Alright, so just as I said I would, I started my next original novel! So, just as I also said in the last An, what this means is that just like before, I will be alternating writing chapters for my novel and this fic. Naturally, this means it may take a little longer than usual for chapters to be posted here. How much longer, I honestly can't say – writing the first chapter for my new novel was honestly kind of rough at first but sped up once I got into the groove of things. As always, writing out beginnings is always a difficult thing to do for me, but hopefully once I fully establish the groundwork for this novel, writing it shouldn't be too difficult to do since I already have a solid enough idea of what I want to do with it.

Anyways, just wanted to let you guys know. If any of you are interested in said novel, it's actually the direct sequel to the one I just published a few months back. It's called Infinite Genesis Book 1: Beginnings, for those of you that may be interested in checking it out. You can find it on Apple bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon Kindle and other such sites. Link's in my profile page.

Oh, and I also have another book from a few years back, also available on these same sites titled Fading Darkness, Rising Light. It's very amateurish, but I would naturally love it if any of you guys bought it, ha ha.

Now, my shameless self-advertisement aside, the next few chapters will be focusing on things happening at Beacon, naturally building up to what could be considered an actual arc. That's when things will really be kicking into gear. Hope you will all look forward to it!

Chapter 19

Jaune grimaced inwardly, not out of any form of worry, but rather just out of a sense of pure discomfort.

He was out of his element here.

The 'here' in question being a dress shop, which he'd accompanied his team to.

He'd been so caught up thinking on what to do next in the wake of the paladin incident that he'd almost forgotten about an upcoming event that was close to be taking place very soon. That being the annual dance the academy held.

His friends had almost forgotten about it too until overhearing a conversation just earlier in between classes. He'd been in the process of helping a janitor – name was Derek, a really kind yet stern and fit old man – put up some new light bulbs in a hallway when his team as well as RWBY had heard a panicked talk between two girls over what kind of dress they should wear.

This in turn had prompted both teams, most of which were girls, to gape in shock at the realization of how close the dance was to happening and they had in turn vowed to go picking out dresses right after classes were done for the day.

And sure enough, right after combat class which had instead consisted of personal training rather than sparring, the girls had quickly showered and changed before dragging each other along into Vale.

Hence his current situation, that being him stuck in a rather large and pricey dress shop in the more upscale part of Vale's shopping district.

Dressed in his usual clothes with his swords at his side, he certainly stood out due to the multitude of colorful dresses contrasting with his dark clothes. Combined with the fact that he and Ren were perhaps two of several men currently in the shop right now, he definitely felt awkward.

His one solace in all this was that Ruby and Blake were just as uncomfortable as he and Ren were in this place, though his fellow leader was uncomfortable due to her being an inherently awkward person whereas Blake didn't have that vested an interest in the dance to begin with, what with being an avid book reader and all that. That, and the clearly pristine and pricey nature of this shop clashed with her more down-to-earth sensibilities, which Jaune could relate to.

"How many dresses have they gone through so far?" Ren suddenly mumbled, holding up a small stack of dresses that Nora had enthusiastically looked at and tried on. His partner, bubbly as always, had put just as much energy into finding the perfect dress as she did in fighting, which wasn't a good sign for Jaune's sole male teammate.

The blond leader, for his part, was spared from suffering a similar fate, primarily because as soon as they'd even entered the store, he automatically went about doing what he did best – helping people. Already, he'd assisted an overworked sales rep with moving huge stacks of clothes elsewhere as well as moving around some clothes racks to make more walking space amongst other things.

Jaune did this primarily because it was just in his nature to be helpful, his semblance notwithstanding. But he also did this partially because he's had experience doing what Ren was currently doing before – having seven sisters can prepare a man for a lot of feminine related issues, some of which he had no desire to repeat anymore. Not even his willpower was great enough to withstand serving as a human clothing rack and pack mule for hours upon hours in one go.

He understood on a purely intellectual level the desire and even need to look one's best, but spending hours or even days agonizing over this and spending so much time and money was just something that even boggled his mind.

With all this in mind, he looked to Ren in genuine sympathy and patted his shoulder. "You don't want to know the answer to that," he said emphatically. "If you kept track of how many they've tried on and just how many more they're going to look at… I'm afraid your mind might break."

