"Freeze." The familiar voice of Winter Schnee rang out, causing Qrow to internally curse.

Slowly turning around, Qrow found that Schnee had her entire squads weapons pointed at him and Tex.

So much for his Grimm distraction, although he would have thought it would bought him and Tex a few more minutes at least.

"Hi ya Schnee, this uh, isn't what it looks like." Qrow said, keeping his movements at a minimum so that one of the Atlas troops wouldn't be too trigger happy.

"Really?" Schnee raised her left eyebrow. "Because it looks like you and this mercenary just knocked out two of my men and where about to destroy this radio."

"Alright, then it's exactly what it looks like." Qrow relented. "But we did have a good reason."

"Also i'm a freelancer, not a mercenary." Tex chipped in as she crossed her arms. "There's a difference."

"A good reason you say?" Winter asked while ignoring Tex. "Well let me hear it then, I could use a good laugh."

"Well you see..." Qrow started but couldn't finish. After all he couldn't really say that they were trying to stop an genocidal A.I escape using the radio. It sounded far too ridiculous and Schnee would just assume he was lying. But fortunately Tex had it covered.

"We were tracking a target." Tex explained and lied through her teeth. "He's a violent murderer and we tracked him to this swamp, when we came across these bodies we assumed that it was his work and were hoping to find a clue to where he went next."

"Then why did you knock out my men and try to destroy the radio?"

Qrow answered this one. "It's his semblance, he can use local airwaves to listen to everything on local radios." Qrow made up. "And we knocked out your men because we didn't want to have to explain everything to you and waste time when we could be tracking him."

Thankfully Schnee looked to be buying it, nodding her head and such, that is until she asked, "Do you have proof?"

"Uh, yeah of course we do." Tex said to Qrow surprise, what kind of 'proof' was she going to offer?

"And where is it?"

Tex pulled a piece of paper from somewhere. "Right here, come and have a look."

Cautiously Winter made her way to the front of Tex and took the piece of paper out of her hand.

"Cabose's Importent Lists of Stuf?" Winter read aloud. "What the-"

Before she could say much more Tex acted, moving faster than humanly possible the freelancer grabbed a vital of fire dust off Winter and pushed her away and, she then threw the fire dust into a small puddle of swampy water, causing a massive burst of thick steam to erupt and cover the immediate area.

At seeing this, Qrow burst out into sprint out of the steam and away from the area. Tex followed shortly behind, as there was some shouting but no shots fired coming from the steam.

And by time it would clear, Qrow and Tex would be long gone.

"...And then we were all made captains, and i was the very best."

"You know for some reason, I don't believe that some one would actually make Caboose of all people, a captain." Ruby smiled as she heard the familiar voices, she'd been looking for them in order to ask them for advice, but couldn't find them until now. And even better Ruby had found them on the roof so she could talk to them freely without worrying that someone would overhear her and think that she was crazy.

"Hi guys!" Ruby greeted.

"Hi kiddo, how was class?" Sarge asked.

"It was alright, but now I need your help." Ruby said dramatically.

"What do you need?" Wash asked causing Ruby to blush with slight embarrassment, here came the hard part.

"Well, you see, I kinda sorta, have a crush on Blake and need some advice on how to ask her to the dance." Ruby confessed as quickly as she could.

"Really? That's great, when did this happen?" Wash asked after a moment as the absorbed the news.

"That isn't important, I need advice on how to ask her out." Ruby pulled out a small notebook and pen she was... borrowing from Weiss.

"Well you're in luck kid." Church stepped forward. "Cause I actually have a girlfriend and have some pretty good advice to give you."

"Wait, didn't you and Tex break up?" Caboose asked.

"Yeah, and isn't she, you know, dead?" Sarge followed up.

"Look its complicated, alright? anyway-" Church started before Wash interrupted.

"Are you sure that you're one to be giving out romantic advice? "Wash asked. "Especially given your history?"

"Hey, quit interrupting!" Church screeched at them before clearing his voice and turning back to Ruby. "Anyway kid, what you want to do is pick a fight with her and argue, argue as much as you can and then when she storms off, wait an hour, apologise and then ask her out."

An awkward silence fell over everyone an Ruby wrote down Church's advice and frowned. "That... doesn't see right."

"Ah trust me kid, it worked for me and Tex."

"Yes, and you two were clearly the height of a healthy relationship." Wash said sarcastically.

