It would've only been a matter of time until she encountered them anyways.

Silently thankful to have called her rocket locker – she never would've thought it'd actually be useful – before she and Sun have even come to the dock in the first place, she was armed with Gambol Shroud and she now reached for her blades with steadying hands.

Only to pause before drawing her swords when a voice rang out from down below, a voice she never expected to hear.

"Come on, already! Can you filthy animals hurry up the pace a bit! We're on a deadline, you know!" yelled out an arrogant voice as a flamboyant looking man walked off the bullhead now, twirling a cane around in his right hand. When some of the White Fang members bristled at his words, he merely scoffed. "Oh don't give me those looks – you lot are the ones that need my brilliant self here to keep this trudging along!"

Roman Torchwick.

She's seen his face plastered enough times on the news to recognize him on spot. And his very presence was enough to make Blake's determination turn to anger.

He was a well-known Faunus hater, yet another thing about him that made him thoroughly unlikeable, his other criminal acts aside.

That this man of all people would be working with the White Fang…

This would not stand!

"H-Hey, Blake, wait-!" Sun cried out.

But it was already too late; she jumped into action.

This not being the first time she's pulled a stunt like this, Blake was able to easily calculate the distance and planned her jump accordingly, landing right behind Roman as he was fully entered the open with nary a sound.

Immediately, she drew her blades and put one to his neck and the other to his back.

Only then did he seem to take notice of her. And so did the White Fang as they carried out entire crates packed with Dust.

"Oh, for fu-," Roman began, annoyed. Only Blake cut him off by further moving her blade closer to his neck. It was only thanks to his aura that her blade didn't risk drawing blood, though that could change if she sliced with enough force.

"Brothers and sisters of the White Fang!" she yelled out, making sure to get all their attention even as some dropped the Dust crates to draw their guns. "Why do you aid this scum! Have you truly fallen so low?! Don't you remember what your purpose is?!"

Though simple, her words were able to get them to pause for just a moment. Some of those who'd drawn their guns even lowered them a bit.

As for Roman, he merely laughed. "Nice words there, kid, but don't bother. If they're this willing to do things for the 'greater good of Faunus,' then I don't think you're going to be changing their minds that easily."

"Shut up," she hissed. "I'm putting an end to your little operation."

"Little operation? You're funny," Roman said with a grin.

And as if to punctuate those words, two other bullheads, modified to serve more offensive purposes, entered the airspace right above them, their dark paintjobs and impressive speed having likely caused them to go unnoticed just like the first bullhead had done.

It took Blake by complete surprise. This whole situation was unexpected, but this even more so. It caused her to almost step away from Roman as the bullheads slowed down and looked ready to fire…

This gave the thief the opening he needed to suddenly slam his cane right into her stomach, knocking all the air right out of her.

She stumbled back a little, her arms flailing a little in the process and Roman slipped right out of her grasp for good, spun around and kicked her hard in the chest, knocking her away.

Blake went crashing to the ground but used the momentum to roll and land back on her feet.

"Heh, I guess cats always do land on their feet," he commented as he held in his free hand a certain black ribbon.

Blake twitched as the cool night breeze pushed against her now uncovered cat ears. He must have torn the bow off just when he kicked her.

"You-!"

"Well, don't just stand there, you freaks!" Roman now yelled as he stepped back. "Put her down! Or do you want to be the ones to tell the others you failed your cause!"

The White Fang members flinched at that and readied their weapons again.

Blake prayed like hell they wouldn't actually shoot… only for her prayers to go cruelly unanswered as they did just that.

Multiple assault rifles fired on her with surprising accuracy, forcing her to back up instead of advance towards Roman, who merely grinned arrogantly at her.

She snarled as she focused on deflecting the bullets instead, looking for an opening to exploit.

Sure enough, it came when the gun of one of the White Fang members to her right jammed and provided an opening. Immediately, she dashed to the right and went straight for the man who frantically tried to fix the jam, kneeing him hard in his mask-covered face once she got close enough.

Shame and a mild case of self-disgust filled her as the blow knocked him out but not before he let out quite the cry of pain before hitting the ground.

"Oh, for…! Why can't any of you mutts shoot right?!" Roman groaned out as he now held up his cane. The just barely audible click it made was all Blake needed to hear to know it was more than just a cane.