Ren looked at him with something akin to horror in responses to those words, but then sighed and resigned himself. "I'll take your word for it."

"Jaune, help!" Ruby cried out as she came out of the nearest dressing room, wearing an all-black and conservative dress, wobbling out without her shoes on. With the way she was nearly tearing up and her upper lip was quivering, she was the human version of a suffering puppy. "Yang wants me to try on even more dresses! You gotta save me!"

"Oh no you don't, Rubes!" Yang called out, partially undressed as she appeared from the dressing room and grabbed the quivering Ruby. Ren blushed at the blonde's state of undress and looked away. Jaune had no reaction at all. "After everything we've been through these past few weeks, you're going to this dance and you're going to enjoy yourself and that's final! That's my command as your big sis!"

Ruby let out a shrill and pitiful cry as she was dragged back into the fold.

"Hmph! To think you've been acting so much more like a leader recently only to now act like a spoiled child!" Weiss said loudly, clearly nonplussed by Ruby's attitude. "If only everyone else could see this – they'd laugh at the contrast here! Now quite squirming and let me measure you for this next dress!"

"Noooo!"

"Ruby, come on, just roll with it. Not like I had much choice either, but at least I'm taking it gracefully," quipped a somewhat bemused Blake.

"…Poor Ruby," Jaune uttered after a moment.

Ren merely nodded in agreement. "At least our partners have been far quieter and more composed in comparison… and I can't believe I just said that about Nora."

Jaune allowed himself a slight chuckle. Yeah, calling Nora quiet or composed wasn't exactly something one could do all that often.

"Here, Ren~ Found another one that looked good on me if I do say so myself! So just hold onto it for now and I'll compare them all later~" said Nora in the follow moment, popping out of her dressing room fully dressed and plopped an orange strapless gown on top of the growing pile Ren had in his arms before he even said or did anything.

Ren waited a split second before looking back to Jaune. "Can you please help me? Even just a little would be forever appreciated."

"…Oh, I think someone needs help moving some boxes around," Jaune replied, pointedly looking away.

"Are you not a hero?" Ren quipped, utterly aghast for once.

"Ren, like I said a moment ago, trust me. This is an essential skill you're going to need in the future. Growing up with seven sisters has taught me this much," Jaune said before quickly stepping away before Ren could further protest.

He could practically feel the teen weakly glare at him from behind as he walked away.

It was enough to make him feel just slightly bad, but not enough to change course; he really hadn't been lying when he said someone needed help moving some boxes. "Excuse me, I could handle that for you," he spoke up to a mature and attractive woman with dark green hair.

"O-Oh! You don't have to…" she began, having not expected anyone to suddenly approach her like this.

He shook his head and smiled softly. "It's fine, I don't mind it. I'm waiting for some friends to finish up anyways." Then without another word spoken, he effortlessly lifted up the stack of boxes the clearly tired woman had been struggling with and gently asked her where they were to go.

Obviously, customers weren't supposed to just be helping the store's staff all willy-nilly like this, much less to the point where they could go into the backrooms for any reason, but within the time he's been here so far, thanks to his small initial efforts, the store staff had gotten quite comfortable around him and naturally word of him helping had spread to the other staff that haven't met him yet. Hence why the woman's protests had been so weak.

As he put the boxes in the nearest backroom and stacked them in the order given by the woman, the woman proceeded to make some small talk with him, clearly in a chipper mood at having a helping hand right now.

Though rather quiet by nature, he did his best to respond and hold a conversation with her. Jaune felt he was doing a good enough job at that, if nothing else.

Until near the end of their conversation.

"Heh, I bet your helpfulness really turns your girlfriend on, eh?" the woman teased, now in a much more relaxed mood.

Her words were enough to make him twitch, but thankfully she didn't seem to notice. "Ah…" Jaune began. "I'm not in a relationship, actually."

"Oh? Really, with absolutely none of those girls that you and your buddy came in with?"

He shook his head. "No, no, we're all just good friends."

"Huh. Well, if you're on the market, I've quite a few friends a bit closer to your age that could use such a strong and kind man like you," the woman said with a smile.

He did his best to return the smile. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

After this, she thanked him again for the help and he returned back into the store's main floor, watching without paying any real attention to the steady stream of customers milling about. Looks like a lot of the female students from Beacon were here today in preparation for the dance.