"Oh shut up." Church scoffed. "I'd like to see you do any better."

"Fine. I will." Wash turned to face Ruby. "The best way to ask anyone out is after doing something you'd both enjoy, like reading or sparring match."

"Some pretty basic advice, as to be expected from a blue." Sarge gave a snort. "What you really want to do, is ask her out in a life threatening situation, say fighting Grimm or disarming an explosive. After all nothing quite says romance like adrenaline fuelled action."

After Ruby had wrote down that advice, everyone turned to face Caboose for his advice.

But the regulation blue trooper was silent.

"Caboose, do you have any advice?" Wash asked.

"Nope."

"No?"

"Yeah, I mean I might have had Shelia for a while, but it didn't really work out and I haven't seen her in a while, so my advice probably wouldn't be to good anyway." Caboose explained in what was actually a reasonable tone.

"Right, well... thanks for the advice guys, i'd talk more but i'm late for the team meeting today." Ruby said as she put her notebook away, the advice written safely inside.

"mind if we tag along?"

"sure."

and with that the group made their way back to team RPBY's dorms where yang and Pyrrha where already waiting for the meeting.

well, it wasn't so much as a meeting, but an intervention as ever since the battle with the atlas paladin, Blake's white fang obsession had only gotten worse so it was agreed that they would use this meeting to convince Blake to go to the dance and relax for a bit.

with their combined powers it should be fairly easy to convince Blake to stop, after all what could go wrong?

"You what?" Yang winced slightly at Blake's sharp tone.

"We want you to go to the dance." Rub explained rationally, causing Blake to roll her eyes.

"That's ridiculous." Blake dismissed and folded her arms.

"Blake, we're worried about you." Yang explained gently. "This investigation is starting to mess with your head."

Pyrrha stood up and looked the Faunus in her eyes. "This is seriously effecting both your physical and mental health, You can't sleep, you hardly eat, and it's worrying us."

"I know my own limits." Blake said coldly. "Besides I can't focus on any of that stuff when I know that People's lives are at stake!"

To illustrate the point Blake raised her hand to point out the window, causing Yang put her hand on Blake's and lower it.

"We know. " yang assured her partner. "And we're all still trying to figure out what Torchwick is up to."

"Thanks to our awesome infiltration, we know they're operating somewhere outside of southeast Vale." Ruby chipped in.

"And, based on what i could find in the news, it seems they've singled out Vale as the primary target for Dust robberies over the last few months." Pyrrha finished.

"Don't forget about their missing military tech too." Yang added helpfully.

"But there's still unanswered questions!" Blake insisted

"Blake, you won't be able to find anything if you can't even keep your eyes open!" Ruby pointed out.

"All we're asking is that you take it easy for one day." Yang said before Blake could interrupt with reassurances that she was 'fine'. "Besides, I know you'll have fun because i'm planning the whole thing."

Yang pumped her fists which caused the bed to bounce.

"Excuse me?" Blake asked confused.

"Well, not just me, Team CFVY's away mission lasted longer than expected. So, Weiss and I were asked to pick up where they left off. And now we can make sure you have the perfect night." Yang explained.

"And once it's all over, we'll return for our search, rested and ready." Pyrrha explained.

"So what do ya think?" Ruby asked with a barely hidden anxious tone.

"Like I told Sun when he tried asking me to the dance, I think this is a colossal waste of time." Blake declared as she walked away from the group and opened the dorm door. "I'll be in the library."

And with that Blake walked out of the room, causing Ruby to look very downcast and a scowl to appear on Yang's face.

"Great." Yang muttered bitterly.

"She'll hurt herself if she keeps going on like this." Pyrrha said concerned, and Wash had to agree as he'd known someone that was exactly the same as Blake was right now, and that wasn't a good thing.

"Yeah." Yang agreed quietly. "Well, we can try again tomorrow, till then I have to go and meet Weiss and get organising the dance, wanna come with?"

"Sure thing." Pyrrha nodded. "Ruby are you coming?"

"No, I, uh, have things to do, you guys head on." Ruby said in a slightly despondent tone that Yang easily picked up on.

"Alright, but dad's ringing later and sending us money so we can go fancy dress shopping tomorrow, so text me when that happens alright?"

Ruby nodded causing Yang to start walking out with Pyrrha. "Alright then, see you later Rubes!'

And with that Yang and Pyrrha left the room, leaving Ruby alone.