What she didn't know, or rather couldn't have known, was just how big of a blast that cane could shoot out, easily half the size of her own body.

Her own eyes widened as the shot rushed towards her, its size making it just a bit too hard to avoid outright, but she was still able to somewhat roll out of the way after using her semblance to make a clone and take the hit for her.

Roman fired several more times, the power of his shots no laughing matter and forcing her to dodge ever more, opening up a greater distance between them. The other White Fang members shooting at her weren't helping matters either.

"Alright, good enough! You four, keep grabbing the Dust! The rest of you, keep kitty here busy!" Roman barked out.

"You-!" Blake began, only to stop when the criminal fired one more shot at her.

This time, however, she didn't attempt to dodge like before. Instead, she practically threw herself forward and towards the ground, making a clone to go even further ahead of her to take the hit just in case.

She saw the criminal's eyes blink a bit at that, but just shrug and keep moving on. Meanwhile, the White Fang moved in and spread out some more.

Running directly into gunfire was nothing new to Blake – to one such as herself, bullets weren't that fast. But dodging and deflecting every shot coming her way would be more than a little difficult if she let them start shooting from entirely different directions, like what they were attempting to do now.

So, she'd have no choice but to take them down first… something she felt her heart still wasn't quite ready for just yet, at least not enough to do so without feeling immense guilt.

Thankfully, she was spared this anguish when Sun finally jumped into the fray. "Hey, leave her alone!"

He made quite the entrance as he pulled out his weapon – a red and gold staff of sorts – and slammed it into the ground, the force he put into this maneuver combined with the weapon's gun function being enough to send off a veritable wave of flames that blew everyone back, even almost her too.

Thrown off balance, a few of the White Fang stood no chance against Sun when he charged and literally swept one of them off her feet with a leg sweep before knocking her aside into two others with one swift swing of his staff. He then twirled it around and skipped several inches to his left in one fluid motion, his staff's length allowing him to easily reach across and smack it into the side of another White Fang member's face.

"Go!" Sun then called out, the path forward cleared somewhat.

Blake could only nod her thanks as she put on a burst of speed, leaping forth throw the gap in the White Fang's ranks to reach Roman.

The man in question, having heard Sun's entrance, had turned around to see what was going on and nearly gaped when he saw how close Blake was.

Unfortunately, he wasn't quite shocked enough for Blake to land her initial strike with her right blade as he blocked with his cane, so she made a clone to distract him as she landed by his side and kicked at his ribs. But Roman simply switched his cane to his other hand and blocked her kick with it while simultaneously punching out the clone with his now free hand.

Growling loudly in pure anger, Blake backed off just a foot or two to open enough space to properly use her blades.

Around and around, she dashed and lunged, swinging her blades conventionally and whilst wielding them in reverse grips. But Roman was able to constantly spin and twist both his body and cane to avoid being struck. And all the while, he expertly backpedaled towards the bullhead which was still grounded.

Yelling out in pure frustration, Blake made two clones in rapid succession, the first one made when she tried to circle around Roman's back and the second one came to be when she faked a small jump towards his throat.

The idea was to feint and land a strike to his gut with the heavy yet sharp sheath of her left blade, but nothing came of it as Roman ignored the clones outright and smashed the hilt of his cane into the side of her face.

The hit was surprisingly strong, enough to make her temporarily disoriented and so she was prey to the second strike to her stomach and then to the front of her face, which knocked her onto the ground.

Roman had himself a little laugh when that happened. "Come on, kid, did you really think I wouldn't know how to throw my weight arou-?"

While she recovered, she heard Sun join the fray yet again, cutting off the thief as his weapon – now nun-chuks of all things – lashed out multiple times at the man. And in the midst of his multiple swings, Sun kept on firing with impressive speed, the usage of the weapon's gun function not interfering with his movements.

Even in the midst of her daze, Blake couldn't help but admire the skill her fellow Faunus wielded his weapon with. She could definitely see why he was a huntsman trainee, just as she was a huntress in training.

But not even that was enough to take down Roman, who dodged the buckshot even at point-blank range and deftly used his cane to deflect the swings that should've struck him.