"They really take it seriously…" he mumbled to himself, unconsciously reaching out and grabbing an energetic girl that had been running around nearby. His sudden grab of her kept her from falling just as she'd tripped over her own shoelaces and in one fluid motion, he gently spun her around and pushed her back towards her mother.

As this was an unconscious motion on his part, he was unaware of the girl's and her mother's startled looks and instead made his way back to where Ren was at.

A relationship, huh…? He supposed that would be a wonderful thing to have. It would certainly make his family very happy to know he was with someone; it'd mean he was making progress on his quest to be more like everyone else.

And considering his own self-imposed journey in finding a true purpose to guide him, Jaune supposed it would be nice to eventually meet someone and settle down with them… but as of right now, he couldn't even remotely fathom such a thing happening at all.

He was still too broken and screwed up an individual to be a genuinely good boyfriend to anyone. For one thing, he had a hard time feeling genuine attraction to anyone – he was fully capable of acknowledging women's and even men's physical attractiveness as well as the attractiveness of their personalities but things such as love and lust were not emotions he really felt all that much.

For another, even if he ever did meet someone who could inspire such feelings in him, there was still an all too likely chance he'd be too much of a slave to his own semblance to be able to truly commit to a potential relationship. Indeed, it would be doomed to fail from the moment it started and that wouldn't be fair to the other person.

"…" He made a sound that once again couldn't really be described in any one word, but he was introspective enough to know that what he was currently feeling wasn't anything particularly positive.

He understood that events such as this upcoming dance were meant to be very special occasions, where special and happy memories would be made that would be forever treasured by people. He understood this. He's seen in happen plenty of times in movies and he's been there whenever his sisters had come home from a date or other event that left them captivated in a sense of wonder.

He understood this on an intellectual level… but it was something he's never once experienced before.

"Jaune…? You alright?" Ren called out to him when he spotted the him approaching again. His emotions must be showing on his face.

"Yeah," Jaune answered after a second's lag. "Just daydreaming is all."

Ren didn't buy that for a single instance and he made this obvious. Jaune pointedly ignored his friend's look and stood against the nearest wall before folding his arms across his chest.

He recalled the last time he and his friends had even spoken about the dance. And in doing so, he remembered well how bothered some of them, particularly Yang, had looked when his disinterest had become apparent.

This memory was enough to make him worry a bit. With everyone either in high spirits or antsy right now regarding the upcoming dance, he wondered just how the others would react to finding out the depths of his almost unnatural disinterest in it and all things even remotely associated with it and it was enough to make him tense up a bit.

Making them worry or upset at him over something like this wouldn't do at all. But what could he possibly do to address this issue? Hell, should he even address this in the first place? After all, was it really that uncommon for someone to not be interested in things like this?

…No, that wasn't it, he realized.

It was one thing for someone to just not be interested in dances and whatnot, but the thing is, he would like to go to the dance if only to watch from the sidelines and yet… yet he couldn't even bring himself to do that much. Instead he was feeling literally compelled to patrol the academy grounds on his lonesome rather than dance.

He sighed.

He understood logically what was going on, but acting on it, well, that was easier said than done.

His thoughts were interrupted – mercifully so – as Pyrrha and Nora exited their dressing rooms, once more dressed in their usual outfits. As soon as they stepped out and away from the dressing rooms, impatient customers that had been eyeing the rooms from nearby practically lunged right into said dressing rooms.

"All done?" Jaune asked, doing his best to sound neutral.

"It would seem that way, yes," Pyrrha replied with a somewhat apologetic smile. "I at least found a dress I'm interested in getting. How about you, Nora?"

"Same," the auburn-haired girl replied with an almost smug smile. "Finally found a dress that would show off my brilliance as queen!" She puffed her chest out proudly as she placed her hands on her hips, looking for all the world as if she'd just obtained a holy grail.

It was enough to make Jaune smile a bit in amusement, feeling himself get distracted. It helped too that Ren put little effort into hiding his relief. "Wonderful, which one did you ge-?" the teen began.

"Ah, ah, ah~" Nora interrupted playfully as she hoisted up her small pile of dresses. "To tell you would be spoiling, Renny! You're going to have to wait just like everyone else to gaze upon my magnificent self!"