But as the door closed, Yang put her ear to it and started listening.

"Yang? What are you doing?" Pyrrha questioned, causing Yang to shush Pyrrha.

"Be quiet and listen." Yang commanded, causing Pyrrha to go to the door in the same position as Yang.

Then a few minutes later, they heard Ruby talking.

"Not really, I can't believe that Blake isn't going." Ruby said, her voice downcast and slightly muffled by the door.

The room went silent again for a few moments until ruby again spoke up.

"Yeah, but what can I do? Blake seemed pretty vocal about not wanting to go."

Next to Yang, Pyrrha's face became confused, "Whose she talking to?"

"Herself, you see Ruby has some kind of mental condition where she sees people that aren't there, and hears them talk. She tries to hide it, but well, she's pretty bad at it." Yang explained through whisper.

"Why haven't you tried to get her some help?" Pyrrha asked.

"Well we did once, the week after Ruby's fourteenth birthday." Yang visibly winced as memories of hat day filtered through her mind. "No one talks about the week after Ruby's fourteenth birthday."

"She rejected Sun remember?" Ruby's voice spoke up again. "And if she rejected him, then why would she care about some kid two years younger than her with a crush on her?"

Yang's eyes widened comically. Ruby had a crush on Blake!?

Yang expressed this sentiment to Pyrrha who responded with, "I know, Ruby told me last night."

"Wait she told you, before she told me?" Yang asked, slightly hurt by the fact. "Why?"

"She seemed certain that you'd just tease her and tell Blake." Pyrrha explained, causing yang to frown, was... was that how Ruby saw her?

"Look, thanks guys really, but i'm not in the mood right now, so i'm just going to go to bed early, okay?" Ruby's voice cut though the sound of silence again.

Ruby's depressed tone made Yang realise something, Ruby had a crush on Blake, and Blake was too obsessed with the White Fang to notice.

And it was Yang's duty as older sister to fix that.

And so Yang got up and started to head to the library.

"Yang, where are you going?" Pyrrha questioned.

"To fix this. tell Weiss i'll be a little late." Yang replied.

She'd make Blake see reason, one way or another.

With a bitter feeling in her chest, Tex continued to examine and clean her new gun she'd taken from the dead Atlas soldier.

It was fairly decent as far as guns went, not as advanced as the standard UNSC assault rifle, but it would do for now.

She was currently alone by a campfire, the little distraction with O'Malley and the radio had cost them too much time and now she and Qrow were forced to camp out in the disgusting swamp for the night, which bought up unpleasant memories of Tucker's 'quest'.

Qrow was currently away collecting firewood and doing recon on the area, saying that he'd be an hour or so.

And so Tex was left alone with her thoughts.

But as she cleaned the rifle, she got a sensor reading on her radar. looking around Tex saw it was a raven, looking at her from a nearby tree branch.

"What do you want fuck face?" Tex asked it rhetorically, pointing the gun at it, causing the bird to fly away from the tree branch and behind a tree.

"That's what I thought." Tex muttered to herself as she went back to cleaning her weapon, only for a larger reading to appear from behind the same tree.

With years of practice and instinct, Tex stopped cleaning the gun and got onto one knee and pointed the gun at the direction of the reading in one fluid motion.

After a moment, the sensor reading stepped out from behind the tree, revealing itself to be a woman with long, jet black hair, a mask reminiscent of the Grimm and a massive Sword sheathed at her side.

"Hello, agent... Tex wasn't it?" The mystery woman said. "We have much to discuss."

Notes:

And that's the end of that chapter.

For the chapter overall, there isn't much to say this time around except that it took a surprisingly long time to write.

As always i'd like to thank everyone for reading, and extra thanks to those who comment/review.

And as I have no idea on how to reply to review on FFN I'd like to introduce a reviews section, where I can reply to reviews from this site.

Next time you can expect Tex meeting with Raven and something that should be a surprise. But till then, i hope everyone has a good day, and I'll catch ya'll on the flip flop.

Review replies:

Anonamous Elephent- i'm very glad to see your enjoying the story so far! and i'm also very glad to see you've enjoyed the last chapter, as for your question about Locus, I feel safe in confirming he'll continue with his no killing rule.

Barrera2009- I'm happy that you were sad reading the first part, as that was the intention. And thanks for wishing me good luck, i'll need it in a few chapters.