Now back on her feet, though, Blake decided to wipe that smug grin off his face just as he pushed Sun back and managed to hit him finally with the flat side of her sheath, the weight of it enough to now knock the thief down.

"G-Gah, you little-! Fine, I'll give you that one," he grumbled as he immediately started to get back up, massaging his nose. His usual smug smirk took on a much more vindictive quality. "But I still have you outgunned."

Making a little wave with his free hand, the bullheads that had arrived earlier finally made their move, opening fire on the area.

"No!" Blake cried out as they didn't seem to care that the White Fang members currently on the ground were at obvious risk of being struck too, especially the ones that Sun had just dealt with a moment ago. Even the ones that had kept themselves busy grabbing Dust crates now made a frantic dash for cover.

"Blake, look out!"

The trail of heavy gunfire quickly moved her way and in her horror at the sight of her former comrades being nearly gunned down, she just barely even registered the immediate danger. It took a desperate tackle from Sun to avoid being mowed down.

"Don't just stand around and gawk, animals!" Roman called out loudly over the roar of gunfire from the bullheads. "Keep loading! I don't care if you take a bullet or ten! You want the others to be pissed?!"

"Y-You…!" Blake called out, greater rage than anything she's felt before filling her. Even now, this scum would order the White Fang around?! Did he truly not care one bit for their lives, not even for the sake of pragmatism?

Though her voice hadn't been that loud, it still seemed he heard her, for he looked their way derisively. "Hey, not all of us can afford to care for one another. Sometimes, you just gotta focus on the bigger picture here."

"Torchwick!"

Blake froze at the voice that called out during the brief lapse in the bullhead's gunfire.

No way, it simply couldn't be…

But as she looked up to where the voice came from, she saw that it was.

And from the looks of it, it seems Roman was just as surprised as she was.

He let out a heavy sigh.

"Little Red," he greeted less than cordially. "Still out past your bedtime, eh?"

There, atop a nearby warehouse was none other than her team leader, Ruby, herself.

Just what was she doing here?!

And how did she get here this quickly?

What was even going on anymore?!

"Stop what you're doing right now!"

Roman had to keep from rolling his eyes. He'd been doing this a lot lately during the planning phase of tonight's operation. Surely continuing to do so would only form a bad habit.

That said, Little Red here made it hard not to, especially with that stupidly naïve look on her face. "Really now, Red? You think you can just order me to pack up and leave just like that? You know how hard it was to either bribe or blackmail most of the dock's security to leave?"

And boy, hadn't that little bit been hard to do. It'd taken a lot of work to figure out how to deal with the security detail that had been summoned for the Dust shipment, but thankfully, they were from a security firm he'd dealt with numerous times before, so scrounging up all the juicy info he needed to send them all packing had been easy enough, just long and super tedious.

At least it wasn't actual security from the SDC – that would've been a real pain in the ass to deal with.

Little Red just glared at him, but coming from her, it was more like an amusing pout than anything else.

It was enough to nearly make him snort.

Seriously now. As much of an annoyance as she'd been the first time they met, was this kid really supposed to be a huntress in training? Huntsmen standards sure have fallen a lot, it seems.

"Leave Blake alone! And leave the Dust too, or else we'll take you down right now!" Red yelled as she whipped out that over-compensating scythe of hers. Must be trying to make up for how short she is, Roman assumed.

He cocked his cane at her, ready to fire the second she got distracted. "Yeah, yeah, like I haven't heard all that before."

Roman prepared to say something classy and witty, something to really rile the girl up so he can blast her before she even knew what hit her this time around.

Only to pause.

"Hold up, 'we?'" he murmured.

Was Little Red referring to herself and the two annoying animal teens back there or-?

He got his answer.

Holy hell, did he get an answer.

It came in the form of a wave of blinding light erupting from somewhere near his pesky little intruder. It moved with barely processible speed towards one of the gunships his White Fang mooks had managed to obtain and cleaved it vertically in two near the center of it.

Even from here and over the roar of gunfire from the other gunship that was keeping those other two teens pinned down, Roman could hear the few people inside the cleaved gunship yell out in complete shock and fright as it fell apart and towards the ground.

Given his own proximity to the falling bullhead, Roman scrambled away as quickly as he could, unable to keep from looking back at it.