"Ah but of course," Ren snarked back, bemused. "How silly of this humble servant to even think of such a thing."

Pyrrha laughed at their interaction as she usually did. "I take it the two of you will be going together then?"

"Of course," Ren replied immediately.

"Mhm!" Nora affirmed chipperly.

Somedays, Jaune thought, he really had to admire the bond the N and R of his team had. They may not be 'together-together' as Nora had once put it, but it was obvious to anyone that nonetheless they had a very close relationship.

But if they were going together then…

"What about you, Pyrrha?" Jaune now asked, mildly curious. "Do you have a date to the dance?"

At his words, the redhead's expression went through several rapid changes before settling on a rather troubled expression that she tried to cover up. "A-Ah, no, uhm…" She trailed off.

Jaune looked on in confusion. "Has no one asked you to the dance?" He was thoroughly bewildered.

"…No…"

"…How can that be?" he murmured. "You're a great person."

Pyrrha's face turned a little red, much to his confusion. He was only even more confused when Nora and Ren looked at him oddly. Even some of the nearby shoppers who'd apparently been looking their way for whatever reason – how come they were all staring at him in particular though? – looked bemused by what he'd said.

"Pyrrha…?" he began.

"N-No, it's nothing!" she stuttered out quickly, smiling again though forcedly. "Now come on, we should go pay before the lines for the registers start getting too long!"

Only able to blink in response, Jaune merely nodded and silently followed after Pyrrha and Nora, both of whom took the lead. Beside him, Ren glanced at him in mild annoyance.

For the remainder of the day, Jaune was left befuddled.

He and his team also unintentionally forgot about their sister team too.

"W-Wait!" cried out a shrill Ruby. "Don't abandon me, Jaune, please doonnn't!"

"Enough of your attitude! No partner of mine is going to a dance dressed like some cheap buffoon! Now stay still while I get this corset tightened properly!"

"Heh, hang in there, sis! Our little dress show has only just begun!"

"Just give it up, Ruby. There's no shame in surrender sometimes."

"Traitors, all of youuuu!"

And so, the rest of the day would pass by for teams JNPR and RWBY uneventfully.

Cinder eyed what she held in her left hand almost cautiously, as if expecting it to suddenly blow up in her face and leave her scarred.

In her other hand was her scroll, currently in the midst of a video call. On the other end of it was none other than the man she perhaps hated the most in this world – Arthur Watts himself.

"Is… is this really it?" she asked hesitantly. She hadn't meant to sound this way, but how could she not when looking at something so utterly unimpressive – it looked almost like a single button remote, the kind of thing that could be easily lost if it fell out of a pocket.

"Indeed it is," came Watts' reply, the man grimacing in an exaggerated fashion at her caution, his mustache moving about as he did so. "Really now, Cinder, I know we don't exactly have the strongest of bonds, but do you believe in my skill so little?"

She did her best to not huff in response. "Hardly, as much as it pains me to admit… but that said, even when taking into account the need to be stealthy, this seems too plain a thing. I'm half expecting to unlock a house's garage door once I press this button."

Watts actually chuckled a bit at her words. "A joke of all things. I suppose you can surprise me if you really try… but no, it is exactly what you seek to do what you need to do."

"And how exactly does it work?" she asked as she took a seat. Nearby were Emerald and Mercury, also seated and shifting anxiously in their spots. Normally, she'd have them well away from her whenever she made calls like this, but she felt she just might have some need of them again and doing things this way would spare her the trouble of regurgitating whatever info Watts told her.

Besides, if they were to continue proving their usefulness to her, it was inevitable that they'd eventually meet the others. Better to just start this now and get it over with. It wasn't as if either one of her subordinates actually had it in them to up and run – not that it would matter for long if they did try.

"Even though parts of Beacon run on an intranet, it still functions similarly to how an extranet works. This device, once the button is clicked, can send out waves capable of intercepting the signals the intranet sends out to its relevant systems. It already has the virus installed, so once intercepted, the virus will be uploaded and you can carry on with whatever you have planned afterwards," Watts explained.

Cinder was certain there was more to it than just that, but it was best to save some time on all the technical aspects. So long as it did what she needed it to do, she could live with this obviously dummied down explanation Watts just gave.

"How close do I need to be in order for this device to work?" she then asked.

"Not particularly close – I'd say if you can just make it to the edge of the academy's ground, that would be more than good enough to activate my device and let it do its work."

"And from there on, how can I actually manipulate the system?"

"Just sync my device with your scroll – and no, it won't infect your scroll," Watts stated, looking annoyed by what must have been a grim frown on her face. "After doing so and uploading the virus to Beacon's CCT system and intranet, you'll be able to get access to whatever information their servers have, including whatever clues they may have left in regards to the Fall Maiden."

"Hmph, well, I suppose there's only one way to find out about that," she muttered. "And this is something not even Atlas will be able to detect?"

"Most definitely!" The man now looked and sounded positively angry by what she may have implied there. "My brilliant work is far beyond what any of their scanners can pick up!"

This time, Cinder smirked a bit. "I repeat – there's only one way to find out about that."

Watts sneered at her words and then took a minute to regain his composure. "Do remember, Cinder, that getting close enough for my device to work would mean it's time for you to do some legwork of your own. If it – somehow – fails, it is no fault of mine but your own for not getting close enough."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I certainly hope you do, considering how drastically things have been changing in Vale from what I've seen," he quipped in immediate response, causing her to grimace. "Oh but do remember this – whether you succeed or fail, you still owe me one, Cinder. And like I said before, I do intend to collect one day. Until then."

Watts ended the call before she could get any word in, edgewise. Rather than huff childishly about it, she instead pocketed her scroll and studied the small and sleek device once more.

Watts better mean he'd said, she thought.

"So," spoke up a somewhat nervous Emerald, but there was more than a hint of eagerness to her voice now. She no doubt saw this as a chance to get back into her good graces. The teal-haired criminal was predictable like that. "What now?"

Cinder inwardly sighed as she sought to calm herself and proceeded to pocket the device as well, careful not to drop it, not that she was really expecting it to break that easily if something did happen to it.

"With us having no need of the White Fang any longer, consider us three to once more be functioning on our own. What we shall now do is dreadfully simple – in a week's time, Beacon will be having their annual dance. We will wait an hour after the doors to the dance hall open so that their little event will be in full swing and that will be when we make our approach. As you no doubt heard, we only need to get to Beacon's ground in general for us to upload the virus. After that, we'll retreat and head for a new place to settle down in for a while."

"But what about the Atlas military?" Mercury asked as he sat up straight in his seat. "Aren't they going to be patrolling the grounds?"

"That they will," Cinder confirmed. She then looked to Emerald. "And I would hope that won't pose a problem for you, yes?" Naturally, she was referring to the girl's semblance.

Said girl nodded all too eagerly. "No problem at all!"

Cinder hummed in approval. If nothing else, it was kind of nice to have such an obedient little pet. "As for the Grimm we will no doubt encounter along the way, we'll be doing our best to sneak past them. If failing that, we kill them quickly and move on. I will absolutely not tolerate this being ruined because either of you took too long to kill a mere Beowulf or Ursa before it could make too much noise."

She called on the portion of the Maiden power she had, making her eyes light up slightly. In the time she's come to master this power, it's proven to be effective at intimidating others.

Emerald and Mercury were no exceptions to this established rule, the two of them unconsciously sweating now.

"Right," Mercury mumbled, answering for both him and Emerald. "So, how far away are we going to be touching down?"

"Approximately five miles away from the edge of Beacon's cliffs. By that time, it'll be dark and Atlas will only be keeping an eye out for anything that's particularly close to their established perimeter – everything five miles out might as well not exist to them so long as we remain alert." Cinder stood up now, feeling almost emboldened. It felt good to finally have something that may properly go according to plan again. "Once this is accomplished, we'll begin digging through whatever data we will obtain to locate where exactly the Fall Maiden is residing. From there, we'll plan out how best to go about getting to her and finishing her off properly this time."

"U-Uhm, but what about the rest of the original plan, ma'am?" Emerald voiced. "You know, the whole train thing and using the Vytal Festival as a stage for our final phase…"

"Again, we'll no longer be working with the White Fang," Cinder explained. "With Roman dead and the White Fang cell currently left running around in disarray, there's not much point in continuing that avenue of attack. Same thing naturally goes for what I'd initially had planned since it'd been reliant on the train causing a breach in the first place."