In doing so, he bore witness to yet another ridiculous thing.

Something – no, someone – leapt from wherever they'd been atop that warehouse near Red and right into the falling bullhead.

And then, just before the destroyed bullhead struck the ground and exploded, that same someone leapt right back out – and carrying atop his shoulders the same very few White Fang grunts that had been in the downed bullhead.

He landed near Roman while everyone else took cover during the bullhead's explosion, even Little Red up top. Even the stupid animals this guy just saved quickly scrambled out of his grasp and away from the now flaming wreckage.

But not this guy.

No, he stepped a little to the side, standing directly in between them all and the destroyed bullhead, even as debris flew all over the place.

Roman, not one to be flat out stumped all that often, outright gaped as he saw some bits of wreckage crash against the guy, who he saw was just a teen like the other annoyances, a blond like that stupid monkey boy.

He saw small bits of debris actually impale him, piercing the back of his shirt and by extension his back itself.

The teen lurched forward a bit, the force of the explosion and the debris pelting him nearly knocking him off his feet.

Except it ultimately didn't – the teen stood his fucking ground with little more than a grimace.

Roman made a sound that might've been a gasp, but not even he knew what it was. What he'd just seen was completely nuts – how come this kid just let that happen?! Was his aura that freakin' weak? Shit, was he even using aura at all?!

As the flames started to die down and the debris stopped flying, he heard Little Red call out in complete worry.

"J-Jaune?!"

The teen – Jaune – seemed to ignore the girl and instead started to step forward now, fixing his initially hunched over posture so that he now stood tall.

And in doing so, expose Roman and the White Fang grunts he saved to the most intense blue eyes he's ever seen, a faded scar on his face only enhancing the intensity that much more.

The teen's hands reached down to his sides, where swords lied strapped to his waist.

He drew them both in one perfect motion and held them out to his sides, ready to strike in a veritable instant.

"Roman Torchwick," the teen called out without so much as a single rasp of pain. It was enough to nearly make the thief shiver.

Just who the hell was this guy?!

"I give you one chance: surrender, right here, right now… or be struck down."

As Roman stared into the teen's eyes, he realized now, quite belatedly, that maybe he should've cut his losses a little earlier.

Though explained in the above AN, again, sorry this took so long to get out, guys. Hopefully, this wait shouldn't happen again, but I can't make any promises. Sorry.

Anyways, how was the chapter, everyone? I did my best to make it appropriately dramatic, especially the ending. Was tempted to do the entire dock scene in this single chapter alone, but that would've been a bit much in page count and I like trying to keep most chapters fairly even in page/word count, at least until the climax of the fic, then I start getting more liberal with that.

A stupid thing, I know, but it's just my little quirk, ha ha.

Now then, to sort of clear up a few things here – Ruby and Jaune taking that long to get to that section of the dock. I'm sure it might seem weird to some of you seeing as they started their search in the earlier part of the day while the incident takes place at night, but I figured given the sheer size of the kingdom of Vale in addition to how essential Dust is to Remnant as a whole, all of the kingdoms would need more than just one section of the dock/coastline to send out/receive shipments of Dust and other supplies.

Also, even though they obviously have the good intention of simply looking for Blake, it's not like Ruby and Jaune would be willing to sneak in and look through every nook and cranny the docks have to offer. So, they had to take things slowly and cover their bases, make sure they weren't stepping on anyone's toes so to speak.

As for the rest of teams RWBY, yes, they do finish up what had them occupied at Beacon and join the search for Blake again, but not until much later in the day and by then, there's only so much area they can search that can be so quickly reached. As for team JNPR, Nora remains sick the rest of the day and Ren stays by her side the whole time while Pyrrha cleans up. And as I'm sure some of you have likely experienced, such incidents can sometimes require a pretty thorough and therefore long cleaning to make better.

All this will be briefly mentioned in the next chapter or two, but just thought I should make this known now to explain in advance in case of any confusion.

All that said, the dock incident will be wrapping up in the next chapter. I'll be putting as much focus as I can on the action without getting too tedious, so that may take a bit of extra time to do, but there's no way to tell just yet how it'll turn out.

In any case, hope you will look forward to it.

Until next time, everyone. Take care!