"Then doesn't that mean we're basically leaving Vale fully intact afterwards?" Mercury asked.

"Possibly. Depending on the circumstances afterwards, that may very well be the case," Cinder admitted. "But the Maiden power takes precedence. To leave Vale without the full power of the Fall Maiden would be far greater a shame than anything else so far. Bringing Vale low, as fulfilling as that would be, will always take second priority to that. Understood?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now, go, both of you. Start scoping out all possible routes from Vale to Beacon. It never hurts to have some backup plans, after all. And I refuse to be caught flatfooted again."

"What about you, ma'am?" Emerald asked as she and Mercury got up.

"I've another matter to attend to, one that may directly relate to our upcoming operation," Cinder replied, thinking of Neo. Ever since their little 'chat' following Roman's death, the of them hadn't quite been in contact. It was now time to amend that; the diminutive and angry young woman may come in handy during this newly formed operation, what with her vendetta and all that.

While it may seem like this new plan may go off without a hitch, she's learned from the recent failures that it was no longer safe at all to leaving even a single thing to chance. This Jaune Arc who's interfered so briefly yet so spectacularly thus far must be dealt with before he could somehow stumble upon and ruin this new operation too.

That meant now was as good a time as any to let Neo off the figurative leash she'd placed on the woman.

Whether or not the woman would actually succeed at killing Arc was irrelevant, really – if this young man was powerful, skilled or just flat out lucky enough to disrupt the docks operation and later take down the paladin and kill Roman, then Cinder highly doubted Neo would have the strength and skill needed to take him down. But better to keep him distracted long enough for her to do what needs to be done should such a chance encounter happen.

If he's killed, then great. But if not, well, if a chance is provided, Cinder will rid the world of him herself once she's obtained the entirety of the Fall Maiden power, a power that was rightfully hers.

"..Heh." She couldn't help but smirk at such a thought. After all the frustration Arc has unknowingly caused her, killing him herself would make for a nice bit of stress relief.

But she was willing to just leave things be so long as he's taken out of the equation one way or another. Unlike Neo, she was not so blinded by petty revenge as to risk her goals for it.

As Emerald and Mercury took their leave, Cinder pulled out her scroll once more and began typing a message to Neo's own burner scroll.

It was time for them to have a second little chat.

Even as she sat for long periods of time, Winter Schnee's posture remained perfectly upright and poised. Such was her dedication to maintain her image to those around her as that of a professional. It was something she took pride in. After all, having endured years of 'etiquette training' at the hands of the many tutors her 'dear' father had hired for her in addition to her time spent in the Atlas military, it was something to show for her efforts and effort was always something to be commended.

That said, even she felt the limits of her posture being tested now. That, and her temper.

Having sat through hours of scrounging through what evidence had been gathered from Vale's most notable recent incidents – the docks incident and especially the paladin incident – Winter had ultimately come up with little coherency between it all.

As a Schnee, she was more than familiar with how the White Fang operated ever since their radicalization and subsequent attacks against her family and the SDC in general. Her joining the Atlas military followed by her training had further compounded into her how exactly the White Fang did what they did – their tactics and usual methods and how to counter them, stuff of that nature.

And based off the docks incident, their methods were more or less like usual, just on a larger scale… but the same couldn't be said for the paladin incident. In order to have done what they did, it would've required a greater degree of technical expertise than anything they're demonstrated before. And it wasn't as if the location of the paladin production and testing facilities were advertised to anyone, meaning the terrorist organization would've also had to have found out where the facilities were as well as the route taken between the two before they could've gone and taken the paladin.

All in all, things weren't adding up and the divergence from their usual goals and tactics was enough to make the specialist's temper flare up a bit.

"Just what in the name of Remnant is going on…?" she murmured as she decided to call it quits for now. Examining evidence would only get so far.

Standing up and stretching out her tall form, she then contacted the agents via her comms unit. "How goes the search?"

"Nothing so far," came the immediate reply from her second in command, who'd been tasked with taking a handful of her squad to go and scour through the entire district the fight against the paladin had taken place in. "We've managed to track down where their base had once been, but nothing of any note was left behind as far as we can tell, just some equipment that had been used to maintain the paladin."

Inwardly, Winter sighed. "I see. Keep searching anyways. Turn over every last speck of dust if you have to and let me know the very second you find anything of note."

"Yes ma'am!"

Ending the transmission, Winter excused herself from the room, motioning for two of the men that had remained behind with her here at the precinct to head in and start putting away the evidence.

Yes, she was about done with it for now, she figured. Not much else can really be gleamed from it, so now it would just be a matter of waiting until her search team (hopefully) found something of note.

Other than that, all that can be done would be to up security for Vale as a whole along with the Vytal Festival, which was swiftly upcoming despite still being some months away if she recalled correctly.

As she exited the precinct, Winter took to trying to deduce what the White Fang may be up to next.

Having been working with Roman Torchwick – now deceased, she reminded herself – they'd apparently gathered up a significant amount of Dust, much more than what they would normally use to arm themselves. Combined with them having stolen a prototype paladin, it was clear they'd been gearing up for something big, but what exactly?

It was obvious that whatever it was would be some sort of 'statement,' something to grab everyone's attention and make them listen. But in what form would this 'statement' take place? With that much Dust, would they be trying to make bombs? Use it to power some new weapon they may have gotten their hands on? What about their target or targets? The Vytal Festival seemed like an obvious one, but there were more than a few council members that Winter could imagine being singled out by the White Fang. Blowing up their residences or cars wasn't something out of the picture just yet.

But perhaps… would they be targeting the entirety of Vale itself?

This thought made Winter pause in her walking, having been heading back to where she and the others were staying for the time being.

She grimaced at such a thought. "No… they don't that kind of manpower…" she muttered, trying to assure herself that things weren't that bad.

They may have obtained a lot of Dust, but as far as anyone could tell, it was only one cell of the White Fang acting in Vale. Unless there were at least a dozen more going around stealing Dust from elsewhere, there's no way they'd have enough manpower and resources to launch an effective full-scale attack on Vale.

Normally such a thing was never done before by the organization, however; guerilla tactics were more their schtick. That Winter was even remotely entertaining such a terrifying notion went to show just how out of the norm this was.

And judging by what little they all knew so far, it was just one cell here in Vale.

Yes, by all rights, such an attack shouldn't be possible. She was merely being paranoid for some reason.

…

Sighing again, Winter activated her comms unit and contacted the support staff currently standing by to assist her team.

Even if it was just paranoia, better to be safe than sorry.

"Update our search parameters and radius – I want a full sweep of everything within the abandoned districts and beyond," she began, also making sure to request much more manpower in order to accomplish this.

She wasn't expecting this request to possibly go over that well with general Ironwood – it was rather uncharacteristic of her to be acting like this, after all. Even so, a feeling in her gut was now eating away at her from within.

And if there was one lesson that had been thoroughly drilled into her throughout her training, it was to never ignore one's gut feelings.

More often than not, said feelings turned out to be right.

And for not for the first time, Winter prayed this feeling was wrong.

Adam Taurus walked tall and proud as he surveyed the train's construction within Mount Glenn's underground city, long since abandoned and left to decay after the events of long ago.

It gnawed at him to know his men and himself were reduced to taking residence here in this human settlement, but for the sake of the White Fang, it had to be done.

"How is progress looking now?" he asked.

It's barely been a whole day since his impending arrival was announced, but the men he'd gathered up had actually arrived before he did, and he'd just barely gotten here.

Their task was simple – to assist in the prepping of the train.

"It goes well," spoke one of the men he'd put in charge, the dedicated Faunus taking a moment to dry the feathers protruding from his forearms, having been covered in sweat. "There were some bumps here and there… but now that we've smoothed out how to accommodate properly for the increase in manpower, we're making headway."

Adam nodded. "Good work. Keep at it."

"Yes sir!" spoke the man before returning to his tasks.

He then turned to his lieutenant, the burly chainsaw wielding man walking patiently by his side. "Has there been any noise coming from Cinder and her subordinates?"

"None so far – seems like our presence has gone unnoticed by her," came the reply in the lieutenant's deep voice.

"Good. Make sure it stays that way. I don't want that woman interfering anymore if at all possible."

He wasn't quite sure what Cinder thought of him and his men, but he guessed that her opinion of him wasn't particularly favorable.

Hmph, a foolish mistake on the human's part.

Contrary to what she likely thought of him, he was no fool, nor was he oblivious to what was going on outside of his own duties. He was well aware of what had occurred at the docks in Vale along with what had happened recently concerning the death of Torchwick.

That bastard human won't be missed. The paladin, however… well, it was a loss, but one he could do without, he supposed.

In any case, he knew that things weren't quite going to Cinder's little plan and this was why he'd decided to come here to the kingdom of Vale himself.

Cinder was intelligent, he'll give her that much, but also quite arrogant, especially ever since she'd gained that mysterious power, the one she'd used to coerce him and his men into joining her. While he was certain she'd come up with new schemes to account for the changes in the original plan, Adam was no longer interested in going along with whatever she may be thinking now.

Not that he'd ever actually been on her side, of course. From the very start, he'd only joined her because he'd initially had no other choice but getting rid of Cinder had always been the intention from the start. He'd merely been waiting for a good opportunity. He'll admit though that working with her had certainly resulted in an interesting surplus in certain resources as well as new avenues of attack against the kingdoms, so he supposed she had been good for something.

That said, it was now time for the White Fang to finally take over from here.

With the changes in her current plans, Cinder would probably abandon the idea of using the train to attack Vale – he knew she was after something much more specific than just taking down Vale. That meant that, if only for a time, the train would be left abandoned which in turn meant there would be a fair bit of time for him to take over and complete it on his own.

Which is what he was doing now.

While they didn't have quite as much Dust as he'd have liked, it was still more than sufficient in blowing open some holes in the surface where a number of Grimm milled about and the train should still have more than momentum and Dust to blow through Vale's wall anyways, so it could still work.

After that, it would just be a simple matter of sitting back to watch the carnage unfold. Then, in all that chaos, slipping in to attack specific targets would be easy enough to do.

However, that last part was something he was still unsure of for now. While it would be a prime opportunity, it wasn't as if the Grimm were going to just ignore him and his forces in favor of civilians and huntsmen. While he was more than confident that he and his men could deal with any Grimm that would be pouring into the city at that time, it would still interfere with their own matters, hence why he was uncertain on whether or not they should follow through on it.

In any case, he would have his men prepare for such a thing just in case it was feasible.

"How are the jammers working?" he suddenly asked his lieutenant as they continued their walk/inspection of the work area, numerous Faunus running around in the name of their cause.

"Working well. I guess that human that Cinder had also contacted in the very beginning really knew his stuff," commented the burly man.

Adam nodded. That was yet another thing that had been a surprising boon.

In the very beginning of their 'partnership,' Cinder had obtained some interesting little gadgets from a man that was never named, but they proved most useful indeed.

Though they were called jammers, they didn't quite work the way some would think. Rather than act as a sort of EMP that jammed all comms, it only scrambled the signals of those that may have been listening on the White Fang's often used frequencies, making it extremely difficult for any unwanted listeners to call up their own forces to pass on whatever they may have learned.

Whether or not people were actually listening on their comms, Adam knew not, but as long as said would-be spies were kept from talking, he could be at ease.

Even if they did find some way around these jammers, it wouldn't matter – by the time they did, it would likely already be too late to matter.

Normally wearing a stern frown on his face, Adam finally smiled and ferally at that too.

It wouldn't be long at all until the train was ready to be launched.

In case you start wondering why it seems like Tukson hasn't contacted Blake or Jaune just yet, I hope the ending there explains why. Basically, Watts had been told by Salem to provide Cinder some extra gadgets in the very beginning of it all, this being the jammers just mentioned. They may not prevent Tukson from listening on the White Fang's frequencies, but they do track and isolate whatever tech he uses to communicate with others and that includes his scrolls, so he's unable to call the others to warn them about Adam.

Now before you also ask why doesn't he just go to Beacon, he can't just do that – without any way to get in contact with them, he has no idea where exactly Jaune and Blake are at at any given time and running around aimlessly isn't something he wants to risk since, as far as he knows, the White Fang and Cinder's group still intend to eventually kill him. Running around in public wouldn't exactly keep him safe in such a scenario, thus he stays hidden still.

So yeah, hope that clears up any questions that might have popped up for you guys. And don't worry, none of what I just said was spoiling anything.

Whelp, not much else to say other than to remind you yet again that since I'm working on my new novel, there will be longer stretches of time between updates for this. Please, keep that in mind.

Now then, until next time, everyone. Take care!